JFK Page #20

BILL:

Maybe there's more to this, Susie.

The CIA's keeping something from our

enemies.

SUSIE:

Yes, but we're talking about a dead

warehouse employee of no political

significance. Three years later and

he's still classified? They gave us

his grammar school records, a study

of his pubic hairs... Put it in

context, Bill, of what we know about

Oswald. Lonely kid, no father,

unstable childhood, high school

dropout - wants to grow up and be a

spy, joins the Marines at 17. He

learns Russian, he acts overtly

Marxist with two other marines, but

he's stationed at a top secret base

in Japan where U2 spy flights over

Russia originate. He's discharged

from the Marines supposedly because

his mother's sick. He stays home 3

days, then with a $1500 ticket from

a $203 bank account, he goes to

Moscow...

FLASHBACK TO Moscow in 1959. We see shots of the city -

strange and eerie black-and-white stills. Inside the U.S.

Embassy Oswald slaps his passport on the table with a formal

letter. Two consuls attend him.

OSWALD:

(voice stilted)

I want to renounce my citizenship

and become a Soviet citizen. I'm

going to make known to them all

information I have concerning the

Marine Corps and my specialty therein,

radar operation...

SUSIE (V.O.)

One of the consuls, John McVickar,

says Oswald's performance was not

spontaneous - it seemed coached.

Oswald gives an interview to a

journalist.

Continuing the Moscow flashback, we see Oswald talking with

a female journalist in his small room in the Hotel Metropole.

Again he sounds robotic.

OSWALD:

I will never return to the United

States for any reason. It is a

capitalist country, an exploitive,

racist country. I am a Marxist since

I was 15. I've seen poor n*ggers

and that was a real lesson. People

hate because they're told to hate,

like school kids. It's the fashion

to hate people in the U.S.

SUSIE (V.O.)

The Russians are skeptical - want to

send him back. Maybe they suspect

he's a spy. He supposedly slashes

his wrists in a suicide attempt so

that they're forced to keep him, and

he disappears for six weeks,

presumably with the KGB.

We see photos of the city of Minks, in Russia, Oswald with

various friends and tourists, shots of Lee and Marina with a

new baby.

SUSIE:

Finally they shuttle him to a radio

factory in Minks where he lives as

high on the hog as he ever has -

he's given 5,000 rubles, a roomy

apartment with a balcony, has affairs

with local girls.

JIM:

Makes sense - he's a spokesman.

SUSIE:

But he never writes, speaks, or does

any propaganda for the Russians. He

meets Marina, whose uncle is a colonel

in Soviet intelligence, at a trade

union dance; she thinks he's Russian

the way he speaks, six weeks later

they marry, have a daughter.

NUMA:

Didn't someone say he didn't speak

good Russian?

JIM:

It's a contradiction, Numa, get used

to them. The only explanation for

the royal treatment is he did give

them radar secrets. Or fake secrets.

We see documentary shots of the U2 on Russian soil... Francis

Gary Powers... The Summit Conference canceled... Eisenhower

and Khrushchev.

SUSIE (V.O.)

I don't know if it's coincidence,

but Oswald had a top security

clearance and knew about the U2

program from his days at Atsugi Air

Base in Japan. Six months after he

arrives in Russia, Francis Gary

Powers' U2 spy flight goes down in

Russia. That plane was untouchable.

Powers hinted that Oswald could've

given the Russians enough data to

hit it. As a direct result, the

peace summit between Khrushchev and

Eisenhower failed. I can't help

thinking of that book Seven Days In

May, maybe someone in our military

didn't want the Peace Conference to

happen, maybe Oswald was part of

that. It gets weirder.

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