BELARUS: Belarussians muse about Lee Harvey Oswald's time in Minsk, where he lived for two years before being accused of killing President John F. Kennedy

Record ID: 858812

  • Title: BELARUS: Belarussians muse about Lee Harvey Oswald's time in Minsk, where he lived for two years before being accused of killing President John F. Kennedy
  • Date: 21st November 2012
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF PHOTOS OF OSWALD WITH HIS WIFE MARINA
  • Embargoed: 6th December 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belarus
  • City:
  • Country: Belarus
  • Topics: Crime,History
  • Reuters ID: LVAE6YBP1AU0R20KF9DQ2YXK7JG0
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  • Story Text: Almost five decades after U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the image of the accused - Lee Harvey Oswald - looms in the memories of Belarussians in the capital Minsk, where Oswald lived.
    Oswald moved to the Soviet Union in 1959 when he was just 19. By the time he returned to the U.S. in 1962, he had married a woman, Marina, whom he'd met in Minsk, and had a daughter.
    In Belarus, Oswald's apartment, which is currently occupied by a retired Belarussian TV employee, has become an object of curiosity for journalists and researchers.
    The tiny one-room apartment has a view of the river and even a glimpse of the nearby Department of Defence. Edward Sagyndykov, who currently lives in the apartment, has gotten used to reporters stopping by.

    "When I moved in, I didn't know that Oswald had lived here, but when they gave me the keys to this apartment, the landlady told me that Oswald lived here. Well, OK, whatever. I'd heard about this Oswald, I knew that he was accused, that he supposedly took part in a conspiracy against the American president," Sagyndykov told Reuters.
    The retired TV employee says he is convinced that Oswald didn't take part in Kennedy's assassination.

    "Americans themselves need to find out who killed Kennedy. Oswald has nothing to do with it. They just set him up - that's all," Sagyndykov said.
    A number of new books have been published on Oswald's time in the USSR, among them one by a friend of Oswald's, Dr. Ernst Titovets.

    "Oswald Russian Episode", a memoir detailing Titovets' friendship with Oswald in Minsk was published in English in Belarus in 2010.
    The book describes conversations and double-dates before Oswald married his wife Marina, working at a Minsk radio factory, and his friendship with Titovets.
    Titovets, now with a doctorate in biological science, described Oswald as sometimes aggressive.

    "He defended the American army as being better, and I (said) the Soviet army was better, although it was really all the same because I didn't want to serve (in the army). During these clashes you could feel right away what an aggressive person he was. Once we even fell onto the floor (when we were fighting), so that was a more or less real fight, although it was more of a demonstration. But it was always felt that he wasn't showing aggression. He would come to some sort of boundary. He would always try to never in any instance, harm a person," Titovets told Reuters.
    Titovets remains convinced, however, that Oswald was not an assassin.

    "Of course this was prepared and his role was thought out ahead of time. He was a pawn with a very important image in order to convince the American public whose hand played a role in the liquidation of the president," Titovets said.
    Other haunts from Oswald's past in the Soviet Union remain nearly as Oswald left them, including a building that housed a Minsk radio factory, where Oswald worked.
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