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

Oswald’s Alleged Pre-1959 Soviet Agent Contact

Speculation suggested that Oswald likely had prior contacts with Soviet agents before entering Russia in 1959 because his visa application was processed and approved immediately upon receipt. The Commission found no evidence that Oswald was in touch with Soviet agents before his visit, and the time taken to receive his visa in Helsinki for entry to the Soviet Union, while shorter than average, was not beyond the normal range. Had Oswald been recruited as a Russian agent while in the Marines, it would be most improbable that he would have been encouraged to defect, as he would have been of greater value to Russian intelligence as a Marine radar operator.

Oswald’s Minsk, Soviet Union Employment

Speculation suggested that Soviet suspicion of Oswald was indicated by his being sent to work in a radio plant in Minsk as an unskilled hand at the lowest pay rate, despite qualifying as a trained radar and electronics technician. The Commission found that the Soviet Government probably was suspicious of Oswald, as it would be of any American appearing in Moscow wanting to live in the Soviet Union, and it was expected that he would be placed in a non-national security position. Additionally, Oswald had been a radar operator, not a technician, in the Marines, and his total income in Russia was higher than normal because his pay was supplemented for about a year by Soviet “Red Cross” payments—an official agency that Oswald believed really came from the MVD—as part of a Soviet policy to subsidize Western defectors to maintain their previous standard of living.