Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Priscilla Johnson’s Extended Interview with Oswald

Around November 16, Oswald granted a second interview to Priscilla Johnson of the North American Newspaper Alliance, who met him at the Metropole Hotel and conducted the conversation in her room from approximately 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Throughout the five-hour session, Oswald repeatedly expressed pleasure that he would be allowed to remain in Russia but also showed disappointment at obstacles to obtaining Soviet citizenship. He largely repeated the information he had given Mosby, again denying Communist Party membership or contact with Communists in the United States. When asked to name socialist writers he had read in the past five years, he could identify only Marx and Engels, recalling the single title “Das Kapital”; Johnson found his grasp of Communist economic theory to be his “language” but very superficial. He characterized the Russian handling of his defection as a “legal formality,” neither encouraged nor discouraged, and refused to return to the Embassy to renounce citizenship, fearing a “run-around.” Johnson concluded that Oswald was consciously or unconsciously avoiding effective renunciation to preserve his right to reenter the United States.

Oswald’s Daily Routine in Moscow

For the remainder of the year following his interviews, Oswald rarely left his room at the Metropole, where he had arranged to take his meals, with occasional excursions to museums. His diary records that he spent roughly eight hours a day studying Russian. The only interruptions to this routine were a visit to the passport office, occasional meetings with Rima Shirokova, Russian lessons from Shirokova and other Intourist guides, and a New Year’s visit from Roza Agafonova, who brought him a small “Boratin” clown as a gift.