Pavel Golovachev

[Dealey Joe]

Pavel Golovachev, took this photograph some time in the early summer of 1961, two or three months after Marina and Lee Oswald were married.He made several prints which the Oswalds took with them, along with the negatives, when Lee moved back to the USA in 1962. One print, signed with a dedication by Oswald, remained with Golovachev after the Oswalds left for the US. After the assassination, the FBI seized the photograph. Eventually it was included in the evidence as a Warren Commission Exhibit and has been often reproduced. In the USSR after the assassination, all photographs, letters, and other items from Oswald still remaining in Golovachev's possession, were sequestered by the KGB. Golovachev was warned by the KGB not to discuss his relationship with Oswald. Several years later, Golovachev was horrified to discover that he still had a photograph in his possession, moreover one signed personally by Oswald. In fear of KGB retribution for failing to surrender the item, Golovachev made a photographic copy of the photo and the inscription on the back, and then destroyed the original item. He carefully hid the negative and kept it hidden until we arrived in 1991. Even then, Golovachev was visibly shaken by the prospect of printing the forbidden image of Lee Harvey Oswald against the Minsk skyline. Golovachev said that while taking that photograph, Oswald first revealed to him his intention to return to the USA. Golovachev then warned Oswald that he was a KGB informant, and that others among their circle might also be reporting to the KGB. (Golovachev was periodically and systematically interviewed by the KGB about Oswald, whom he met at the Minsk radio factory shortly after Lee began work there in January 1960.The sample of handwriting is almost of forensic quality -- not only documenting Oswald's handwriting, but also revealing pen-stroke characteristics -- rarely seen in print reproductions of Oswald's writings