Why not Paris?

[Greg Parker]

Ray

"Jim, Would not Helsinki have been a fairly logical entry point for any tourist wishing to enter the Soviet Union from Western Europe? What other entry points would have beckoned an ordinary traveller?"

The answer to your question would be a very simple yes. But an examination of the record allows us to see other possibilities:

WARREN COMMISSION REPORT, Appendix XIII: Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald, SOVIET UNION, Oswald's journey from the USA to the Soviet Union went as follows through Helsinki Finland:

"On September 4, [1959] the day on which he was transferred out of MACS-9 [Marine Air Control Squadron] in preparation for his discharge, Oswald had applied for a passport at the Superior Court of Santa Ana, Calif. His application stated that he planned to leave the United States on September 21 to attend the Albert Schweitzer College (Switzerland) and the University of Turku in Finland, and to travel in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, England, France, Germany, and Russia. The passport was routinely issued 6 days later.

(Two notes, the Sept. 4 date same as the Hickerson note advising the State Dept. that a Soviet travel visa could be issued easily in Helsinki. The Soviets had an Embassy in Switzerland, in Finland, in Germany, in England and in France but only one would issue a visa in 24 hours. Access to the Soviet Union could be made by air from most of these countires)

Jim et al,

this is not the only timing "coincidence" concerning his Russian adventure. As for Golub (mentioned by Jim below)... he was a target of OPERATION RED CAP where efforts were made to use him as an asset in place, or failing that, get him to defect. See:

Operation Redskin

"Oswald went directly home after his discharge, and arrived in Fort Worth by September 14....

"On September 17, Oswald spoke with a representative of Travel Consultants, Inc., a New Orleans travel bureau; he filled out a "Passenger Immigration Questionnaire," on which he gave his occupation as "shipping export agent" and said that he would be abroad for 2 months on a pleasure trip. He booked passage from New Orleans to Le Havre, France, on a freighter, the SS Marion Lykes, scheduled to sail on September 18, for which he paid $220.75. On the evening of September 17, he registered at the Liberty Hotel. The Marion Lykes did not sail until the early morning of September 20....

"The Marion Lykes carried only four passengers. Oswald shared his cabin with Billy Joe Lord, a young man who had just graduated from high school and was going to France to continue his education. Lord testified that he and Oswald did not discuss politics but did have a few amicable religious arguments, in which Oswald defended atheism.... No one on board suspected that he intended to defect to Russia.

"Oswald disembarked at Le Havre on October 8. He left for England that same day, and arrived on October 9. He told English customs officials in Southampton that he had $700 and planned to remain in the United Kingdom for 1 week before proceeding to a school in Switzerland. But on the same day, he flew to Helsinki, Finland, where he registered at the Torni Hotel; on the following day, he moved to the Klaus Kurki Hotel.

(Note: Oswald's marine buddy, Anthony Delgado, knew of his plans to go to Switzerland for school and thought that he might have gone to Berlin (another good point of entry into the Soviet Union).

"Oswald probably applied for a visa at the Russian consulate on October 12, his first business day in Helsinki. The visa was issued on October 14. It was valid until October 20 and permitted him to take one trip of not more than 6 days to the Soviet Union. He also purchased 10 Soviet "tourist vouchers" which cost $30 a piece. He left Helsinki by train on the following day, crossed the Finnish-Russian border at Vainikkala, and arrived in Moscow on October 16."

From the House Select Committee on Assassinations we learned the following information that was not declassified till it was presented to the HSCA!

""The second dispatch, dated October 9, 1959, 1 day prior to Oswald's arrival in Helsinki, illustrated that Golub did have the authority to issue visas without delay. The dispatch discussed a telephone contact between Golub and his consular counterpart at the American Embassy in Helsinki:

...Since that evening [september 4, 1959] Golub has only phoned [the U.S. consul] once and this was on a business matter. Two Americans were in the Soviet Consulate at the time and were applying for Soviet visas through Golub. They had previously been in the American consulate inquiring about the possibility of obtaining a Soviet visa in 1 or 2 days. [The U.S. Consul] advised them to go directly to Golub and make their request, which they did. Golub phoned [the U.S. Consul] to state that he would give them their visas as soon as they made advance Intourist reservations. When they did this, Golub immediately gave them their visas...."

Note: To me the key is the Intourist reservations. Without them Golub would not issue the Visa within 24 hours. Oswald, without entering the US Embassy in Helsinki, shows up at the Soviet Embassy with these Intourist reservations and receives his permit. Two documents, one classified until 1978 and the other created within months of the assassiantion confirm what was done and that the proceedure used was classified information that the State Department received on the "extra" travel day, Oct. 9, 1959. How else would Oswald have known to purchase his Intourist reservations first? From whom and where did he get this information?

To me this picture seems very clear. Am I blinded by my own research?

Jim Root

Edited August 25, 2007 by Greg Parker

[Jim Root]

Greg

Thank you for bring this back.

I am hoping to make a post or series of posts soon that develop this topic further. Until then perhaps, for those that have read the information here, we could deal with these questions:

For what reasons might the Warren Commissioners have been derilict in persuing greater, more percise information about how Oswald traveled to Helsinki?

What may have been the reasons why the Warren Commissioners did not want passenger lists made available from the planes that Oswald used to arrive in Helsinki?

Was there a sensitive name was on one of thosee passenger lists?

Who would have had the most to lose if this information was revealed to the public?

Jim Root

[Greg Parker]

Greg

Thank you for bring this back.

I am hoping to make a post or series of posts soon that develop this topic further. Until then perhaps, for those that have read the information here, we could deal with these questions:

For what reasons might the Warren Commissioners have been derilict in persuing greater, more percise information about how Oswald traveled to Helsinki?

What may have been the reasons why the Warren Commissioners did not want passenger lists made available from the planes that Oswald used to arrive in Helsinki?

Was there a sensitive name was on one of thosee passenger lists?

Who would have had the most to lose if this information was revealed to the public?

Jim Root

Jim,

I look forward to whatever you have that may shed further light.

One of the things I find interesting is the treatment of Golub and documents relating to him. They are happy to cite the documents showing he had told US Embassy official he could now issue visas without Kremlin approval, but leave out what the rest of those documents show: that the CIA was dangling a college student to lure him to the "White Hats". Ignoring that, they try and have it both ways -- proclaiming how liberal he was in dishing out visas, while at the same time, hinting he was KGB.

Here is another excerpt from my article which may be of interest to you and others here:

On September 4, 1959, Oswald was transferred to H & H Squadron. He applied for his passport that same day. This was two days after Bissell issued his memo advising of the expansion of Soviet operations which grew out of NSC 143/2.

September 4, 1959 was also the day that the Soviet Consul in Helsinki, Gregory Golub, happened to mention to his US counterpart during a luncheon, that he now had authority to grant visas to US citizens without approval from Moscow, so long as he was convinced they were "all right" [note: Helsinki is 10 hours ahead of California]. The document which contains this information also makes clear that Golub was the target of RED CAP using a female exchange student who had become a REDSKIN recruit. The operation seems to have revolved around turning him into a CIA asset in place, or failing that, luring him to the West as a defector.

Oswald apparently just got lucky when he chose to get his Russian visa in Helsinki at the time he did. It only took a day a two to get it, compared with the 5 to 7 day wait it normally would have taken.

On January 4, 1961, Oswald expressed his first thoughts of returning to the US. On February 13, 1961, he notified the US Embassy of his wish. This change of heart about staying was within a mere week or so of NSC 143/2 being countermanded, with the first steps towards actual repatriation only a few more weeks after that.

[Jim Root]

Greg

I will point out once again that the timming of Oswald's first attempt to return to the US and the start of the investigation of Edwin Walker by Overseas Weekly is at best coincidental perhaps a result of one event leading to the other.

Jim Root

[William Kelly]

Greg

I will point out once again that the timming of Oswald's first attempt to return to the US and the start of the investigation of Edwin Walker by Overseas Weekly is at best coincidental perhaps a result of one event leading to the other.

Jim Root

I know you guys have spent a lot more time on this than I have, but from what I can put together, I consider the possiblity that Oswald flew a Miltary Air Transport flight on standby from London to Helsinki.

Were there any US military air bases or NATO air base in Helsinki that could have had irregular MAT flights?

Also, John McVicker is a very important person in US embassy USSR, as he is the person who tipped off PJM that Oswald was in Moscow.

It was also McVicker (See: Festerwald/Ewing Coincidence or Conspiracy bood) who said that Oswald must have been informed by an unknown party that Helsini was a soft and easy point of entry into USSR, and finally it was McVicker who Oswald first told of his intention to return to USA.

Is John McVicker still alive?

BK

[Robert Howard]

I realize this is not anywhere near the central point of the thread, but some time ago, there were some forum members who were inquiring about the passenger manifest for the SS Marion Lykes. Below is the URL containing the entire list.

It begins on the next page, and continues on for a few pages.

https://www.maryferr...56&relPageId=28

Edited April 3, 2013 by Robert Howard

[John Dolva]

I just asked my mum (who lived in Helsinki). She told me that back then the (older) Turni Hotel(li) was a large hotel catering for a weallthier business clientel. The (newer) Klaus Kurki Hotel(li) catered more for travellers. (she dates her memory to the forties, fifties and early sixties)

[John Dolva]

Wonderful. All I could get from my mum is her memories from where she would accompany her father to various eating establishments when entertaining business associates. When searching Hotelli Torni etc for histories all I find is Finnish language pages that are too complicated for me to translate, plus a site where a Finnish person has written a brief account of the Hotelli Kurki starting as an amalgamation of an eatery and a boarding house that initially had 63 rooms. Torni is the old commercial district of Helsinki. I'm assuming that Hotelli Torni is located there?

[Robert Howard]

I also did some checking, I have a rather large collection of military books, and to the best of my knowledge, there definitely was no Air Force Base in Helsinki circa 1959. I had thought there was the chance, as Bill Kelly mentioned of a MATS flight to Helsinki, but that seems problematic, at this point.

Ditto, regarding a NATO base; See

From Helsinki to Belgrade: The First CSCE Follow-up Meeting and ...

books.google.com

Vladimir Biland~i, Dittmar Dahlmann, Milan Kosanovi - 2012 - 334 pages

Kekkonen's strategy was also to use these measures to prevent any future

spread of NATO bases and influence in the Nordic region ... Kekkonen spoke

provocatively on the matter in May 1963 in Helsinki and in Moscow on 3

September 1963, ...

Edited April 3, 2013 by Robert Howard

[John Dolva]

Pity my mum's asleep. I'll try to check with her tomorrow. Her dad had the dubious honor of being an Editor of some papers in Finland and through that knew some rather interesting persons that he could only tell her about after WWII. Some of it quite shocking but he was sworn to secrecy due to the Nazi Occupation arrangements regarding the press that people see and the news that is not revealed by order of the Agreement between the Finns and the Germans governments.

[John Dolva]

I tiried to talk to my mum about this. I don't know what to make of it. She had a father who kept things from his family in order to protect the family. Her answer was yes there were airports. There were things that were known but not allowed to be known. She was in a position to know things. She cannot confirm anything.

[Jim Root]

Always like to point out that about six months before Oswald arrived in Helsinki, Finland, Richard Helms, Whitney Shepardson and others were meeting about what Wilho Tykander (former WWII OSS Station Chief to Stockholm Sweeden) would describe as an off the grid covert action centered on Helsinki.

Were these men talking about Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union? I belive it is possible that they were!

Jim Root

[Guest Tom Scully]

Always like to point out that about six months before Oswald arrived in Helsinki, Finland, Richard Helms, Whitney Shepardson and others were meeting about what Wilho Tykander (former WWII OSS Station Chief to Stockholm Sweeden) would describe as an off the grid covert action centered on Helsinki.

Were these men talking about Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union? I belive it is possible that they were!

Jim Root

Sounds too loosey goosey to me, Jim. I will accept nothing less than hard proof! Doesn't Marina Oswald's description which I highlighted in red, below, remind one of how someone concerned they

have been inadvertently caught up (other patsies) in the FBI's investigation of the JFK assassination, would react? Do you suppose some others connected to the patsy were caught short and sensed an urgent need to do damage control?

http://www.smokershi...om/columbia.htm

George E. Brewer Jr. was an usher at the marriage of Hans Skabo Erichsen, an O.S.S. veteran who served in Washington and Stockholm. (Ruth E. Henderson, H.S. Erichsen Wed. New York Times, Feb. 29, 1948.)Lt. Col. George E. Brewer Jr., serial number 803213, was a member of the O.S.S. (Hans Skabo) Erichsen was identified as a civilian member. (Archival Research Catalog, National Archives.)

....................

(quote)The Norwegian armed forces and defense policy, 1905-1955 - Page 377

books.google.com/books?id=uz4hAQAAIAAJ

David G. Thompson - 2004 - Snippet view

In 1943, Colonel George S. Brewer of the OSS developed plans for guerrilla operations in Norway,

involving the 99th Infantry Battalion, a special unit composed of Norwegian-Americans who were

undergoing arctic combat training in Iceland. Neither the British nor the Norwegian authorities

welcomed American interference in the already complicated situation, however, and they effectively

joined forces to scuttle Brewer's project.980 The Americans did, however, obtain considerable influence in the overall direction of northern operations. Commander Unger Vetlesen, head of OSS's Norwegian desk, joined the ANCC in March 1943. The SOE and OSS established a combined section in London in September of that year, and in January 1944 the two agencies officially combined their Norwegian sections, with Vetlesen remaining the American representative. Finally, on 1 May 1944, the U.S., Britain, and Norway formed a three-way organization as part of the SFHQ (Special Forces Headquarters), responsible to SHAEF.981 The SOE played a key role in foiling the occupation. 978 Cruickshank, SOE in Scandinavia. 240-4 1 . ""Ibid., 204-5. 9.0 The only OSS mission that actually occurred in Norway during the war was Operation RYPE, a railroad sabotage team led by future CIA director William Colby, in March1945.

(See below.) Riste, London-reeieringa. II:45-46. 9.1 Cruickshank, SOE in Scandinavia. 3-4. "2 Max

Manus, Det blir alvor (Oslo: P.F. Steenballes, 1946); 377.

http://books.google....r#search_anchor

The Oss Norwegian Special Operations Group in World War II

Bruce H. Heimark

Special Forces - Roll Of Honour - Archive

http://www.specialforcesroh.com › Archive › NORWAY › Images

Hans Skabo Erichsen Name: Hans Skabo Erichsen Description: OSS Westfield Mission,Stockholm (i/c Norwegian Section) codename Vaudeville photo courtesy...

...........

Oss - Page 183 - Google Books Result

books.google.com/books?isbn=1599216582

Richard Harris Smith - 1972

The Norwegian armed forces and defense policy, 1905-1955 - Page 377

books.google.com/books?id=uz4hAQAAIAAJ

David G. Thompson - 2004 - Snippet viewIn 1943, Colonel George S. Brewer of the OSS developed plans for guerrilla operations in Norway, involving the 99th ... The SOE and OSS established a combined section in London in September of that year, and in January 1944 the two .

..............

Depositions of Marina Oswald Porter - Assassination Archives and ...

www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/.../HSCA_Vol12_MarinaOswald.pdf

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML

DEPOSITIONS OF MARINA OSWALD PORTER

43-792 0 - 79 - 21

Staff Report

of the

Select Committee on Assassinations

U.S. House of Representatives

Ninety-fifth Congress

Second Session

March 1979

.......

Q. Has anybody ever indicated to you that you couldn't become a

citizen?

A. I don't believe-in the earlier testimonies to the FBI some-

times when I was very difficult and didn't want to answer the ques-

tions, sometimes it has come up, "Well, would you like to live in this

country?" I felt it was a little threat. I didn't know if I had a con-

stitutional right to anything then.

Q. You testified about that to the Warren Commission ?

A. I don't remember .

Q. Since you testified before the Warren Commission has anybody

else ever made that same suggestion to you?

A.No.

Q. You are familiar with Priscilla Johnson ?

A. Sure.

Q. How do you know herI

A. Oh, I met her when she came here with the offer to writs a book

about my life and we worked for quite a few months together. I gave

her all the information that she needed. That was 13 years ago.

Q. When did you first meet her?

342

A. Thirteen years ago, I don't remember the exact date .

Q. Where?

A. She--I believe she came to my house.

Q. In Russia?

A. No ; right here.

Q,. In Texas?

A. Yes.

Q. Why did she come, what was the purpose ?

A. I had many offers from different writers to write the book and

I didn't think it was right for me to do so. I was embarrassed. She keep

sending telegrams and telephone calls, she would like to meet me and

we talk things over. I still refused. Finally, later on she told me she

decided to see me in person and, when we met, I liked her, so agreed.

There was an agreement between us, I gave her information so she

could write a book.

Q. Was it the first time you ever met her or saw her after the

assassination?

A. Yes.

Q. Did she ever indicate to you she had met your husband?

A. Yes.

Q. What did she say?

A. She said when she worked in Russia for some magazine, she

worked there for a year or two, and she would like to have an inter-

view with Lee, but he granted it to another lady reporter instead of

her. She spoke but full Russian, so that was another point that helped

me to make up my mind she is the right person.

Q. This book that is coming out--I believe you have a book coming

out next month?

A. Yes.

Q. Is there anything in that book which relates to Lee Harvey Os-

wald or to the assassination of the President which you have not told

the Warren Commission and which you have not told me? What I

mean is something about Lee Harvey Oswald which relates to the

assassination of the President?

A. I don't know, I didn't read thebook.

Q. You know what you told Priscilla Johnson.

A. I told her everything I know. I told everything I know to the

Warren Commission.

Q. I am saying in sitting down for these many months and telling

her everything you know, did you come across anything that might

have popped into your mind you might have forgotten about when

you were talking about the book?

A. I would have to read the book, the Warren Commission report

and see if I forgot to put it there, things like that.

Q. Just give me 1 moment.

I asked you before whether you had any contacts since the assassina-

tion with any U.S. Government agency. Have you had any contacts

since the assassination with any foreign, with any agencies of any

foreign governments.

A. No......