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The Interloper: Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union
Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 remains one of the most horrifying and hotly debated crimes in American history. Just as perplexing as the assassination is the assassin himself; the 24-year-old Oswald's hazy background and motivations -- and his subsequent murder at the hands of Jack Ruby -- make him an intriguing yet frustratingly enigmatic figure. Because Oswald briefly defected to the Soviet Union, some historians allege he was a Soviet agent. But as Peter Savodnik shows in The Interloper, Oswald's time in the U.S.S.R. reveals a stranger, more chilling story. Oswald ventured to Russia at the age of 19, after a failed stint in the U.S. Marine Corps and a childhood spent shuffling from address to address with his unstable, needy mother. Like many of his generation, Oswald struggled for a sense of belonging in postwar American society, which could be materialistic, atomized, and alienating. The Soviet Union, with its promise of collectivism and camaraderie, seemed to offer an alternative. While traveling in Europe, Oswald slipped across the Soviet border, soon settling in Minsk where he worked at a radio and television factory. But Oswald quickly became just as disillusioned with his adopted country as he had been with the United States. He spoke very little Russian, had difficulty adapting to the culture of his new home, and found few trustworthy friends; indeed most, it became clear, were informing on him to the KGB. After nearly three years, Oswald returned to America feeling utterly defeated and more alone than ever -- and as Savodnik shows, he began to look for an outlet for his frustration and rage. Drawing on groundbreaking research, including interviews with Oswald's friends and acquaintances in Russia and the United States, The Interloper brilliantly evokes the shattered psyche not just of Oswald himself, but also of the era he so tragically defined.
290 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
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November 19, 2022
This was such a fascinating read! Peter Savodnik did extensive research, conducted countless interviews by the people who knew him, and presented Oswald's diary entries to deliver a concise narrative on Lee Harvey Oswald. The narrative was a interwoven combination of biography and history lesson: the biography on Oswald and the history lesson to explain the his environment. It explained his childhood, his youth and adolescence, his time in the US Marine Corps, his time inside the Soviet Union, and event leading up the assassination once he returned to America.
Oswald's upbringing, his behaviors, the molding of his personality, the instability from countless moving (on average 10.2 months per living situation), fleeting father figures, and an overbearing/distant mother created a unique psychological profile. Oswald developed a pattern of escapism: the US Marine Corps to escape his troubled adolescence, the Soviet Union to escape the USMC and thrive in his own reality, and eventually back to America. The underlying theme was escaping his own failures; fleeing was a learned behavior he saw as a child. Alienation was a recurring feeling that followed him throughout this life. He even remained somewhat distant and aloof and only developed surface level relationships with people. Even in working in the radio factory in Minsk, Belorussian SSR. He remained the outsider
Savodnik has hypothesized the Antihero effect for Oswald. He was not the existential wanderer looking for meaning; he was the disconnected loner, the rebel, the feelings of estrangement everywhere he went, and cultural dislocation. These external pressures from his older views of America, his out-of-placeness in Russia, and returning to forward-thinking and almost magical Kennedy-era America further drove his sense of alienation and detachment (pgs 209-12). Savodnik's conclusion: Oswald acted alone. He expands on the evil doppelgänger theory and disproved it with forensic conclusions (pgs 202-3).
Overall I really enjoyed this book. The way it was all put together told a complete story and delivered the information clearly. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the Lee Harvey Oswald story. Thanks!
Oswald's upbringing, his behaviors, the molding of his personality, the instability from countless moving (on average 10.2 months per living situation), fleeting father figures, and an overbearing/distant mother created a unique psychological profile. Oswald developed a pattern of escapism: the US Marine Corps to escape his troubled adolescence, the Soviet Union to escape the USMC and thrive in his own reality, and eventually back to America. The underlying theme was escaping his own failures; fleeing was a learned behavior he saw as a child. Alienation was a recurring feeling that followed him throughout this life. He even remained somewhat distant and aloof and only developed surface level relationships with people. Even in working in the radio factory in Minsk, Belorussian SSR. He remained the outsider
The [Second post-]war, the language gap, a persistent cultural and historical disconnect—all these things made it hard for Oswald to build a new life in Minsk, to understand what kind of place he had been parachuted into and how he might fit into it. pg 103He was observed and reported on to the KGB, put up in a fixed village where his apartment was potentially bugged, and never fit in with his coworkers in the factory. This sense of alienation eventually disenchanted Oswald and perpetuated his feelings of failure. Oswald's understanding of Marxism and the revolution of the proletariat was archaic in the Soviet Union of the 1950s and 1960s. Both the KGB and fellow factory workers asked "Why is this American here?". Though a source of interest, he was never recruited by the KGB for subversion or intelligence gathering. Oswald eventually felt it was time to live the Soviet Union just as he left everything else, but now with a wife and daughter.
Savodnik has hypothesized the Antihero effect for Oswald. He was not the existential wanderer looking for meaning; he was the disconnected loner, the rebel, the feelings of estrangement everywhere he went, and cultural dislocation. These external pressures from his older views of America, his out-of-placeness in Russia, and returning to forward-thinking and almost magical Kennedy-era America further drove his sense of alienation and detachment (pgs 209-12). Savodnik's conclusion: Oswald acted alone. He expands on the evil doppelgänger theory and disproved it with forensic conclusions (pgs 202-3).
Overall I really enjoyed this book. The way it was all put together told a complete story and delivered the information clearly. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the Lee Harvey Oswald story. Thanks!
September 27, 2019
11/21/2013 update - : Interview with author on The Atlantic http://www.theatlantic.com/internatio...
Savodnik does something extraordinary in "The Interloper". He removes the conspiracy theories, the sensationalism, and the hearsay, and discusses Lee Harvey Oswald in context of his itinerant and unstable early life, his early predilections of anger and violence, his lacking education / intellectual development, and his fervent desire to go to the USSR to join "The Cause".
Oswald's early life is briefly discussed, with heavy emphasis on family and friends' testimonies from the 1964 Warren Commission after the assassination. Oswald's own diary also provides a look into his conscience from an early age, including his brief stint in the Marines, where he solidified his desire to move/defect to the USSR after decommission.
What we find is a man strong in his convictions (irrational as they are), going so far as to renounce US citizenship, and then be in a diplomatic limbo for months as the Soviet government and the KGB decided what this American was doing in their country. When his Soviet citizenship application is denied, Oswald went so far as attempting suicide in his hotel room, ensuring that he would be admitted to a hospital to lengthen his stay. His antics, by some means, worked, and he was granted resident status (though never citizenship) and shipped off to Minsk, in modern Belarus, where he was given a tenement flat, and a job as a welder/metal worker at a radio factory. By Oswald's estimation, his plan had worked, and it was just a matter of time before his citizenship was granted. What he did not realize (perhaps ever...) was that each person around him, his co-workers, his friends, even his lovers, were largely plants, informing on his every move to the KGB.
One of the things that really struck me - having known so little about this before reading the book - was just how misinformed Oswald was about the USSR at that time. He had grand Bolshevik notions, but this was post-Stalin, and Khrushchev was meeting with President Nixon - although they're dealings can't be described as "friendly", it was slightly warmer than Stalinist USSR. In other words, Oswald was desperately behind the times, about 30-40 years late for his grand Marxist revolution, and instead, he found a Soviet nation that was very different than what he had dreamed.
The impulsive man who so quickly fled to Russia saying that he hated the US, returned only 3 years later (in 1962) - now with a wife and a child. His anger and his disappointment fueled his actions afterward, which included a failed assassination attempt on a General, an attempt to defect to Cuba and join Fidel Castro, and finally, a brief "settling down" period where he took a job at a Book Depository in Dallas - the same building from which he shot JFK in November 1963.
I liked that the book focused specifically on Oswald's time in the USSR, and the brief periods before and after. Focusing on this time period, and looking into Oswald's psyche through his own words, his nature is evident. Only in the epilogue does Savodnik discuss some of the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination, and possible links to Soviet intelligence agencies, etc.
The style is crisp and journalistic with little nuance and conjecture - very readable and enjoyable. I had a hard time putting this down.
Highly recommended.
Savodnik does something extraordinary in "The Interloper". He removes the conspiracy theories, the sensationalism, and the hearsay, and discusses Lee Harvey Oswald in context of his itinerant and unstable early life, his early predilections of anger and violence, his lacking education / intellectual development, and his fervent desire to go to the USSR to join "The Cause".
Oswald's early life is briefly discussed, with heavy emphasis on family and friends' testimonies from the 1964 Warren Commission after the assassination. Oswald's own diary also provides a look into his conscience from an early age, including his brief stint in the Marines, where he solidified his desire to move/defect to the USSR after decommission.
What we find is a man strong in his convictions (irrational as they are), going so far as to renounce US citizenship, and then be in a diplomatic limbo for months as the Soviet government and the KGB decided what this American was doing in their country. When his Soviet citizenship application is denied, Oswald went so far as attempting suicide in his hotel room, ensuring that he would be admitted to a hospital to lengthen his stay. His antics, by some means, worked, and he was granted resident status (though never citizenship) and shipped off to Minsk, in modern Belarus, where he was given a tenement flat, and a job as a welder/metal worker at a radio factory. By Oswald's estimation, his plan had worked, and it was just a matter of time before his citizenship was granted. What he did not realize (perhaps ever...) was that each person around him, his co-workers, his friends, even his lovers, were largely plants, informing on his every move to the KGB.
One of the things that really struck me - having known so little about this before reading the book - was just how misinformed Oswald was about the USSR at that time. He had grand Bolshevik notions, but this was post-Stalin, and Khrushchev was meeting with President Nixon - although they're dealings can't be described as "friendly", it was slightly warmer than Stalinist USSR. In other words, Oswald was desperately behind the times, about 30-40 years late for his grand Marxist revolution, and instead, he found a Soviet nation that was very different than what he had dreamed.
The impulsive man who so quickly fled to Russia saying that he hated the US, returned only 3 years later (in 1962) - now with a wife and a child. His anger and his disappointment fueled his actions afterward, which included a failed assassination attempt on a General, an attempt to defect to Cuba and join Fidel Castro, and finally, a brief "settling down" period where he took a job at a Book Depository in Dallas - the same building from which he shot JFK in November 1963.
I liked that the book focused specifically on Oswald's time in the USSR, and the brief periods before and after. Focusing on this time period, and looking into Oswald's psyche through his own words, his nature is evident. Only in the epilogue does Savodnik discuss some of the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination, and possible links to Soviet intelligence agencies, etc.
The style is crisp and journalistic with little nuance and conjecture - very readable and enjoyable. I had a hard time putting this down.
Highly recommended.
April 13, 2022
A tragic story indeed. Mr. Savodnik paints Oswald as a tragic villain rather than some evil mastermind wanting to bring Soviet domination by shooting JFK. Kind of a slow read, this book brings another side to the already complicated JFK murder story. A good book if you want to read it, but don't go running to the bookstore to get it if you don't want to.
September 8, 2022
Sort of an interesting story.
January 9, 2024
Last November 22nd was the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. John F. Kennedy is someone who has long occupied a rarified position in my own life. I was born 17 years after Kennedy’s assassination, but his legacy has always felt quite present to me. (It probably helped that I was a history nerd who was obsessed with U.S. presidents when I was young.) My position is by no means unique: millions of Americans of all ages have admired John F. Kennedy, both during his lifetime and since his death. Kennedy is a figure who has resonated deeply with my own family history. Both of my parents were raised in Democratic, Catholic households. John F. Kennedy was a revered figure for my grandparents. My Mom’s parents had a framed picture of JFK displayed in their living room.
For my parents, who were born in 1941 and 1945, Kennedy represented hope and promise. My Mom met Kennedy on October 2, 1960. She and a friend ran after JFK’s limo during a motorcade in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and the limo stopped and they shook hands with the Senator, then the Democratic nominee for President. My Dad never met JFK, but he wrote a moving essay about his sadness on November 22, 1963.
This fall, I was reading an article about the new book by former Secret Service agent Paul Landis, who was part of President Kennedy’s security detail that fateful day in Dallas. In the article, Landis claimed that he stayed up until 5AM the night before the motorcade, but he wasn’t drunk. That seems unlikely to me, and it begs the follow up question, “So, does that mean you were high on cocaine, or were you with a woman?” Those would seem to me to be the 3 most likely reasons you’re still up at 5AM. But I digress. Reading that article didn’t make me want to read Landis’ book, but I decided I needed to read more about Lee Harvey Oswald. I pulled out my copy of Peter Savodnik’s 2012 book The Interloper: Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union.
Lee Harvey Oswald defected to the Soviet Union in October of 1959 and subsequently returned to the United States in June of 1962. Conspiracy theorists have made much of Oswald’s defection and return to the US, putting forth theories that he was programmed by the KGB to assassinate Kennedy, or that he was a CIA agent pretending to be programmed by the KGB. Savodnik easily dismisses much of the conspiracy theories, writing “perhaps the most compelling argument against the claim that Oswald was recruited by an intelligence agency so that he might wreak havoc in the United States is Oswald himself...he could hardly have been counted on to do or finish anything. That a professional, clandestine organization would rely on Oswald to pull off what would have been one of the most dangerous operations ever—the assassination of an American president—is absurd.” (p.33) Exactly.
Savodnik focuses his book on Oswald’s time in the Soviet Union, which is usually overlooked by historians. Oswald managed to stay in the Soviet Union because he attempted suicide when his request for Soviet citizenship was turned down. The KGB then made Oswald wait while they decided what to do with him. When Oswald still wanted to defect, they grudgingly let him in. The KGB had quickly ascertained that Oswald, despite his service in the US Marine Corps, had little to no intelligence value to them. Nevertheless, the KGB kept him under strict surveillance during his entire time in the Soviet Union.
Oswald was a Marxist who fully expected the Soviet Union to be the glorious worker’s paradise that Vladimir Lenin had promised. As Savodnik writes, “He was unknowingly wading into a country that was not the place he expected it to be. He was an outsider still, but he did not know it.” (p.54) Oswald was shocked that the glorious worker’s revolution had been corrupted by Stalin, and he was disheartened by what he found in the Soviet Union. The Soviet government sent Oswald to Minsk, far away from the corridors of power, and where they thought he wouldn’t cause much trouble. Oswald was given a job at an electronics factory, and duly installed in an apartment.
Savodnik tracked down Russians who knew Oswald, and what their impressions were of him. Many of Oswald’s co-workers and acquaintances were helpfully keeping the KGB informed about Oswald’s thoughts and habits. Oswald soon tired of life in Minsk in his bugged apartment, and by late 1961 he was actively attempting to return to the United States.
Savodnik reminds the reader that Lee Harvey Oswald was a man who was searching for somewhere he belonged. This was a man who had moved almost every year of his life, a man who dropped out of high school in order to enlist in the Marines. When Oswald didn’t find a home in the Marines, he defected to the Soviet Union. When he didn’t find a home in the Soviet Union, he returned to the United States. With each jarring move of his young life, Oswald’s disaffection and alienation increased.
By the time Oswald returned to the US in June of 1962, he had a Russian wife, Marina, and a daughter, June. Oswald’s wandering ways continued: from June of 1962 to November of 1963, he lived at 9 different addresses. “He was unable, as always, to build a life anywhere...It did not matter whether he was living in a Marine Corps barracks in Japan, an apartment in Minsk, or a boarding house in Dallas. The problem was Oswald.” (p.190)
Eventually Oswald’s fury at his thwarted destiny exploded in violence. In April of 1963, Oswald attempted to assassinate General Edwin Walker, who had become a darling of the far right because of his attempts to indoctrinate his troops against communism. (Walker subsequently resigned his Army commission in 1961, becoming the only US general to resign in the 20th century.) Oswald fired one bullet at Walker, who was sitting at his dining room table. The bullet hit the window frame, and Walker suffered only minor injuries on his arm. The crime remained unsolved until after Kennedy’s assassination.
Chance and circumstance led Lee Harvey Oswald to apply for a job at the Texas School Book Depository. Oswald was hired in mid-October 1963. In the days before Kennedy’s trip to Texas, the route of his motorcade was published in several newspapers. The motorcade would pass through Dealey Plaza, which the Texas School Book Depository building overlooked. Chance and circumstance gave Lee Harvey Oswald the opportunity to assassinate the President.
Could Oswald have even explained why he did it? I doubt it, and because it was such a senseless crime, of course no sense could be made of Oswald’s motive, whatever it might have been. Randomness scares people. That’s why conspiracies are appealing. If you believe in a conspiracy, then JFK’s death makes sense—it’s because Kennedy was going to withdraw troops from Vietnam, it’s because of Cuba, it’s because Kennedy wanted peace with the Russians, or whatever you might believe. We don’t want to think that John F. Kennedy died simply because a 24-year-old disaffected loner happened to be working at a building that happened to overlook the motorcade route. But I think that’s the more likely answer, rather than shadowy conspiracy theories.
For my parents, who were born in 1941 and 1945, Kennedy represented hope and promise. My Mom met Kennedy on October 2, 1960. She and a friend ran after JFK’s limo during a motorcade in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and the limo stopped and they shook hands with the Senator, then the Democratic nominee for President. My Dad never met JFK, but he wrote a moving essay about his sadness on November 22, 1963.
This fall, I was reading an article about the new book by former Secret Service agent Paul Landis, who was part of President Kennedy’s security detail that fateful day in Dallas. In the article, Landis claimed that he stayed up until 5AM the night before the motorcade, but he wasn’t drunk. That seems unlikely to me, and it begs the follow up question, “So, does that mean you were high on cocaine, or were you with a woman?” Those would seem to me to be the 3 most likely reasons you’re still up at 5AM. But I digress. Reading that article didn’t make me want to read Landis’ book, but I decided I needed to read more about Lee Harvey Oswald. I pulled out my copy of Peter Savodnik’s 2012 book The Interloper: Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union.
Lee Harvey Oswald defected to the Soviet Union in October of 1959 and subsequently returned to the United States in June of 1962. Conspiracy theorists have made much of Oswald’s defection and return to the US, putting forth theories that he was programmed by the KGB to assassinate Kennedy, or that he was a CIA agent pretending to be programmed by the KGB. Savodnik easily dismisses much of the conspiracy theories, writing “perhaps the most compelling argument against the claim that Oswald was recruited by an intelligence agency so that he might wreak havoc in the United States is Oswald himself...he could hardly have been counted on to do or finish anything. That a professional, clandestine organization would rely on Oswald to pull off what would have been one of the most dangerous operations ever—the assassination of an American president—is absurd.” (p.33) Exactly.
Savodnik focuses his book on Oswald’s time in the Soviet Union, which is usually overlooked by historians. Oswald managed to stay in the Soviet Union because he attempted suicide when his request for Soviet citizenship was turned down. The KGB then made Oswald wait while they decided what to do with him. When Oswald still wanted to defect, they grudgingly let him in. The KGB had quickly ascertained that Oswald, despite his service in the US Marine Corps, had little to no intelligence value to them. Nevertheless, the KGB kept him under strict surveillance during his entire time in the Soviet Union.
Oswald was a Marxist who fully expected the Soviet Union to be the glorious worker’s paradise that Vladimir Lenin had promised. As Savodnik writes, “He was unknowingly wading into a country that was not the place he expected it to be. He was an outsider still, but he did not know it.” (p.54) Oswald was shocked that the glorious worker’s revolution had been corrupted by Stalin, and he was disheartened by what he found in the Soviet Union. The Soviet government sent Oswald to Minsk, far away from the corridors of power, and where they thought he wouldn’t cause much trouble. Oswald was given a job at an electronics factory, and duly installed in an apartment.
Savodnik tracked down Russians who knew Oswald, and what their impressions were of him. Many of Oswald’s co-workers and acquaintances were helpfully keeping the KGB informed about Oswald’s thoughts and habits. Oswald soon tired of life in Minsk in his bugged apartment, and by late 1961 he was actively attempting to return to the United States.
Savodnik reminds the reader that Lee Harvey Oswald was a man who was searching for somewhere he belonged. This was a man who had moved almost every year of his life, a man who dropped out of high school in order to enlist in the Marines. When Oswald didn’t find a home in the Marines, he defected to the Soviet Union. When he didn’t find a home in the Soviet Union, he returned to the United States. With each jarring move of his young life, Oswald’s disaffection and alienation increased.
By the time Oswald returned to the US in June of 1962, he had a Russian wife, Marina, and a daughter, June. Oswald’s wandering ways continued: from June of 1962 to November of 1963, he lived at 9 different addresses. “He was unable, as always, to build a life anywhere...It did not matter whether he was living in a Marine Corps barracks in Japan, an apartment in Minsk, or a boarding house in Dallas. The problem was Oswald.” (p.190)
Eventually Oswald’s fury at his thwarted destiny exploded in violence. In April of 1963, Oswald attempted to assassinate General Edwin Walker, who had become a darling of the far right because of his attempts to indoctrinate his troops against communism. (Walker subsequently resigned his Army commission in 1961, becoming the only US general to resign in the 20th century.) Oswald fired one bullet at Walker, who was sitting at his dining room table. The bullet hit the window frame, and Walker suffered only minor injuries on his arm. The crime remained unsolved until after Kennedy’s assassination.
Chance and circumstance led Lee Harvey Oswald to apply for a job at the Texas School Book Depository. Oswald was hired in mid-October 1963. In the days before Kennedy’s trip to Texas, the route of his motorcade was published in several newspapers. The motorcade would pass through Dealey Plaza, which the Texas School Book Depository building overlooked. Chance and circumstance gave Lee Harvey Oswald the opportunity to assassinate the President.
Could Oswald have even explained why he did it? I doubt it, and because it was such a senseless crime, of course no sense could be made of Oswald’s motive, whatever it might have been. Randomness scares people. That’s why conspiracies are appealing. If you believe in a conspiracy, then JFK’s death makes sense—it’s because Kennedy was going to withdraw troops from Vietnam, it’s because of Cuba, it’s because Kennedy wanted peace with the Russians, or whatever you might believe. We don’t want to think that John F. Kennedy died simply because a 24-year-old disaffected loner happened to be working at a building that happened to overlook the motorcade route. But I think that’s the more likely answer, rather than shadowy conspiracy theories.
March 26, 2014
What Peter Savodnik presents about Oswald in the Soviet Union is good, but, unfortunately, there not much of it. If you eliminate the intro part on his childhood and early youth, the author's ruminations on the assassination and the white pages between chapters of this 219 page book, we're down to 170 or so pages. Other chapters are like, but not as extreme as, the Epilogue which starts off on the subject (the KGB silencing the people of Minsk) but meanders into the Kennedy mystique and the author's view of the assassination, reducing its 14 pages to 2 or 3.
It isn't that resources are not available. Savodnik interviewed Ella German, perhaps the love of Oswald's life, and perhaps 2 pages are tied to that interview. Similarly an interview with Ernst Titovets yielded very little. Savodnik's uses his access to Oswald's writing and this enhances the book, but, given the dearth from other sources, you can't help but think there has to be more.
Pricilla McMillan's Marina and Lee provides as much and maybe more background on Minsk as Oswald experienced it (and her book is not about Russia, it's about the couple) suggesting there is a lot more to be known.
There are no photos. It seems a picture of Minsk, the factory where Oswald worked or even an exterior shot of his apartment should not be too difficult to obtain.
At the end, Savidnik concludes that Oswald alone killed Kennedy. The book shows him as a loner and shows how the KGB kept its distance, but nothing about this proves him to be acting alone.
While the book is easily readable, the sparse content makes it a disappointment.
It isn't that resources are not available. Savodnik interviewed Ella German, perhaps the love of Oswald's life, and perhaps 2 pages are tied to that interview. Similarly an interview with Ernst Titovets yielded very little. Savodnik's uses his access to Oswald's writing and this enhances the book, but, given the dearth from other sources, you can't help but think there has to be more.
Pricilla McMillan's Marina and Lee provides as much and maybe more background on Minsk as Oswald experienced it (and her book is not about Russia, it's about the couple) suggesting there is a lot more to be known.
There are no photos. It seems a picture of Minsk, the factory where Oswald worked or even an exterior shot of his apartment should not be too difficult to obtain.
At the end, Savidnik concludes that Oswald alone killed Kennedy. The book shows him as a loner and shows how the KGB kept its distance, but nothing about this proves him to be acting alone.
While the book is easily readable, the sparse content makes it a disappointment.
January 10, 2014
This book was written like a college research paper. While the author did discuss how Lee Harvey Oswald ended up in the USSR, he also went into how Lee "felt" and what Lee "thought." Since this author never met LH Oswald, I find it difficult to give credibility to any of the subjective information in this book. He did reference the Warren Commission extensively, but this is a poor reference to use since conspiracy theorists would suggest the Warren Commission Report was just another way to hide the truth behind Kennedy's assassination. This book did not provide sufficient evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy and it was a boring read all together.
June 30, 2014
Fascinating account of JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's stay in the Soviet Union in the early '60s. His initial request for asylum denied, he made a half hearted attempt at suicide to convince the Russians to let him stay. As there seemed to be the chance of a slight thaw in the relations between the USSR and the US, and fearing the possible negative press resulting from his taking his life, his plea was granted. Rather than being allowed to stay in Moscow or St. Petersburg, he was sent to Minsk in Belarus. Minsk had suffered catastrophic damage from the Nazis in WW2, and was still somewhat of a backwater. He was given an apartment in a desirable location, lodgings that would otherwise go to party officials or other connected persons. The flat overlooked a park and a nearby river, and was selected for the ease of observing him. In fact, he was always watched - at work, at area restaurants and stores, even while walking to and from work. His coworkers at an appliance factory knew they had to report any conversation they had with him. After meeting and marrying his wife Marina. he came to realize that the USSR was not the socialist paradise his tortured imagination dreamed of it's being before his stay there. After pleading to be given exit papers for some time, he was finally permitted to leave. As author Savodnik's research revealed, they never wanted him there. Additionally, Savodnik found no sign that he had been groomed by the KGB to assassinate Kennedy. One official he interviewed commented that he and his KGB comrades felt be was mentally ill, and laughed at the thought of selecting such an individual to act on behalf of the Soviet Union.
I would recommend this book for anyone who numbers themselves as being fascinated by one of the most tragic incidents of 20th century US history. Thoroughly researched and footnoted, it's fully worth reading.
I would recommend this book for anyone who numbers themselves as being fascinated by one of the most tragic incidents of 20th century US history. Thoroughly researched and footnoted, it's fully worth reading.
January 9, 2014
Finally an author chooses to do some real research and write a thoughtful, entertaining, and ultimately convincing book about JFK's assassin. After 50 years of conspiracy theories, sensationalism, and American myth making, Savodnik gives us a real biography of Oswald by diving deep into his personal history--his transient childhood, his failed stint in the marines, and most importantly, his time in Russia. Contrary to what many JFK "experts" would like you to believe, Oswald's life did not start in the book depository or even in Minsk. He has a long, tortured personal narrative that gives more than a plausible motive for becoming the world's most famous killer.
The story is riveting, not just for the revelation of new facts about Oswald's life, but also because Savodnik is simply a terrific writer. His research is detailed but he does not bog down in the mundane in order to bolster his credibility. He is more interested in telling the story, and the book is a real page-turner. This book makes Norman Mailer's Oswald bio seem like a drunk's fever dream--all waving arms and red faced, but ultimately just fiction. Savodnik's book is the real deal.
The story is riveting, not just for the revelation of new facts about Oswald's life, but also because Savodnik is simply a terrific writer. His research is detailed but he does not bog down in the mundane in order to bolster his credibility. He is more interested in telling the story, and the book is a real page-turner. This book makes Norman Mailer's Oswald bio seem like a drunk's fever dream--all waving arms and red faced, but ultimately just fiction. Savodnik's book is the real deal.
November 28, 2013
Simply an excellent overview of what drove Lee Harvey Oswald to kill Jack Kennedy. Savodnik paints a picture of an Oswald growing in alienation, and in sense of failure, his final months in Minsk. He had left his family and his country only to find, not revolutionary textbook, by-the-numbers Marxism, but Krushchev's "thaw." He eventually realized that he was being watched by the KGB, and probably realized he was in a bit of a Potemkin village, while also realizing his factory coworkers weren't revolutionary vanguards. (One wonders what would have happened if Oswald had gotten his discharge from the Corps, then gone to Beijing instead of Moscow.) He eventually decides to come back to the US, which only increased his sense of failure. Seeing how much America seemed to have changed under Kennedy only increased his sense of alienation.
February 16, 2014
Very in depth book on Oswald's time in Russia. It is really nice to read a book on someone involved in the JFK assassination that does not speculate to who helped Oswald. Who was Oswald working for as an agent ect ect. The author writes a tight story and gets into a lot of things never before discussed. Reading this book you get the point that Oswald was nothing but a failure in all he did and was just another low life nothing.
June 26, 2024
I have read a lot of books about the Cold War and the JFK Assassination recently. The more I read the more I come to the understanding about how little I knew about who Lee Harvey Oswald was as a person. It is a well-known fact that he spent time in the Marine Corps and also spent time in the Soviet Union, but how much do we really know about how these experiences influenced him?
This book explains this in fine detail. It is really impressive on how much information Peter Savodnik was able to pull together for this work. He was able to interview people who knew him in Russia, obtain access to important documents, and really chart his activities in the Soviet Union like nobody else has, except perhaps, the KGB.
What this also exposes, within me, is how radical the transformation inside the Soviet Union was between Stalin and Khruschev administrations. I can completely understand how Oswald the Radical had problems coping. Life must have been completely frustrating for him - including his love interests.
This was an eye opening book that I can't praise enough. What is even more praiseworthy is that he does not discuss the assassination hardly at all. This book is not focused on what happened on Nov. 22, 1963 - it's about the stuff that led to that. He skirts around the subject, chosing instead to mention it vaguely while bringing the narrative back to its main focus.
I also appreciate that he tries his best to debunk conspiracy theories as the evidence is brought to light and in the constraints of the narrative. It is very much an evidence-based book and doesn't come at you with an agenda. That actually made for a refreshing read.
I highly rate this book
This book explains this in fine detail. It is really impressive on how much information Peter Savodnik was able to pull together for this work. He was able to interview people who knew him in Russia, obtain access to important documents, and really chart his activities in the Soviet Union like nobody else has, except perhaps, the KGB.
What this also exposes, within me, is how radical the transformation inside the Soviet Union was between Stalin and Khruschev administrations. I can completely understand how Oswald the Radical had problems coping. Life must have been completely frustrating for him - including his love interests.
This was an eye opening book that I can't praise enough. What is even more praiseworthy is that he does not discuss the assassination hardly at all. This book is not focused on what happened on Nov. 22, 1963 - it's about the stuff that led to that. He skirts around the subject, chosing instead to mention it vaguely while bringing the narrative back to its main focus.
I also appreciate that he tries his best to debunk conspiracy theories as the evidence is brought to light and in the constraints of the narrative. It is very much an evidence-based book and doesn't come at you with an agenda. That actually made for a refreshing read.
I highly rate this book
June 11, 2018
Maybe I'd give this three-and-a-half.
If Oswald had never shot JFK, no one would write a book about him. "The Interloper" feels like something that, at 200 pages, feels a bit too long. If this were a long piece in the New Yorker, that focused on Oswald's time in the USSR, that would be right.
Basically, Oswald went to the USSR looking for a Not-America. He had no real knowledge of either the USSR or Russia. His interactions with Soviet citizens are interesting. Savodnik thinks Oswald failed because he arrived during "the Thaw," but I feel Oswald would have failed to become Soviet at any time. (Perhaps if Savodnik had compared Oswald to the handful of other Americans who moved to the USSR at this time, the book might have been stronger.)
Interesting, but it feels padded.
If Oswald had never shot JFK, no one would write a book about him. "The Interloper" feels like something that, at 200 pages, feels a bit too long. If this were a long piece in the New Yorker, that focused on Oswald's time in the USSR, that would be right.
Basically, Oswald went to the USSR looking for a Not-America. He had no real knowledge of either the USSR or Russia. His interactions with Soviet citizens are interesting. Savodnik thinks Oswald failed because he arrived during "the Thaw," but I feel Oswald would have failed to become Soviet at any time. (Perhaps if Savodnik had compared Oswald to the handful of other Americans who moved to the USSR at this time, the book might have been stronger.)
Interesting, but it feels padded.
October 25, 2020
If you have prior knowledge of Oswald's life and the Kennedy assassination, this book will fall nicely into place as one of the many pieces in the jigsaw puzzle that was Lee Harvey Oswald. If you have only a rudimentary knowledge on the aforementioned areas, you will probably not be able to contextualize this book in a meaningful way. It's well written and paints a vivid portrait of Oswald and his comings and going in the USSR. Nothing particularly new here (at least to JFK conspiracy theory readers), but it weaves Oswald's Soviet saga into a coherent narrative, which is enough for me.
January 20, 2024
The thing that this book really drove home for me was just how young Oswald was. I mean he really didn't live much past being a college kid which really does put things in a different perspective especially when it comes to some of his decisions. In terms of content there were a few errors with dates which I would chalk up more to typos than anything else. Overall though I think it did a fairly good job of covering an often overlooked part of the whole Oswald saga.
May 20, 2017
2.5, a very interesting recount of LHOs time in The USSR, but wrapped in deep and sweeping. Usually unsupported assumption, which go on to draw important conclusions including that he acted alone in killing JFK. I disagree with much of what the author asserted but nonetheless it was a very interesting opinion and a well researched catalogue of his life in Russia.
January 31, 2021
Please don't bother with this book. It is boring and plodding and ineffective at proving its point that the question should not be "Who Killed JFK? but rather, Why did Lee Harvey Oswald kill JFK?" I think reading the Warren Commission report would not only be more informative but a better read as well.
June 4, 2017
Focuses on what Lee Harvey Oswald did in Russia
October 8, 2022
Impressive research. An interesting and easy read.
May 15, 2024
I loved this detailed analysis of Oswald's activities within the Soviet Union. This was a well written and engaging analysis for the argument that Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy.
Read
September 25, 2014The Interloper: Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union, by Peter Savodnik, Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki, Produced by Blackstone Audio, downloaded from audible.com.
Publisher’s note says it as well as I could:
Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 remains one of the most horrifying and hotly debated crimes in American history. Just as
perplexing as the assassination is the assassin himself; the twenty-four-year-old Oswald's hazy background and motivations - and his subsequent murder
at the hands of Jack Ruby - make him an intriguing yet frustratingly enigmatic figure. Because Oswald briefly defected to the Soviet Union, some historians
allege he was a Soviet agent. But as Peter Savodnik shows in, The Interloper, Oswald's time in the USSR reveals a stranger, more chilling story.Oswald
ventured to Russia at the age of nineteen, after a failed stint in the US Marine Corps and a childhood spent shuffling from address to address with his
unstable, needy mother. Like many of his generation, Oswald struggled for a sense of belonging in postwar American society, which could be materialistic,
atomized, and alienating. The Soviet Union, with its promise of collectivism and camaraderie, seemed to offer an alternative. While traveling in Europe,
Oswald slipped across the Soviet border, soon settling in Minsk, where he worked at a radio and television factory. But Oswald quickly became just as disillusioned
with his adopted country as he had been with the United States. He spoke very little Russian, had difficulty adapting to the culture of his new home, and
found few trustworthy friends - indeed most, it became clear, were informing on him to the KGB. After nearly three years, Oswald returned to America feeling
utterly defeated and more alone than ever, and as Savodnik shows, he began to look for an outlet for his frustration and rage. Drawing on groundbreaking
research, including interviews with Oswald's friends and acquaintances in Russia and the United States, The Interloper brilliantly evokes the shattered
psyche not just of Oswald himself but also of the era he so tragically defined.
Publisher’s note says it as well as I could:
Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 remains one of the most horrifying and hotly debated crimes in American history. Just as
perplexing as the assassination is the assassin himself; the twenty-four-year-old Oswald's hazy background and motivations - and his subsequent murder
at the hands of Jack Ruby - make him an intriguing yet frustratingly enigmatic figure. Because Oswald briefly defected to the Soviet Union, some historians
allege he was a Soviet agent. But as Peter Savodnik shows in, The Interloper, Oswald's time in the USSR reveals a stranger, more chilling story.Oswald
ventured to Russia at the age of nineteen, after a failed stint in the US Marine Corps and a childhood spent shuffling from address to address with his
unstable, needy mother. Like many of his generation, Oswald struggled for a sense of belonging in postwar American society, which could be materialistic,
atomized, and alienating. The Soviet Union, with its promise of collectivism and camaraderie, seemed to offer an alternative. While traveling in Europe,
Oswald slipped across the Soviet border, soon settling in Minsk, where he worked at a radio and television factory. But Oswald quickly became just as disillusioned
with his adopted country as he had been with the United States. He spoke very little Russian, had difficulty adapting to the culture of his new home, and
found few trustworthy friends - indeed most, it became clear, were informing on him to the KGB. After nearly three years, Oswald returned to America feeling
utterly defeated and more alone than ever, and as Savodnik shows, he began to look for an outlet for his frustration and rage. Drawing on groundbreaking
research, including interviews with Oswald's friends and acquaintances in Russia and the United States, The Interloper brilliantly evokes the shattered
psyche not just of Oswald himself but also of the era he so tragically defined.
June 28, 2023
Savodnik asks and addresses compelling and ignored questions of the Kennedy Assassination. The book doesn’t care about conspiracy theories and from the very beginning the author states his view that Oswald was working alone. Instead of beating that dead horse, he wants to unpack why Oswald killed Kennedy and what societal forces shaped someone like Oswald? With these guiding questions, Savodnik examines Oswald’s life - as the title suggests - as an Interloper, who traveled across the globe trying to find a place where he fit in. Through an array of personal interviews, Oswald’s diary, and transcripts from the Warren commission interviews, Savodnik aims to answer questions that the US, with its current problem of displaced and disgruntled white men who go on shooting rampages, should be striving not only to answer, but also to stop.
It’s not a bad book, but it’s not great. He makes some solid points in the conclusion about what Oswald’s time in the Soviet Union signified. But I think where other reviews I read find fault in the writer, there is actually just a lack of depth in Oswald’s story. Too much expectation exists around the idea of a large piece of vital information about the psyche of this man, that will rise to meet the level of devastation that his actions bought to the U.S., but that is simply not the case. The important lessons to learn from Oswald are so mundane they have been ignored, but we would be wise to learn from the banality and what it says about the larger moment in America from which it sprung, which we as a country have continued to ignore for 50 years. This points to a larger issue in the country which is that a majority of folks tend to write off those experiences to which they cannot directly relate.
It’s not a bad book, but it’s not great. He makes some solid points in the conclusion about what Oswald’s time in the Soviet Union signified. But I think where other reviews I read find fault in the writer, there is actually just a lack of depth in Oswald’s story. Too much expectation exists around the idea of a large piece of vital information about the psyche of this man, that will rise to meet the level of devastation that his actions bought to the U.S., but that is simply not the case. The important lessons to learn from Oswald are so mundane they have been ignored, but we would be wise to learn from the banality and what it says about the larger moment in America from which it sprung, which we as a country have continued to ignore for 50 years. This points to a larger issue in the country which is that a majority of folks tend to write off those experiences to which they cannot directly relate.
August 31, 2014
This book is an excellent read and a telling portrait of Lee Harvey Oswald in the years leading to the assassination. Often viewed in a sadistic and shadowy light, little has been written about Oswald as a human being...what were his thoughts, what made him tick? As the author says in his interview that has been linked below, the psychology of Oswald in the years leading to the assassination is telling. In this book you will find the rationale behind Oswald's "interloping", his desire to find a sense of place that constantly eludes him. As time goes on and failures mount, his predilection for violence, his sense of unimportance, his dearth of education, his strong but misguided convictions, simmer to an uncontrollable boil. Anyone interested in the assassination or Cold War politics will enjoy this book.
January 16, 2017
Though Savodnik provides a good working timeline of Oswalds movements in the Soviet Union, his criticism of the would be assassin gets in the way of providing the reader any personal opinions or insight into Oswald's intelligence and knowledge of government systems. I enjoyed the read for adding to my understanding of his mentality in the years before 1963 in the infancy of his American rebellion, but would have appreciated fewer scoffs on the authors part at exactly what Oswald's intentions were. I did, however, appreciate that Savodnik used quotes from LHO's personal journals without feeling the need to correct grammar and spelling, which to me lends a greater view of his state of mind in the Soviet Union. I would recommend for any novice JFK researcher to close the loop on Oswald's life between the Marine Corp and the sixth floor on 11/23/63.
January 2, 2017
Interloper covers the same territory of many conspiracy theory books of searching for who killed Kennedy but the difference is it starts from the premise that Lee Harvey Oswald did and then digs into the beliefs and events that made the man to determine who killed Kennedy. The dissullusioned perpetual traveler who had fought for his country but then left to seek meaning in the belly of the enemy just to be thrust further into the abyss.
August 29, 2015
A good crisp read. One that won't satisfy everyone and especially not those who believe in any of the conspiracy theories concerning Kennedy's death. The final chapter is very good, giving the author's theory that Oswald was hyper-alienated from community in a peculiarly American way, always convinced that his individual reality and vision must be correct.
November 13, 2013
Pretty interesting, but I am pretty interested in crazy people and communist Russia.
January 7, 2014
Author makes many unexplained conclusions, this is a topic of contested opinions, no matter what your view speaking about this subject as if you are omniscient of all the factors is foolhardy.
May 28, 2015
Too short, but that may be a problem with the source material. If only Ella German had said yes to Lee's marriage proposal.
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