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"This letter was clearly a provocation: It gives the impression we had close ties with Oswald and were using him for some purposes of our own," Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, Moscow's man in Washington for 24 years, wrote in an internal memo stamped "Highest Priority."
Dobrynin thought the letter was a fake because it had a different tone than previous letters the Soviets had received from Oswald, who lived inthe communist nation between 1959 and 1962. Also, the letter received at the embassy on Nov. 18, 1963, had been typed, not handwritten like his earlier ones, Dobrynin noted.
Within a week, Kennedy was dead, and so was Oswald --- shot down by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
"One gets the definite impression that the letter was concocted by those who, judging from everything, are involved in the president's assassination," Dobrynin wrote. "It is possible that Oswald himself wrote the letter as it was dictated to him, in return for some promises, and then, as we know, he was simply bumped off after his usefulness had ended."
The memo was contained in more than 80 pages of long-secret Soviet documents that Russian President Boris Yeltsin gave to President Clinton in June when the two were in Germany. The documents offer America a previously unopened window into what top-level Soviet officials were thinking and talking about at the time Kennedy was killed Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas.
"They believed that there was a right-wing conspiracy to kill JFK and as part of the plot, it was made out to look like Oswald was in the employ of the Soviet Union. That idea was dismissed by investigators early on," said John Newman, a University of Maryland history professor who has written books on Kennedy and Oswald.
Also included in the documents is a copy of an emotional cable written by Anastas Mikoyan, a top Soviet envoy who had been sent by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to Kennedy's funeral and a White House reception that followed.
Mikoyan said that Kennedy's widow, Jacqueline, clasped his hand with both her hands and told him, nearly sobbing: "I am sure that Chairman Khrushchev and my husband could have been successful in the search for peace, and they were really striving for that."
Much of the material, however, was about Oswald's stay in the Soviet Union.
Oswald arrived there in October 1959 as a tourist and immediately asked to remain.
"I have lived in a decadent capitalist society where the workers are slaves. I have no desire to go to any other country," Oswald wrote in an appeal for Soviet citizenship. His handwritten letter, dated Oct. 16,1959, was among the documents released.
Because no decision was made on his request before his five-day tourist visa expired, Oswald cut his arm in an apparent suicide attempt, the documents said. He was hospitalized for a week. His attending physician, the records stated, considered Oswald of "sound mind but very strong-willed, and if his request for permission to remain in the USSR were turned down again, he might repeat his suicide attempt."
The documents indicate the Soviets denied him citizenship but let him stay a year as a foreign national because of his persistent requests. He arrived in Minsk in January 1960 --- the same month Kennedy announced he was running for president --- and worked at a local radio factory. He later married a Soviet woman and in 1962, returned with his wife and their baby to the United States.
The following year, just days before Kennedy was assassinated, the Soviet Embassy in Washington received a letter that Oswald allegedly typed in Dallas. In the letter, dated Nov. 9, 1963, he prodded the Soviet officials to get him and his wife visas to return to her homeland and expressed his loyalty to communism.
"The Russians get this letter from Oswald that makes him look like he's affiliated with them in some way, but he's not affiliated with the Russian government," said David Lifton, a Los Angeles-based researcher who has been writing a book on Oswald. "He's a phony Red. Is he a mentally ill person, or is he being choreographed by a handler?"
The documents show a delicate diplomatic dance between the two super powers during the days immediately following the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy 36 years ago. They also reveal that personal letters were exchanged between the U.S. president's widow and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin turned the documents over to U.S. President Bill Clinton during their June meeting in Germany. Copies of the documents, and translations by the U.S. State Department, were released Thursday by the National Archives.
Particularly poignant were descriptions of a White House reception following Kennedy's burial at Arlington National Cemetery.
Soviet diplomat A.I. Mikoyan, who was first deputy chairman of the council of ministers, met Mrs. Kennedy at the reception to express his nation's condolences.
Diplomat's perspective
In a dispatch about the reception to Soviet leaders, Mikoyan wrote: "It struck us that Jacqueline Kennedy, who exchanged only two or three words with the persons introduced to her, looked very calm and even appeared to be smiling.
"However, when we were presented to her, and when we conveyed our heartfelt condolences to her on behalf of Nina Petrovna, N.S. Khrushchev, and Rada and Alyosha Adzhubey ... Jacqueline Kennedy said, with great emotion and nearly sobbing: 'I am sure that Chairman Khrushchev and my husband could have been successful in the search for peace, and that they were really striving for that. Now you must continue this endeavor and bring it to completion.'
"She said all this with inspiration and deep emotion," Mikoyan wrote. "During the entire conversation she clasped my hands with her two hands, trying to convey as convincingly as possible her feelings and thoughts ... Her fortitude is most impressive."
New widow wrote of self-control
A week later, Jacqueline Kennedy wrote a handwritten letter to Khrushchev, the Soviet documents show. Soviet Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin wrote in a telegram to Soviet officials that, "The envelope was slightly glued in one spot. The entire letter was not typed, but written from beginning to end in the handwriting of Jacqueline Kennedy, which is considered here to be a sign of particular respect for the addressee."
In the letter, Mrs. Kennedy thanked Khrushchev for sending Mikoyan to the funeral. But she said that it had been "such a horrible day for me that I do not know if my words were received as I wanted them to be."
So the new widow said she was writing to explain how important her husband had felt Khrushchev was to the peace effort --- and how she hoped those efforts continued.
"The danger troubling my husband was that war could be started not so much by major figures as by minor ones," Mrs. Kennedy wrote. "Whereas major figures understand the need for self-control and restraint, minor ones are sometimes moved rather by fear and pride. If only in the future major figures could still force minor ones to sit down at the negotiating table before they begin to fight!"
Dobrynin concluded his report by suggesting that Khrushchev and his wife reply to Mrs. Kennedy with a personal letter. The ambassador also suggested Mrs. Khrushchev invite Mrs. Kennedy and her children to an unofficial summer vacation on the Black Sea.
Dobrynin said that would "make a very good impression on American public opinion and on U.S. government circles as well. Moreover, it would also be useful to maintain contacts with the Kennedy family."
Moscow feared Oswald would commit suicide
The newly released documents also included a copy of a handwritten letter from Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in which he begged the Supreme Soviet to allow him to become a Soviet citizen.
"I want citizenship because I am a communist and a worker, I have lived in a decadent capitalist society where the workers are slaves," Oswald wrote from the Hotel Berlin in Moscow in 1959.
Oswald was allowed to stay in the Soviet Union and married a Soviet citizen but was never granted citizenship. Soviet authorities deemed Oswald, who tried to kill himself shortly after writing the letter, "of sound mind, but very strong-willed, and if his request for permission to remain in the USSR were turned down again he might repeat his suicide attempt."
Other documents show Soviet concern about U.S. media reports linking Oswald's stay in the Soviet Union with the Kennedy assassination. One statement said that after Oswald's murder, "one can see even more clearly the absurdity and malice of the slanderous fabrications ... trying to establish Oswald's 'connection' with either the Soviet Union or Cuba."
Soviets suspect forgery of one Oswald letter
Days before Kennedy's assassination, the Soviet embassy in Washington received a letter allegedly typed by Oswald in Dallas.
Dated November 9, 1963, he prodded the Soviet officials to get him and his wife visas to return to her homeland and expressed his loyalty to communism.
Soviet authorities privately believed the letter was forged to make it look as if he was working for them, according to the newly released documents. It was typed instead of his usual handwritten notes and the tone was also different from previous letters.
"This letter was clearly a provocation: It gives the impression we had close ties with Oswald and were using him for some purposes of our own," Dobrynin wrote in an internal memo stamped "Highest Priority."
"One gets the definite impression that the letter was concocted by those who, judging from everything, are involved in the president's assassination," Dobrynin wrote.
"It is possible that Oswald himself wrote the letter as it was dictated to him, in return for some promises, and then, as we know, he was simply bumped off after his usefulness had ended."
One Cold War expert said the latest batch of documents released by Moscow was by no means a complete record.
"The one thing to keep in mind is that these documents ... of course are only a slim selection," said Christian Osterman, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Cold War International History Project. "It's very likely that there is further documentation both in the KGB files and other archives."
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