Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

An interesting thing came up today concerning Oswald's ability to speak Russian. 

At present, I have a Russian woman staying at my retreat. She is a native Russian, from Moscow, who immigrated to New York 13 years ago. She speaks English with a heavy Russian accent. She's a real Natasha. 

So, we started talking about that, and I told her that I liked the Russian accent. And she explained that her husband being Russian, they have continued to speak Russian at home. She lives on Staten Island, and she says, unbeknownst to me, that there is a large Russian community there- almost as big as the Russian community in Brooklyn, which is huge. They have Russian stores, Russian clubs, and Russian meeting places, and the result is that, to this day, she continues to speak more Russian than English in her daily life. 

But, after acknowledging how distinctive the Russian accent is to an English speaker- where you have no doubt that it is a Russian person who learned English as a second language- I asked her what it's like going the other way. What's it like for a native Russian speaker to hear the voice of an American who has learned Russian as a second language?

Her response was to laugh out loud. She said that native Russians instantly recognize when it is a native American speaking Russian. She said that their American accent jumps out to Russians just as strongly as the Russian accent jumps out to Americans. In fact, she said that it's much worse for Americans- much more noticeable. Apparently, we Yanks don't have the ability to pick up the rolls, inflections, and other delicate nuances of the Russian language. She said that Americans butcher the Russian language.

But, here is what Marina said about Lee's Russian. 
   
Mr. DEVINE - Mrs. Porter, taking you clear back to the time that you originally met Lee, this was in Russia, you said you did not know he was from America or from the United States until someone later told you; is that accurate? 
Mrs. PORTER - Yes. During the few dances with him he spoke with accent, but I did not know he was from America.
Mr. DEVINE - But his Russian was sufficiently fluent that you did not necessarily think he was necessarily a foreigner to the Soviet Union?
Mrs. PORTER - He spoke with accent but lots of people in Russia do speak with accent. They don't speak Russian very well, they have different nationalities than Russians.
Mr. DEVINE - But his Russian was pretty good at that time? 

Mrs. PORTER - It was pretty good, yes.

But, according to my guest, Lee's American-sounding Russian should have jumped out at Marina. And consider the way he SUPPOSEDLY learned Russian. His initial foray into learning Russian was done totally on his own, without a teacher and without any audio help. How likely is it, on that basis, that he could have arrived at usage that was decent, never mind good? He NEVER had help learning Russian in the US, and there is no record that he did anything with Russian in Japan.  

Then, reportedly, when he lived in Russia, they provided him with tutors, but not on a full-time basis, and not anything close to full-time. It's not like he was in a Russian language immersion program. He was working a full-time job in a radio factory. And when he wasn't working, he was off with his buddies, off socializing, off chasing women- he was a young guy having the time of his life. The amount of time he spent learning Russian with tutors was very limited, by all reports- perhaps a couple hours a week. 

So, starting from scratch as a 9th grade dropout, born in New Orleans and having been raised there and in Ft. Worth, how could it have resulted in this?

Mr. RANKIN. Did you know that Lee Oswald was an American when you first met him?
Mrs. OSWALD. I found that out at the end of that party, towards the end of that party, when I was first introduced to him, I didn't know that.

       

How could he possibly have learned Russian that well, and well enough to sound like a native speaker from the Soviet Union? Marina did not think for one second that he sounded like an American who had learned Russian as a second language. She said he sounded like he came from a country like Lithuania in which at the time Russian was the official language and taught in all the schools. 

The bottom line is that even if this dyslexic Southern boy and high school dropout had been put through a full immersion program in Russian WHICH HE NEVER WAS, he never in a million years could have acquired the ease, the flow, and the natural cadence and delivery and pronunciation of a speaker from that part of the world, from within the Soviet Union. 

John Armstrong is right. The Oswald of fame was a native Russian speaker. He didn't learn Russian as a second language. He learned Russian as a first language. English was his second language, which he learned without the slightest hint of a New Orleans accent. He sounded more like a New Yorker in his English. Just compare his accent to Robert Oswald's, his so-called brother. If they grew up in the same household and learned English under the same influences, how could their speech be so radically different?

Oswald spoke Russian. He spoke it all along. He was a native Russian speaker.