[SPEAKER_00]: Last fall, Representative Anna Paulina Luna obtained a copy of newly released Soviet documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, as we wrap up the series looking at the Soviet Union as a potential culprit, will analyze the origin and reliability of this Russian document.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does it tell us about the Soviet security services relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald?
[SPEAKER_00]: And more generally, what are the key takeaways from this document that impact the study of the JFK assassination today?
[SPEAKER_02]: In Dallas, Texas, three shots required of President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas.
[SPEAKER_02]: The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting
[SPEAKER_02]: The flash, apparently official, as of its Kennedy, died at the top of the M.C.L.
[SPEAKER_01]: Central, and then at the top of the M.C.L.
[SPEAKER_01]: The M.C.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.L.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is Solving JFK.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, Matt Crumpton.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last year, on May 20th, during the second hearing of the task force on the declassification of government's secrets, Judge John Tunheim, the former chairman of the assassination records review board, told the committee that the ARB, quote, tried to obtain the entire KGB file on Lee Harvey Oswald that is maintained in Minsk.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which Tanheim was told, stood about five feet tall.
[SPEAKER_00]: Congresswoman Luna told Judge Tanheim that she'd follow up on those files and see if she could come up with the documents that the ARB wasn't able to get.
[SPEAKER_00]: On October 14, the Russian ambassador provided Congresswoman Luna with a hard copy with a new document about the JFK assassination.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shortly after that, Luna gave the document to JFK researcher and author Jefferson Morley, who made it available for the public for free on his website JFKFax.org.
[SPEAKER_00]: Much of today's podcast comes from morally's reporting on the document.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since I don't speak Russian, it was very helpful to have some of the key sections translated, and we have morally to thank for those translations.
[SPEAKER_00]: The document is now available in the National Archives.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so what are we talking about here?
[SPEAKER_00]: What exactly is this document?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's 350 loose leaf pages written in Russian, mostly memos and other records that originated between 1959 and 1964.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was prepared under the supervision of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, this is not the document that judged
[SPEAKER_00]: This new compendium also has no reference to the KGB report that concluded that Lyndon Johnson was behind the assassination, which was summarized by the FBI in 1966.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about what the document is not, let's get into what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: These pages are a collection of documents which highlight cooperation between the US and the Soviets during JFK's presidency and during the Warren Commission investigation.
[SPEAKER_00]: While many of these pages are not new, there are a few that are being seen for the first time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Given that it's been more than 60 years since the Kennedy assassination, what reason could the Russians have for providing the document to Congresswoman Luna now?
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, in what context should we be viewing this hand-off of information between geopolitical foes?
[SPEAKER_00]: On October 16 of 2025, American President Donald Trump announced that he would be meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest in two weeks to discuss the war in Ukraine.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to experts on Russia, like Mark Medish, the timing of Congresswoman Luna receiving the documents just two days before Trump's announcement,
[SPEAKER_00]: indicates that the document release may have been a gesture of goodwill to remind American diplomats that the Russians and Americans have negotiated in good faith before during the Kennedy administration and can do it again now.
[SPEAKER_00]: That interpretation is also consistent with the coverage that this document release got in the Moscow press.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, an obvious challenge to believing that the documents are true and accurate is that they come from the current Russian government during a time when the United States is backing Ukraine against Russia.
[SPEAKER_00]: It seems silly to take what your military enemy is saying at face value, but it seems most likely that the Russians were merely hoping to get some goodwill for the Ukraine negotiations by sharing these documents.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, it's always a good idea to approach unknown intentions with skepticism, so we shouldn't blindly trust these Russian documents, but we also shouldn't blindly reject them.
[SPEAKER_00]: The 350 pages lead off with a newly written essay from the head of the Russian archives, Andre Artizov, who says, quote, the question of the USSR's involvement in the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy has been definitively closed.
[SPEAKER_00]: The introductory statement by Artizov notes that Russian ambassador to the U.S. Anatolli Dobrennan met with the chief of the KGB Vladimir Simi Chassney days after the assassination and Simi Chassney confirmed that neither the KGB nor the GRU had any ties to Oswald.
[SPEAKER_00]: Simey Chastney later told Swedish researcher Tomas Snigon, quote, I cannot imagine any Soviet leader taking responsibility for the death of a top American statesman, and for the catastrophic consequences that the revelation of such a connection would have meant for us and the entire world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what would we have achieved by doing so?
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing except the very fact of the dirty elimination of a politician with whom, unlike others, it was possible to negotiate.
[SPEAKER_00]: A man whom, although we fought with propaganda methods, we simultaneously valued and respected more than his rivals.
[SPEAKER_00]: Artizov's essay also notes that Chairman Kruschev himself suspected a conspiracy.
[SPEAKER_00]: In May of 1964, Kruschev told American journalist Drew Pearson, this crime is too complex for Leiazwald's mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: A whole group of people acted here according to a pre-planned scheme.
[SPEAKER_00]: One person could not commit such a crime.
[SPEAKER_00]: Behind the entire crime are people who had great resources, both material and financial.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are the ones confusing the investigation.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is no coincidence that the assassination took place in Dallas.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kennedy essentially became the victim of his enemies.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what are the key revelations in these documents?
[SPEAKER_00]: Here are the ones that stuck out to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: We now have a behind-the-scenes view of the decision of the Supreme Soviet to allow Oswald to stay in the Soviet Union in 1959.
[SPEAKER_00]: A letter from Anastas McCoyon, the deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers, said, quote,
[SPEAKER_00]: Considering that some foreigners previously admitted into Soviet citizenship, having lived for some time in the USSR, eventually left the country and also taking into account that Oswald has not yet been fully studied, it would be advisable to grant him the right of temporary residents in the USSR for a period of one year with employment and housing provided.
[SPEAKER_00]: After this period, the issue of Oswald's permanent residence in the Soviet Union and his admission to Soviet citizenship could be reconsidered.
[SPEAKER_00]: Other interesting documents include the November 29, 1963 report from the Soviet embassy in Washington, back to Moscow, which laid out all of the evidence against Oswald at that time, and all of the evidence supporting Oswald's
[SPEAKER_00]: as well as a December 3rd letter from Ambassador Dobrennan to Moscow about his talk with New York Times Correspondent Scotty Rustin.
[SPEAKER_00]: During that conversation, Rustin told him that in private talks with American officials, they were saying that Castro, or maybe even the Chinese were involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another anecdote comes from a memo from the Soviet representative to the United Nations, Nikolay Fedorinko, which recalls Fedorinko's discussion with Warren Commissioner John McLeod.
[SPEAKER_00]: On June 24, 1964, McLeod and Fedorinko were at a dinner party and struck up a conversation about the Kennedy assassination and the work McLeod was doing on the commission.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any assertion of conspiracy surrounding the assassination of Kennedy is not supported by the facts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, McCley added, quote,
[SPEAKER_00]: If we were to uncover the killer's connections to any hidden forces, I weigh my words carefully, the threads could lead beyond the borders of the United States, especially since, as his known, Oswald lived for a time in the USSR, from where he returned with a Russian wife and behaved in a very suspicious manner.
[SPEAKER_00]: This quote from McCloy captured in a contemporaneous memo further supports the idea that President Johnson was telling all of the Warren commissioners, not just Earl Warren and Richard Russell, about a potential nuclear war with the Soviets if they followed all the leads related to conspiracy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It kind of sounds like McCloy was fishing for confirmation of potential Soviet involvement
[SPEAKER_00]: McCloy then backpedaled, and once again reiterated to Fedorinko that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may remember from episode 56, the dear Mr. Huntletter that was allegedly from Lee Harvey Oswald.
[SPEAKER_00]: This letter, which three handwriting experts confirmed, matched Oswald's writing, was sent to three JFK assassination researchers and postmarked from Mexico City.
[SPEAKER_00]: The question's always been, if we know that it really is Oswald handwriting, which Mr. Hunt was Oswald talking about, eHoward Hunt of the CIA, or Texas oil tycoon, H.L.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hunt.
[SPEAKER_00]: The dear Mr. Hunt Riddle has now been definitively solved by a key piece of the puzzle provided by the Russians in this new document release.
[SPEAKER_00]: That puzzle piece is a letter written by Oswald to the American Embassy in Moscow in December of 1960.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oswald referenced the letter when writing to the embassy, but the American embassy wrote him back in February of 1961, saying that they never received his December 1960 letter.
[SPEAKER_00]: It turns out that the KGB intercepted that December 1960 letter from Oswald,
[SPEAKER_00]: and never put it back in the mail.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know that because they turned over a copy of the December 1960 letter with these documents.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's the kicker.
[SPEAKER_00]: The December 1960 letter that Oswald wrote contains identical words and handwriting to the
[SPEAKER_00]: The entire Deer Mr. Hunt letter was taken from Oswald's December 1960 letter.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's unmistakable when you look at each document side by side.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can now say for sure that the Deer Mr. Hunt letter was a provocation from the KGB.
[SPEAKER_00]: They made a phony note from Oswald by piecing together Oswald's actual handwriting and sending it to conspiracy-oriented researchers.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as the CIA itself noted, the critical research community that didn't dismiss the letter outright tended to assume that it was referencing H.L.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hunt instead of E. Howard Hunt.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who was the apparent intended target of the KGB?
[SPEAKER_00]: Another important document that's been provided by the Russians is a memo from Georgie Bolshikov about his post-assination meeting with William Walton, a close friend of President Kennedy's and the commissioner of Fine Art for Washington, D.C.
[SPEAKER_00]: Walton was in Moscow on a trip to study Soviet art which had been scheduled before the assassination.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Walton met with Bolshikov on December 9, 1963, he carried with him a personal message of gratitude from Jackie Kennedy to Chairman Kruschev.
[SPEAKER_00]: He also shared with Bolshikov an important message
[SPEAKER_00]: Walton said, quote, Robert Kennedy asked me to convey you his warm greetings.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, go to Moscow and tell them that we, for our part, will do everything possible to ensure that the political course of the United States toward the USSR remains unchanged and that the country's leadership remains in firm hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: Walton said that Bobby Kennedy would try to run for Governor of Massachusetts first, and would then run for President.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to Bullshacov's memo, Walton, who, remember, was acting as the personal emissary of Robert Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy, also told Bullshacov, quote.
[SPEAKER_00]: The assassination of President Kennedy was undoubtedly the
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps there was one assassin, but there were certainly more accomplices to the president's murder.
[SPEAKER_00]: This echoed what Bobby Kennedy had previously warned Bolshekov about in 1962, that in a gust of blind hate, the president's enemies would go to any length, including killing him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to talk about one more related document that I recently became aware of while perusing the JFK Facts website.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a diary from a man named Bill Truzdale, who passed away in 2025.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Truzdale died, his caregivers shared his diaries with morally who published a story on them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Truzdale's diary entry is a small data point that tells an important story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill Truzdale was once a PhD student who had studied the archaeology of southwest Afghanistan.
[SPEAKER_00]: That trip brought him into contact with Lee Harvey Oswald.
[SPEAKER_00]: In October of 1959, Truzdale traveled from the United States to Afghanistan through the Soviet Union.
[SPEAKER_00]: His travels brought him to Helsinki, Finland, where he caught a train to Moscow.
[SPEAKER_00]: On October 15, 1959, Truzdale wrote in his diary, quote,
[SPEAKER_00]: a young Texan just out of the Marines on the way to study philosophy in Switzerland via Russia for five days.
[SPEAKER_00]: Truzdale forgot all about meeting Oswald on the train.
[SPEAKER_00]: The president's assassination apparently did not jog his memory, but when Truzdale reviewed his diary in the 1980s, he realized for the first time that he was on that train ride with Le Oswald.
[SPEAKER_00]: In 2023, Finish Intelligence Agency Supo declassified the passenger manifest from the train, confirming that both Lee Oswald and Bill Truzdale were in fact on that train.
[SPEAKER_00]: What matters here is that Oswald told Truzdale that he was just going to the Soviet Union to visit and that his real plan was to go to a Swiss university, which was almost certainly Albert Schweitzer College.
[SPEAKER_00]: where Oswald had applied and even sent a deposit.
[SPEAKER_00]: True's Dale's diary further confirms that Oswald was using the tiny Swiss college as a cover for his travel in the Soviet Union.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about Albert Schweitzer College in episode 33 if you want to go back and listen.
[SPEAKER_00]: In that episode, we covered the ties of Albert Schweitzer College's chief fundraiser, Percival Brunnage, to American Intelligence agencies, including the CIA and Southern Air Transport.
[SPEAKER_00]: With Bill True's Dale's diary, we have Lee Harvey Oswald once again lying about going to this Swiss college, which, to me, looks an awful lot like he has a cover story to maintain.
[SPEAKER_00]: Next time on Solving JFK, we're joined by JFK assassination researcher and author Larry Hancock to talk through the allegations that the Soviet Union was behind the assassination of President Kennedy.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you heard anything that you believe is out of context, or if you have additional information to offer, you can let us know at solving JFK podcast at gmail.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please provide citations to the record for any fact that you're relying on.
[SPEAKER_00]: For transcripts, sources, and official podcast merchandise, visit solvingjfkpodcast.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Visit solvingjfkpodcast.com for more information.