Information from Tommy Østerlund book

I read a book in the early 1990 by Danish writer Tommy Østerlund, he was in Minsk with a Russian filmmaker in 1989-1991 and intervieved all of LHO and Marinas friends and family in Minsk also the books tells us who his friends are, one is the son of Lydia Merishinski, one of the foremost nuclear researchers in the soviet union at that time, she is with Khrusthiof when he makes his famous speech in the U.N.

I have been reading on different forums and it seems that nobody knows of this book/film, made in the early 1990, one of the most interesting things in the book are where they talk to the KGB and the KGB officers have LHO papers in front of them and say thar Yuri Nosenko never had seen his papers.

Hope you don't mind me separating this. I thought it deserved its own thread.

Faroe Islander wrote:I read a book in the early 1990 by Danish writer Tommy Østerlund, he was in Minsk with a Russian filmmaker in 1989-1991 and intervieved all of LHO and Marinas friends and family in Minsk also the books tells us who his friends are, one is the son of Lydia Merishinski, one of the foremost nuclear researchers in the soviet union at that time, she is with Khrusthiof when he makes his famous speech in the U.N.

I have been reading on different forums and it seems that nobody knows of this book/film, made in the early 1990, one of the most interesting things in the book are where they talk to the KGB and the KGB officers have LHO papers in front of them and say thar Yuri Nosenko never had seen his papers.

Could you possibly check the spelling of Lydia's last name? I can't find anything under that spelling.

Do you have the son's name? Could be an important lead.

Is there anything else in the book worth sharing?

Lydia´s last name is Merizhinskaja, the most prominent woman in Minsk in the early 1960`s, a Nuclear physisist and member of the Soviet atomreactor council and also a delegate to U.N.

Her son Yuri Merezhinskij, studing medicine and now 1992 a pensioned Radiologist, was also a friend of Marina and introduced Lee too Marina in march 61, Yuri was questined for monts about his connection to LHO

Erich Titovets, or Ernest one of LHO good friends, his "diary" calls him "his first and longest being frien" these two were playing a killing game and taped it in 1960 and 1961 which he still has. Titovets tryed to sell these tapes 20 years ago, and I have seen the tapes on youtube where Titovets showed them to ABC ( or some other US news). Also studing Medicin and was in 1992 working as a radiologist in Minsk.

Pavel Golovachov, ( best) Friend of osvald, son of General Golovachov warhero of WW2 and at that time commanding the red army in Western Siberia, Pavel himself an officer of the reserve and was working in the field of radar and radio tecnologi, the book guesses that PG was one of the highranking developers on the factory .

After the Kennedy murder, the KGB were were harsh on him and his father cut all bonds to him, and he went from top to bottom in no time, and is in 1992 living in severe poverty

Valentina Prusakova,Marinas aunt and stepmother, says that she admired LHO for always defending Kennedy when discussing politics with his russian friends, and never accepted that it could have been LHO that shot Kennedy.

Ilja Prusakov, Valentina husbond, highranking Colonel in KGB, after Kennedys murder they got moved to a smaller apartment, maybe because they did know LHO.

General Valeri Victorovich Kez, kGB MInsk 1992, talks of the kennedy murder and states that clearly he got murdered by a group of person with the knowledge of political murder, also he says that Yuri Nosenko never had LHO file in his hands !!

Ivan G. Kostukov, former Colonel in KGB and the man in charge of LHO surveillance in Minsk,had 15 to 20 people under him and made hundreds of reports.

There is a detailed interviev with Pavel on LHO, I will try to translate.

Thanks!

Will give a reply when time permits. A lot there to consider.

I have read the book one more time, there is a short passage of a team from ABC news getting into the goverment Building during the time when Yeltsin became President and the tanks were shooting Shells at the government Buildings, in the archive they found a nota from Krushiev saying : find something to do for the American.
I do not think there is any foto of the note or any other proof of the crew being inside the government Building but it is a possability.

Faroe Islander wrote:I have read the book one more time, there is a short passage of a team from ABC news getting into the goverment Building during the time when Yeltsin became President and the tanks were shooting Shells at the government Buildings, in the archive they found a nota from Krushiev saying : find something to do for the American.
I do not think there is any foto of the note or any other proof of the crew being inside the government Building but it is a possability.

Good to see you back. I think books like this are potentially very important in that a different (European) perspective can lead to different approaches to finding and assessing evidence. I take it Østerlund believed the reference to "the American" was a reference to Oswald, and not any other American?

Do you think you could summarize the interview with Tivotets? Just the main points would be great.

will translate the interview with Titovets later this week.

from the book: the coverup
chapter 21 : A handler for Oswald
Titovets has a taperecorder and some tapes which he plays for the author, the tapes are of him and LHO, LHO interviews Tito about American politics, gets no real answer, then changes the subject to the Garrand M1 rifle and the specs of the rifle and gets no real answer, and then goes on to recite Shakespeare.
The interview is in an office on one of the Hospitals in Minsk, and the auther thinks that if you get sick in Russia get the hell out.
Erich or Ernst Titovets is a radiologist at the hospital, and is playing the tapes for the author from a taperecorder that Oswald probably had with him to Russia, now he tries to sell the tapes to the author but not the most interesting tape where Oswald is a massmurdererand Tito is the judge that sends him to the Electric chair.
I have got a look into the psysic of this person which is probably Oswalds closest friend in Minsk, tall goodlooking guy and still is now 30 years later, with eyes that can see through a person, a very talented man but also a person described as a snake in paradise.
LHO first time he mentines Tito is when he is in the Institute for foreign languages in Minsk:
Usually I will go to the public area on the institute with one of my friends, he speaks a excellent English.
Erich Titovets is in his 4. year studying medicine, very intelligent guy, at the institute we will sit with 4 girls and talk English for hours.

And as LHO is preparing to go back to the US he writes in his Diary :
I still have not told Erich, whichis my best friend that we will go back to the US.
He is OK but I´m afraid he is to good a komsomol, so I´ll wait till the last minute.
Titovets and the likes of Pavel Golovachov were lika almost all the people Oswald knew in Minsk members of the Komsomol, they were people from the whiterussian elite which this Young American defecter was being social with.
Titovets was a holehearted Komsomol, as he sais " back then we did not know of anything other, and we were proud of what the sivjet republic had done, we believed in the system back then.
Titovets worked very closed with the KGB, he was controlling Oswald in Minsk, there are several people telling us how Tito came inbetween the director of the radiofactory Ziegler and Oswald.
Ziegler was a polish jew, he had been working in Argentina for many years, before goeing back to Minsk to be director of the factory, Ziegler did not like the system in the USSR and wanted to emigrate back to Argentina or the US.
Tito visited the Zieglers with Oswald once, after the first visit Ziegler did not want to see Lee Again.
Titovets was one of very few persons that did not get a visit from the KGB after the assasination, he still has the tapes, all his other friends lost all their Photos and letters of LHO.
Titivets was talking English almost fluently when he met LHO, and he could therefore get in contact with LHO fast.
Titovets says he did learn English by listening to BBC World service, this is similar to the way LHO did learn russian, and a bit odd as Pavel Golovachov told the author that the Sovjets did use jammers to keep foreign radios out of russia.
Tito is very careful in choosing his Words, every time he has to say something a bit contoversial he quotes others.
He also says he has been wondering about the Picture being painted of LHO as a "crazy" man, this is not at all the man he knew, the man he knew was well balanced, had a good culturel interest and a good intelligent.
There is no doubt that Tito was a man Oswald was fascinated by and looked up to, and respected.
The lines in the diarysaying that Erich was a goos Komsomol may have saved Tito from several hours in the hands of KGB, and may even have been written be Tito.
Some of the intervieved persons are talking about a Oswald that was beeing handled by Tito and built a myth that Oswald was having a diffrent girl every week when the girls we talked to only were talking about platonic relationships.

I have translatet as I read it, not as you would read it will translate some more later thes year.

Thank you so much! There is some very good information in that.

I agree with Greg. Lots of great information. Thanks for posting it.

Hi and thanks
I will try to get in touch with Tommy Østerlund, I have contacted him in the past on his workemail, but will try his private Company to see if he can tell me where to get a copy of the film and other stuff.
Maybe i can get him to explain who Lydia Merezinskaya is ?
Often there are troubles when translating from russian to Danish or English, i can see that the names are not the same depending on if it is a Danish translation or a English translation.
I have had the same troubles when I have googled for Serbian soccerstars, if it is on the net in Serbian/kyrillic then Google will not find it, that is my experience so far.

It's seems to hard find some info on Merezhinskaya in Russian either. Here is something I found, at the moment I am posting it just to save the reference (and not to forget it), the translation will follow when possible:
http://www.livejournal.ru/themes/id/15712

From the link above from 9k116:
And the Google translate name of Yuri : Yuriya Merezhinskogo
Seems like this at least we are on the right track here, maybe we canfind out more about this woman.

In March 1961, the mother of a mutual friend of Marina, Yuri Merezhinskogo, performed in the Palace of Trade Unions with a lecture about the U.S. after a trip to the governmental delegation headed by Khrushchev. At a lecture led Oswald, who worked at the time at the Minsk Radio Works "Horizon" in the shop under Alexander Seeger, a Polish Jew, who had just returned to the USSR after a long stay in Argentina. Circle Seeger was one of the favorite places for parties Minsk golden youth. Oswald was by then thoroughly prodinamlen his girlfriend, Ella German Jew, in which Oswald was hopelessly in love. It was known also that Oswald had enough acquainted with the realities of life in the USSR and was going to take steps to return to the United States. After the lecture about America began dancing. Oswald presented the Marina, which was spectacular, "on the show," red dress. Oswald, of course, was unknown to the reputation of Marina Oswald and a month later he proposed to her. From the diary of Oswald "I decided that I should finally fuck her. Dynamite She kept me, so that on 15 April, I made the offer. She agreed." In the wedding night, Marina, using his knowledge of medicine and pharmacology, Oswald convinced that it was her first man, and thus saved him from falling in love with Ella Herman, tied firmly to himself.

This is the translation I got:

40 , September 18, 2009 at 18 h 00 min.
 uzhas-sovka published interesting material about the personal life of Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of President Kennedy's official. It turns out he was married to a girl from the Soviet Union, a light and behavior. Perhaps in family life is to seek the motives of one of the most notorious crimes of the past century.

 uzhas-sovkaof ancient archives (part 1), 
Marina N. Oswald Porter (Prusakov) was born July 17, 1941 in Molotovske (Severodvinsk) Arkhangelsk region. The father is unknown, allegedly worked for the NKVD-MVD in the construction of Severodvinsk. Grew Marina in Leningrad, the son of her stepfather. Marina barely graduated seven classes, then enrolled to study at the pharmaceutical school. Her mother was constantly ill for a long time was in the hospital, died when Marina was not yet 16 years old. Since that time, Marina finally got the freedom to live as she wants, the stepfather was not able in any way to control it. her best friend was a neighbor Irene, works part-time prostitution among bohemians Leningrad - doctors, lawyers, musicians, and then there were foreigners. Irina willingly took with him to parties Marina. Marina was the first time in the HPC in seventeen years. According to Marina, she lost her virginity due to rape an Afghan in a room luxury hotel in Leningrad (with the obligatory "duty" on the floor) during a "double date" arranged by Irene. Around the same time in her life, there was a certain Eddie Dzhuganyan from Georgia, twice as old Marina, who worked at the studio. In general, the marina was a typical girl semi-proletarian origin, extending to the environment of the Soviet intelligentsia, with indispensable fashion romantic verses of poets in a notebook and a mandatory indiscriminate campaigns to bed in reality to enter "into an interesting society." The purpose of life - to marry a Jew or a foreigner was the only attractive option not only for the Marina, it was the only way to access the "posh life" for a beautiful and free in the behavior of Russian girls. The alternative - nominees to the elite of the army, the Komsomol and party work were too rough and unattractive lifestyle, entertainment barracks character. However, in 1959, as a result of the scandal over the arrest of Marina in a hotel room with another romantic acquaintances, she had to abandon hopes of a successful marriage in Leningrad and urgently, in 24 hours, to go to Minsk to his uncle. Uncle Marina, Elijah, at the Time Interior Ministry colonel was married again to a girl much younger than him, stolen during the war in western Germany. The children they were not, they lived in a luxury apartment at the time in the center of Minsk, in a house built by German prisoners. (Marina's uncle, his wife and Oswald) Marina got a job working in a pharmacy in the United third hospital in Minsk and immediately got into the circle of the Minsk golden youth, mostly medical students, who have always been fashionable foreign plates, their summer homes, cars, high-ranking parents, general, girls and, of course, the volunteers, the KGB informants, particularly Paul Golovachyov, a close friend of Oswald and Marina. in March 1961, the mother of a mutual friend of Marina, Yuri Merezhinskogo, performed in the Palace of Trade Unions with a lecture about the U.S. after a trip to the governmental delegation headed by Khrushchev. At a lecture led Oswald, who worked at the time at the Minsk Radio Works "Horizon" in the shop under Alexander Seeger, a Polish Jew, who had just returned to the USSR after a long stay in Argentina.Circle Seeger was one of the favorite places for parties Minsk golden youth. Oswald was by then thoroughly prodinamlen his girlfriend, Ella German Jew, in which Oswald was hopelessly in love. It was known also that Oswald had enough acquainted with the realities of life in the USSR and was going to take steps to return to the United States. After the lecture about America began dancing. Oswald presented the Marina, which was spectacular, "on the show," red dress. Oswald, of course, was unknown to the reputation of Marina Oswald and a month later he proposed to her. From the diary of Oswald "I decided that I should finally fuck her. Dynamite She kept me, so that on 15 April, I made ​​the offer. She agreed." In the wedding night, Marina, using his knowledge of medicine and pharmacology, Oswald convinced that it was her first man, and thus saved him from falling in love with Ella Herman, tied firmly to 

And the Google translate name of Yuri : Yuriya Merezhinskogo

Correct English form or Yuri's name will be Yuri Merezhinskiy.

There are lot of cases of words in Russian (and Latvian too), and the end of word changes a lot depending from the case.

There are 7 forms in Russian for nouns:
- Nominative case - Yuri Merezhinskiy
- Accusative case - Yuriya Merezhinskogo
- Dative case - Yuriyu Merezhinskomu
- Genitive case - Yuriya Merezhinskogo
- Ablative case - Yuriyem Merezhinskim
- Locative case - Yuriye Merezhinskom
- Vocative case - Yuri Merezhinskiy!

To find information in English about him, the nominative form should be used.

The same for Russian - correct nominative case will be Юрий Мережинский (however, it seems to me it is quite common Russian name and lot of wrong (non-appliciable for us) records will be found.

Marina was the first time in the HPC in seventeen years.

HPC here is ment to be `Centre of Veneric and Skin Deseases` (if looking how КВД can be interpretated in Russian).

It seems that another source (see post by B.A. Copeland in Education Forum) generally complies with info from Russian LiveJournal entry:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=20140

Howevere, I must object to one thing in the post mentioned: MVD was not a secret police, it was (and still is) just a Ministry of Interior.

Did MVD ever have any role similar to FBI or Department of Justice within the framework of Ministry of Interior?

Can you list the main tasks undertaken by the ministry for us?

I think that would be helpful in laying to rest the 50 years of books telling us it was similar to the FBI - and I believe you are correct, by the way.

Traditionally, MVD is institution supervising work of law enforcement (police) in everyday providing of `law & order`. Some other services, for example, firefighters, also were under system of MVD. While main function of KGB is to maintain security of government, both from outside sources (counter-intelligence) and inside sources (ideological departments of KGB, counter-terrorist units etc.).

Both MVD and KGB investigated criminal offenses, just like police and FBI in USA, however, there are some differences between USSR and USA systems, including:
- for example, serial killers, which in USA could be issue, handled to FBI, in USSR was never competence of KGB. However, in some cases KGB experts could help police in status of consultants (including technical resources of surveilance and phone taps, which KGB always had more and better ones than ordinary police).
- Unlike the FBI, KGB has such functions as political intelligence, counter-intelligence in military, lately - counter-terrorism team (`Alpha`) and saboutage team (`Vympel`). 
- KGB clearly more than MVD could be called `secret police`, since KGB officers mostly weared plain-clothes, and, while fighting dissidents of Soviet regime, could widely use provocations as modus-operandi. For example, infiltrate the such dissident group, and than offer help to get marked paper of typewriter for copying of anti-Soviet literature, thus following the net of the dissident cell.
- KGB did past and family check for personal, deemed to get security clearence.
- KGB also performed border and coast guard of USSR, guard of nuclear weapons, bodyguarding duties for high-ranked CP of USSR officials.
- KGB was not called `ministry`, but chairman of KGB was in the same level as ministers of Soviet Government - and thus KGB was completely independent from MVD.

However, until 1946 there was only one institution, providing both functions of MVD and KGB, and it was called NKVD. In 1946 NKVD was divided in MVD (traditional police) and MGB (predecessor of KGB). In 1954, modern KGB was formed.

So, if the uncle of Marina in 1960 still was active colonel of MVD, that makes him as serviceman of police, not KGB. However, it does not mean he could not work on KGB functions before 1946.

on the Ed forum there is a discussion about some new info that Nosenko was a fake defector.
Tommy does mention it and it is also in the Movie made by Oleg Bielssav and Tommy Østerlund that Nosenko never had his hand on Oswalds file, a Ukrainian KGB General of some sort told the filmmaker while he had the whole Oswald file on a table in front of them, this same KGB officer also says this is not the work of one man ( the shooting ).