Peter Wronksi did some research on the Oswalds, back in the early nineties. The Canadian with Russian ancestors was the first Westerner ever to interview Russians who knew Lee Harvey Oswald during his stay in Moscow and Minsk, from 1959 to 1962. In November 1991 he met Valya Prusakova and Ilya Prusakov, Marina Oswald’s aunt and uncle. Marina lived with them in Minsk, before she married Lee. Wronski came just in time: Ilya Prusakov, a former colonel in the MVD (Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs), died during the winter of 1991-92.

Valya and Ilya showed Wronski some letters Marina wrote to them after the journey to the US. The letters remained unseen and untouched until 1991 and the significance is obvious. Some of Marina’s statements, recollections, and testimonies after the assassination, can be tested against what she wrote her aunt and uncle in the eighteen months before the murder.

The letters are translated by Peter Wronski. On this website I only publish the first one, the only one related to the journey from the Soviet Union to the United States. Written exactly a week after Marina arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey. Wronski preserved Marina’s original Russian sentence structure. (note: Russian people named Lee ‘Alek’, so Marina uses this name in the following letter. For the same reason baby June is named ‘Marina’.)

Hello my dears, aunt Valya and uncle Ilya:

We were in New York for a day. In the evening Alek and I and Marina went to see Broadway. Broadway is very beautiful and not the way it was shown to us in the movies. There are many lights, stores, and Negroes. I have not gotten used to it yet.

In general everything is better than I had imagined. They are very surprised that I am thin and say I do not look like a Russian. They now have a different impression of Russians. Gloria and the aunt have a great interest and sympathy for Russians. They subscribe to Russian magazines and newspapers. The aunt I did not like very much but may that is because she does not live here and it is hard to form an impression when you see a person for a few hours only. Ostensibly she is kind to me and makes me eat. She has already brought me all sorts of tins with fruit juices so that I drink them more as I am still breast-feeding Marinka. They like her very much and are surprised that I do not bottle-feed her. They say Marinka is very fat. That is true and good. She has indeed gained a lot of weight and I do not know why. There is a great variety of food here but everybody eats like a bird. But I do not go around hungry – I open the fridge and eat what I want. They say that I should not be shy.

We will probably be living here half a year until Alek can rent a house. He still has not started work. Robert says we should just rest for now. In the evening we watch television, take car trips. We have already gone to the lake. It is very hot here. I walk around in shorts and a white shirt that Gloria bought for me. She also bought me a nice robe. Robert has a very nice house, land, and a garden but the fruit has not begun to grow yet.

Alek has been promised work this month. I think we will be okay, do not worry about us. How is everyone? Write.

Kisses,

Marina, Alek, and Marina

When it comes to the nine days onboard of the Maasdam, lots is insecure. There were plenty of activities like sports, playing cards, some bars, a cinema, et cetera. We don’t know what the Oswalds did, we only know that other passengers did not see them a lot. Marina about it to the Warren Commission, February 3, 1964: "Basically, I stayed in my cabin while Lee went to the movies and theyhave different games there. I don’t know what he did there."

Well, we do know one thing for sure. Lee wrote. A lot. His writings survived through time, like so many other things in Oswald’s life. One big writing is a long monologue on the problems of capitalism and communism. Lee knew what he was writing: he had lived in both opposite worlds. He wrote his monologue on stationary of the SS Maasdam: click on the picture for an enlargement. The writing begins pretty negative on the United States: ‘I have often wondered why it is that the communist, capitalist, andeven the fascist and anarchist elements in America, always professpatriotism toward the land and the people, if not the government;although their movements must surely lead to the bitter destruction ofall and everything.’

It goes on and on. In all of his writings, like researcher John McAdams correctly points out on his famous website, Oswald has revealed thinking that is broad, but not necessarily deep. Writings filled with a huge number of spelling and grammatical mistakes. Much of his writing is undisciplined, filtered through the eyes of someone who absolutely despises authority. Oswald writes he thinks it’s immature to take the sort of attitude which says ‘a curse on both your houses!’ but in this writing it’s exactly what he does. Communism and capitalism, it both didn’t work out for Lee Harvey Oswald.

More mysterious is the questionnaire. Oswald   imagined that he would have a press conference once he returned to America   from Russia. He wrote two sets of answers to the imagined questions. In one set Oswald presents himself a bit provoking as a communist, while the other set of answers suggests thatOswald  remained a loyalAmerican, an anti-communist. In his imagination journalists would say "thank you sir, you are a real patriot!" to the last version of Lee Oswald.

Question is of course: why did Oswald create two identities by making the two totally different sets of answers? What were his motives? Did he on purpose make two different Lee Oswald’s on board of the SS Maasdam? A year later, when living in New Orleans, Lee did exactly the same: he was an active member of the communistic Fair Play for Cuba Committee but visited fanatical right-wing Cuban exile Carlos Bringuier at his clothing store in New Orleans where he offered to join his fight against Castro. Why was Oswald creating a myth all the time?

The purpose of the questionnary has always been a mysterie. By the way, when Lee arrived in the US, not a single journalist was there to ask some questions. It seemed as if Lee was a bit dissapointed.

Through the years after the tragedy there were lots of times when Marina had to talk about the journey to the US. Her testimonies differ a lot from time to time. Right here I’ll focus on the city she said she visited in Holland, and how long they stayed before the ship took them to the US.

Here are extracts of her depositions, in chronologic order:

June 20, 1962: Marina in a letter to aunt Vilya and uncle Ilya

… It has been now nearly a week since we have arrived at Robert’s in Fort Worth.  You know how long it took to get here; if you count our departure from Minsk, the trip took twenty-two days.  Of course, we are very tired.  From Moscow to Holland we traveled through Germany and Poland.  Rotterdam where we were a day and a half I liked very much except that the wather was cold for summer.  Alik and I walked around in our coats.  From Rotterdam to New York we went by ship.  This was a ship for tourists and had all comforts.

November 29, 1963: Marina in a tape recorded interview with officers from Dallas

… She [Marina] said that thy arrived in New York by air on February 13, 1962, they stayed in some hotel in New York for one day and then went by train to Texas.

February 3, 1964: Marina before the Warren Commission

Mr. RANKIN. Do you recall the date that you arrived in the United States with your husband, Lee Harvey Oswald?
Mrs. OSWALD. On the 13th of June, 1962– I am not quite certain as to the year–’61 or ’62, I think ’62.
Mr. RANKIN. How did you come to this country?
Mrs. OSWALD. From Moscow via Poland, Germany, and Holland we came toAmsterdam by train. And from Amsterdam to New York by ship, and NewYork to Dallas by air.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you recall the name of the ship on which you came?
Mrs. OSWALD. I think it was the SS Rotterdam but I am not sure.
Mr. RANKIN. What time of the day did you arrive in New York?
Mrs. OSWALD. It was—about noon or 1 p.m., thereabouts. It is hard to remember the exact time.
Mr. RANKIN. How long did you stay in New York at that time?
Mrs. OSWALD. We stayed that evening and the next 24 hours in a hotel in New York, and then we left the following day by air.
………
Mr. RANKIN. How did you travel from Moscow to the United States?
Mrs. OSWALD. I told you from Moscow by train, through Poland, Germany,and Holland, and from Holland by boat to New York. From New York toDallas by air.
Mr. RANKIN. I think you told us by another ship from Holland. I wonderif it wasn’t the SS Maasdam. Does that refresh your memory?
Mrs. OSWALD. Perhaps. I probably am mixed up in the names because it is a strange name.
………
Mr. RANKIN. How much time did you spend in Amsterdam on the way to the United States?
Mrs. OSWALD. Two or three days, it seems to me.
Mr. RANKIN. What did you do there?
Mrs. OSWALD. Walked around the city, did some sightseeing.
Mr. RANKIN. Did anybody visit you there?
Mrs. OSWALD. No.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you visit anyone?
Mrs. OSWALD. No.
Mr. RANKIN. What hotel did you stay in?
Mrs. OSWALD. We didn’t stop at a hotel. We stopped at a place wherethey rent apartments. The address was given to us in the AmericanEmbassy.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you recall what you paid in the way of rent?
Mrs. OSWALD. No, Lee paid it. I don’t know.

Somewhere in the fall of 1966: narrative prepared by Marina

From Moscow we took the train to Warsaw, Berlin, and Amsterdam. Holland, that small and cozy country, pleased me most of all. … Holland is a very, very clean country, surely the cleanest country in the world. We lived in a appartment in Amsterdam for three days, and our landlady was so neat that we were even afraid to lie down on the sheets for fear of getting them dirty. … In Amsterdam we bought a ticket on a boat for New York.

September 14, 1978: Marina before The House Select Committee on Assasinations

Mr. DODD – You were in Rotterdam for how long?
Mrs. PORTER – I think we spent 1 night over there, I think.
Mr. DODD – If I told you it was 3 days, would you argue with me?
Mrs. PORTER – No.
Mr. DODD – During that 3-day period, did you see anyone, other than Lee Oswald? Did you meet any people?
Mrs. PORTER – Not–I seen some faces and people around, but I did not talk to anyone.
Mr. DODD – Where did you stay in Rotterdam?
Mrs. PORTER – It looked like a boarding house somewhat.

Make up your mind, Marina! Did you go to Amsterdam or to Rotterdam? And did you spent one night, or three? Off course anno 2007 we know she slept in Rotterdam, just for one night. A longer stay is simply not possible: they arrived in Holland June 3rd and left the country June 4th. More important question: why the discrepancies? Here are some possibilities…

• Marina had a reason to hide the truth. She was aware of the mysterious things Lee had done in Holland and wanted to create a smoke screen.
• Marina was misunderstood by her interpreter(s). Guess not. They were professional interpreters who could understand Marina well.
• Marina was confused most of the time/ had loss of memory. We can’t blame a Russian girl with confusing Amsterdam and Rotterdam. We can’t blame one for forgetting the name of the ship. But is it reasonable that one forgets how many nights she slept in a foreign country, when asked about it only 2 years later? There’s a big difference in 1 night or three… Was Marina thát confused?
• Marina is misquoted on purpose, something that happened especially in the weeks after the tragedy. For instance, Dallas Office Agents Charles Kunkel and James Howard threatened Marina with deportation (in subtle and not-so-subtle ways) if she didn’t  tow the ‘official’ line that her huswas was the lone nut assassin that killed JFK.

More follows soon!

There are not a lot of facts known about the 9-day boattrip from Rotterdam in Holland to Hoboken, New Jersey. We know Lee wrote a lot, the things he wrote on the stationery from Holland-America Line survived throught time. Next to that we learned a lot from things Marina said to the Warren Commission, to the House Select Committee on Assassinations and to some authors like Priscilla Johnson McMillan. We can only hope the things she said are the truth, not always Marina Oswald was a good witness. Best example in this context is her lie about flying from Amsterdam to New York, after having spent three days in the capital of Holland. We all know now she never went to see Amsterdam, and she didn’t fly to the United States.

One of the things she did mention was a man on board of the SS Maasdam. A half Russian/half Dutch young man, working as a waiter on board of the ship. His name, she remembered, was Pieter Didenko. She first mentioned this person to Priscilla Johnson McMillan, who used it in her book Marina and Lee. It’s odd that she never said a word about him to the Warren Commission, who asked her if she had met people on board. No, was her answer, cause she was in her cabin with June all the time. Appearantly Lee was a bit ashamed of her appearance, she was dressed poorly. But later she suddenly talks about this young waiter, who she had an encounter with several times.

McMillan’s book was published in 1977, one year before a deposition of Marina before the Select Committee on Assassinations. On August 9, 1978, Marina mentioned Pieter briefly before this committee. It went like this, questions asked by counsel James Wolf, answers by Marina:

Q. On the boat over to New York do you recall if Lee was friendly with anybody in particular?
A. No.
Q. Do you recall meeting anybody in particular?
A. The only person that I recall was the steward at the diningtable. We were assigned to a certain dining table and only onegentleman that I talked to.
Q. Did you discuss anything in particular with him?
A. The gentleman spoke a few Russian words to me like help and justhow are you and things like that and I asked through Lee how come hespoke Russian and he said that his father was Russian and mother isfrom Holland and from childhood he remembered a few phrases and that isall.

Well, according to Marina & Lee there is more Marina remembered. For example his name: her biological father, who died before she was born, was named Didenko as well. Pieter and Marina did have things in common, both being young and posessed with Russian blood. She must have felt lonely on the Maasdam, her man acting like a jerk and she going to places she had never been before, for the first time doubting her marriage and the decision of moving to the United States. Pieter Didenko was a person she could talk with.

More about what happened on board follows soon, just as what fellow-researchers already did – and what I’m trying now – to locate this man, who will be in his sixties now if still alive. Like other aspects of this project, finding him is like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay.

Down here some collegues of Pieter Didenko: waiters that worked on the Maasdam those years. Pictures are clickable for bigger versions.

Some extracts from Marina & Lee, by Priscilla Johnson McMillan:

"They had a charming waiter, a handsome young man whose name was Pieter. Half Russian and half Dutch, he knew a few words of Russian and wanted to know all about Marina. But Lee was suspicious of him. ‘Don’t tell him anything you don’t have to,’ he warned Marina, ‘It’s no accident that they gave us a Russian-speaking waiter.’ Marina ignored his warning. To the extent their languages would allow, she chatted openly with Pieter, and she dicovered that his last name was ‘Didenko,’ or something close to it."

"On wednesday, June 13, 1962, the Maasdam slid into its pier in Hoboken, New Jersery. The Oswalds were packed and waiting below. Tense and nervouw throughout the voyage, Lee literally jumped when they heard a knock at the door of their cabin. He stepped back, whiled around, and stood confronting the door. It was their waiter, Pieter. He had come to say goodbye. Shyly, he showed Marina a photograph of the French girl he was meeting in New York. When he left and the door had closed behind him, Marina sensed the tension seeping out of her husband’s body. He had been expecting the police."

On June 4, around noon, the SS Maasdam depart for a 9-day trip to Hoboken, New Jersey. On board is a little family who already travelled 43 hours by train and spent a night in Rotterdam.

On the right side of this blog 5 clickable pictures: the front-page of the passengerslist of June 4th 1962, the page in the list with the (misspelled) name LR Oswald, a map of B-deck with a red arrow pointing to the room the Oswald’s lived and slept in. Higlighted are the interesting rooms for this investigation: I have the names of the people who slept in it, now its just the question how to find them. Fourth picture shows the pier in Hoboken, New Jersey, with the big Holland-America Line-sign. Fifth picture shows an unknown man in his cabin, same ship, few years before 1962. The last one is a collage of pictures showing the interior of the ship.

So they went to America with the SS Maasdam. But:
- Why can no other passenger recall seeing the Oswalds?
- Why did Marina tell the Commission that they went by plane from Amsterdam?
- Where in the world is Pieter Didenko, the young Dutch/Russian waiter Marina later talked about?

Here is a list of people that had their cabin near cabin no. 473:

475  J Einhorn (3 adults, 1 child)
473  LH Oswald (2 adults, 1 child)
471  J Barkmeyer-Kivid (1 adult)
       WR Pietersma (1 adult)
469  DJ Land (2 adults)
467  CL Alexandro (1 adult)
       HG Roubos (1 adult)
465  G Dragt (2 adults)
463  H Vermandel (1 adult)
       O Versteeg (2 adults)
461  M Salverda (4 adults, 1 child)
459  Part of the Salverda Family (see 461)
       JLP Gasper (1 adult)
457  SJ Bosman (2 adults)
455  GP Rouleaux (1 adult)
       HP Rouleaux (1 adult)
454  unknown or empty cabin
453  JA Advocaat (2 adults)
452  unknown or empty cabin
451  unknown or empty cabin
449  D de Rijdt (1 adult)
447  FG Gomes (2 adults)
445  R de Jong (2 adults)
443  PK Liem (1 adult)
441  KM Schubert (1 adult)
439  B D’Altroy (1 adult)
437  PL Laroque (2 adults)
435  HM Zwaardmaker (1 adult)
433  PM Starks (1 adult)
       SP Whitlock (1 adult)

I tried to reach every single person on the above list. Guess most of them immigrated to states as New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, but who knows… Maybe they’re in Florida or even California anno 2007. Off course it’s also possible that people only went to the US for a holiday, back in 1962, so people can also be found in Holland… And remember: it’s more than 40 years ago, people might have died long ago… That’s why I was looking for their relatives/descendants too. Searched a few days last May, but unfortunately without succes. Maybe I underestimated it a bit: for example there is a JLP Gasper living in New Jersey… What a coincidence, was my first thought, this must be the man I’m looking for! But there are many, many Gaspers living in the USA… And the same goes for all the other names. Sooo many Dutch immigrants in the United States, I didn’t expect that. The quest continues and maybe I will have more luck in the future, maybe with help from others.

Many questions, many answers. Come back, there is sooo much more to come.

I’d like to thank mr. Hans Segboer, who as a young child travelled from Holland to America with the same steamship. He never left New Jersey since and was a big help with sending me lists and maps of the ship.

Some words and a doodle next to eachother in the adressbook of Lee Harvey Oswald. It can lead to a thousand theories, in this blog I’ll write about my own investigation. Some old theories will be eliminated, others will be born. On the right the notes made by Oswald. Below a map of Berlin (click on it for a bigger version), with the railway (The Oswalds travelled from east to west), with the Berling Wall, with three stations where the train stopped a while (almost an hour at Ostbahnhof) and with a yellow star where the Tempelhofer Damm is located. Exact: that’s the adress Lee wrote in his little book. Tempelhofer Damm next to the abbreviation FRG, which means Federal Republic of Germany, the official name of West Germany.

Above is the map of Berlin, with the river Spree, the railways, the Berlin Wall, the street Tempelhofer Damm and (soft in the background) the metrosystem of Berlin in the early 60′s.

Lets have a look at the time schedule.

The train with the Oswalds arrived at Ostbahnhof at 10:04 pm, June 2nd 1962. Time for some fresh air. The train departed at 10:53 pm. That means they could walk around for 49 minutes in East Berlin. At 11:12 pm the train arrives at Zoologischer Garten, the station near the Berlin Zoo. That means the Oswalds passed the borders between East and West Berlin between 10:53 and 11:12 pm, through trainstation Friedrich Straße, near famous Checkpoint Charlie. And off they went, arriving Holland around 08:12 am.

On the right another clickable map of Berlin, again the location of Ostbahnhof is very clear just as the Tempelhofer Damm, the adress in the little book Lee Harvey Oswald carried with him. Ostbahnhof and Tempelhofer Damm lay 3.1 miles away from eachtother. Did he want to meet someone at that location? And hurry back to the train? An appointment within the 49 minutes? First I thought: its possible when he used the metrosystem or a cab. But then I realised: there was another obstacle these days which made it impossible to hurry to Tempelhofer Damm and be back in 49 minutes. The Berlin Wall.

But the note in the book must have a reason. Let’s take a look at the doodle. I compared it to the map of the Eastern part of Berlin. Is it just wishful thinking or are there really similarities? The wall is visible in the doodle, and above it the curly line which could be the river Spree. The little dot could be Ostbahnhof, the station… Or someone Lee would meet in the Eastern part of Berlin… The three vertical lines could be roads or bridges. You can take a look yourself:

There must be a reason for the note and doodle in the adressbook. We know Oswald never went to Berlin in his life, except for that evening in June 1962 while travelling to Holland. If he planned a meeting in Berlin, the meeting must have been that night. Researcher Anthony Summers suggests that Berlin was a very important European CIA-city these days… Do they have something to do with the appointment Lee Harvey Oswald had? Off course lots of Americans were in Berlin, being an allied leader in West Germany.

BRAND NEW: Received files from Anthony Summers and one of the things I found is a sketch made by investigator Sidney A. Martin II, drawn in 1980. He did the same thing I did: compare Berlin with the doodle Oswald made. Click on the image to see his sketch: he made a very detailed one with names of the streets Oswald drew in his doodle. More information follows soon.

Or did Oswald write the stuff back in august 1961, when he was planning the trip back to the US? Click on the image on the right side: Oswald wanted to travel to Berlin and take a military plane to America. There was no money so the only available option was travelling by train, but back in 1961 Lee was optimistic about the flight from Tempelhof Airport: the airport on Tempelhofer Damm. You can see the airport in the map, the gray area on the right of Tempelhofer Damm.

In Oswald’s adressbook I found a Dutch name, Van Hattun. Above that name are some Russian phrases which I managed to translate:

Калашная
переулок 6
Голланскии Посол.

Kalashnaya
Pereulok 6
Dutch Embassy

(Note from author: Oswald made an error when he wrote Голланскии meaning ‘Dutch’: correct spelling is Голландское. Посол. is short for  Посольство, meaning ‘Embassy’)

1+1=2. We now know mr. Van Hattun worked probably for the Dutch Embassy, back in 1962. And that suspect becomes a fact: in an old magazine I once got from a friend, GJ van Hattum is interviewed by journalist Daan Dijksman. Notice: it’s Van Hattum, with the letter M in the end. A fault Oswald made in his adressbook, maybe caused by his dyslexia. Van Hattum must be around 76 years old these days. He lives in France.

Mr. van Hattum worked in the early sixties as a young secretary at the Dutch Embassy in Moscow. It was his first job. He was the one that met Lee Harvey Oswald at May 13, 1962, who was at the Embassy to get a transit visa for his wife Marina.

In 1993 Mr. van Hattum remembers the encounter with Oswald: "it was kind of a regular duty for me. I must have seen him twice, cause it was his job to pick up the visa two weeks after the application. I still remember the adress of the Embassy: Kalashnaya Perulok, at number 6. Guess I’ve spoken to him for ten minutes. Not a nice guy, he was rude, reluctant, the kind of person who lays in his chair.  Enough reasons for me to keep the conversation short and formal."

"Off course I remember my first thoughts after I heard of the tragedy in Dallas. When I heard the man they caught was Lee Harvey Oswald, I immediately recognized that name. Off course that was a shock. I told my supervisor Star Busman immediately about it, but I can’t remember if someone ever came back to me with questions…"

Van Hattum, who later in his life worked in Washington, Havana and Oslo, is named shortly in Edward J. Epstein’s book Legend, The Secret World Of Harvey Oswald. Seems like he’s a not interesting character in the conspiracy literature. His name is also visable in a CIA-document dated November 29, 1963, a week after the tragedy: "According to a Dutch official source, the Dutch chargé in Moscow issued a transit visa to Oswald’s wife on May 13, 1962. There is no record of her having actually transited the Netherlands." Seems like no huge investigation already took place while writing those lines, cause there is for example a stamp of the Dutch border control in Marina’s passport. But as we know: the Dutch weekend is still a uninvestigated episode in 2007

We can close all investigation for Mr. GJ van Hattum. We know who he is and he has nothing to do with any conspiracy whatsoever.

Thank you Mark Ulrik, Danish man with knowledge of the Russian language, for your help on the above translation.

Oswald’s adressbook contains an adress in Rotterdam, 250 Mathenesserlaan. Above the adress Lee wrote which tram they had to take, and which directions that tram would go before arriving in the Mathenesserlaan.

Below two pictures I made last april, it’s the building with the yellow stripes, next to the red building.

Some researchers in Holland went to the Dutch Land Registry Office to collect information about the function of the building at 250 Mathenesserlaan, back in 1962. They found out that there was a pension, a little boardinghouse named ‘Huize Avilla’ (‘House Avilla’).

Appearantly the pension was recommended by the American Embassy in Moscow. But there are some questions we can ask ourselves:

• Rotterdam has a lot of cheap hotels near the train station and in the downtown district. Why did the Oswalds rent a room in an expensive pension in an upper-class neighbourhood? Their budget was not high, to say it euphemistic.
• The landlord later told researchers that he never leased rooms for just one or a couple of nights. His rooms were filled with long stayers.
• Next to that the landlord declared he never had any American guests. At least none he could remember. ("What do you say his name was? O-S-W-A-L-D? Never heard of that man")

Despite these questions we can almost be sure that the Oswalds did spent the night at 250 Mathenesserlaan. Lee told friends later that he spent the night in a pension, and that he could see a huge tower when looking through his window. That information is correct: The Euromast is a famous landmark in Rotterdam, constructed between 1958 and 1960. The tower was 351 feet high until 1970(they made it higher that year by adding the ‘Space Tower’ to the top of the building, giving it an additional 279 feet). Anno 2007 the tower isn’t visible anymore from Mathenesserlaan, due to new big buildings placed between the former pension and the landmark.

Appearantly Marina and Lee went straight to this pension after they arrived in Rotterdam. I found that information in Marina & Lee, the book Priscilla Johnson McMillan wrote. The landlady gave them lunch, and then the Oswalds went walking. It was a sunny day. Exstract from Marina & Lee: "In the pension that night, the sheets were so clean that Marina was affraid to lie down."

40 years after the tragedy in Dallas, in the night of November 22, 2003, there was a little memorial in the building at 250 Mathenesserlaan. An evening organised by Judyth Vary Baker, the lady who claims to be Lee’s lover in the summer of 1963 and who lived in Holland in the beginning of this century. Some friends and publishers listened to Lee’s favourite music and to stories told by Miss Baker, in the little room on the second floor where they thought Lee and Marina had slept that night in 1962. You can see a program of the memorial here: I’m sorry, it’s only in Dutch.

I met Judyth Vary Baker in may 2007 at the airport in Amsterdam (clickable picture on the right). She’s not living in Holland anymore, in 2005 she had to return to the US. Now she was passing through Holland on a trip to a European country of the Mediterranean rim, and she made some time to talk with me. For this investigation it’s not relevant to know if I believe her or not. I was just curious about all the things she had to say and I had little hope she could tell some new things about this Dutch episode. The relationship lasted not more than around 100 days but appearantly the subject Rotterdam was unforgettable for Lee: he spoke about it with Judyth. He was impressed and talked nice about Holland. Judyth: " Interestingly, Lee put Holland on the list of countries he wanted to visit again. He, just as I, liked the Dutch people." Judyth drew a sketch for me, a little map of the building at 250 Mathenesserlaan. On first floor she remembered a big kitchen, the stairs and a dumbwaiter. On second floor there was the little room, anno 2003 used as an archive, but in 1962 the room Lee Oswald and his wife used to sleep in.

The stately mansion has lost his boardinghouse-function since 1982. That year Mr. Huibert van der Waal moved into the building, a notary. 250 Mathenesserlaan became his office. When he bought the building he had no idea that once Lee Harvey Oswald slept in there. He was pleasantly surprised and kept every single article about his building. He enjoyed the attention when, once in a while, journalists or researchers asked for a guided tour. That, unfortunately, isn’t possible anymore. In the end of 2005 Mr. Van der Waal retired and sold his house to a project developer. Anno 2007 the exterior of the building looks exactly the same as in 1962, but inside everything changed. The project developer made a few appartments in the mansion and every wall is torned down and replaced.

There is more to come!

Right here I’ll post everything concerning the activities at 92 Meent, in Rotterdam. Oswald had written the adress in his little adressbook. Back then the American Express had a service center at 92 Meent, it moved out of the building only a few years ago.

What means the number 120200?
Who is De Booy?
Why was the adress written down in the adressbook?

Below two pictures of the same building: an old one where American Express was still present, and a picture I made last april. They sell bags and suitcases these days at 92 Meent.

Seems like speculating isn’t necessary in the case of 92 Meent: there are logical reasons for the  note in Oswald’s adressbook. Funny though how Dutch authorities of American Express  are trying to keep this part of the case mysterious.

Oswald had to go to the service center on 92 Meent, Rotterdam, to get his tickets for the boattrip to Hoboken, New Jersey. The tickets were reservated by the American Embassy in Moscow, who did business in the capital of the Soviet Union with manager Jelisavcic of American Express in Moscow. We know a lot about the Dutch personnel too. First we have Mr. De Booy, who’s name is in the adressbook of Oswald below the adress of American Express Rotterdam. International researchers did not find a lot about the man, weren’t sure if his name was spelled Debooy of Debovy. We know, Lee’s writings were bad… Dutch researchers however didn’t have any trouble at all with finding some clues. A man named De Booy worked at the service center in 1962, a man who passed away long ago. Appearantly he was the man Oswald had to ask for when arriving at 92 Meent. I guess De Booy had been in contact with his collegue in Moscow, Michael Jelisavcic. A Dutch researcher named Anthonie Scheeuwe managed to talk with some descendants of De Booy, back in the eighties. They could not remember that their dad ever spoke a word about his encounter with Lee Harvey Oswald.

Bill Denton was in 1962 supervisor at American Express in Rotterdam, but the American man left  Europe in 1963 to go back to his fatherland. It’s possible that he, like Mr. De Booy, died a long time ago. Another co-worker was Mr. Scheffer, a man journalist Daan Dijksman could easily find in 1993. By then he was the supervisor himself. He told the journalist that he became a bit tired of all the questions from (inter)national media. He always had to tell people that they had to go to the headquarters in New York for permission to read documents that were maybe kept in all those years. "We worked behind a desk with 5 or 6 men, and believe me, none of us had managed to remember Oswald when we heard his name in the news after the tragedy in Dallas. He was in our office for a simple transaction, off course no one would remember that."

Special is the fact that there must be a little file on Oswald in the office on 92 Meent. Seems like the file has always been kept, maybe they do that with every customer… According to Mr. Scheffer no official authority had ever asked for the file, but that’s is something I can’t believe. Next to that, another source told me that a not traceable official organisation had asked some relevant questions on 92 Meent. It’s a pitty no one allows us to watch into the file. They like to keep it a secret, saying that on privacy matters the file is locked away safely. They showed researcher Anthonie Scheeuwe a little box with the file in the eighties, but he was not aloud to take a look in it. Guess it’s nothing more than a specification of the transaction, but as I said: seems like it’s entertaining for them to keep the mystery alive. Oswald’s grades at elementary school are made public, every tiny little detail about his relationship with Marina has been made public, even his pubic hair is photographed for a Commission-exhibit. But yeah, the transaction in Rotterdam hás to be a big secret! Sure. Even a fax from no less then Marina Porter Prusakova wouldn’t help: researcher Anthony Summers waved with the fax in the early nineties but the officials in Rotterdam laughed at him and said "we’re sorry, but you can’t have permission."

Ordinary people in America didn’t know of the excistence of the file in Rotterdam, until researchers Hans Veldman en Willem Post wrote about it in their (Dutch) book Kennedy, the Myth/the Tarnish. Belgian journalist Filip Coppens wrote a bit later about the book in an American magazine called Fourth Decade, and after that the story became known in the US. It was Martin Shackelford from Michigan who made a testimony for the Assassination Records Review Board in Texas, somewhere around 1994. I asked him if he knew what they did with his information, and he replied: "I am not aware that the ARRB did anything with what I said on the subject, as the file belonged to a private business, and that may be a tricky area for investigators, especially regarding companies who promise to protect the privacy of their customers." His testimony for the ARRB can be read here.

Don’t think we’ll ever see what’s in the file, but does it matter? I don’t think special things happened at 92 Meent. Lee got his tickets for the boattrip on monday morning June 4th 1962, and a few hours later he left Holland with his wife and infant. A nine-day boattrip lay ahead for them.

Finally I promised to tell you what the number 120200 meant, the number enclosed to the adress 92 Meent in the adressbook of Oswald. I thought: this can only mean two things. A postal code, being 1202 OO, or a phonenumber. 1202 OO is a non-existing postal code in Holland, but the 1202-area exists and is far from Rotterdam. Having that information I called the Rotterdam Archives and asked them to look up the phonenumber of American Express at 92 Meent, in 1962. And there it was: 010-120200. 010 is the area code for Rotterdam. Oswald wrote only 120200, so that means with that number he could only reach American Express when calling in Rotterdam. You have to add the 010 when you call from other places in the world.

Anthony Summers in his 1998 version of The Kennedy Conspiracy: "Finally, Oswald had written ‘K42000, 384, 1-2 Dinner, Room 384, Jelisavcic’. The name ‘Jelisavcic’ has never been explained, neither as ‘Room 384′. Did Oswald have dinner with Jelisavcic?"

We know a lot more 9 years later: read on!

First, let’s try to find more about this Jelisavcic. Its like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, only this time its not as easy as to just burn the hay and sieve the ashes. The Yugoslavian name Jelisavcic seems to be the equivalent of American names like Jones and Smith so its hard to find some startingpoints.

After days of searching with various search engines on the web, with lots of search criteria in every possible combination, I found something interesting: a little biography.

"The late Mikhailo Jelisavcic was born in Raska, Montenegro, in 1912. He graduated with a diploma in economics and then worked in the accounting section of the Royal Yugoslav Foreign Ministry. On the eve of World War Two he participated in the Yugoslav special delegation to Moscow. He escaped from Yugoslavia during the German invasion and made his way to South Africa. During World War Two he flew in the South African Air Force. After World War Two he became a US citizen in 1958. He graduated from Columbia University in 1956. He then worked for over ten years as a business man in Moscow during which time he devoted all his spare moments to the study of Russian art, architecture, literature and history. His work has been published with the title "Soviet Art"."

How many people named Michael Jelisavcic, who lived in Moscow and had connections with the USA, were there in 1962? I wasn’t sure but I am now: this is the man we were looking for! There is an emailadress of the writer of this little biography, who happens to be a man named Micha Jelisavcic. His son. There is more information about the man than ever before! More to come.

                                                   ***

Researchers in the world were puzzling what Oswald’s adressbook-words and numbers meant, the CIA had most of the answers already found back in the sixties. For them it wasn’t the most difficult job, appearantly. They found a Jelisavcic in a Embassy-telephonebook in Moscow. There it was: Michael Jelisavcic, Manager of American Express Moscow, having his office at Hotel Metropol, room 384. Phonenumber 942000, which declares the K-42000 ‘code’: by that time in the telephone sysem the number 9 and the letter K were interchangable. In 1962 Jelisavcic could be reached at K-42000. I asked author Priscilla Johnson McMillan (who once worked for Kennedy, who interviewed Lee in Moscow, and who befriended Marina after the tragedy) about all this, and she said to me: "Yes, these are good theories. Jelisavcic could have had his office in the Metropol Hotel at room 384; Alexei Tolstoy, a Frenchman who was the Air France representative in Moscow, had an office on the 3rd floor too. The only puzzling thing to me is that Oswald spelled Jelisavcic correctly, he was a terrible writer." There are more experienced researchers who noticed the difficult name without errors too. Probably Lee Harvey Oswald did his best trying to spell the name right… Was it such an important name for him?

McMillan is an elderly woman these days (born in 1928), but still active as an independent historian on Harvard. She ended our correspondence with: "Funny, you don’t seem to entertain the idea that he was working for KGB, since most of them did. How else do you think he got room in the Metropol?" More about this fascinating woman and her opinions can be read here.

I tried to contact the Hotel Metropol but unfortunately they are not eager in responding. Some Dutch correspondents working in Moscow tried to get some information for me but their efforts were without any success as well. I wanted to verificate some thesises but I guess we can presume he really did have an office on the third floor of the Metropol.

                                                   ***

We can also find the name Jelisavcic in a document from the American Embassy in Moscow. During May 1962 the Embassy received a memo with three travel possibilities from Moscow to a port in West-Europe. American Express had mailed the Embassy and now the Embassy was considering what the best option was for the Oswalds. The cheapest train fare was a trip to Rotterdam, going through Berlin. A bit more expensive was a trip to Rotterdam, going through Brussels. (Embassy: "although the detour by Brussels costs a little bit more, I believe the added convenience of the ready made shelter arrangement justifies this route".) The third (most expensive) option was never really considered: going through Paris to Le Havre, the second largest port in France. In the end, as we know, the young family travelled through Berlin to Rotterdam. The man who gave the Embassy all the fare quotations was a guy the Embassy named Mike. By now you can guess his last name. 

                                                   ***

Was Michael Jelisavcic an ordinary businessman?  Or did he use his work at American Express as a cover for other, less public activities? Not a strange thought: the FBI has a huge file on Jelisavcic. I found the following in the dossier:

On December 17, 1968, an FBI-agent wrote a note to his boss. It was about some files related to a guy named Jelisavcic. One file even had a picture of the man. Jelisavcic worked at American Express, as representative in Moscow. The FBI wanted to hear him and they were lucky: Jelisavcic was temporarily back in the US in december 1968. He arrived in New York in the beginning of the month and met some aquaintances after which he flew to Chicago on December 11. One of those aquaintances tolded the FBI how to reach Jelisavcic: he stayed at 150-41 Morgan Street, Harvey, Illinois, near Chicago.

The FBI had to react quick: Raymond D. Stormes, the aquiantance, told the bureau that Michael was planning a flight back to Moscow on New Year’s Day 1969. In the note to his chief the FBI-agent advised to send some agents to Illinois, and to hurry. Why a hearing? Because they wanted to know about his possible relations with the KGB. Appearantly he FBI was trying to find out if Jelisavcic worked for the enemy intelligence agency in the Soviet Union.

Guess Jelisavcic wasn’t just a businessman after all…

Working for the enemy? Some say they have all the evidence to believe the man was a CIA-asset. Author Joan Mellen found an document at the National Archives, that demonstrates that Lee Harvey Oswald (while in Russia) communicated with the CIA through a CIA asset at American Express in Moscow. His name was Michael Jelisavcic. Mellen discovered the original of a note that Oswald, arrested in New Orleans for a street fight (August 9, 1963), handed to the police lieutenant who was questioning him. Jelisavcic’ espionage file was on the note Oswald had in his posession. I bought Mellens book Farewell to Justice but it has very little on this subject, asked the author for more information by mail and she promised me to send me her file about Jelisavcic in short notice. Still waiting, I’m very curious!

                                                   ***

I’ll write more about the quest for Jelisavcic and the information found by the CIA, the FBI and author Joan Mellen later.