A Marine Who Offered Spy-Plane Secrets to Moscow Came Home With a Government Loan
He returned with his Russian wife and baby daughter after a comfortable life in Minsk with a free apartment and a factory job.
Who Killed JFK? · The PatsyLee Harvey Oswald, a Marine radar operator, offered Moscow what he knew about the U-2, a high-altitude American spy plane, then came home about two years later with a State Department loan he was expected to repay, an immigration exemption for his Russian family, and, in one account, no questions about the plane.
In Moscow, Oswald threw his passport on the counter at the American Embassy, affirmed allegiance to the Soviet Union, and said he would share his Marine specialty. Richard Snyder, the embassy consular official and former CIA man, said it was "part of a scene he had rehearsed before coming into the embassy."
After a comfortable stay in Minsk, with a free apartment arranged after a greeting from the mayor and a radio and television factory job paying as much as the director, Oswald married teenager Marina and had daughter June. When he asked to return with them, the Immigration and Naturalization Service offered Marina an exemption from standard quotas, and journalist David Talbot says authorities never asked about what he did there or whether he gave secrets away.
Questions people ask
What was the U-2, and why did its secrets matter?
The U-2 was an American high-altitude spy plane built to photograph Soviet military sites from above 70,000 feet, beyond the reach of Soviet fighters at the time. Its flights were among the most closely guarded secrets of the Cold War, especially after the Soviets shot one down in 1960 and captured pilot Francis Gary Powers.
Was a State Department loan to come home unusual?
No. The State Department has long made repatriation loans to Americans stranded abroad who cannot afford passage home, and recipients are expected to repay them. What is striking in Oswald's case is that the loan went to someone who had just renounced America and offered military information to an adversary.
What did an exemption from immigration quotas mean?
At the time, American immigration law set strict numerical limits by country, and spouses often faced long waits. An exemption let Marina bypass those quota lines and enter with Oswald and their daughter. The program says the Immigration and Naturalization Service granted it for Marina and baby June.