chapter II

, two provocative incidents took place concurrently with President Kennedy’s visit and a third but a month prior thereto. The incidents were (1) the demonstration against the Honorable Adlai E. Stevenson, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, in late October 1963, when he came to Dallas on United Nations Day; (2) the publication in the Dallas Morning News on November 22 of the full page, black-bordered paid advertisement entitled, “Welcome Mr. Kennedy”; and (3) the distribution of a throwaway handbill entitled “Wanted for Treason” throughout Dallas on November 20 and 21. Oswald was aware of the Stevenson incident; there is no evidence that he became aware of either the “Welcome Mr. Kennedy” advertisement or the “Wanted for Treason” handbill, though neither possibility can be precluded.

The only evidence of interest on Oswald’s part in rightist groups in Dallas was his alleged attendance at a rally at the Dallas Auditorium the evening preceding Ambassador Stevenson’s address on United Nations Day, October 24, 1963. On the evening of October 25, 1963, at the invitation of Michael Paine, Oswald attended a monthly meeting of the Dallas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union in which he was later to seek membership.[C6-446] During the course of the discussion at this meeting, a speaker mentioned Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker (Resigned, U.S. Army). Oswald arose in the midst of the meeting to remark that a “night or two nights before” he had attended a meeting at which General Walker had spoken in terms that led Oswald to assert that General Walker was both anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic.[C6-447] General Walker testified that he had been the speaker at a rally the night before Ambassador Stevenson’s appearance, but that he did not know and had never heard of Oswald prior to the announcement of his name on radio and television on the afternoon of November 22.[C6-448] Oswald confirmed his attendance at the U.S. Day rally in an undated letter he wrote to Arnold Johnson, director of the information and lecture bureau of the Communist Party, mailed November 1, 1963, in which he reported:

On October 23rd, I had attended a ultra-right meeting headed by General Edwin a. Walker, who lives in Dallas.

This meeting preceded by one day the attack on a. e. Stevenson at the United Nations Day meeting at which he spoke.

As you can see, political friction between ‘left’ and ‘right’ is very great here.[C6-449]

In the light of Oswald’s attack upon General Walker on the evening of April 10, 1963, discussed in