There is no evidence that Oswald received outside assistance in financing his trip to the Soviet Union. After he arrived in Moscow, Oswald told a newspaper correspondent, Aline Mosby, that he had saved $1,500 out of his Marine Corps salary to finance his defection,[C6-104] although the news story based upon Oswald’s interview with Aline Mosby unaccountably listed the sum of $1,600 instead of $1,500.[C6-105] After this article had appeared, Marguerite Oswald also related the $1,600 figure to an FBI agent.[C6-106] Either amount could have been accumulated out of Oswald’s earnings in the Marine Corps; during his 2 years and 10 months of service he received $3,452.20, after all taxes, allotments and other deductions.[C6-107] Moreover Oswald could certainly have made the entire trip on less than $1,000. The ticket on the ship he took from New Orleans to Le Havre, France, cost $220.75;[C6-108] it cost him about $20 to reach London from Le Havre; his plane fare from London to Helsinki, where he received his visa, cost him $111.90; he probably purchased Russian “tourist vouchers” normally good for room and board for 10 days for $300; his train fare from Helsinki to Moscow was about $44; in Moscow he paid only $1.50 to $3 a night for his room and very little for his meals after his tourist vouchers ran out;[C6-109] and apparently he did not pay his hotel bill at all after November 30, 1959.[C6-110] Oswald’s known living habits indicate that he could be extraordinarily frugal when he had reason to be, and it seems clear that he did have a strong desire to go to the Soviet Union. While in Atsugi, Japan, Oswald studied the Russian language, perhaps with some help from an officer in his unit who was interested in Russian and used to “talk about it” with Oswald occasionally.[C6-111] He studied by himself a great deal in late 1958 and early 1959 after he was transferred from Japan to California.[C6-112] He took an Army aptitude test in Russian in February 1959 and rated “Poor.”[C6-113] When he reached the Soviet Union in October of the same year he could barely speak the language.[C6-114] During the period in Moscow while he was awaiting decision on his application for citizenship, his diary records that he practiced Russian 8 hours a day.[C6-115] After he was sent to Minsk in early January 1960 he took lessons from an interpreter assigned to him for that purpose by the Soviet Government.[C6-116] Marina Oswald said that by the time she met him in March 1961 he spoke the language well enough so that at first she thought he was from one of the Baltic areas of her country, because of his accent. She stated that his only defects were that his grammar was sometimes incorrect and that his writing was never good.[C6-117]