Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination

Pacepa was a Lt. General in the KGB. He sat at the table, in Moscow, with Stalin, Khruschev, and their successors for decades. He understood Soviet spy craft better than anyone in the CIA or MI6. He knew it better than most other KGB operatives, themselves.He was at the meeting where Khruschev told his brain trust that Kennedy had to be killed.One of the bullets recovered after JFK's assassination was matched to Oswald's rifle, which he left in the Book Depository, and the stock of which bore Oswald's palm print. The bullet Oswald used in his attempt to kill Gen. Walker 6 months earlier was also matched to the same rifle.It was Oswald who betrayed the U-2 spy missions to the Soviets. He was a Marine U-2 flight controller working at the air base in Japan where U-2 flights over the Soviet Union originated or terminated. He was recruited to work for the KGB by a local Japanese prostitute that Oswald patronized while on weekend leave.The head of the CIA's counterintelligence operations at the time, James Jesus Angleton, believed that Oswald was the man who betrayed U-2 flight plans and flight characteristics to the Soviets, but he had no hard evidence, just his own analysis, so Oswald was never held accountable for the Francis Gary Powers incident.In 1969 Oswald entered the Soviet Union and remained there for more than 2 years. He was trained as an assassin by the KGB.After his return to the US and his relocation to Dallas, Oswald was "handled" by a man named George de Mirenschildt, a Russian expatriate whose mission was to direct and control KGB operatives under his authority, just as Whittaker Chambers had done with KGB operatives in Washington during WWII.There is all that and a lot more in Pacepa's book. If you think you know of a better authority on Soviet spy craft than Pacepa was, you don't. If you don't believe that, then read the book for yourself.Full disclosure, I worked as an intel operative for the US, both in the field (US Army, Vietnam) and as a security analyst in Washington DC for a civilian government agenc - not the CIA..

Gen Pacepa is the highest ranking member of a KGB organization to defect to US. He and Ben Woolsley (former CIA director, DCI) co-authored Operation Dragon which exposed Soviet instruments of disinformation and terrorism. This book gets into the meat of the Oswald case. I've only just started it and it's well documented. He explains what the Warren Commission lawyers who weren't versed in spy craft completely missed. Typical KGB patterns and connections show up all around Oswald. The first books on the assassination came out before the Warren Report and were Soviet sponsored disinformation. They pointed at CIA, FBI, Mafia, Castro, LBJ. Both Khrushchev and Johnson had the same agenda: keep the finger pointed away from international (esp. Soviet) involvement. Great read so far.

Like some other reviewers, I bought this book after reading Operation Dragon by Jim Woolsey and Pacepa. This book provides great documented details supporting the conclusion that Oswald was trained to kill president Kennedy by the Soviet foreign intelligence service (KGB) and went ahead with the killing even after the KGB had called it off at the direction of Khrushchev. It’s very sad to hear that Pacepa recently died at the age of 92 from COVID-19. This book is out of print and only available on the used book market. I paid $ 49.95 for a copy in excellent condition and consider that money very well spent. I very much hope that the publisher, Ivan R. Dee, will republish this book. It is very important that more people get to read it.

I generally avoid assorted claims and theories of conspiracies, plots, etc., particularly in U.S. political history. Most of the many such theories regarding the Kennedy assassination were/are totally far-fetched. This book, however, is a very different cup of tea. General Pacepa, the highest-level Communist-regime secret police official ever to defect to the West, was the head of the Romanian secret police at the time of Kennedy's murder,controlled by the KGB. He has first-hand inside knowledge of Soviet assassination and subversion techniques, of the training of turncoats like Lee Harvey Oswald, of Soviet policies toward Kennedy -- and of the Soviet reaction to Kennedy's murder. He provides evidence that "theories" of right-wing American plotters were disinformation put forth by a KGB frantic to divert attention from Oswald's Soviet connections.He builds a serious case for Oswald as a KGB agent, who initially helped the USSR shoot down the U-2 plane in 1952, then defected to the USSR, was trained & prepared to assassinate the detested Kennedy, but slipped out of KGB control when Moscow changed its mind and cancelled the planned assassination -- and who then went ahead with the murder on his own, and then had to be eliminated (by Jack Ruby) before he could incriminate the USSR. A complicated report, slow going, but persuasive. Pacepa clearly indicates what information is hard fact and what is specul;ation built on his decadesof experience in & with the KGB. Given his credentials and previously reliable writings, it is the most persuasive account I have seen in the 50 years since Kennedy was murdered.

This is a brave report about unspeakable crimes against humanity written by a firsthand witness. A must read for every honest person in the world.

Interesting

Yet another believable explanation of the reason to kill a president. Obviously, what we hear from the government findings is a coverup.

received as expected