Passport to Assassination: The Never-Before-Told Story of Lee Harvey Oswald by the KGB Colonel Who Knew Him [Hardcover]

Oleg M. Nechiporenko (Author), Todd P. Bludeau (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1993

A former Soviet spy reveals for the first time Oswald's close association with Soviet intelligence just before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and details the Soviet role in the plot to kill the president.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Now that the Soviet spooks are able to speak, there will probably be more books like this one--providing an opportunity to see how foolishly similar the vast secret bureaucracies were on both sides of the Cold War. What Col. Nechiporenko knows about Oswald, however, is not revelatory. He was stationed at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City when Oswald appeared there in 1963 seeking visas to Cuba and Moscow. Nechiporenko recalls Oswald as highly neurotic and agitated; he brandished a pistol and babbled of being persecuted in the U.S. The colonel also had access to all the KGB reports on the odd American during his stay in the Soviet Union, and reveals how Oswald was handled as a hot propaganda potato, but was regarded as too unstable for any kind of espionage work, thus bearing out what Soviet defector Yuri Nosenko told Gerald Posner in Case Closed . On the whole Nechiporenko believes that Oswald was Kennedy's sole assassin, though, somewhat paradoxically, he feels there was a plot, and that Oswald was the planned scapegoat for it; he just acted before the conspirators were ready. There is charm and humor in the book, considerable padding and an intriguing glimpse into how official KGB theorizing works: like something out of Harvard Business School. Photos not seen by PW .
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

A colonel in the KGB at the time of his retirement, the author worked at the Soviet consulate in Mexico City when a man who was supposedly Lee Harvey Oswald visited in September 1963 to complain about his treatment by the FBI and request a visa to return to the USSR, where he had lived previously. Nechiporenko and two other KGB agents questioned the man and gave him forms to fill out but concluded that he was emotionally disturbed. The narrative is sometimes convoluted and hard to follow, but Nechiporenko's tale is still intriguing. He concludes that there was a conspiracy by highly placed Americans to kill Kennedy, that the Soviets and Castro had nothing to do with the assassination, and that Oswald did pull the trigger but that he had been psychologically manipulated into doing it. Suitable for the JFK collections of public and academic libraries. Index and photos not seen.
- Daniel K. Blewett, Loyola Univ. Lib., Chicago
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 338 pages
• Publisher: Birch Lane Pr; 1ST edition (November 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155972210X
• ISBN-13: 978-1559722100
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,448,527 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nobody else can tell this story about Oswald!, May 24, 2000

By 

Betty Stoneking (Sun City West, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Passport to Assassination: The Never-Before-Told Story of Lee Harvey Oswald by the KGB Colonel Who Knew Him (Hardcover)

This fascinating account of Oswald's attempt to go to Cuba can be told by no other writer. Oswald went to Mexico City 7 weeks before the JFK assassination and tried to get a visa to go to Cuba. The Cuban Consulate said they could not issue such a visa on such short notice and suggested he go to the Russia Consulate. He did and had an encounter with Comrade Oleg Nechiporenko that explains Oswald's attempts to manipulate authorities. Oswald tried to solve his feelings of insignificance by coaxing Russian authorities to let him have a visa to go to Russia via Cuba and tried to demonstrate his affiliation with communism. He also pulled a gun and explained that he had to carry it because of persecution by the FBI. Nechiporenko recounts Oswald's manipulations, instability, and desperation in a way that no other person has ever done. This book should be re-issued for the general public to understand Oswald.

1.0 out of 5 stars A Disappointing book for an intriguing subject!, January 4, 2012

By 

Helen E. Faria (Macon, Ga) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Passport to Assassination: The Never-Before-Told Story of Lee Harvey Oswald by the KGB Colonel Who Knew Him (Hardcover)

This is one of the worst non-fiction, history books I have read in years, certainly the worse on Lee Harvey Oswald and the Kennedy assassination. I fully agree with the review of Mr Hilliard of Toronto, Canada. Nechiporenko's book is tedious, dull, and does not reveal anything that we do not already know in the "facts" department.

Usually these books, by former spies, reveal something of interest. This book does not. The first part of his book about "facts" was written to show that the KGB had nothing to do with Lee Harvey Oswald, as they found him unsuitable for KGB intelligence work. The author used boring, bureaucratese narrative to reveal and explain archival documents that exonerate the KGB from having had anything to do with President Kennedy's assassination. From thereafter, Parts 2 and 3 dealing with speculative, conspiracy theories, the book rapidly deteriorates! Col. Oleg Nechiporenko's main source seemed to have been about about right-wing conspiracies: Jim Garrison, the New Orleans prosecutor; Jim Marrs' "Crossfire," "JFK," the movie by Oliver Stone (all of whom he quotes in footnotes, but to his credit, he also read the Warren Commission and was aware of Edward J. Epstein's book, "legend").

As a "loyal"ex-KGB officer, he wrote the book (with the assistance and permission of Russia's Intelligence services), it seems, to squelch any doubts as to the KGB's non-involvement in the Kennedy's assassination, as well as to point fingers elsewhere: A grand conspiracy of the CIA, FBI, anti-Castro-Cubans, the Military-Industrial complex, using Lee H. Oswald as a "patsy"... I don't know if I will be able to finish part 3- and not finishing a book, once I start is extremely rare for me. I usually plow to the bitter end !

If you want to read informative, intriguing, and suspenseful books on this subject, I recommend, 1) "Legend" by Edward J. Epstein (1978), which as written from the "right" side of the political spectrum, and 2) "Oswald's Tale" (1995) by Norman Mailer (from the left side of politics). The book does have illustrations, particularly of its author and an index, but these are worth neither the read nor the price of the book. I am sorry to say!

Written by Dr Miguel A. Faria, author of Cuba in Revolution - Escape from a Lost Paradise (2002)

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Cheap, April 13, 2002

By 

John G. Hilliard (Toronto Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Passport to Assassination: The Never-Before-Told Story of Lee Harvey Oswald by the KGB Colonel Who Knew Him (Hardcover)

I think that when the curtain came down on the good old Soviet Union the author looked around and decided he would make a little money with a book. Unfortunate for him the spy tell all books were coming out of Russia faster then one could count. The author must have then decided well lets milk the JFK assignation market. There are interesting bits about how the KGB worked and what good old Henry did in the USSR, but overall a bit of a dull, less then built up book. The author took a 15 page magazine article and made a 300-page book out of it. If you are interested in this topic go straight to the tour de force of the group - Crossfire by Jim Marrs.