Meeting Oswald in Minsk - Picture Perfect? Part IV
We’ve covered a lot of territory, especially for a topic intended to be the subject of one post, but questions from family and readers keep enlarging the project. As an historian, I can’t stop myself from reading primary documents - and there are a lot of them.
In writing these posts, I will go back to correct grammar, add the missing word here or there, and correct errors, such as where I typed Ruth Hyde Naman instead of Paine. I won’t correct anything else as I go, as that seems a bit dishonest. This is a family story that has unfolded before my researching eyes, so the posts might be a bit “messy.”
So, let’s look at the pictures Hyde, Naman, and Kramer took and/or discussed in their affidavids, and compare the pictures to their affidavits.
Picture D-209 shows Aunt Marie, Svetlana the In Tourist guide, and Kramar to the left of the car, with Oswald to the far right. In picture D-211, Svetlana and Kramer stand to the left of the car and Oswald to the right. Apparently, both pictures are taken with Aunt Marie’s camera. D-211, taken by Aunt Marie, centers the car and more clearly shows Oswald and his companion. Rita Naman is not in either picture. Both Naman and Marie report that they spoke to Oswald. Marie stated that there was another American with Oswald and said that she had a conversation with both of them, apparently while standing by the car. Naman said that Oswald asked about the car after she came out of a nearby store, but does not describe a conversation like the one noted by Marie. Naman said the photos were taken about 8:30 p.m., but Marie said they were taken around 6 p.m., and Kramer said between 5 and 6 p.m. Kramer said that Naman spoke to one of the Americans about music records, but that she herself did not speak to the Americans. All note that they did not stay in the square for long, so the two- to three- hour difference makes it difficult to understand why Marie is wearing sunglasses. Five or six on a summer evening seems reasonable, but not at 8:30 p.m. And why is Naman not in any of the pictures? Some sources claim that four pictures were taken, but I can’t find the other two in the declassified material. If you have, please let me know.
As any tourist who visited a totalitarian country can tell you, government representatives insisting that tourists immediately go out to see some historical or significant site - one in which he or she may have no interest - is a standard method of throwing visitors off balance; especially ones who are tired, hungry, and frightened; and of providing an opportunity to search their luggage and room, to lift fingerprints, and to bug the room, if it’s not already. So far, so good. Nothing new in all of this. The long drive to the nearby square gave the KGB time to roust out Oswald and a mystery American and put them in the square in order to see if the tourists try to make contact. Again, standard operating procedure. Why, however, allow the tourist to take pictures of an American defector? Also, why the short visit? Usually, the tourist is forced to view all the wonders put before him or her, complete with a detailed historical narrative. This short visit seems designed to get pictures of Oswald with Marie and Kramer, with the car license plate and square as identifiers. Pictures that will not be confiscated by the Russians or the Americans, but will, instead, float about for almost two and a half years until the FBI knocks on the door in 1964. Even then Marie, Naman, and Kramer will not have to appear before any commission or committee to answer important questions about the man with Oswald, how there could be such a wild difference in the time given by the women, and about what happened after they took the pictures and left.
And what about the man wearing a hat, standing on the right side of the car looking disgruntled or upset? He may be the unlucky citizen by passer pulled into the game to listen to the conversation and report to the KGB. He knows that no matter what, this will not be the start of something good for him, or he is KGB.
Of all the very interesting questions raised by looking at these pictures, one of the most interesting is: who is the other American? Was he a defector? What happened to him? Did any investigator ever ask about him? The second is: what happened to exhibit D-210?
