Soviet Union thought Lee Harvey Oswald was ‘disloyal maniac’ who would get them NUKED
THE Soviet Union thought they would get the blame for putting up Lee Harvey Oswald - who they described as a "neurotic maniac" - to assassinating US President John F Kennedy, according to newly released documents.
The explosive FBI document from the agency's then director J Edgar Hoover details the Soviet Union's reaction to the shock 1963 assassination - and tells how they feared a panicked US military would blame them and lash out at them.
The document reveals that the Soviets - like many others around the world - believed there was a huge conspiracy surrounding JFK's death.
They also believe that there was more than one person responsible for the president's assassination.
"According to our source, officials of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union believed there was some well-organized conspiracy on the part of the 'ultraright' in the United States to effect a 'coup," the document states.
"They seemed convinced that the assassination was not the deed of one man, but that it arose out of a carefully planned campaign in which several people played a part."
The FBI source revealed how the Soviets went into a state of "national alert" afraid that some would use the assassination to play on anti-communist feeling and encourage the US government to "stop negotiations with the Soviet Union, attack Cuba and thereafter spread the war."
Soviet officials were scared that "without leadership, some irresponsible general in the United States might launch a missile at the Soviet Union," the report says.
Oswald, the official suspect in the assassination, was described by the Soviets as a "neurotic maniac who was disloyal to his own country and everything else."
They also claimed that he never had Soviet citizenship or belonged to any organisation in the country.
The chief of the KGB Colonel Boris Ivanov held a meeting for KGB operatives on November 25th, 1963, according to the documents, in which he stated that the killing had "posed a problem for the KGB" and all staff must "lend their efforts to solving the problem."
Ivanov also believed the assassination "had been planned by an organized group rather than being the act of one individual assassin".
He ordered his operatives to investigate "all of the possible groups which might have worked behind the scenes to organize and plan" JFK's assassination.
The document was part of a trove of 2,800 records relating to the killing of President John F. Kennedy which were released today.
President Trump had said he had wanted to release all the files, but was talked out of doing so by the CIA, FBI and other agencies.
Some redacted documents should be released following a further six-month review, but it is possible those records could remain secret even after next year's deadline on the 26th April.
Before the file dump, Russia denied any role in the assassination before secret files about the murder are made public today.
One document released today reveals how Oswald met with a KGB agent responsible for assassinations around two months before the killing.
Another file claims a British newspaper received a mysterious phone call warning them something “big” was going to happen to the US – 25 minute before JFK was shot.
And in one secret document several bizarre plots by the CIA to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro are revealed.
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