Cryptonym: IJDECANTER
See 104-10312-10273: Note the claims of Soviet intelligence George Lesnik (OS # 262 622) who said to his knowledge Oswald was not used by Soviet intelligence.
104-10429-10049; NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS
12/15/91 memo from Michael K. Cline, Acting Chief, Soviet/East European Division to the Deputy Director of Operations: A Second Directorate KGB officer whose bona fides were firmly established.
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10336-10034.pdf
9/12/98 memo from Michelle Combs, Associate Director for Research and Review to Laura Denk, Executive Director of ARRB, identifying IJDECANTER as "a valued American intelligence source who was a senior, but not general rank, official in the intelligence service (KGB) of the former USSR; specifically, he served in the Second Chief Directorate which was responsible for internal counter-intelligence efforts."
104-10014-10061: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32341343.pdf
2/27/90 IJDECANTER debriefing report on Oswald: "I had a...colonel, family name is YURSHAK...this colonel told me that he ran a file on Oswald, MARINA, OSWALD's wife was our swallow. She was our agent...(run by the) Second Directorate...she was not a prostitute...she was kind of our girl whom we can just tell, 'Come on and do this'...she was directed...to get Oswald in bed...YURSHAK told me directly that 'I was a case officer for Oswald. I was running a file on him.' Of course, he was not a real agent in a classical form but we reported to the Center that we are running a foreign agent and all this stuff, physical description and his age...(YURSHAK was a colonel) in Signal Department, then a lot of wrinkles, salt and pepper, straight hair, blue eyes, good German language. Spending some, certain part of his career in East Berlin...I think he was in N Line...some seven or eight years in East Germany...local KGB in Minsk..." Knew Yurshak as Belorussian KGB in Minsk in the early 1980s. Yurshak was in his late 50s then. When asked if Yurshak was bragging, he said, "no...I think that 100 percent he was involved in this Oswald case...He was stuck to his one point of view. First, never had any kind of task for Oswald to kill Kennedy. Second, that he was actually recruited and he ran him. And third, Marina was our swallow and then she rejected cooperation. These three points were repeated by him more than once...he was running a lot of files on Oswald, lots of volumes...he said that (Oswald) was the sort of person who doesn't know that he is the agent of somebody else...he (had a) very low opinion of Oswald as a personality. He said that he always suspected this American marine to be a bit crazy and unpredictable...he mentioned that Oswald never wrote (a real?) receipt...he didn't sign (an agreement to cooperate)." Yurshak believed Oswald knew he was working for KGB. LHO's file went to HQ when he left the USSR, probably First Dept. of Second Chief Directorate.
2/12/92 memo from Acting Chief, Soviet/East European Division to Deputy Director for Operations: "We have substantive allegations from IJDECANTER (attached) which outlines Oswald and wife's KGB connections and emphatically denies any KGB involvement in dispatching Oswald to assassinate President Kennedy..."
104-10429-10049: NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS
2/21/92 memo from Michael Cline, Acting Chief, Soviet/Eastern Europe Division to Deputy Director of Operations: "On 31 December 1991, a Soviet volunteer to Warsaw station, Boris Vladimirovich Zhuravlev, claimed that Lee Harvey Oswald was in fact a Ukrainian KGB intel source (code name Velktor) who had additionally been a controlled agent of the UKGB...Zhuravlev stated that Oswald had actively conspired with two former US presidents to assassinate former President Kennedy. Zhuravlev when pressed could not provide any additional information...we consider (him) to be a highly questionable source...as regards (his) allegations, we have substantive information from IJDECANTER (attached) which outlines Oswald's...KGB connections and emphatically denies any KGB involvement in dispatching Oswald to assassinate President Kennedy...for your background information IJDECANTER was a Second Chief Directorate KGB officer whose bona fides were fully established."
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10331-10180.pdf
8/5/98 memo from William McNair to Lee Strickland.
http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/jfk/NARA-Oct2017/NARA-Nov9-2017/104-10332-10002.pdf
Page 13 of 26: 8/9/98 memo from Lee Strickland, Chief, Information Review Group to Executive Director, ARRB: On "the actual cryptonym of a CIA source (IJDECANTER). It is our considered judgment that the release of this cryptonym...would provide an identifiable benefit to the Russian counterintelligence effort...this memorandum also proposes a substitution of a fictitious cryptonym (e.g. "TRUSTED") for the actual cryptonym IJDECANTER...The released version (of a document) reports that a Soviet official (Boris Zhuravlev) had provided information to the effect that Oswald was a KGB source. It continues by stating that the CIA did not believe Zhuravlev to be a credible source." Strickland explains that his concern is that he does not want the Soviets to know that the CIA found IJDECANTER's "bona fides" to be "established". (See Page 19 of 26): - 8/26/98, CIA Talking Points re Protection of the "IJDECANTER" Cryptonym Before the Assassination Records Review Board: "The source...IJDECANTER...has had his 'bona fides...fully established (by CIA).' It is this final fact which is critical. By having this substantive information 'bona fides...established...AND by otherwise having IJDECANTER known to the public in full name and crypt, THEN WE MUST PROTECT the cryptonym here so that the key intelligence judgment of CIA is not compromised.'"