'Nightline' to review KGB's file on Oswald WASHINGTON (AP) — Top- only be gathered in a police state," ranking KGB officials believe Lee said Bettag. The file contains no Harvey Oswald was incapable of conclusion about Oswald and the • carrying out the Kennedy assassina- assassination of Kennedy. tion alone, ABC News reports in an But it shows that the KGB inserted upcoming program. informants to work with Oswald at The KGB officials based their his factory job and that there was informal opinion on a wealth of in- electronic eavesdropping of his formation about Oswald the Soviets conversations with his future wife, had gathered during his years in the Marina, said Bettag. Soviet Union, ABC News executive "They were trying to figure out producer Tom Bettag said in an what he was all about," said Bettag. interview Thursday. The KGB file shows that the N ABC interviewed the KGB officials Soviets even allowed Oswald to buy a as part of a story on Oswald's KGB rifle and monitored his target prac- M file that will be broadcast on tice. "Nightline" tonight, the 28th anni- The file contains news clippings versary of President Kennedy's about Oswald after the Kennedy assassination. assassination. ABC does not name the officials Oswald Was an ex-Marine who who offered the view that Oswald went to the Soviet Union in Sep- wasn't sophisticated enough to have tember 1959. While there, he married carried out the assassination by and returned to the United States in himself. June 1962 after obtaining permission But the officials were totally from the Soviets and the U.S. State familiar with the contents of Department. Oswald's 10-inch-thick KGB file, ABC spent two months in the Soviet Bettag added. Union after the attempted August ABC spent a day reviewing coup, talking with the new head of the Oswald's KGB file with assistance KGB, Vadim Bakatin, and with the from a Soviet translator and a KGB KGB case officer in charge of the case officer. files. ABC also went to Minsk, where It shows that the Soviets suspected Oswald lived after defecting from the Oswald was an American agent when United States. he defected, conducted surveillance The network wasn't allowed to of him and bugged his residence, make copies of Oswald's KGB file says Bettag. and the Soviets eventually withdrew "This is the most detailed profile their cooperation and refused to you could possibly have and it could allow further access to it. "Bakatin was very encouraging," he said. "We left Forrest behind- for the best part of two months. He had long sessions with Bakatin from D12 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21,1991 . the end of August until the beginning of October. A relationship of trust was established with several KGB people and eventually, after a long period of time, they agreed to release material exclusively to ABC" . Once it was decided that the Oswald file would be a good place to start, the ground rules were set. Sawyer and his team would be allowed to see By John Carmody the 10-inch-thick file, but they couldn't copy it, Wribington Pao Stall Writer couldn't carry any of it out . . Bettag said that ABC News "did not pay a BC News's "Nightline" will air a spe- cent" for the KGB files. "This is a very sensitive cial one-hour report tomorrow night area, especially since the agreement eventually revealing for the first time the KGB's A broke down to some degree. But no, absolutely top-secret files on Lee Harvey Oswald . .. not" . . . Ted Koppel will anchor the program, which Bettag said that eventually, "the whole thing includes a report from correspondent Forrest started to fall apart. Questions were being raised Sawyer, who led a team that spent some two by the Soviet bureaucracy—was it proper to months this year in the Soviet Union looking into have an American looking at KGB files in a KGB the story . .. office in Moscow when the CIA would never let a The limited conclusions revealed tomorrow Soviet journalist do the reverse .. • are that the Soviets suspected that former Ma- "Some said it violated Soviet law because they rine Oswald was an American agent; that they were top secret files. When someone suggested conducted surveillance on him and bugged his home in Minsk; and that the KGB eventually the Soviets declassify the files, they discovered there were no laws for doing so . concluded privately that Oswald was incapable of "Eventually, the Soviets said, 'We need time to acting alone to kill President Kennedy . .. work this out; we'll call you.' We've since gotten Tomorrow's broadcast falls on the 28th anni- communications from Bakatin's office that it will versary of Kennedy's assassination in Dallas . .. take a couple more months to do so. So given the According to executive producer Tom Bettag, uncertainty it was decided we'd do one broadcast News president Roone Arledge got the ball ABC with the material we have; if they ever release it, rolling in late August when he was in Moscow to we'll do more. We felt we had an obligation to arrange the "town meeting" featuring Soviet share what knowledge we have with the Ameri- president Mikhail Gorbachev and Russian presi- can public" .. dent Boris Yeltsin that eventually aired Sept. 5 Bettag said ABC has also interviewed KGB people, gone to Minsk to film in Oswald's old According to Bettag, Arledge and Vadim Baka- apartment and talked to people in the factory tin, the new head of the KGB, talked of the "new where he worked. "The conclusion seems to have spirit of openness between the two countries and been he could not possibly have been an Ameri- Roone asked if there was any chance whatsoever can agent," Bettag said; "He was not capable of of getting at some facts buried in history that sophisticated action. But they don't draw official wouldn't jeopardize people but could be of great conclusions in the file" .. . service . ..