Yes, Oswald was an Intelligence agent

[Thomas Graves]

Well, many of you are on this Marina was KGB bandwagon. Could one of you put that in practical terms? As in, if she was, what was she up to? What was KGB up to? Who is Marina now?

Tommy - in answer to your specific question about whether I would believe Deryabin if he said different things than he did? No. Apparently Angleton is no mystery to any of you either. Chris says Angleton's files would have been destroyed anyway. Is that really the point? Angleton had some 'splainin' to do about Philbin and he did the opposite.

I don't believe, as all of you apparently do, that KGB and CIA were firmly on opposite sides of some great divide.

Dear Paul,

I think you should do some "research" (by using Google Search, putting quotation marks around syntactically-correct phrases, hitting F and ctrl simultaneously to highlight what you're looking for in the text, etc) and really look into Deryabin. I have, and I must say that he looks like "the real deal" to me.

Don't be against him just because he thought Marina was a spy.

And that Nosenko was one, too, for that matter.

-- Tommy

Edited October 18, 2016 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Brancato]

Nosenko was a spy or the real deal?

[Paul Brancato]

If Marina was a spy, is she still? What was she spying on? Oswald?

[Chris Newton]

Paul,

Nosenko doesn't think the KGB was interested in Marina because he said she was not very intelligent.

Deryabin believed she was KGB because she was allowed to marry an American and leave the USSR.

Deryabin believed Nosenko was either Oswald's Case Officer or a KGB plant and most likely the latter.

What do you think the CIA would do? If you were in Marina's shoes what would you do?

I think it's possible she was "turned" and made a double agent.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Chris Newton

[Paul Brancato]

Pretty soon we will have the Two Marina theory..

Chris - thanks for the summary. I read the 29 questions.

Dear Tommy - the Kennedy family sent an emissary to the Soviet Union assuring them that they did not think the Soviets had anything to do with the assassination. I don't either. Do you?

I read the wiki article on Deryabin. Have you seen it? I'm wondering, because if it's accurate it's hard for me to see Deryabin as the real deal.

[James DiEugenio]

Let me qualify:

Nosenko was almost certainly not a plant but a genuine defector. What Angleton did to him was an utter and complete disgrace.

Marina I think is an open question.

As to her function: the KGB was on to the false defector program. I may be that Marina was switched from entertaining visiting officials to latching onto one of these guys as a piggyback to learn what she could about American intel ops. Both FBI and CIA.

[Paul Brancato]

Chris - you ask good questions.

What would the CIA do? Well, who is the CIA? You mean Angleton?

Who is Marina? How can we answer without context?

I think it's possiblie she was turned. its also possible, despite the probability that she met Webster, that she was no agent at all.

But I have to ask - where is this line of questioning headed? A possible scenario -

Oswald defects. Maybe he is part of a larger ONI operation. But if so he is a bit player. He lives in the ussr for a few years and takes detailed notes, helpful perhaps to someone back home, but not major espionage. He falls in love. The object of his affection had been placed there by Soviet Intel. They marry and get serious (enough to have two children eventually), and then decide they want to leave the ussr. They are allowed to leave because it's no big deal, nothing major happening, and Marina is still in place if needed, though not given an assignment upon leaving. LHO is allowed entry into the US with his Soviet wife because he is a citizen. He is debriefed but not held under suspicion.

Now what? They meet the 'Russian' community in Dallas, and DeMohrenschildt introduces himself into their lives, a response to Oswald's debriefing. It's the next 6-12 months that get interesting. Up until this point it all looks like low level Cold War spy games to me. The only caveat to this is the possibility that the U2 was brought down because of info Oswald shared with the Soviets. That's a can of worms, or a worm hole. But assuming that the U2 downing was just coincidence, DeM entry into their lives seems like an escalation, because this leads to New Orleans where LHO engages in actions with people that clearly put him on the spy map.

[David Andrews]

Marina allowed to leave USSR with Oswald so quickly because the Russians hoped to receive intel on the false defector program, Oswald's contacts, etc.? All within that limited, household context?

(Sorry, just noticed Jim D. beat me to the punch here.)

Edited October 19, 2016 by David Andrews

[Chris Newton]

Deryabin believed Nosenko was either Oswald's Case Officer or a KGB plant and most likely the latter.

Nosenko was almost certainly not a plant but a genuine defector. What Angleton did to him was an utter and complete disgrace.

Jim,

Deryabin based his opinion on the fact that Nosenko knew many details so minor that it boggled the mind to think that he'd acquired these in the four hours that he says he had possession of Oswald's KGB files.

Either

A) Nosenko was repeating a legend created by the KGB

or

B he had a "rainman-like" super memory

or

C) he was Oswald's case officer

If you're correct and he was on the "up & up" choose "B"

Edited October 19, 2016 by Chris Newton

[David Andrews]

If the U2 is brought down because of info Oswald supplied the Soviets - is this info fed the Soviets in order to bring down the plane for a clandestine objective?

[Chris Newton]

If the U2 is brought down because of info Oswald supplied the Soviets - is this info fed the Soviets in order to bring down the plane for a clandestine objective?

The objectives I can think of are to either kill the Paris Summit, (which did happen) or to provoke some kind of military response (?). Both are in line with extreme rightists/militarists views. Who would run that kind of OP, C/I and Angleton?

[Paul Brancato]

Like Jim I think Nosenko was for real, and that is a subject I spent a great deal of time on at one point. Deryabin opinions on him, and on Marina, seem calculated to feed the flames of CIA paranoia.

Agree with Chris and David on the U2. It had the effect of killing the Paris summit, a result that might have been desirable to hard liners on both sides. If info Oswald provided helped the Russians to bring down the U2, does the rest of his Russian sojourn and easy re-entry into the U.S. make sense? Could Oswald be both part of a false defector program and part of a CIA operation to scuttle peace talks?

[Thomas Graves]

Like Jim I think Nosenko was for real, and that is a subject I spent a great deal of time on at one point. Deryabin opinions on him, and on Marina, seem calculated to feed the flames of CIA paranoia.

Agree with Chris and David on the U2. It had the effect of killing the Paris summit, a result that might have been desirable to hard liners on both sides. If info Oswald provided helped the Russians to bring down the U2, does the rest of his Russian sojourn and easy re-entry into the U.S. make sense? Could Oswald be both part of a false defector program and part of a CIA operation to scuttle peace talks?

Dear Paul,

I think some JFK assassination "researchers" and "authors" try really, really hard to convince others that Nosenko was a real-deal defector simply because he completely exonerated the Ruskies in the assassination of JFK.

I mean, I mean, I mean ... Isn't that called an "agenda-driven" approach to "research" and "writing"?

-- Tommy

Edited October 19, 2016 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Trejo]

IMHO, the first printed fiction that Marina Oswald was a KGB Agent or a "sleeper" comes from the Warren Commission testimony of Revilo P. Oliver, a close associate of General Edwin Walker. Oliver was the second-to-last witness for the WC.

Edwin Walker also suggested this Communist angle for Marina.

IMHO, everybody who claimed that the JFK assassination was Communist motivated was close to the JFK Kill Team. The story came out of Dallas. Edwin Walker, Robert Alan Surrey -- and especially James P. Hosty Jr., the Dallas FBI agent who was so close to Robert Alan Surrey -- head that list.

It was in Hosty's book, Assignment Oswald (1996), that we get the full-blown theory of Marina Oswald being a "sleeper" agent for the KGB. Hosty then embellished it further, and included the KGB assassin, Valerie Kostikov, in his alleged "factual" account.

The naming of Kostikov, IMHO, links Hosty with David Morales' impersonation of LHO in Mexico City after LHO left there (according to Bill Simpich's 2014 eBook, State Secret), because David Morales worked overtime to link the names of LHO with Kostikov over the most wire-tapped telephone in the world at the time.

This linkage of LHO (and Marina) with Kostikov explains the politics of FBI Agent James Hosty -- and why even J. Edgar Hoover faulted Hosty for neglecting to share vital data with the Secret Service Protective Research Section regarding JFK's visit to Dallas.

James Hosty and his Red Marina theory belonged to the Radical Right that Jeff Caufield exposed in 2015.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited October 19, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[Thomas Graves]

Paul,

Nosenko doesn't think the KGB was interested in Marina because he said she was not very intelligent.

Deryabin believed she was KGB because she was allowed to marry an American and leave the USSR.

Deryabin believed Nosenko was either Oswald's Case Officer or a KGB plant and most likely the latter.

What do you think the CIA would do? If you were in Marina's shoes what would you do?

I think it's possible she was "turned" and made a double agent [,working for the CIA].

Chris,

I like that idea!

-- Tommy

Edited October 19, 2016 by Thomas Graves