Lee Harvey Oswald defected to the Soviet Union

Oswald has always desired to defect to the Soviet Union and identified himself as a communist. This is one of the interesting facts about Lee Harvey Oswald. He carefully thought out this action; while a marine, he began teaching himself, Russian. In fact, his buddies even referred to him as "Oswaldskovich" because of how widely known this was in his battalion.

In the fall of 1959, Lee Harvey Oswald visited the Soviet Union after saving a sizable sum of $1,500 from his modest wage. When he arrived, he was given a tourist visa, and he immediately told his tour guide that he wanted to become a citizen of the Soviet Union. He slashed his left wrist after having his application rejected, and he bled quite a little. He was kept under psychiatric surveillance in a Moscow hospital because of his failed suicide attempt.

He eventually received permission to remain in the Soviet Union. He moved and started working as a lathe operator in Minsk. Stanislau Shushkevich, who would later become the first Belarusian head of state, taught him Russian there. He wrote to the US Embassy in Moscow to request his passport back since he was bored with his employment and the lack of recreational opportunities nearby. In 1962, he and his wife Marina Prusakova, along with their little daughter June, returned to the United States.