chapter IV

, Oswald had been planning his attack on General Walker for at least 1[C7-297] and perhaps as much as 2 months.[C7-298] He outlined his plans in a notebook and studied them at considerable length before his attack.[C7-299] He also studied Dallas bus schedules to prepare for his later use of buses to travel to and from General Walker’s house.[C7-300] Sometime after March 27, but according to Marina Oswald, prior to April 10, 1963,[C7-301] Oswald posed for two pictures with his recently acquired rifle and pistol, a copy of the March 24, 1963, issue of the Worker, and the March 11, 1963, issue of the Militant.[C7-302] He told his wife that he wanted to send the pictures to the Militant and he also asked her to keep one of the pictures for his daughter, June.[C7-303]

Following his unsuccessful attack on Walker, Oswald returned home. He had left a note for his wife telling her what to do in case he were apprehended, as well as his notebook and the pictures of himself holding the rifle.[C7-304] She testified that she was agitated because she had found the note in Oswald’s room, where she had gone, contrary to his instructions, after she became worried about his absence.[C7-305] She indicated that she had no advance knowledge of Oswald’s plans, that she became quite angry when Oswald told her what he had done, and that she made him promise never to repeat such a performance. She said that she kept the note to use against him “if something like that should be repeated again.”[C7-306] When asked if Oswald requested the note back she testified that:

He forgot about it. But apparently after he thought that what he had written in his book might be proof against him, and he destroyed it. [the book][C7-307]

She later gave the following testimony [*indicates that the witness answered without using the interpreter]:

Q. After he brought the rifle home, then, he showed you the book?

*A. Yes.

Q. And you said it was not a good idea to keep this book?

*A. Yes.

Q. And then he burned the book?

*A. Yes.

Q. Did you ask him why he had not destroyed the book before he actually went to shoot General Walker?

A. It never came to me, myself, to ask him that question.[C7-308]

Marina Oswald’s testimony indicates that her husband was not

## particularly concerned about his continued possession of the most

incriminating sort of evidence.[C7-309] If he had been successful and had been apprehended even for routine questioning, his apartment would undoubtedly have been searched, and his role would have been made clear by the evidence which he had left behind. Leaving the note and picture as he did would seem to indicate that he had considered the possibility of capture. Possibly he might have wanted to be caught, and wanted his involvement made clear if he was in fact apprehended. Even after his wife told him to destroy the notebook he removed at least some of the pictures which had been pasted in it and saved them among his effects, where they were found after the assassination.[C7-310] His behavior was entirely consistent with his wife’s testimony that:

I asked him what for he was making all these entries in the book and he answered that he wanted to leave a complete record so that all the details would be in it.

* * * * *

I am guessing that perhaps he did it to appear to be a brave man in case he were arrested, but that is my supposition * * *[C7-311]

The attempt on General Walker’s life deserves close attention in any consideration of Oswald’s possible motive for the assassination and the trail of evidence he left behind him on that occasion. While there are differences between the two events as far as Oswald’s actions and planning are concerned, there are also similarities that should be considered. The items which Oswald left at home when he made his attack on Walker suggest a strong concern for his place in history. If the attack had succeeded and Oswald had been caught, the pictures showing him with his rifle and his Communist and Socialist Worker’s Party newspapers would probably have appeared on the front pages of newspapers or magazines all over the country, as, in fact, one of them did appear after the assassination.[C7-312] The circumstances of the attack on Walker coupled with other indications that Oswald was concerned about his place in history[C7-313] and with the circumstances surrounding the assassination, have led the Commission to believe that such concern is an important factor to consider in assessing possible motivation for the assassination.

In any event, the Walker incident indicates that in spite of the belief among those who knew him that he was apparently not dangerous,[C7-314] Oswald did not lack the determination and other traits required to carry out a carefully planned killing of another human being and was willing to consummate such a purpose if he thought there was sufficient reason to do so. Some idea of what he thought was sufficient reason for such an act may be found in the nature of the motive that he stated for his attack on General Walker. Marina Oswald indicated that her husband had compared General Walker to Adolph Hitler. She testified that Oswald said that General Walker “was a very bad man, that he was a fascist, that he was the leader of a fascist organization, and when I said that even though all of that might be true, just the same he had no right to take his life, he said if someone had killed Hitler in time it would have saved many lives.”[C7-315]

Political Activities

Oswald’s political activities after his return to the United States center around his interest in Cuba and in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Although, as indicated above, the Commission has been unable to find any credible evidence that he was involved in any conspiracy, his political activities do provide insight into certain aspects of Oswald’s character and into his possible motivation for the assassination. While it appears that he may have distributed Fair Play for Cuba Committee materials on one uneventful occasion in Dallas sometime during the period April 6-24, 1963,[C7-316] Oswald’s first public identification with that cause was in New Orleans. There, in late May and early June of 1963, under the name Lee Osborne, he had printed a handbill headed in large letters “Hands Off Cuba,” an application form for, and a membership card in, the New Orleans branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.[C7-317] He first distributed his handbills and other material uneventfully in the vicinity of the U.S.S. _Wasp_, which was berthed at the Dumaine Street wharf in New Orleans, on June 16, 1963.[C7-318] He distributed literature in downtown New Orleans on August 9, 1963, and was arrested because of a dispute with three anti-Castro Cuban exiles, and again on August 16, 1963.[C7-319] Following his arrest, he was interviewed by the police, and at his own request, by an agent of the FBI.[C7-320] On August 17, 1963, he appeared briefly on a radio program[C7-321] and on August 21, 1963, he debated over radio station WDSU, New Orleans, with Carlos Bringuier, one of the Cuban exiles who had been arrested with him on August 9.[C7-322] Bringuier claimed that on August 5, 1963, Oswald had attempted to infiltrate an anti-Castro organization with which he was associated.[C7-323]

While Oswald publicly engaged in the activities described above, his “organization” was a product of his imagination.[C7-324] The imaginary president of the nonexistent chapter was named A. J. Hidell,[C7-325] the name that Oswald used when he purchased the assassination weapon.[C7-326] Marina Oswald said she signed that name, apparently chosen because it rhymed with “Fidel,”[C7-327] to her husband’s membership card in the New Orleans chapter. She testified that he threatened to beat her if she did not do so.[C7-328] The chapter had never been chartered by the national FPCC organization.[C7-329] It appears to have been a solitary operation on Oswald’s part in spite of his misstatements to the New Orleans police that it had 35 members, 5 of which were usually present at meetings which were held once a month.[C7-330]

Oswald’s Fair Play for Cuba activities may be viewed as a very shrewd political operation in which one man single handedly created publicity for his cause or for himself. It is also evidence of Oswald’s reluctance to describe events accurately and of his need to present himself to others as well as to himself in a light more favorable than was justified by reality. This is suggested by his misleading and sometime untruthful statements in his letters to Mr. V. T. Lee, then national director of FPCC. In one of those letters, dated August 1, 1963, Oswald wrote that an office which he had previously claimed to have rented for FPCC activities had been “promply closed 3 days later for some obsure reasons by the renters, they said something about remodeling ect., I’m sure you understand.”[C7-331] He wrote that “thousands of circulars were distrubed”[C7-332] and that he continued to receive inquiries through his post office box which he endeavored “to keep ansewering to the best of my ability.”[C7-333] In his letter to V. T. Lee, he stated that he was then alone in his efforts on behalf of FPCC, but he attributed his lack of support to an attack by Cuban exiles in a street demonstration and being “officialy cautioned” by the police, events which “robbed me of what support I had leaving me alone.”[C7-334]

In spite of those claims, the Commission has not been able to uncover any evidence that anyone ever attacked any street demonstration in which Oswald was involved, except for the Bringuier incident mentioned above, which occurred 8 days after Oswald wrote the above letter to V. T. Lee.[C7-335] Bringuier, who seemed to be familiar with many anti-Castro activities in New Orleans, was not aware of any such incident.[C7-336] Police reports also fail to reflect any activity on Oswald’s part prior to August 9, 1963, except for the uneventful distribution of literature at the Dumaine Street wharf in June.[C7-337] Furthermore, the general tenor of Oswald’s next letter to V. T. Lee, in which he supported his report on the Bringuier incident with a copy of the charges made against him and a newspaper clipping reporting the event, suggests that his previous story of an attack by Cuban exiles was at least greatly exaggerated.[C7-338] While the legend “FPCC 544 Camp St. NEW ORLEANS, LA.” was stamped on some literature that Oswald had in his possession at the time of his arrest in New Orleans, extensive investigation was not able to connect Oswald with that address, although it did develop the fact that an anti-Castro organization had maintained offices there for a period ending early in 1962.[C7-339] The Commission has not been able to find any other indication that Oswald had rented an office in New Orleans. In view of the limited amount of public activity on Oswald’s part before August 9, 1963, there also seems to be no basis for his claim that he had distributed “thousands” of circulars, especially since he had claimed to have printed only 2,000 and actually had only 1,000 printed. In addition, there is no evidence that he received any substantial amount of materials from the national headquarters.[C7-340]

In another letter to V. T. Lee, dated August 17, 1963, Oswald wrote that he had appeared on Mr. William Stuckey’s 15-minute television program over WDSU-TV called “Latin American Focus” as a result of which he was “flooded with callers and invitations to debate’s ect. as well as people interested in joining the F.P.C.C. New Orleans branch.”[C7-341] WDSU has no program of any kind called “Latin American Focus.”[C7-342] Stuckey had a radio program called “Latin Listening Post,” on which Oswald was heard for less than 5 minutes on August 17, 1963.[C7-343] It appears that Oswald had only one caller in response to all of his FPCC activities, an agent of Bringuier’s attempting to learn more about the true nature of the alleged FPCC “organization” in New Orleans.[C7-344]

Oswald’s statements suggest that he hoped to be flooded with callers and invitations to debate. This would have made him a real center of attention as he must have been when he first arrived in the Soviet Union and as he was to some extent when he returned to the United States. The limited notoriety that Oswald received as a result of the street fracas and in the subsequent radio debate was apparently not enough to satisfy him. He exaggerated in his letters to V. T. Lee in an apparent attempt to make himself and his activities appear far more important than they really were.

[Illustration: OSWALD DISTRIBUTING FAIR PLAY FOR CUBA HANDBILLS IN NEW ORLEANS, AUGUST 16, 1963--INSETS SHOW SAMPLES OF HIS HANDBILLS ON WHICH HE HAD STAMPED HIS NAME AND THE NAME OF “A J HIDELL”

COMMISSION EXHIBIT 2966 A

COMMISSION EXHIBIT 2966 B

GARNER DEPOSITION EXHIBIT 1]

His attempt to express himself through his Fair Play for Cuba

## activities, however, was greatly impeded by the fact that the radio

debate over WDSU on August 21, 1963, brought out the history of his defection to the Soviet Union.[C7-345] The basic facts of the event were uncovered independently by William Stuckey, who arranged the debate, and Edward Butler, executive director of the Information Council of the Americas, who also appeared on the program.[C7-346] Oswald was confronted with those facts at the beginning of the debate and was so thrown on the defensive by this that he was forced to state that Fair Play for Cuba was “not at all Communist controlled regardless of the fact that I had the experience of living in Russia.”[C7-347]

Stuckey testified that uncovering Oswald’s defection was very important:

I think that we finished him on that program. * * * because we had publicly linked the Fair Play for Cuba Committee with a fellow who had lived in Russia for 3 years and who was an admitted Marxist.

The interesting thing, or rather the danger involved, was the fact that Oswald seemed like such a nice, bright boy and was extremely believable before this. We thought the fellow could probably get quite a few members if he was really indeed serious about getting members. We figured after this broadcast of August 21, why, that was no longer possible.[C7-348]

In spite of the fact that Oswald had been surprised and was on the defensive throughout the debate, according to Stuckey: “Mr. Oswald handled himself very well, as usual.”[C7-349] Stuckey thought Oswald “appeared to be a very logical, intelligent fellow,” and “was arrested by his cleancutness.”[C7-350] He did not think Oswald looked like the “type” that he would have expected to find associating with a group such as the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.[C7-351] Stuckey thought that Oswald acted very much as would a young attorney.[C7-352]

Following the disclosure of his defection, Oswald sought advice from the Communist Party, U.S.A., concerning his Fair Play for Cuba

## activity.[C7-353] He had previously sent, apparently unsolicited, to

the Party newspaper, the Worker, samples of his photographic work, offering to contribute that sort of service without charge.[C7-354] The Worker replied: “Your kind offer is most welcomed and from time to time we shall call on you.”[C7-355] He later wrote to another official of the Worker, seeking employment, and mentioning the praise he had received for submitting his photographic work.[C7-356] He presented Arnold Johnson, Gus Hall, and Benjamin J. Davis honorary membership cards in his nonexistent New Orleans chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and advised them of some of his activities on behalf of the organization.[C7-357] Arnold Johnson, director of the information and lecture bureau of the Communist Party, U.S.A., replied stating:

It is good to know that movements in support of fair play for Cuba has developed in New Orleans as well as in other cities. We do not have any organizational ties with the Committee, and yet there is much material that we issue from time to time that is important for anybody who is concerned about developments in Cuba.[C7-358]

Marina Oswald said that such correspondence from people he considered important meant much to Oswald. After he had begun his Cuban activity in New Orleans “he received a letter from somebody in New York, some Communist--probably from New York--I am not sure from where--from some Communist leader and he was very happy, he felt that this was a great man that he had received the letter from.”[C7-359] Since he seemed to feel that no one else understood his political views, the letter was of great value to him for it “was proof * * * that there were people who understood his activity.”[C7-360]

He anticipated that the full disclosure of his defection would hinder him in “the struggle for progress and freedom in the United States”[C7-361] into which Oswald, in his own words, had “thrown” himself. He sought advice from the central committee of the Communist Party, U.S.A., in a letter dated August 28, 1963, about whether he could “continue to fight, handicapped as it were, by my past record * * * [and] compete with anti-progressive forces, above-ground or weather in your opion I should always remain in the background, i.e. underground.”[C7-362] Stating that he had used his “position” with what he claimed to be the local branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee to “foster communist ideals,” Oswald wrote that he felt that he might have compromised the FPCC and expressed concern lest “Our opponents could use my background of residence in the U.S.S.R. against any cause which I join, by association, they could say the organization of which I am a member, is Russian controled, ect.”[C7-363] In reply Arnold Johnson advised Oswald that, while as an American citizen he had a right to participate in such organizations as he wished, “there are a number of organizations, including possibly Fair Play, which are of a very broad character, and often it is advisable for some people to remain in the background, not underground.”[C7-364]

By August of 1963, after a short 3 months in New Orleans, the city in which he had been born and had lived most of his early life, Oswald had fallen on difficult times. He had not liked his job as a greaser of coffee processing machinery and he held it for only a little over 2 months.[C7-365] He had not found another job. His wife was expecting their second child in October and there was concern about the cost which would be involved.[C7-366] His brief foray on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee had failed to win any support. While he had drawn some attention to himself and had actually appeared on two radio programs, he had been attacked by Cuban exiles and arrested, an event which his wife thought upset him and as a result of which “he became less active, he cooled off a little.”[C7-367] More seriously, the facts of his defection had become known, leaving him open to almost unanswerable attack by those who opposed his views. It would not have been possible to have followed Arnold Johnson’s advice to remain in the background, since there was no background to the New Orleans FPCC “organization,” which consisted solely of Oswald. Furthermore, he had apparently not received any letters from the national headquarters of FPCC since May 29, 1963,[C7-368] even though he had written four detailed letters since that time to Mr. V. T. Lee[C7-369] and had also kept the national headquarters informed of each of his changes of mailing address.[C7-370] Those events no doubt had their effects on Oswald.

Interest in Cuba

By August of 1963, Oswald had for some time been considering the possibility of leaving the United States again. On June 24, 1963, he applied for a new passport[C7-371] and in late June or early July he told his wife that he wanted to return to the Soviet Union with her. She said that he was extremely upset, very unhappy, and that he actually wept when he told her that.[C7-372] He said that nothing kept him in the United States, that he would not lose anything if he returned to the Soviet Union, that he wanted to be with her and that it would be better to have less and not have to be concerned about tomorrow.[C7-373]

As a result of that conversation, Marina Oswald wrote the Soviet Embassy in Washington concerning a request she had first made on February 17, 1963, for permission for herself and June to return to the Soviet Union.[C7-374] While that first request, made according to Marina Oswald at her husband’s insistence, specifically stated that Oswald was to remain in the United States, she wrote in her letter of July 1963, that “things are improving due to the fact that my husband expresses a sincere wish to return together with me to the USSR.”[C7-375] Unknown to his wife, however, Oswald apparently enclosed a note with her letter of July in which he requested the Embassy to rush his wife’s entrance visa because of the impending birth of the second child but stated that: “As for my return entrance visa please consider it _separtably_.”[C7-376]

Thus, while Oswald’s real intentions, assuming that they were known to himself, are not clear, he may not have intended to go to the Soviet Union directly, if at all.[C7-377] It appears that he really wanted to go to Cuba. In his wife’s words:

I only know that his basic desire was to get to Cuba by any means, and that all the rest of it was window dressing for that purpose.[C7-378]

Marina Oswald testified that her husband engaged in Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities “primarily for purposes of self-advertising. He wanted to be arrested. I think he wanted to get into the newspapers, so that he would be known.”[C7-379] According to Marina Oswald, he thought that would help him when he got to Cuba.[C7-380] He asked his wife to help him to hijack an airplane to get there, but gave up that scheme when she refused.[C7-381]

During this period Oswald may have practiced opening and closing the bolt on his rifle in a screened porch in his apartment.[C7-382] In September he began to review Spanish.[C7-383] He approved arrangements for his family to return to Irving, Tex., to live with Mrs. Ruth Paine.[C7-384] On September 20, 1963, Mrs. Paine and her two children arrived in New Orleans from a trip to the East Coast[C7-385] and left for Irving with Marina Oswald and June and most of the Oswalds’ effects 3 days later.[C7-386] While Marina Oswald knew of her husband’s plan to go to Mexico and thence to Cuba if possible,[C7-387] Mrs. Paine was told that Oswald was going to Houston and possibly to Philadelphia to look for work.[C7-388]

Oswald left for Mexico City on September 25, 1963, and arrived on September 27, 1963. He went almost directly to the Cuban Embassy and applied for a visa to Cuba in transit to Russia.[C7-389] Representing himself as the head of the New Orleans branch of the “organization called ‘Fair Play for Cuba,’ he stated his desire that he should be accepted as a ‘friend’ of the Cuban Revolution.”[C7-390] He apparently based his claim for a visa in transit to Russia on his previous residence, his work permit for that country, and several unidentified letters in the Russian language. The Cubans would not, however, give him a visa until he had received one from the Soviets, which involved a delay of several months. When faced with that situation Oswald became greatly agitated, and although he later unsuccessfully attempted to obtain a Soviet visa at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, he insisted that he was entitled to the Cuban visa because of his background,

## partisanship, and personal activities on behalf of the Cuban movement.

He engaged in an angry argument with the consul who finally told him that “as far as he was concerned he would not give him a visa” and that “a person like him [Oswald] in place of aiding the Cuban Revolution, was doing it harm.”[C7-391]

Oswald must have been thoroughly disillusioned when he left Mexico City on October 2, 1963. In spite of his former residence in the Soviet Union and his Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities he had been rebuffed by the officials of both Cuba and the Soviet Union in Mexico City. Now there appeared to be no chance to get to Cuba, where he had thought he might find his communist ideal. The U.S. Government would not permit travel there and as far as the performance of the Cubans themselves was concerned, he was “disappointed at not being able to get to Cuba, and he didn’t have any great desire to do so any more because he had run into, as he himself said--into bureaucracy and red tape.”[C7-392]

Oswald’s attempt to go to Cuba was another act which expressed his hostility toward the United States and its institutions as well as a concomitant attachment to a country in which he must have thought were embodied the political principles to which he had been committed for so long. It should be noted that his interest in Cuba seems to have increased along with the sense of frustration which must have developed as he experienced successive failures in his jobs, in his political

## activity, and in his personal relationships. In retrospect his attempt

to go to Cuba or return to the Soviet Union may well have been Oswald’s last escape hatch, his last gambit to extricate himself from the mediocrity and defeat which plagued him throughout most of his life.

Oswald’s activities with regard to Cuba raise serious questions as to how much he might have been motivated in the assassination by a desire to aid the Castro regime, which President Kennedy so outspokenly criticized. For example, the Dallas Times Herald of November 19, 1963, prominently reported President Kennedy as having “all but invited the Cuban people today to overthrow Fidel Castro’s Communist regime and promised prompt U.S. aid if they do.”[C7-393] The Castro regime severely attacked President Kennedy in connection with the Bay of Pigs affair, the Cuban missile crisis, the ban on travel to Cuba, the economic embargo against that country, and the general policy of the United States with regard to Cuba. An examination of the Militant, to which Oswald subscribed,[C7-394] for the 3-month period prior to the assassination reflects an extremely critical attitude toward President Kennedy and his administration concerning Cuban policy in general as well as on the issues of automation and civil rights, issues which appeared to concern Oswald a great deal.[C7-395] The Militant also reflected a critical attitude toward President Kennedy’s attempts to reduce tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. It also dealt with the fear of the Castro regime that such a policy might result in its abandonment by the Soviet Union.

The October 7, 1963, issue of the Militant reported Castro as saying Cuba could not accept a situation where at the same time the United States was trying to ease world tensions it also “was increasing its efforts to ‘tighten the noose’ around Cuba.”[C7-396] Castro’s opposition to President Kennedy’s attempt to reduce world tensions was also reported in the October 1, 1963, issue of the Worker, to which Oswald also subscribed.[C7-397] In this connection it should be noted that in speaking of the Worker, Oswald told Michael Paine, apparently in all seriousness, that “you could tell what they wanted you to do * * * by reading between the lines, reading the thing and doing a little reading between the lines.”[C7-398]

The general conflict of views between the United States and Cuba was, of course, reflected in other media to such an extent that there can be no doubt that Oswald was aware generally of the critical attitude that Castro expressed about President Kennedy. Oswald was asked during the New Orleans radio debate in which he engaged on August 21, 1963, whether or not he agreed with Castro that President Kennedy was a “ruffian and a thief.” He replied that he “would not agree with that

## particular wording.”[C7-399] It should also be noted, however, that

one witness testified that shortly before the assassination Oswald had expressed approval of President Kennedy’s active role in the area of civil rights.[C7-400]

Although Oswald could possibly have been motivated in part by his sympathy for the Castro government, it should be remembered that his wife testified that he was disappointed with his failure to get to Cuba and had lost his desire to do so because of the bureaucracy and red tape which he had encountered.[C7-401] His unhappy experience with the Cuban consul seems thus to have reduced his enthusiasm for the Castro regime and his desire to go to Cuba.

While some of Castro’s more severe criticisms of President Kennedy might have led Oswald to believe that he would be well received in Cuba after he had assassinated the American President, it does not appear that he had any plans to go there. Oswald was carrying only $13.87 at the time of his arrest, although he had left, apparently by design, $170 in a wallet in his wife’s room in Irving.[C7-402] If there was no conspiracy which would help him escape, the possibility of which has been considered in