Why Was Oswald's Military Spy Plane Knowledge Considered Of No Value To USSR ?

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Here's an account of Oswald's reactions right after the U-2 flight with Gary Powers was shot down. It's one given by his first girlfriend Ella German. She said he was worried that the Soviets people might hold him accountable or "damage" him in some way for the flight. He also told her that Americans were hunting him down (?!) in the USSR and that if he returned to the US they would "kill" him. This is from the Mailer book "Oswald's Tale."

[Charles Collins]

Here's an account of Oswald's reactions right after the U-2 flight with Gary Powers was shot down. It's one given by his first girlfriend Ella German. She said he was worried that the Soviet people would hold him accountable for the flight. He also told her that Americans were hunting him down in the USSR (?) and that if he returned to the US they would "kill" him. This is from the Mailer book "Oswald's Tale."

For some strange reason that story about what LHO reportedly told Ella German reminds me of a time I was at  a general aviation airport at an observation area watching the planes landing and taking off. I happened to have a hand held scanner radio receiver tuned to the tower frequency so that I could hear the communications. I was on the top level of some stadium type seats and leaning on the rail with the radio receiver in hand. A nearby man and wife approached the area and she asked her husband what I was doing. With a straight face, he told her that I was controlling the airplanes that were coming and going with my remote controller.   

[Charles Collins]

This book states that Oswald felt he had cards to play based on his security clearance before he had ever been allowed to stay in Russia .
Had you ever heard this ?




The Incredible, Amazing, Disturbing, Mysterious Story of Lee Harvey Oswald
Phillip BartlingPhillip Bartling
Phillip Bartling
Owner/Editor @The Philthy Times--If you want to know, read the book. "Lessons From a Nuclear War" It's cheap! Shareable e-book is just $4.95 on Amazon!
Published Apr 2, 2022
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At first, Oswald was denied Soviet Citizenship and ordered to leave Russia, but he attempted suicide by cutting his wrist, and he was held in a psychiatric hospital for a time, after which he appeared at the US Embassy in front of both American and Russian officials, and during that meeting Oswald revealed that he was a former Marine who’d possessed a top secret security clearance and that he was willing to give the Russians “radar secrets.”

I suggest you read something more reliable. Here’s the truth regarding LHO’s (not top secret) security clearance:

While in the Marines, Lee Harvey Oswald was granted a security clearance to handle classified matter up to and including "confidential".
Security Clearance Level: Oswald's clearance allowed him access to information classified as "confidential".
Reason for Clearance: His training as a radar operator required a security clearance.
Documented Clearance: A May 1957 document stated that he was "granted final clearance to handle classified matter up to and including confidential after careful check of local records had disclosed no derogatory data".

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+type+of+security+clearance+did+oswald+have+while+in+the+marines&rlz=1C9BKJA_enUS922US923&oq=what+type+of+security+clearance+did+oswald+have+while+in+the+marines&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCTMzMTE0ajBqN6gCE7ACAeIDBBgBIF_xBYlfXo03ad3O&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

[Watson Phillips]

Here's an account of Oswald's reactions right after the U-2 flight with Gary Powers was shot down. It's one given by his first girlfriend Ella German. She said he was worried that the Soviet people would hold him accountable for the flight. He also told her that Americans were hunting him down in the USSR (?) and that if he returned to the US they would "kill" him. This is from the Mailer book "Oswald's Tale."

I really don't know what to make  of who were these "Americans"  were or how they became interested in him and for what reason ?
What were they doing in Russia ?
The Russians on the other hand , as we have heard throughout this thread knew everything that Oswald had to offer which then added up to him being worthless to them so I don't really understand how they would be blaming him for anything?

[Watson Phillips]

I suggest you read something more reliable. Here’s the truth regarding LHO’s (not top secret) security clearance:

While in the Marines, Lee Harvey Oswald was granted a security clearance to handle classified matter up to and including "confidential".
Security Clearance Level: Oswald's clearance allowed him access to information classified as "confidential".
Reason for Clearance: His training as a radar operator required a security clearance.
Documented Clearance: A May 1957 document stated that he was "granted final clearance to handle classified matter up to and including confidential after careful check of local records had disclosed no derogatory data".

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+type+of+security+clearance+did+oswald+have+while+in+the+marines&rlz=1C9BKJA_enUS922US923&oq=what+type+of+security+clearance+did+oswald+have+while+in+the+marines&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCTMzMTE0ajBqN6gCE7ACAeIDBBgBIF_xBYlfXo03ad3O&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

So I take it you believe Oswald was a humble type of individual,  not the type to exaggerate and overinflate his own intelligence & importance in describing himself ?

[Tom Graves]

Yuri Nosenko said the Soviets didn't know he had any connection with the U-2 flights and apparently Oswald didn't admit to. However, I've also read that they did ask him about the U-2 and supposedly he gave them information they already knew. So who knows?

Mr. KLEIN. Who [Oswald] had been a radar operator and had worked on a base from which U-2 airplanes took off and landed, that he wasn't even interesting enough for the KGB to speak to him, to find out if he knew any of this information?
Mr. NOSENKO. Mr. Klein, I understand your position, but we didn't know that he had any connection with U-2 flights. That is one thing. And if you, Mr. Klein, are basing on what was written by Mr. Epstein in the book, it is a little bit from the air taken ideas. Mr. Epstein even telling that how important for KGB to know about such base that base. We knew it in the fifties when I worked in GRU at the Navy, in 1950, 1951, 1952. We knew every base and in Japan, at this Atsugi base, and we knew what kind of airplanes had been. We didn't know about U-2, no. Sure, it is very interesting, but when Oswald applied, requested to stay in the Soviet Union, we didn't know a word about his knowledge, anything concerning U-2 flights.
Mr. KLEIN. And you didn't ask him if he had any kind of information about that when he wanted to defect, is that correct ?
Mr. NOSENKO. No.

Dear Steve M.,

"So, who knows?"

LOL!

Do you have any the idea what the true reason was for Nosenko's contacting the CIA in Geneva in June 1962 and claiming that he desperately needed $250 worth of Swiss francs in exchange for two (or was it four?) pieces of "intel"?

Hint: You won't find the true answer in Mangold's Cold Warrior, Wise's Molehunt, or Weiner's Legacy of Ashes (if they even write about it, that is).

You'll find it in the 2007 Yale University Press book, Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games, by Nosenko's former primary CIA case officer, Tennent H. Bagley.

FWIW, Bagley was on the fast track to become Director of CIA before Nosenko reappeared in Geneva two months after the assassination of JFK, as directed by General Oleg Gribanov, and decided to use what he'd been told to say to Bagley and (probable KGB mole George Kisevalter) -- that he had been Oswald's case officer in Moscow and that he therefore knew for a fact that the KGB had absolutely nothing to do with the former Marine U-2 radar operator during the two-and-one-half years he lived in the USSR -- as his "ticket" to physically defect to the U.S.

Former CIA officer W. Alan Messer has shown in his 2013 article, "In Pursuit of the Squared Circle: The Nosenko Theories Revisited," that when Nosenko decided to "go rogue" in late January 1964, the KGB had no choice but to support his bona fides in the U.S. through Kremlin-loyal Aleksei Kulak (J. Edgar Hoover's shielded-from-CIA FEDORA), Boris Orekhov (SHAMROCK), Igor Kochnov (KITTYHAWK), and Valery Yurchenko, et al.

Have you read Spy Wars, yet?

If not, you really should, you know. Because anyone who lends Nosenko any credence on anything is obviously quite . . . well . . . ignorant.

I've already told you how you can read it for free.

Factoid: After Bagley had informed Edward J. Epstein about the Nosenko case for his 1978 book, Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald, and after Epstein had interviewed Richard Helms, James Angleton and William Sullivan, et al., Bagley proofread the manuscript and corrected the most egregious errors in it.

-- Tom

 

[Charles Collins]

So I take it you believe Oswald was a humble type of individual,  not the type to exaggerate and overinflate his own intelligence & importance in describing himself ?

No, not at all.



At the point in time in question, LHO was apparently desperate and reportedly tried whatever he thought might give himself a chance to stay in the USSR. LHO reportedly "attempted suicide," offered" to tell them "what he knew" from his time in the USMC, showed the Soviets that he "intended" to give up his passport and U.S. citizenship, etc.. I have read that he wanted the Soviets to allow him to attend the (free) university in Moscow. However due to the dire circumstances (in that they had indicated to him that they were planning to send him away instead of even letting him stay in the USSR) I believe that he swallowed hard and graciously accepted what they assigned him in Minsk. Then he apparently after a relatively short time realized that he no longer desired to stay in Russia.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

My understanding of the explanation for Russia’s ability to shoot down U2 spy planes is that the development of their anti-aircraft missiles finally reached a point where their missiles could ascend to a high enough altitude. Before that, the U2 spy planes were simply out of their reach. I believe that due to the fact that this happened while LHO was in Russia is just another one of those “strange” coincidences that happened. I ask: what could LHO have possibly told them about the U2 that would have enabled their missiles to reach higher altitudes. I don’t believe LHO’s presence in Russia had anything at all to do with that development.

Charles: We can add this to the "What did Oswald tell the Soviets about the U-2?" question. It's Nechiporneko from "Passport to Assassination". He was one of the three KGB agents at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City that met Oswald. He says that after the assassination he examined Oswald's case file. Here is what he said about the interrogation of Oswald. It supports Nosenko's view that they didn't ask Oswald about the matter.



I was also wondering exactly how many - or even if any - U2 flights took off from Atsugi at the time Oswald was working in the radar "bubble". Oswald was at Atsugi from late September to October 1957 when it seems that most of the U2 flights originated from US bases in Europe or Turkey and not Atsugi. The focus/concern at that time was the Suez Crisis. As you can see below from '56 to '59 the vast number of flights were sent over the Middle East. Those were flights that apparently all took off from the US base in Turkey.

I don't have the exact number that took off from Atsugi but I think it was, at the time Oswald was there (again about a month) small. It's conceivable to me that none of the flights took off when Oswald was assigned to radar operations. But I think the evidence indicates at least one? And as both Nosenko and Nechiporenko said, the KGB did not know about any U-2 flights from Atsugi. So is it possible there weren't any when Oswald was there? Yes, I am really pulling stuff out of my you-know-what here.