Lukashenka's predecessor and Kennedy's killer: where did they meet?

Shushkevich taught Lee Harvey Oswald the Russian language

There is one completely unexpected fact in the early biography of the Belarusian leader Stanislav Shushkevich. This is an introduction to the future assassin of John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald.

It was the beginning of the 1960s. Oswald, a young American with Marxist views, moved to the USSR for ideological reasons. The Soviet authorities sent him to Minsk and employed him as a mechanic at the Lenin Radio Factory. Shushkevich worked there as a senior engineer. The future Belarusian leader knew a little English, and he was assigned to study Russian with Oswald after work.

“Very simple, in an ordinary army earcoat, but at the same time always elegant, washed, clean… In general, he was a good person. I would note his diligence, interest in the result – our classes were not a waste of time, we really helped him to improve his command of Russian,” Shushkevich recalled already in our time.

Belarus could not ask a foreigner who he was and how he got to the USSR. They talked about neutral topics: the factory, the cinema, the weather. Shushkevich remembered that Oswald’s typical mistake was wrong accents.

According to the politician, the American was a bad locksmith. But he received a higher salary than the best specialists, which outraged many.

The communication between Shushkevich and the guest was not long – about eight classes during the month.

In 1962, Oswald, who was disappointed in the USSR, returned to the United States. And the next year in Dallas, he killed the president.

After the news about the attempt, friends mocked Shushkevych.

“They reminded me that I was Oswald’s mentor, someone, I remember, joked that the KGB shopkeeper Lebezin had already taken away and said it was strange that Shushkevich was still not in prison,” he said.

In an interview, the former speaker of the Belarusian parliament repeatedly emphasized that he does not believe that Oswald was the shooter in Dallas. But Shushkevich also rejected the conspiracy theory about the involvement of the KGB in the attempt, which is based in particular on Oswald’s long stay in the USSR.

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