Intelligence: July 9, 1999

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THE OSWALD FILE: MOST REMAINS SECRET. Despite Yeltsin's promise to release the entire KGB file on Lee Harvey Oswald (who spent a few years in the USSR when disaffected with the US), only a small percentage of the five-foot stack of documents has been seen by Western eyes. Most of the file is in Belarus, which has refused to release it, and Russia has shown no willingness to spend its political capital with the Minsk government on a matter of no real import to Moscow. Except for the most die-hard conspiracy theorists no one really believes that the files prove any Soviet orders to Oswald; most believe that the file simply reflects Moscow's desperate efforts to avoid any blame for his actions. --Steven V Cole.