Another ex-Marine in Trouble in Russia

Paul Whelan in Moscow.

Lots of similarities with the famous Defector.

As Mark Twain once said, “History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes.”  Such is the case with ex-Marine Paul Whelan who was arrested on late December of 2018 on espionage charges in Russia.  A squirrelly character, the former Marine got in trouble during his tour of duty attempting to steal over $10,000, bounced thousands of dollars in bad checks and was using Social Security numbers in a Marine program to try and increase his advancement in pay and rank.  He was court-martialed, given no jail time and was booted out of military service with a bad-conduct discharge.

Some news reports refer to Paul Whelan as an American but he holds citizenship in three other countries—Britain, Canada and Ireland.  Whelan has two citizenships, one thru his British parents and the other one from being born in Canada.  His sister and brother would also.  He needed the American passport (and citizenship) for entering the Marines.  The reason for Ireland is not known.  Highly peculiar to say the least.

The Washington Post, citing an undisclosed source said, absurdly, that collecting passports was a game between Whelan and his sister. One must take note that a passport is also proof of citizenship in the country that issues it.  It is not as easy as filling out an app with a picture and birth certificate and sending it off in the mail.  To be clear, if you want a passport for a country you are not born in, you have to apply to be a citizen of that country and go through that process.  That can take time.  And money.  Some game, huh?

Whelan’s arrest for espionage was in a Moscow hotel room after receiving a USB stick with allegedly, the classified names of Russian security personnel.  

Russian political analyst, Kirill Rogov, dismissed the use of memory stick saying that using online services, such as social media or WIFI was a quicker method.  How would Rogov know?  A USB stick does not seem that far out regarding a method of data transmission.  It would be more an issue of the drop-off method, such as the more traditional use of a dead drop.  Social media hardly seems like a secure method of intelligence transmission unless it was encoded.  And that would raise red flags considering how heavily monitored everything is now online.  Especially since Whelan was most likely already under watch.  Russian intelligence services would be remiss not to keep an eye on a guy with a bag full of passports and constant travel to their country.  

Never the less, the only evidence of espionage at this point is the USB stick.  

If Paul Whelan is an intelligence asset, what country’s intelligence service is he operating through?  

Before his arrest Whelan was working for BorgWarner, a worldwide automotive parts supplier, as a director of global security for the company.  This raises the question of what corporation would have their security headed by convicted thief with a bad-conduct discharge.  Who would hire a thief to be head of security?  People with this kind of background do not go from one gravy job after the other, except for some other hidden connection.  It is similar to Oswald, an alleged Marxist Soviet defector, getting a job at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall in the fall of 1962, a company that did classified work for the Navy and the Army Mapping Service.  No problem for either Oswald or Whelan getting a job in these sensitive areas despite their prior histories.  

From the New York Times:

“It is highly unlikely that he was working for an American intelligence service, former C.I.A. officers have said.”

Sure, sure.  That is what they said about Lee Oswald in the New York Times over 50 years ago.  Of course an intelligence service would.  It’s called “plausible deniability.”  Just work with an operative with an unsavory background and should he ever be revealed, simply say,  “He’s a kook, a loser, a ne'er-do-well.”  As if the CIA is of such high standards with whom they work with.  This is the bunch that did business with the mob!  Who eventually infiltrated them and compromised some of their secrets.  So this will always be their cover story.  

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, ”And if the detention is not appropriate, we will demand his immediate return.”  Indicating Whelan is an American, but he is also has citizen of other countries as well.  Just in this instance he is considered an American.  The consulate offices of the other countries are attempting to get in touch with him too.  An international incident in the making.  

Similarities with Lee H. Oswald:

• Both former Marines.
• Both served in the Marines overseas; Oswald in the Far East and Whelan in the Middle East.
• Both were obsessed with all things Russian which included learning the language.  Whelan traveled there on vacation numerous times before being kicked out of the Marines and continued afterward.
• Both got into trouble with authority and were court-martialed.
• Oswald got an undesirable discharge and Whelan got a bad-conduct discharge
• Both have been defined as “tourists” while traveling in Russia.

Other points of interest:

• Whelan holds four passports. Besides British citizenship thru his parents, and has citizenship with three other countries; America, Ireland, and Canada.
• His twin brother David said he had no knowledge of Paul’s “judicial proceedings” in the Marines or the court-martial.
• Whelan’s sister has numerous citizenships/passports supposedly from some sort of game.  

More research needed on this story.  It is all confusing with multiple passports and citizenships, the brother not knowing Whelan was in legal trouble for larceny, the alleged “game” of passports and a thief getting a security job.  Very little makes sense here at all.

Addendum 1.10.19

Former U.S. Marine held for spying had Russian contacts with military backgrounds

http://news.trust.org/item/20190110150852-r060m

Sources

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/us/politics/paul-whelan-spy-citizenship.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/four-countries-now-have-links-to-american-detained-in-russia-as-international-spillover-widens/2019/01/04/25d93b2e-1029-11e9-8f0c-6f878a26288a_story.html?utm_term=.aa9f8525667c

https://www.apnews.com/bb81d418fcb34fd096fe62dc7668024b

OSWALD & THE KGB IN MEXICO

OSWALD & THE KGB IN MEXICO is an article by retired KGB Lt. Gen. Nikolai Leonov who met Lee H. Oswald (or someone posing as him) at the Soviet consulate office in 1963. His impression was of a highly nervous individual.  Quite a contrast from the cool Oswald arrested the day of the assassination. Posted by Mark Hackard at the Espionage History Archive site.

LINK

She Let Him Stay

Madam Yekaterina Furtseva the first woman to serve on the Soviet Politburo.

Many of you are familiar with the story of Lee Oswald’s entry into the USSR in 1959.  First by steamer and then plane.  He attempted his defection upon arrival, and as with many elements of his life that event is an odd mix of the amateurish and the mysterious. Rebuffed at his first attempt to defect he takes the extreme measure of attempting suicide by slashing his wrists.  After that, Soviet authorities allow him to stay.  He is never granted Soviet citizenship but is given a good quality apartment and a job at a television factory.  Soon after, he meets Marina Prusakova and they are soon married.  

However, what is commonly left out of the story is who exactly decided to allow Oswald to stay after his suicide attempt.  According to Joseph J. Trento in his book, The Secret History of the CIA, it was the most powerful woman in the Soviet Union, Yekaterina Furtseva.  The first female member of the Politburo, she took a personal interest in this hapless American defector and gave the order to let him stay.  According to Soviet defector Yuri Nosenko, it was Furtseva that ordered the KGB not to recruit Oswald as a possible KGB mole.  

Yekaterina Furtseva was an interesting character.  She started out in local party politics as a youth and slowly rose up the ranks.  She was the former lover of Nikita Khrushchev and with his aid, was assured her a top spot in the Soviet hierarchy.  She was elected to the the Politburo, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in 1956 and began serving in 1957.  She would later become the Soviet Minister of Culture and serve on the Presidium.  Over time she gained control over the KGB (Trento, p.230) and was allowed to handle case files.  From here, she took an interest in Lee Oswald.  

It’s probably the goal of many that support the Warren Report to try and portray Oswald as a loser, such a nobody, that important agencies would never take an interest in him. It is similar to the portrayal of his him as a loner.  What loner has a wife and kids? Notice the pictures of him in Minsk surrounded by friends.  As Jim Garrison once remarked, not only was Oswald was not the lone gunman, he was never alone either. But Oswald caught the interest of many.  Even his defection to the USSR launched a barrage of memos to almost every agency of the U.S. government and branches of the military.  A Marine defecting to the Other Side was a big deal in 1959.

Yekaterina Furtseva involvement is significant in that the Russians considered turning Oswald.  Defector Nosenko said Oswald was too much of an oddball for them to consider his use as an operative.  It is unknown what influenced Madam Furtseva’s decision to pass on Oswald’s possible operational use.  Evidently, letting him stay was enough for her, so long as the KGB kept close watch over him.
  
As stated earlier, many author’s ignore Oswald’s sudden good fortune  in being allowed to stay after the Soviet authorities were intent on deporting him.  Many never mention Yekaterina Furtseva’s intervention.  A recent book, The Interloper, Peter Savodnik's rather dull read regarding Oswald’s time in Russia, the author accounts for virtually nothing that was the final decision that allowed Oswald to stay.  Furtseva is never mentioned.  One would think this would be an important detail in the narrative! Savodnik is a cherry picker of the facts and omits other crucial details such as the false defector program to the Soviet Union ran out of Nag’s Head, North Carolina, and admitted to by Sen. Richard Schweiker.  Even Vince Bugliosi in his 1,600 page book, Reclaiming History says not a word about this.

In the end Lee Oswald was most likely an Agent Provocateur, playing many roles and fronting an identity of the misfit with delusions of grandeur.  Only by studying intelligence operations does one get a grasp of what is at hand here. Most of the purveyors of the Official Story never walk down that line of country.  After all, why would they want to complicate a nice, tight little story of theirs given to them by the government?


Sources

Book:  The Secret History of the CIA by Joseph J. Trento 

The Other Defector

Lee Oswald was not the only man to defect to the Soviet Union in the late 1950s. There were others such as Robert E. Webster. A former navy man, Webster was assigned to set up a trade display for the Rand Corporation in Moscow in October of 1959. For unknown reasons he decided to defect while there, just two weeks before Oswald did. Oddly, when Webster went to the US Embassy in Moscow to defect, Henry Rand, head of the corporation and a top executive, George Bookbinder, accompanied him. Both Rand and Bookbinder served together in the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), the forerunner of the CIA. The Rand Corporation did contractual work for the CIA. Like Oswald, Webster went to defect on a Saturday and failed. He was told to return the following Monday when the Embassy was open. Webster had another thing in common with Oswald--he would become disenchanted with life in the Soviet system and return to the Untied States in May of 1962.

It gets stranger. Robert Webster is on the record stating that he never knew or met Oswald while in Russia. Yet Oswald, when preparing to return to the U.S., asked embassy officials about Webster. How did Oswald know about him? Meanwhile, Webster claimed to have met Oswald’s wife Marina while there. She on the other hand, denied ever knowing him.

One thing that was very unlike Oswald, however, was Webster’s return to America. He was thoroughly debriefed by the CIA and Air Force and later spent two weeks with a Senate Internal Security Subcommittee behind closed doors. Contrast that with Oswald going virtually ignored (that we know of) upon his return, being only questioned by the FBI. And this, from a man that offered classified radar secrets to the Soviets.

Another strange item is why the two top men at Rand would accompany Webster to the Embassy. This is the height of the cold war and their employee wants to go commie. And the top people in the company are just going to walk him down there? That’s one issue, but the really odd thing is Webster intended to share a Rand Corporation product, their plastic spray gun, with the Russians. What CEO would approve of this? It is now known that the CIA had a false defector program to get assets into the Soviet Union during this time. So, this may have been an intelligence operation of some sort utilizing Rand as the set-up man, with his company, one of the few allowed to do business in the Soviet Union (also contracted with the CIA), to help put an operation like this in play.

Of course, the KGB had a similar arrangement with their agents marrying outsiders so they could later return with them to their respective countries, as Marina did with Lee. I am not saying Marina was a KGB spy; she certainly wasn’t gong to be doing much of that being a stay at home mom with two small children, but it’s an interesting coincidence.

So what do we have here? Strangeness surrounds Oswald and permeates the whole investigation of the Kennedy tragedy. There are thousand stories like this one. Apparently, when designing and acting out operations, the intelligence services cannot cover for everything they do. Just enough to make it work. There are always variables. Things stick out. Things go wrong. Agents lurk in the shadows and that’s all they leave behind. Just enough to let you know they passed by.


One last bit of trivia. Though I haven’t found the pictures yet it has been reported that Robert E. Webster bore a striking resemblance to Lee H. Oswald when viewed head-on. Supposedly, they are not exact but very close. Decide for yourself.

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