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

Even those inclined to suspect a conspiracy was behind JFK's murder will likely remain unpersuaded by Pacepa's circumstantial, speculative case that the Soviet Union ordered Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate Kennedy. The author, who was head of Romania's secret security agency before defecting to the U.S. in 1978, maintains that Khrushchev plotted the assassination, only to have a change of heart, but Soviet agents were unable to “deprogram” Oswald. Pacepa's version of history gives the KGB months to prevent the assassination (and its potentially devastating blowback) by simply eliminating Oswald once his determination to kill Kennedy became clear. Pacepa relies heavily on the work of the Warren Commission, the House Committee on Assassinations and author Edward J. Epstein; his own experience of Romanian intelligence provides only anecdotes and what he calls an ability to recognize the Soviet fingerprint in the case. While there is reason to doubt that the former Soviet Union was fully forthcoming about Oswald's time there, this book offers no convincing Soviet motive for the assassination. (Sept. 14)