Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK Read Online Free Page B

of the duel with Oswald contains this passage:
    Oswald offered the information that he had been a radar operator in the Marine Corps and that he had voluntarily stated to unnamed Soviet officials that as a Soviet citizen he would make known to them such information concerning the Marine Corps and his specialty as he possessed. He intimated that he might know something of special interest.24

    Here again Oswald's remarks seem laden by significance. Special interest? What "special interest" information did Oswald know beyond what he had learned as a radar operator? Perhaps Oswald had in mind something he had learned because of his assignment to Atsugi Naval Air Station, Japan, where an extremely sensitive CIA program had been-and still was-ongoing.
    McVickar also recalls that Oswald said he was going to turn over "classified things" to "Soviet authorities."25 Snyder later theorized that what Oswald may have had in mind by using the words "something of special interest" was the supersecret American U-2 spy plane that was based at Atsugi.26 If so, this question then arises: Why drop the hint in the American Embassy? After all, was not Oswald's purpose simply to obtain the defection papers? Snyder's hypothesis was that Oswald assumed the KGB had bugged the American Embassy, and "was speaking for Russian ears in my office."27
    By this time it was after noontime. "We are closed now," Snyder said, "and I can't get all the papers typed up right now. If you want, you can come back in a couple days when we are open and get them."28 At this point, Oswald simply turned around and left. "He came storming out," Keenan-who was still sitting on the couch outside Snyder's officerecalls. "It was enough to catch my attention."
    In spite of this ending to the defection scene, however, Oswald followed up Snyder's stalling tactics in a curious way. He complained bitterly about Snyder's treatment during an interview with a news reporter in his hotel room but never returned to the embassy to sign the papers. "Perhaps he heard a little voice," Snyder now muses, "[which said] don't burn that bridge." By not executing the renunciation papers, Oswald had, in effect, left open a way to return to America.`
    Room 233, the Metropole
    Oswald left the American Embassy interpreting the outcome not as a defeat but as a victory. This seems strange given that he had failed to get the paperwork for renunciation of U.S. citizenship, the ostensible purpose for his visit that morning. But not if his real objective, as Snyder had guessed, was to impress the KGB, whom he had to assume was bugging the American Embassy. Support for this interpretation comes from Oswald's diary, which records his exuberance after his return to his hotel room:

    I leave Embassy, elated at this showdown, returning to my hotel I feel now my enorgies [sic] are not spent in vain. I'm sure Russians will except [sic] me after this sign of my faith in them."
    Still wrapped up in his thoughts about his encounter with Snyder, Oswald returned to his hotel room. He had not had time to sort much out, when he was surprised by a knock on his door.
    The hand knocking on Oswald's door belonged to the Moscow bureau chief of United Press International (UPI), Robert J. Korengold, whom Snyder had immediately notified by telephone after alerting Washington-in his cable 1304-about the defection request. "I called on Korengold fairly quickly," Snyder explains, "to try and get another line on Oswald."32 Snyder encouraged Korengold by telling him that an interview with Oswald might prove "interesting" for the UPI. Snyder may even have told Korengold the room in which Oswald was staying at the Metropole.33 Korengold wasted no time in following up Snyder's lead, and arrived at the door of Room 233 at two P.M.34
    When Oswald opened his door, Korengold requested an interview. "How did you find out?" Oswald asked in response, flabbergasted at the speed with which events were unfolding.35 (Korengold might even have beaten