to attempt to make life sufficiently pleasant for a foreign defector so that he will not become disillusioned and return to his native country. The Commission has also assumed that it is customary for Soviet intelligence agencies to keep defectors under surveillance during their residence in the Soviet Union, through periodic interviews of neighbors and associates of the defector.220 Oswald once mentioned that the Soviet police questioned his neighbors occasionally.221

Moreover, it is from Oswald's personal writings alone that the Commission has learned that he received supplementary funds from the Soviet "Red Cross." In the notes he made during the return trip to the United States Oswald recognized that the "Red Cross" subsidy had nothing to do with the well-known International Red Cross. He frankly stated that the money was paid to him for having "denounced" the United States and that it had come from the "MVD." 222 Oswald's papers reveal that the "Red Cross" subsidy was terminated as soon as he wrote the American Embassy in Moscow in February 1961 asking that he be permitted to return.223 (See Commission Exhibit No. 25, p. 278.) Marina Oswald's testimony confirmed this; she said that when she knew Oswald he no longer was receiving the monthly grant but still retained some of the savings accumulated in the months when he had been receiving it.224 Since she met Oswald in March and married him in April of 1961, her testimony was consistent with his records.

The nature of Oswald's employment while in Minsk has been examined by the Commission. The factory in which he worked was a large plant manufacturing electronic parts and radio and television sets. Marina Oswald has testified that he was an "apprentice machinist" and "ground small metallic parts for radio receivers, on a lathe." as So far as can be determined, Oswald never straight-forwardly described to anyone else in the United States exactly what his job was in the Soviet Union.226 Some of his acquaintances in Dallas and Fort Worth had the impression that he was disappointed in having been given a menial job and not assigned to an institution of higher learning in the Soviet Union.227 Marina Oswald confirmed this and also testified that her husband was not interested in his work and not regarded at the factory as a very good worker.228 The documents furnished to the Commission by the Soviet government were consistent with her testimony on this point, since they included a report from Oswald's superior at the factory which is critical of his performance on the job.229 Oswald's employment and his job performance are thus consistent with his known occupational habits in this country and otherwise afford no ground for suspicion.

Oswald's membership in a hunting club while he was in the Soviet Union has been a matter of special interest to the Commission. One Russian emigre testified that this was a suspicious circumstance because no one in the Soviet Union is permitted to own a gun for pleasure.230 The Commission's investigation, however, has established that this is not so. The Central Intelligence Agency has advised the Commission that hunting societies such as the one to