The Soviet KGB never recruited the assassin of President John F. Kennedy but thought he was a Western spy and kept him under constant surveillance, a newspaper reported.
Lee Harvey Oswald was kept under watch while he lived in Minsk from 1959 to 1962 and might have been drugged to make him talkative, the newspaper Izvestia said.Oswald, who married a Soviet woman and worked in a Minsk factory, returned to the United States several months before Kennedy's 1963 assassination.
The Warren Commission that investigated the assassination concluded that Oswald acted alone when he shot Kennedy and found no evidence of Soviet involvement.
The commission's findings were never fully accepted, and conspiracy theories have spread like wildfire. The controversy over the assassination recently was reopened by the Oliver Stone film, "JFK."
Oswald arrived in the Soviet Union on Oct. 15, 1959, and asked Soviet authorities for political asylum the following day. After his request was denied, he attempted to commit suicide on Oct. 21 by slashing his wrist, Izvestia reported.
In November of that year, the Soviets agreed to allow Oswald to stay temporarily and ordered him to settle in Minsk where the KGB could more conveniently watch him. Oswald was code-named "nalim," the Russian word for burbot, a cod-like fish.
Izvestia quoted security official in Belarus as saying the KGB kept Oswald under a 24-hour watch, suspecting he was a foreign spy, but never interrogated him directly.
The newspaper interviewed Belarussian KGB chief Eduard Shirkovsky, who said that "perhaps, some pills were put into his glass, the kind of pills to make him relaxed, more talkative."
The KGB probably bugged Oswald's apartment, and its agents offered him secret information and engaged him in anti-Soviet discussions, according to Izvestia. In Minsk, the KGB used a new code name to report on Oswald, "Likhoy" - which both means "the dashing one" in Russian and is an acronym of Oswald's name.
The KGB also interrogated Pavel Golovachev, who worked with Oswald at the Horizon Radio Factory in Minsk, ordering him to supply information on Oswald. It was not clear whether Golovachev agreed, the newspaper said.
Izvestia said Oswald apparently suspected that he was under watch. He and his wife, Marina, warned their neighbors to be careful about talking to them.
In the end, the KGB concluded that Oswald was not a spy.