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Lot 84
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Lee Harvey Oswald ALS to Brother, Trying Desperately to Get out of Russia! Highly Important
Lee Harvey Oswald ALS to Brother, Trying Desperately to Get out of Russia! Highly Important
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Description:

Lee Harvey Oswald
Minsk, Soviet Union, November 20, 1961
Lee Harvey Oswald ALS to Brother, Trying Desperately to Get out of Russia! Highly Important
ALS

LEE HARVEY OSWALD, Autograph Letter Signed, to Robert Oswald, November 20, 1961, Minsk, Soviet Union. 3 pp., 5.5" x 7.75". On lined paper; general toning, very good.

Two years before assassinating President John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald wrote this letter to his older brother Robert from Russia. In 1959, the younger Oswald, after a failed stint in the U.S. Marine Corps, had defected to the Soviet Union, where he worked at a radio factory in Minsk. He spoke very little Russian, made few friends, and lived under observation by the KGB. He quickly became as disillusioned with his adopted country as he had been with the United States. He met and married Marina Nikolayevna Prusakova in April 1961. In 1962, Oswald, his wife Marina, and their baby daughter June returned to the United States.

His older brother Robert Oswald lived in Denton, Texas, at the time, and worked for the Acme Brick Company. The brothers exchanged several letters and postcards while Lee Oswald lived in Russia. After Kennedy's assassination, Robert Oswald testified before the Warren Commission. He believed that his brother acted alone in assassinating President Kennedy and continued to believe so for the rest of his life.

Complete Transcript
Nov. 20, 1961
Dear Robert:
Received your short letter today, glad to hear from you. I notice you seemed to be worried about wheather we are reciving each others letters and weather we can write each other in the future, by all means keep writing. I think we get all of each others letters, they take 12-14 days from you to me.
There is still no word on our exit visa's.
We bought some childrens books for Cathy for Christmas, and I'll be sending them along in a few days, you should recive them in a few weeks. The text is in Russian, but I'm sure she'll enjoy the pictures.
Its allready four months since we put in our request for vist's, It gives you an Idea how slow they can be. What with our going to have a baby in March, Its not going to be to convenient to come back to the states and try to start life over again.
It'll cost about $800.00 to fly from Moscow to New York for two people, I don't have that much money, but I'm hoping that the Embassy will help us when we get our visa's.
We have had our first snow here on Nov. 16 now everything will be white until about April 15.
Marina asks Vada to send her a few fashion magazines every now and then if possible.
Why don't you send me your shoe size, and I'll see about sending you some Russian boots, they are black, high [like riding boots in the States] maybe you can cut a piece of cardboard or string to show me your size (since in Russian my size would be 41!)
Well that's about all for now. Marina sends greeting to all the family; You, Vada, Cathy and Robert Jr.
Write Soon
Lee

Lee Harvey Oswald (1939-1963) was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, but his father died two months after he was born. In 1944, his mother moved the family to Dallas, Texas. They returned to New Orleans in 1954, where Oswald quit school in 1955 to work as an office clerk and messenger. His mother again moved the family in 1956 to Fort Worth, but Oswald again quit school at age 17 to join the Marines. According to his diary, he already considered himself a Marxist as a teenager. He was trained in radar operation, which required a security clearance. He was twice court-martialed, once for accidentally shooting himself with an unauthorized handgun and another time for fighting with a sergeant. While in the Marines, Oswald taught himself rudimentary Russian. In September 1959, he received a hardship discharge after claiming that his mother needed his care. The following month, he traveled to the Soviet Union, where he expressed his desire to be a Soviet citizen. When authorities denied his request, he slit his left wrist, perhaps in a suicide attempt. He remained in the Soviet Union and worked at an electronics factory in Minsk until 1962. There, he met Marina Prusakova (b. 1941), and they married in April 1961. In the summer of 1962, Oswald, his Russian wife, and their daughter immigrated to the United States and settled in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Over the next year, he held a variety of jobs and purchased both a rifle and a revolver. In April 1963, he attempted to kill a retired U.S. Major General who was an outspoken anti-communist. From April to September 1963, Oswald lived in New Orleans, where he passed out leaflets opposing American interference in Cuba. Late in September, he went to Mexico City, where he applied for a visa to visit Cuba on his way to the Soviet Union. Without Soviet support, he failed to get the visa and returned to Dallas in early October. He got a job on October 16 at the Texas School Book Depository as an order filler. He lived in a Dallas rooming house during the week and visited his wife and daughter on the weekends in Irving, Texas, where their second daughter was born on October 20. One month later, Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy by firing three shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository at approximately 12:30 p.m. on November 22, 1963. He left the building before the police sealed it off and took a bus to his rooming house. He left a few minutes later, and when confronted on a residential street by Dallas Patrolman J. D. Tippit, Oswald shot Tippit four times, killing him. He entered the Texas Theatre without paying, and the police arrested him there after a brief struggle. He was interrogated several times over the next two days while in custody. On November 24, while detectives were escorting Oswald to an armored car to take him from the city jail to the county jail, local nightclub operator Jack Ruby shot Oswald once in the abdomen at close range. Oswald was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he died ninety minutes later.

Robert Edward Lee Oswald Jr. (1934-2017) was born in New Orleans, the older brother of Lee Harvey Oswald. He served as a Marine during the Korean War and lived in Fort Worth. He met Vada Mercer there and married her in 1956. They had two children, Cathy Marie Oswald and Robert Edward Lee Oswald III. He worked as a sales coordinator for a brick company in Denton, Texas, and earned a degree in business management from Midwestern State University in 1970.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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  • Dimensions: 5.5" x 7.75"
  • Medium: ALS

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