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

Aline Mosby’s First Interview with Oswald

On or about November 13, Aline Mosby of United Press International became the first non-Soviet citizen to interview Oswald since his October 31 meeting with Snyder at the U.S. Embassy. Oswald told her she might “understand and be friendly” because she was a woman. He appeared confident and talked almost nonstop, with a small “smirk.” He claimed Soviet authorities had indicated he could remain in the USSR, with job possibilities being explored and education likely to continue. He admitted his Russian was poor but expected rapid improvement. Oswald grounded his rejection of the United States in observed racial prejudice, the contrast between Park Avenue wealth and East Side workers, and his mother’s poverty, declaring that in America he would inevitably “lose” whether as capitalist or worker, which led him to embrace Marxist ideology. He said he had been interested in Communist theory since age 15, when “an old lady” in New York gave him a pamphlet about the Rosenbergs, but he denied ever having met a Communist or been a Party member. He described witnessing American imperialism while in the Marines and said he had saved $1,500 in preparation for defecting. His only expressed regrets concerned his mother, whom he had not informed, and his brother, who might lose his job from the publicity. The two-hour interview ended with Mosby reportedly promising to show Oswald the story before publication; she did not, and Oswald later complained of distortions, specifically that his family had not been “poverty-stricken” and his defection was a matter of ideology, not personal hardship.