Simpich notes:
It is also important to look at the defection in 1959 of another defector, Robert Webster. Webster, a Navy veteran, defected two weeks before Oswald - and returned to the US two weeks before Oswald. Whether Oswald and Webster knew it or not, US intelligence used both men as "dangles" to learn more about Soviet military plans and to try to unearth enemy spies known as moles.
which is followed by a key paragraph sourced to Armstrong Harvey and Lee:
One story illustrates how strong this resemblance was between Oswald and Webster. Robert Webster met Oswalds future wife Marina Prusakova at the American Exhibition held in Moscow during the summer of 1959. They saw each other again in 1960. Curiously, Marina spoke English to Webster, while she only spoke Russian when she came to the United States with Oswald.[ 2 ] On one occasion, Marina even confused Webster with Oswald. Webster and Oswald were used to loosen Soviet tongues, and they may have never realized it.When we look at note 2 it's to a four-paragraph section of Harvey and Lee which I see as vital, so I append that here:
John Armstrong, HARVEY & LEE, page 267 excerpt 3rd 1959 American defector
NOTE: In a 1997 interview Robert Webster told JFK researcher and author Dick Russell that he met Marina Prusakova in Moscow in the summer of 1959 and spoke with her in English. Webster said that Marina spoke English well, but with a heavy accent.
A year after Webster was sent to Leningrad by the Soviet Government, 400 miles from Moscow, he met Marina again shortly after he applied for an exit visa so that he could return to the US.
Marinas friend in Dallas, Katya Ford, said that when she asked Marina why Oswald went to Russia, Marina told her that he worked for the Rand Corporation and helped set up the American exhibit at the World Trade Exposition in Moscow. Marina had momentarily confused Harvey Oswald with Robert Webster, the 1st US defector, whom she met in Moscow (1959) and again in Leningrad (1960).
It is not a coincidence that both Webster and Oswald defected a few months apart in 1959, both tried to defect on a Saturday, both possessed sensitive information of possible value to the Russians, both were befriended by Marina Prusakova, and both returned to the United States in the Spring of 1962. These US defectors, acting in perfect harmony, were both working for the CIA.
I don't see there's any question Oswald was part of a false defector program. His last call Saturday November 23 was to John Hurt of Raleigh North Carolina which Victor Marchetti says was to a clean contact to an ONI handler.
I see Simpich citing Norman Mailer quipping Oswald was a spy in his own mind and I immediately think of Antonio Veciana who reported to Gaeton Fonzi in The Last Investigation that Oswald was with David Atlee Phillips using the alias Maurice Bishop in Dallas in the summer of 1963.
Bill Bright of CIA
shoehorns disinfo into the 5/12/60 report of John Fain.
The obvious similarity of Webster and Oswald--and the amazing
coincidence that they both met Marina--and she was faking not being able to speak English to Lee and just happened to be the niece of an intelligence officer.
Also of note the cancel of the FLASH 10/9/63 which is huge in John Newman Oswald and the CIA.
To Bannister Oswald was
one of ours--I have here Phil Melanson Spy Saga in the to-read stack--bottom line, it's disingenuous to say the most important figure of US intelligence of the Twentieth Century was a spy in his own mind.
It's the kind of denial Bugliosi presents when he says if Oswald didn't kill Kennedy, Kennedy didn't die.
A curious similarity in technology transfer: KGB came to Webster to get details of the plastic spray gun;
CIA came to Terry Reed to have him apply his metallurgical and computer-numeric-controlled expertise to bootleg lower receivers to transform AR-15s into fully-automatic M-16s for Nicaragua in a book where Clinton and North argue over cocaine profits in a bunker.
We may look at George Michael Evica A Certain Arrogance to see Lee Oswald enrolled at Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland which was a portal for professionals so hidden as to take weeks for intelligence to find it, during which Oswald was already in Moscow talking to the Priscilla Johnson who can be counted on to "write the articles we want".
For a valuable insight into a true CIA journalist asset, consider the following uttered by Priscilla Johnson McMillan in 2007:
Oswald was a believing Marxist, and his motive was to strike the deadliest blow he could imagine at capitalism in the United States. http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2007/06/lho.htmlOswald was used by intelligence from his earliest military service--Nagell said Oswald trained at Nags Head in 1957 (ONI).
In no way was Oswald a spy in his own mind.
We do have a number of different agencies and divisions of agencies operating with differing agenda.
Harvey is of note with Sigint/Staff D duties and later ZR RIFLE (Assassinations).