transcripts from the electronic surveillance of the Oswalds' apartment, as well as from reports written by the BKGB officers who had tailed Oswald in Minsk. 14

Yeltsin's 1999 gift thus fit squarely into a pattern of disclosure by installment. As the State Department prepared translations of this latest tease, Russian officials involved in gathering the records cautioned against expecting too much from the once-classified documents. "They don't contain any new revelations,” Vladimir Sokolov, a Foreign Ministry archivist, told Moscow Times in late June. "There's nothing new or sensational there."16 Sokolov's assessment seemed accurate once the National Archives released the translations in August 1999. Though interesting (one of the items was Oswald's handwritten 16 October 1959 letter to the Su

preme Soviet requesting immediate asylum and citizenship), the documents did not alter Washington's conclusion regarding KGB recruitment of Oswald, nor did they even shed much new light on what was already known about Oswald's time in the Soviet Union.

Indeed, once the translations became available, it seemed as if there was even less to Yeltsin's gift than initially met the eye. Mixed in among genuinely "TOP SECRET" documents were such innocuous items as a news commentary published by TASS in November 1963. The release also contained Khrushchev's long-available letter of condolence to President Johnson, along with several other routine condolence letters. 17 Moreover, some of the documents that Yeltsin made available so ostentatiously had already been quoted from at length in Nechiporenko's 1993 memoir, and one CPSU Central Committee document had been previously released to the ARRB in 1995.

Nonetheless, there were a few truly novel documents mixed in among the Yeltsin papers, and these shed archival light on the past and ongoing reluctance to open relevant Soviet files. It has long been understood that Moscow faced an enormous problem after a self-styled Marxist, who had actually lived in the Soviet Union, was arrested in connection with President Kennedy's assassination. The preternaturally secretive Soviet leadership was agonizingly caught between a rock and a hard place: damned if it wasn't forthcoming and likely to be damned if it was (or so the Communist leaders thought). What had never been previously documented, however, is the torturous internal wrangling that

occurred before Soviet leaders released the handful of records made available in 1963-1964.

The single most revealing episode involves two familiar figures-Anatoly Dobrynin and Anastas Mikoyan-who apparently played the key roles in bringing about the second Soviet release, that of documents from the Washington embassy's consular files. Working together, they managed

oir, In Confidence, points out.18

The idea to make the consular records available apparently originated with ambassador Dobrynin not long after Oswald's arrest on the afternoon of 22 November. A prompt search of the embassy's consular files had revealed several pieces of correspondence, including a letter from Oswald dated 9 November. Because of its proximity to the assassination, Dobrynin immediately realized this letter was bound to be especially sensitive, regardless of its contents. In a TOP SECRET/HIGHEST PRIORITY cable to Moscow, Dobrynin reported that US authorities were undoubtedly aware of both the consular file and the latest letter because all mail routed via the US Post Office was routinely opened by the FBI. Although the US government knew that the Soviets knew about the mail-opening operation, Dobrynin anticipated that "U.S. authorities may ask us to familiarize them with the correspondence in our possession." The Soviet ambassador then proposed sharing the letter if not the entire file once internal Foreign Ministry documents had been removed, "inasmuch as there is nothing that compromises us in this correspondence."19

While Dobrynin's proposal was conditional-the documents were to be offered "as a last resort," as if to underscore the favorit nonetheless qualified as a remarkable suggestion. Consular records were considered highly privileged and rarely exchanged, even between governments with the best of diplomatic relations.20 In addition, the notion of agreeing to yield these documents at any point was all the more remarkable given the highly-charged atmosphere that was rapidly developing. As Dobrynin observed in the last line of his 22 November cable, the pervasive radio and TV coverage of the assassination was “alluding more and more often to the fact that the assassin was evidently connected with 'extreme leftist elements."""21

Dobrynin heard nothing back about his proposal for two days. Finally, on Monday, 25 November, the CPSU Central Committee approved the draft response proposed by Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and KGB chief Vladimir Semichastny. The answer to Dobrynin was almost predictable, or at least in keeping with familiar Soviet behavior. "In the event that the U.S. authorities request you to provide information," began the instructions, "you can give them the following information on this matter." The balance of the cable was the most limited recitation of bare facts imaginable-nothing, indeed, that the US government did not already know from its own files on Oswald, consular and otherwise.22

Moscow's rigidity was understandable to a degree. While still reeling from the assassination, the Communist

leadership (along with the rest of the world) had had to absorb a second shock on 24 November, namely, the murder of the accused assassin. To Soviet leaders already prone to believe in conspiracies, Oswald's murder while in police custody was incomprehensible unless of course there was a conspiracy. In all likelihood the self-proclaimed Marxist (who had already been slandered by Moscow as a "Trotskyite") had been silenced before the real perpetrators could be identified.23 Given this unnerving situation it was not surprising for Moscow to hew to the most conservative approach imaginable. Despite Oswald's murder by a nightclub owner named Jack Ruby or perhaps because of it-the effort to link Oswald's stay in the Soviet Union to probable contact with the KGB and possible recruitment-was unabated among some elements of the US news media.

The day before Dobrynin received the Central Committee's instructions on 25 November, Anastas Mikoyan, deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers, arrived for the state funeral bearing a redacted KGB report about Oswald's Soviet sojourn. The two officials clearly discussed the matter, because on Tuesday, 26 November, Dobrynin sent another TOP SECRET/HIGHEST PRIORITY cable to Moscow. In this second cable, in which Mikoyan concurred, Dobrynin presented an entirely different rationale for yielding the consular records. Rather than basing his argument again on straightforward pragmatic grounds-namely, that Moscow had nothing to hide this time Dobrynin appealed directly to the conspiratorial mind-set that pervaded the Central Committee.

Like all the other correspondence in the consular file, Oswald's 9 November letter was genuine, differing only in that it was typed rather than handwritten. Yet, and without any real evidence backing him up, Dobrynin now insisted that Oswald's 9 November letter was "clearly a provocation. .. [designed to give] the impression we had close ties with Oswald and were using him for some purposes of our own." The letter, wrote Dobrynin, was probably a forgery, and “one gets the definite impression that [it] was concocted by those who... are involved in the President's assassination." Or if Oswald himself wrote it, Dobrynin asserted, it was probably dictated to him and then he was "simply bumped off after his usefulness had ended." In essence, the Soviet ambassador now argued that disclosure was necessary to expose and pre-empt the "organizers of this entire provocation" before they used the letter "to try casting suspicion on us."24 It was a shrewd way of evoking the objectively correct (and selfinterested) decision from the Central Committee, but the reasoning was Byzantine. If Dobrynin truly believed the 9 November letter was a forgery, Soviet interests would arguably be better served if this devastating trump card were held in reserve, to be played, if necessary, once the US government officially committed itself as to the identity of the assassin(s).

When Mikoyan returned to Moscow later in the week, in all likelihood he played a significant role in shaping the Central Committee's response. The deputy chairman had come back with a firm impression about how the US government intended to proceed in the assassination's wake, as evinced

by a 25 November cable Mikoyan dispatched while still in Washington. In this cable Mikoyan had reported on his conversations with US officials, most notably, Llewellyn "Tommy" Thompson, the State Department's leading Soviet expert and the US ambassador in Moscow who had permitted Oswald's return in 1962. "Judging from everything," Mikoyan had concluded, "the U.S. government does not want to involve us in this matter, but neither does it want to get into a fight with the extreme rightists; it clearly prefers to consign the whole business to oblivion as soon as possible.”25

Mikoyan obviously confused the State Department's desire not to roil US-Soviet relations unnecessarily with a supposed government-wide inclination not to apprehend alleged co-conspirators. Thompson and other Soviet hands had concluded that Oswald's sojourn in the Soviet Union was an unfortunate coincidence and that Moscow had nothing to do with President Kennedy's assassination. Therefore, insofar as possible, they wanted the controversy over Oswald to be treated as a matter separate from the pursuit of improved relations between the superpowers. Still, there was no actual basis for Mikoyan's assertion that the US government was uninterested in bringing other supposed perpetrators to justice. Mikoyan's point of view was primarily a reflection of his and/or Soviet ideology regarding the assassination, rather than an accurate judgment.

Notwithstanding Mikoyan's misreading of Washington's intentions, his perspective, combined with the logic of Dobrynin's second cable, apparently evoked a dramatic change in the Central Committee's position.26 Three days after sending his 26 November cable, Dobrynin finally received an answer and it was more than the Soviet envoy had dared ask for. In a complete about-face, the Central Committee now instructed Dobrynin to provide photocopies of all consular correspondence with the Oswalds, including the especially sensitive 9 November letter, and without waiting for a request from U.S. authorities.27

As if to act before Moscow could possibly change its mind, Dobrynin arranged to see Rusk the very next afternoon, even though it was the Saturday of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. In a subsequent cable describing the meeting, Dobrynin reported that the US Secretary of State thanked him twice for the photocopies. "It was evident that Rusk was quite unprepared for this step on our part," Dobrynin wrote, "while at the same time (judging from his general behavior) he was pleased with this development." Rusk asked Dobrynin if he could make the correspondence available to the newlyformed Warren Commission. Dobrynin replied that it was left "totally to [Rusk's] discretion whether to present this material to anyone, as we were sure he would properly appreciate our step and would act appropriately."28 Most interestingly, in his report to Moscow, Dobrynin made no mention of the other part of his instructions. Upon presenting the photocopies to Rusk, Dobrynin was supposed to assert that from the moment the 9 November letter arrived, the Soviet embassy suspected it was "either a forgery or . . . a deliberate provocation."29

Some 32 years later, Dobrynin recounted this episode in his 1995 memoir, but stripped it of all its drama and complexity. According to the former Soviet ambassador, following Oswald's arrest officials immediately checked embassy files.

The consular department had kept all of its correspondence with the Oswalds, and it contained nothing blameworthy. I suggested to our government that this correspondence be made available to the Americans, and Moscow quickly approved. We immediately handed over copies to Rusk . . . [who] was clearly unprepared for our unusual act and did not conceal his satisfaction.30

Dobrynin either intentionally smoothed out this episode, or gave it short shrift because this was the way he actually remembered it. At the time, however, this unprecedented act by the Soviet Union was a dramatic development. Since Dobrynin had imposed no conditions on how Rusk could use the consular documents, the Secretary of State saw no reason to keep the file-sharing secret; indeed, he was eager to publicize every shred of Soviet goodwill in the wake of the assassination. The State Department told the Washington press corps about the file-sharing as soon as it occurred, and the disclosure made headlines in every major American newspaper.

While it may be just as misleading to invest this episode with great meaning as it was for Dobrynin to gloss over it, it does seem to explain why even the most innocuous documents from Soviet files have had to travel such laborious routes before being disclosed. Admittedly, some relevant documents, such as Oswald's case file, remain too sensitive simply to hand over. Despite the passage of time, they undoubtedly reveal intelligence sources and methods, and the means of surveillance in the former Soviet states may not have changed all that much. 31 Yet if there were an inclination to disclose as much as possible, even the case file could be redacted to protect sources and methods. Much more revealing is the fact that many records of interest, such as those that reflect high-level decision-making after the assassination, do not involve intelligence sources and methods at all and yet remain closed. 32

The political regimes may have changed, but a culture of suspicion persists in the successor states to the USSR, especially with respect to President Kennedy's assassination. Soviet propaganda/disinformation about the "real forces" responsible for the assassination exert such a grip on the Russian imagination that these states cannot bring themselves to disclose all but a handful assassination-related records.33 That the records are exculpatory is irrelevant.

Nelson, a member of the Assassination Records Review Board, for their comments and suggestions regarding this article.

NOTES

William Drozdiak, “Affable but Ailing Yeltsin Gives JFK Files to Clinton," Washington Post, 21 June 1999 and Jane Perlez, "U.S. and Russians Strive to Repair Frayed Relations,” New York Times, 21 June 1999. Though the presentation of the documents directly to President Clinton came as a surprise, elements of the U.S. government had been requesting access to Soviet-era, assassination-related documents for several years. Vice President Al Gore raised the matter, for example, with Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin in March 1998. See Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), Final Report (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1998), p. 141.

2 When KGB officer Yuri Nosenko defected to the United States in February 1964, he carried with him some first-hand knowledge of the Oswald case; the Nosenko episode is outside the scope of this article, which is limited to authorized disclosures of documents.

3 Walter Pincus & George Lardner, "Warren Commission Born Out of Fear: Washington Wanted to Stop Speculation," Washington Post, 14 November 1993. Although the Warren Commission had access to this KGB summary document, unlike other records provided by the Soviet government, it was not included among the Commission's exhibits. The Commission did not want to create the impression that it had relied on such a document.

4

Murrey Marder, "Russia's File on Oswald Is Handed Over to U.S.," Washington Post, 1 December 1963; the entire file, translated by the FBI, became Warren Commission Exhibit 986. See Hearings Before the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy: Exhibits 885 to 1053, Volume XVIII (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964), pp. 480-539.

5 Hearings Before the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy: Exhibits 885 to 1053, Volume XVIII (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office). The Warren Commission's request is Exhibit 984, pp. 399-402. A State Department translation of all the Soviet documents submitted in response is Exhibit 985, pp. 403-479.

Sergei Mostovshchikov, "Agent Development Case No. 31451," Izvestiya, 6, 7, 10-12 August 1992.

10 Izvestiya, 7 August 1992. According to a 1999 Washington Post account, all relevant files were consolidated in Moscow after

tion, his sojourn in Minsk and 1962 repatriation; the assassination itself; Oswald's September 1963 visit to the Soviet embassy in Mexico City; and Soviet investigations of the assassination. The records reclaimed by the BKGB pertained only to records generated in Minsk; it is more than likely, however, that the Russian

KGB made a copy of the case file before letting the records go. See George Lardner, "Papers Shed New Light on Soviets, Oswald," Washington Post, 6 August 1999.

"Oleg Nechiporenko, Passport to Assassination: The NeverBefore-Told Story of Lee Harvey Oswald by the KGB Colonel Who Knew Him (New York: Birch Lane Press, 1993).

12

Boris Yeltsin, The Struggle for Russia (New York: Times Books, 1994), pp. 305-309.

13 Washington Post, 6 August 1999, and ARRB Final Report, p. 141. English translations of the documents, prepared by the State Department, can be found in Box 34, Jeremy Gunn Files, RG 541, JFK Assassination Records, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD (NARA). The ARRB was established under U.S. law in 1992, after public complaints about the large number of U.S. government documents about the assassination that remained classified. Under the legislation, the ARRB was instructed to gather assassination-related documents into an omnibus collection at the National Archives, one that would include records generated by private parties and foreign governments.

14 Norman Mailer, Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery (New York: Random House, 1995), pp. xx-xxi, and Washington Post, 6 August 1999. Mailer's access was negotiated by his long-time collaborator Lawrence Schiller.

15 Aleksandr Fursenko & Timothy Naftali, 'One Hell of a Gamble': Khrushchev, Castro, Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis 1958-1964 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997). Two of the KGB documents cited in Gamble were among the documents Yeltsin presented in his 1994 memoir.

16 "Sarah Karush & Brian Whitmore, “JFK Files May Yield Clues Into . . . Yeltsin?" Moscow Times, 25 June 1999; see also David Hoffman, “Oswald Letter Is Among Documents From Russia," Washington Post, 23 June 1999.

17 The condolence letter to LBJ was published in the 1996 Foreign Relations of the United States volume on KennedyKhrushchev exchanges, and was published in the Soviet press in 1963, along with several other similar letters.

18 Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence: Moscow's Ambassador to America's Six Cold War Presidents (New York: Times Books, 1995).

19 Special Telegram No. 1967-1968, 22 November 1963, Documents Provided by Russian President Boris Yeltsin on 20 June 1999 (hereafter Yeltsin Documents).

20 Washington Post, 1 December 1963.

21 Special Telegram No. 1967-1968, 22 November 1963, Yeltsin Documents.

22 Resolution of the CC CPSU, “On Measures (to be Taken) to Discredit the Slanderous Fabrications in the American Press Regarding Lee Harvey Oswald's 'Connections' with the Soviet Union," 25 November 1963, Yeltsin Documents. It's not absolutely clear this instruction was sent to Dobrynin, since the document is labeled as a "Draft." If so, Dobrynin's 26 November cable was sent after he had not received any response to his 22 November suggestion re the consular files.

23 Victor Riesel, "Soviet Insinuations Call for Query on Oswald," Dallas Morning News, 6 December 1963. Labeling Oswald in this manner was not altogether inaccurate; Oswald was an avid reader of Trotskyite periodicals in addition to literature that was more to Moscow's liking.

24 Telegram Special No. 2005, 26 November 1963, Yeltsin Documents.

25 Telegram Special No. 2002-2004, 25 November 1963, Yeltsin Documents.

26 Recently published Presidium minutes are silent on this

32

In addition to keeping the Oswald's case file under lock and key, there are yawning gaps in the KGB, Central Committee, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs documents that have been released haphazardly. For example, almost none of what must have been substantial communications between Moscow and the Soviet embassy and/or KGB rezidentura in Mexico City have seen the light of day. And according to Dr. Vlad Zubok, in the recently published minutes of the Central Committee Presidium (Politburo), "there is a conspicuous absence of any discussion and/or mention of the Kennedy/ Oswald matter." See Protocol no. 125, Session 26 November 1963, in: A.A. Fursenko, i.a. (eds.), Prezidium TsK KPSS 1954-1964 Chernoviie protokolnie zapisi zasedanii. Stenogrammi. Postanovlenia, vol. 1 (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2003).

33 Though outdated, the best work on Soviet exploitation of the assassination remains Armand Moss, Disinformation, Misinformation, and the 'Conspiracy' to Kill JFK Exposed (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1987). See also Max Holland, "The Power of Disinformation: The Lie That Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination," Studies in Intelligence, No. 11, Fall-Winter 2001, pp. 5-17.