chapter VI

of this report led to the Commission’s conclusion that there is no credible evidence that Oswald was an agent of the Soviet Government and that he did not receive unusually favorable treatment in entering or leaving the Soviet Union or in returning to the United States.

_Speculation._--A young private in the Marine Corps in the 1950’s could not study Marxism, learn Russian, and read Soviet newspapers without any adverse repercussions in his unit.

_Commission finding._--Although Oswald’s interest in the Soviet Union was well known, his interest in Marxism was apparently known to only a few of his fellow marines. While stationed in California, he studied Russian. In February 1959, while still in the Marines, he took an official test on his proficiency in Russian and was rated “Poor.” In California at about this time he probably read a Russian-language newspaper. The reactions of his fellow Marines who were aware of his interests in Marxism and the Soviet Union were apparently not antagonistic and did not deter him from pursuing these interests.[A12-75]

_Speculation._--Oswald learned Russian during his service in the Marines as part of his military training.

_Commission finding._--Oswald never received any training from the Marine Corps in the Russian language. His studies of Russian were entirely on his own time and at his own initiative.[A12-76]

_Speculation._--Oswald could not have saved $1,600 from his Marine pay for his trip to Russia in 1959.

_Commission finding._--In November 1959, Oswald told an American reporter in Moscow, Aline Mosby, that he had saved $1,500 (not $1,600) while in the Marines. It is entirely consistent with Oswald’s known frugality that he could have saved the money from the $3,452.20 in pay he received while he was in the Marines. Moreover, despite his statement to Aline Mosby, he may not actually have saved $1,500, for it was possible for him to have made the trip to Russia in 1959 for considerably less than that amount.[A12-77]

_Speculation._--It is probable that Oswald had prior contacts with Soviet agents before he entered Russia in 1959 because his application for a visa was processed and approved immediately on receipt.

_Commission finding._--There is no evidence that Oswald was in touch with Soviet agents before his visit to Russia. The time that it took for him to receive his visa in Helsinki for entrance to the Soviet Union was shorter than the average but not beyond the normal range for the granting of such visas. Had Oswald been recruited as a Russian agent while he was still in the Marines, it is most improbable that he would have been encouraged to defect. He would have been of greater value to Russian intelligence as a Marine radar operator than as a defector.[A12-78]

_Speculation._--Soviet suspicion of Oswald is indicated by the fact that he was sent off to work in a radio plant in Minsk as an unskilled hand at the lowest rate of pay although he qualified as a trained radar and electronics technician.

_Commission finding._--The Soviet Government probably was suspicious of Oswald, as it would be of any American who appeared in Moscow and said he wanted to live in the Soviet Union. Under the circumstances it is to be expected that he would be placed in a position that would not involve national security. Moreover, Oswald had been a radar operator, not a technician, in the Marines. His total income in Russia was higher than normal because his pay was supplemented for about a year by payments from the Soviet “Red Cross,” an official agency of the Soviet Government. Oswald believed that these payments really came from the MVD. It is a policy of the Soviet Government to subsidize defectors from Western nations who settle in the Soviet Union, in order that their standard of living may not be too much lower than their previous standard in their own country. [A12-79]

_Speculation._--Oswald was trained by the Russians in a special school for assassins at Minsk.

_Commission finding._--Commission investigations revealed no evidence to support this claim or the existence of such a school in Minsk during the time Oswald was there. Oswald belonged to a hunting club near Minsk, but there is no evidence that this was other than an ordinary hunting club.[A12-80]

_Speculation._--Marina Oswald’s father was an important part of the Soviet intelligence apparatus.

_Commission finding._--Marina Oswald’s father died while she was still an infant. This reference is presumably to her uncle, Ilya Prusakov, who was an executive in the lumber industry, which position carried with it the rank of lieutenant colonel or colonel in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). Since 1953 the MVD has not been concerned with internal security or other police functions.[A12-81]

_Speculation._--It was most exceptional that Oswald was able to bring his wife and child out of the Soviet Union with him.

_Commission finding._--There is no reason to believe that the Oswalds received unusually favorable treatment in being permitted or assisted to leave the Soviet Union together. Other American citizens have brought their Russian wives out of the Soviet Union, both before and after Oswald.[A12-82]

_Speculation._--Oswald never would have been permitted to return to the United States if Soviet intelligence had not planned to use him in some way against the United States.

_Commission finding._--There is no evidence that Oswald had any working relationship with the Soviet Government or Soviet intelligence. The Russians have permitted other American defectors to return to the United States.[A12-83]

_Speculation._--Since the exit visa for Marina Oswald was granted so promptly the Soviet authorities must have wanted Marina to accompany her husband.

_Commission finding._--Marina Oswald’s exit visa application was not acted upon with unusual rapidity. It took at least 5½ months from the time the Oswalds applied until they were notified of permission in December 1961. There have been many instances where visas were granted more quickly to other Soviet wives of American citizens.[A12-84]

_Speculation._--Soviet authorities gave Oswald notice a month and a half in advance that they had granted him an exit visa, an unprecedented act for the Soviet Government.

_Commission finding_--The Oswalds were notified on December 25, 1961, that their requests for exit visas had been granted by Soviet authorities. Marina Oswald picked up her visa, valid until December 1, 1962, on January 11, 1962, 17 days after receiving notice that it was available. Oswald did not pick up his visa until May 22. The Soviets did not give the Oswalds any advance notice; the visas could have been picked up immediately had the Oswalds so desired. Because his exit visa had a 45-day expiration time after date of issuance, Lee Oswald delayed picking it up until he knew when he was leaving. He could not arrange a departure date until he received permission from the Department of State in May to return to the United States.[A12-85]

OSWALD’S TRIP TO MEXICO CITY

Oswald’s trip to Mexico City in late September and early October 1963, less than 2 months before he assassinated President Kennedy, has provoked speculation that it was related in some way to a conspiracy to murder the President. Rumors include assertions that he made a clandestine flight from Mexico to Cuba and back and that he received a large sum of money--usually estimated at $5,000--which he brought back to Dallas with him. The Commission has no credible evidence that Oswald went to Mexico pursuant to a plan to assassinate President Kennedy, that he received any instructions related to such an action while there, or that he received large sums of money from any source in Mexico.

_Speculation_--Oswald could not have received an American passport in June 1963 within 24 hours without special intervention on his behalf.

_Commission finding_--Oswald’s passport application was processed routinely by the Department of State. No person or agency intervened specially on his behalf to speed the issuance of the passport. The passports of 24 other persons, on the same list sent to Washington from New Orleans, were authorized at the same time. The Passport Office of the Department of State had no instructions to delay issuance of or to deny a passport to Oswald.[A12-86]

_Speculation._--The Walter-McCarran Act specifically requires anyone who has attempted to renounce his U.S. citizenship to file an affidavit stating why he should receive a U.S. passport. Therefore, Oswald should have been required to file such an affidavit before receiving his passport in June 1963.

_Commission finding._--The Internal Security Act of 1950 (Walter-McCarran Act) contains no reference to an affidavit being required of a U.S. citizen who has attempted to expatriate himself.[A12-87]

_Speculation._--Oswald did not have money for his trip to Mexico in September 1963.

_Commission finding._--An analysis of Oswald’s finances by the Commission indicates that he had sufficient money to make the trip to and from Mexico City. There is no evidence that he received any assistance in financing his trip to Mexico. The total cost of his 7-day trip has been reliably estimated at less than $85.[A12-88]

_Speculation._--Oswald was accompanied on his trip to Mexico City by a man and two women.

_Commission finding._--Investigation has revealed that Oswald traveled alone on the bus. Fellow passengers on the bus between Houston and Mexico City have stated that he appeared to be traveling alone and that they had not previously known him.[A12-89]

_Speculation._--While in Mexico, Oswald made a clandestine flight to Havana and back.

_Commission finding._--The Commission has found no evidence that Oswald made any flight to Cuba while he was in Mexico. He never received permission from the Cuban Government to enter Cuba nor from the Mexican Government to leave Mexico bound for Cuba. A confidential check of the Cuban airline in Mexico City indicates that Oswald never appeared at its office there.[A12-90]

_Speculation._--Oswald came back from Mexico City with $5,000.

_Commission finding._--No evidence has ever been supplied or obtained to support this allegation. Oswald’s actions in Mexico City and after his return to Dallas lend no support to this speculation.[A12-91]

_Speculation._--On November 27, 1963, in a speech at the University of Havana, Fidel Castro, under the influence of liquor, said “The first time that Oswald was in Cuba * * *.” Castro therefore had knowledge that Oswald had made surreptitious visits to Cuba.

_Commission finding._--Castro’s speeches are monitored directly by the U.S. Information Agency as he delivers them. A tape of this speech reveals that it did not contain the alleged slip of the tongue. Castro did refer to Oswald’s visit to the “Cuban Embassy” in Mexico which he immediately corrected to “Cuban consulate.” The Commission has found no evidence that Oswald had made surreptitious visits to Cuba.[A12-92]

OSWALD AND U.S. GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

Rumors and speculations that Oswald was in some way associated with or used by agencies of the U.S. Government grew out of his Russian period and his investigation by the FBI after his return to the United States. Insinuations were made that Oswald had been a CIA agent or had some relationship with the CIA and that this explained the supposed ease with which he received passports and visas. Speculation that he had some working relationship with the FBI was based on an entry in Oswald’s notebook giving the name and telephone number of an agent from the FBI office in Dallas. The Directors of the CIA and the FBI have testified before the Commission that Oswald was never in the employ of their agencies in any capacity. The Commission has concluded on the basis of its own investigations of the files of Federal agencies that Oswald was not and had never been an agent of any agency of the U.S. Government (aside from his service in the Marines) and was not and had never been used by any U.S. Government agency for any purpose. The FBI was interested in him as a former defector and it maintained a file on him.

_Speculation._--Oswald was an informant of either the FBI or the CIA. He was recruited by an agency of the U.S. Government and sent to Russia in 1959.

_Commission finding._--Mrs. Marguerite Oswald frequently expressed the opinion that her son was such an agent, but she stated before the Commission that “I cannot prove Lee is an agent.”[A12-93] The Directors of the CIA and of the FBI testified before the Commission that Oswald was never employed by either agency or used by either agency in any capacity. Investigation by the Commission has revealed no evidence that Oswald was ever employed by either the FBI or CIA in any capacity.[A12-94]

_Speculation._--Oswald told Pauline Bates, a public stenographer in Fort Worth, Tex., in June 1962, that he had become a “secret agent” of the U.S. Government and that he was soon going back to Russia “for Washington.”

_Commission-finding._--Miss Bates denied a newspaper story reporting that Oswald had told her that he was working for the U.S. Department of State. She stated that she had assumed incorrectly that he was working with the Department of State when he told her that the State Department had told him in 1959 that he would be on his own while in the Soviet Union.[A12-95]

_Speculation._--The FBI tried to recruit Oswald. An FBI agent’s name, telephone number, and automobile license number were found among Oswald’s papers.

_Commission finding._--FBI officials have testified that they had never tried to recruit Oswald to act on behalf of the FBI in any capacity. The Commission’s investigation corroborates this testimony. An FBI agent, James P. Hosty, Jr., had given his name and telephone number to Mrs. Ruth Paine so that she could call and give him Oswald’s address in Dallas when she learned it. Mrs. Paine and Marina Oswald have stated that Mrs. Paine gave Oswald a slip of paper with the agent’s name and telephone number on it. Marina Oswald had taken down the license number of Hosty’s car on one of his visits and given it to her husband.[A12-96]

_Speculation._--Dallas police must have known where Oswald was living in the city because Mrs. Paine had given the address of Oswald’s room on North Beckley Avenue to the FBI some time before the assassination.

_Commission-finding._--Mrs. Paine had never given the address of Oswald’s roominghouse to the FBI, nor had she known the address prior to the assassination. Therefore, the Dallas police could not have learned the address from the FBI which did not know the address before the assassination. The Dallas Police did not know that Oswald was in the city before the assassination.[A12-97]

_Speculation._--It has been FBI policy for 20 years to inform employers of Communists or suspected Communists employed by them. It is a mystery, therefore, how Oswald retained his job at the Texas School

## Book Depository.

_Commission finding._--The FBI advised the Commission that it has never been its policy to inform employers that they have Communists or suspected Communists working for them and that the FBI does not disseminate internal security information to anyone outside the executive branch of the U.S. Government. FBI agents had no contacts with Texas School Book Depository officials until after the assassination.[A12-98]

_Speculation._--Municipal and Federal police had observed Oswald closely for some time but had not regarded him as a potential killer.

_Commission finding._--The Dallas police had not been aware of Oswald’s presence in the city before the assassination. The FBI knew that Oswald was in Dallas from an interview with Mrs. Paine, but no FBI agents had interviewed him there before the assassination. The FBI had not regarded him as a potential killer.[A12-99]

_Speculation._--The FBI probably knew that Oswald had the rifle before the President’s murder because it was most unlikely that it could have traced the ownership of the rifle within 1 day if it had not already had information on the rifle.

_Commission finding._--The FBI successfully traced the purchase of the rifle by Oswald within 24 hours of the assassination. It had had no previous information about the rifle.[A12-100]

_Speculation._--The FBI interviewed Oswald 10 days before the assassination.

_Commission finding._--The last FBI interview with Oswald, before the assassination, took place in New Orleans in August 1963, when he asked to see an FBI agent after his arrest by police for disturbing the peace, the outcome of his distribution of Fair Play for Cuba handbills. Neither Special Agent Hosty nor any other FBI agent saw or talked with Oswald between his return to Dallas, on October 3, and November 22. Hosty did interview Mrs. Paine at her home about Oswald on November 1 and 5, 1963. He also saw Marina Oswald briefly on November 1 at Mrs. Paine’s house, but he did not interview her.[A12-101].

CONSPIRATORIAL RELATIONSHIPS

Rumors concerning accomplices and plots linked Oswald and Ruby with each other, or with others, including Patrolman J. D. Tippit, Gen. Edwin A. Walker, and Bernard Weissman of the nonexistent American Factfinding Committee, in a conspiratorial relationship. The Commission made intensive inquiry into the backgrounds and relationships of Oswald and Ruby to determine whether they knew each other or were involved in a plot of any kind with each other or others. It was unable to find any credible evidence to support the rumors linking Oswald and Ruby directly or through others. The Commission concluded that they were not involved in a conspiratorial relationship with each other or with any third parties.

_Speculation._--Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, and Patrolman J. D. Tippit lived within a few blocks of each other.

_Commission finding._--Oswald’s room was 1.3 miles from Ruby’s apartment and Tippit lived 7 miles away from Ruby. Tippit’s residence was about 7 miles from Oswald’s room.[A12-102]

_Speculation._--Since Oswald did not have the money to repay the $435.61 he had received from the Department of State to cover part of the expenses of his return from Russia, he must have received help from some other source. Ruby lent Oswald money to pay back the loan and lent him small amounts of money thereafter.

_Commission finding._--The Commission has no credible evidence that Oswald received any money from Ruby or anyone else to repay his State Department loan, nor that he received small amounts of money from Ruby at any time. An exhaustive analysis of Oswald’s income and expenditures, made for the Commission by an Internal Revenue Service expert, reveals that Oswald had sufficient funds to make the State Department repayments from his earnings.[A12-103]

_Speculation._--Just before Oswald was shot by Ruby, he looked directly at Ruby in apparent recognition of him.

_Commission finding._--The Commission has been unable to establish as a fact any kind of relationship between Ruby and Oswald other than that Oswald was Ruby’s victim. The Commission has examined television tapes and motion picture films of the shooting and has been unable to discern any facial expression that could be interpreted to signify recognition of Ruby or anyone else in the basement of the building.[A12-104]

_Speculation._--The Dallas police suspected Oswald and Ruby of being involved in an attack on General Walker and planned to arrest the two when the FBI intervened, at the request of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and asked the police not to do so for reasons of state.

_Commission finding._--This allegation appeared in the November 29, 1963, issue (actually printed on November 25 or 26) of a German weekly newspaper, Deutsche National Zeiting und Soldaten Zeitung, published in Munich. The allegation later appeared in the National Enquirer of May 17, 1964. The Commission has been reliably informed that the statement was fabricated by an editor of the newspaper. No evidence in support of this statement has ever been advanced or uncovered. In their investigation of the attack on General Walker, the Dallas police uncovered no suspects and planned no arrests. The FBI had no knowledge that Oswald was responsible for the attack until Marina Oswald revealed the information on December 3, 1963.[A12-105]

_Speculation._--Ruby and Oswald were seen together at the Carousel Club.

_Commission finding._--All assertions that Oswald was seen in the company of Ruby or of anyone else at the Carousel Club have been investigated. None of them merits any credence.[A12-106]

_Speculation._--Oswald and General Walker were probably acquainted with each other since Oswald’s notebook contained Walker’s name and telephone number.

_Commission finding._--Although Oswald’s notebook contained Walker’s name and telephone number there was no evidence that the two knew each other. It is probable that this information was inserted at the time that Oswald was planning his attack on Walker. General Walker stated that he did not know of Oswald before the assassination.[A12-107]

_Speculation._--Patrolman J.D. Tippit, Bernard Weissman, and Jack Ruby met by prearrangement on November 14, 1963, at the Carousel Club.

_Commission finding._--Investigation has revealed no evidence to support this assertion. Nor is there credible evidence that any of the three men knew each other.[A12-108]

_Speculation._--Ruby’s sister, Mrs. Eva Grant, said that Ruby and Tippit were “like two brothers.”

_Commission finding._--Mrs. Grant has denied ever making this statement or any statement like it, saying it was untrue and without foundation. Ruby was acquainted with another Dallas policeman named Tippit, but this was G.M. Tippit of the special services bureau of the department, not the Tippit who was killed.[A12-109]

_Speculation._--Jack Ruby was one of the most notorious of Dallas gangsters.

_Commission finding._--There is no credible evidence that Jack Ruby was

## active in the criminal underworld. Investigation disclosed no one in

either Chicago or Dallas who had any knowledge that Ruby was associated with organized criminal activity.[A12-110]

_Speculation._--The shooting in Dallas on January 23, 1964, of Warren A. Reynolds, who witnessed the flight of Patrolman Tippit’s slayer on November 22 and followed him for a short distance, may have been connected in some way with the assassination of President Kennedy and the slaying of Patrolman Tippit. A man arrested for the attempt on Reynolds, Darrell Wayne Garner, was released as a result, in part, of testimony by Betty (Nancy Jane Mooney) MacDonald, who had allegedly worked at one time as a stripper at Jack Ruby’s Carousel Club.

_Commission finding._--This rumor, originally publicized by a newspaper columnist on February 23, 1964, was apparently based on the alleged connection between Betty MacDonald and the Carousel Club. Investigation revealed no evidence that she had ever worked at the Carousel Club. Employees of the club had no recollection that she had ever worked there. Betty MacDonald was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace on February 13, 1964. After being placed in a cell at the Dallas city jail, she hanged herself. The Commission has found no evidence that the shooting of Warren Reynolds was in any way related to the assassination of President Kennedy or the murder of Patrolman Tippit.[A12-111]

OTHER RUMORS AND SPECULATIONS

Many rumors and speculations difficult to place in the categories treated above also required consideration or investigation by the Commission. In some way or other, much of this miscellany was related to theories of conspiracy involving Oswald. The rest pertained to peripheral aspects that were of sufficient import to merit attention. The Commission’s findings are set forth below.

_Speculation._--Oswald was responsible in some way for the death of Marine Pvt. Martin D. Schrand.

_Commission finding._--This rumor was mentioned by at least one of Oswald’s fellow Marines. Private Schrand was fatally wounded by a discharge from a riot-type shotgun while he was on guard duty on January 5, 1958, near the carrier pier, U.S. Naval Air Station, Cubi Point, Republic of the Philippines. The official Marine investigation in 1958 found that Schrand’s death was the result of an accidental discharge of his gun and that no other person or persons were involved in the incident. The rumor that Oswald was involved in Schrand’s death in some way may have had its origin in two circumstances: (1) Oswald was stationed at Cubi Point at the time of Schrand’s death; (2) on October 27, 1957, while stationed in Japan, Oswald accidentally shot himself in the left elbow with a .22 derringer that he owned. The Commission has found no evidence that Oswald had any connection with the fatal shooting of Private Schrand.[A12-112]

_Speculation._--The Texas School Book Depository is owned and operated by the city of Dallas, and Oswald was therefore a municipal employee. Accordingly, he could have secured his job at the Depository only if someone in an official capacity vouched for him.

_Commission finding._--The Texas School Book Depository is a private corporation unconnected with the city of Dallas. Oswald therefore was not a municipal employee. He obtained his position at the Depository with the assistance of Mrs. Ruth Paine, who learned of a possible opening from a neighbor and arranged an interview for him with Superintendent Roy S. Truly at the Depository.[A12-113]

_Speculation._--Prior to the assassination Dallas police searched other buildings in the area of the Texas School Book Depository but not the School Book Depository itself.

_Commission finding._--The Dallas police and the Secret Service both notified the Commission that, other than the Trade Mart, they had searched no buildings along the route of the President’s motorcade or elsewhere in Dallas in connection with the President’s visit. It was not Secret Service practice to search buildings along the routes of motorcades.[A12-114]

_Speculation._--Sheriff E. J. Decker of Dallas County came on the police radio at 12:25 p.m. with orders to calm trouble at the Texas School Book Depository.

Commission finding.--The final edition of the Dallas Times-Herald of November 22 (p. 1, col. 1) reported that “Sheriff Decker came on the air at 12:25 p.m.” and stated: “‘I don’t know what’s happened. Take every available man from the jail and the office and go to the railroad yards off Elm near the triple underpass.’” The article in the Times-Herald did not mention the time that the President was shot. The radio log of the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office shows that Sheriff Decker came on the air at 40 seconds after 12:30 p.m. and stated: “Stand by me. All units and officers vicinity of station report to the railroad track area, just north of Elm--Report to the railroad track area, just north of Elm.” The radio log does not show any messages by Sheriff Decker between 12:20 p.m. and 40 seconds after 12:30 p.m.[A12-115]

_Speculation._--Police precautions in Dallas on November 22 included surveillance of many people, among them some who did no more than speak in favor of school integration.

_Commission finding._--The Dallas Police Department notified the Commission that on November 22 it had no one under surveillance as a precaution in connection with President Kennedy’s visit except at the Trade Mart. The Commission received no evidence that the Dallas police had under surveillance people who spoke in favor of school integration.[A12-116]

_Speculation._--Oswald was seen at shooting ranges in the Dallas area practicing firing with a rifle.

_Commission finding._--Marina Oswald stated that on one occasion in March or April 1963, her husband told her that he was going to practice firing with the rifle. Witnesses have testified that they saw Oswald at shooting ranges in the Dallas area during October and November 1963. Investigation has failed to confirm that the man seen by these witnesses was Oswald.[A12-117]

_Speculation._--Oswald could drive a car and was seen in cars at various places.

_Commission-finding._--Oswald did not have a driver’s license. Marina Oswald and Ruth Paine have testified that he could not drive a car, and there is no confirmed evidence to establish his presence at any location as the driver of a car. Mrs. Paine did give Oswald some driving lessons and he did drive short distances on these occasions.[A12-118]

_Speculation._--Oswald received money by Western Union telegraph from time to time for several months before the assassination of President Kennedy.

_Commission finding._--An employee in the Western Union main office in Dallas, C. A. Hamblen, made statements that he remembered seeing Oswald there on some occasions collecting money that had been telegraphed to him. In his testimony before the Commission, Hamblen was unable to state whether or not the person he had seen was Lee Harvey Oswald. Western Union officials searched their records in Dallas and other cities for the period from June through November 1963 but found no money orders payable to Lee Oswald or to any of his known aliases. A Western Union official concluded that the allegation was “a figment of Mr. Hamblen’s imagination.”[A12-119] The Commission has found no evidence to contradict this conclusion.[A12-120]

_Speculation._--On his way back from Mexico City in October 1963, Oswald stopped in Alice, Tex., to apply for a job at the local radio station.

_Commission finding._--This rumor apparently originated with the manager of radio station KOPY, Alice, who stated that Oswald visited his office on the afternoon of October 4 for about 25 minutes. According to the manager, Oswald was driving a battered 1953 model car and had his wife and a small child in the car with him. Oswald traveled from Mexico City to Dallas by bus, arriving in Dallas on the afternoon of October 3. The bus did not pass through Alice. On October 4, Oswald applied for two jobs in Dallas and then spent the afternoon and night with his wife and child at the Paine residence in Irving. Investigation has revealed that Oswald did not own a car and there is no convincing evidence that he could drive a car. Accordingly, Oswald could not have been in Alice on October 4. There is no evidence that he stopped in Alice to look for a job on any occasion.[A12-121]

_Speculation._--Oswald or accomplices had made arrangements for his getaway by airplane from an airfield in the Dallas area.

_Commission finding._--Investigation of such claims revealed that they had not the slightest substance. The Commission found no evidence that Oswald had any prearranged plan for escape after the assassination.[A12-122]

_Speculation._--One hundred and fifty dollars was found in the dresser of Oswald’s room at 1026 North Beckley Avenue after the assassination.

_Commission finding._--No money was found in Oswald’s room after the assassination. Oswald left $170 in the room occupied by his wife at the Paine residence in Irving. At the time of his arrest Oswald had $13.87 on his person.[A12-123]

_Speculation._--After Oswald’s arrest, the police found in his room seven metal file boxes filled with the names of Castro sympathizers.

_Commission finding._--The Dallas police inventories of Oswald’s property taken from his room at 1026 North Beckley Avenue do not include any file boxes. A number of small file boxes listed in the inventory as having been taken from the Paine residence in Irving contained letters, pictures, books and literature, most of which belonged to Ruth Paine, not to Oswald. No lists of names of Castro sympathizers were found among these effects.[A12-124]

_Speculation._--Oswald’s letters vary so greatly in quality (spelling, grammar, sentence structure) that he must have had help in preparing the better constructed letters or someone else wrote them for him.

_Commission finding._--There is no evidence that anyone in the United States helped Oswald with his better written letters or that anyone else wrote his letters for him. His wife stated that he would write many drafts of his more important letters. His mother indicated that he would work hard over the drafts of some of his letters. It is clear that he did take greater pains with some of his letters than with others and that the contrasts in quality were accordingly substantial. It is also clear that even his better written letters contained some distinctive elements of spelling, grammar, and punctuation that were common to his poorer efforts. Oswald wrote in his diary that he received help from his Intourist Guide, Rima Shirokova, in the preparation of his letter of October 16, 1959, to the Supreme Soviet.[A12-125]

_Speculation._--A Negro janitor who was a witness to the shooting and was supposed to be able to identify Oswald as the killer was held in protective custody by the Dallas police until he could appear before the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.

_Commission finding._--Investigation revealed that this story had no foundation in fact. No such witness was kept in protective custody by the Dallas police for appearance before the Commission. The story had its origin in a newspaper account based on hearsay.[A12-126]

_Speculation._--The Secret Service incarcerated Marina Oswald immediately after the assassination.

_Commission finding._--Marina Oswald was given protection by the Secret Service for a period of time after the assassination. She had freedom to communicate with others at anytime she desired, to go where she pleased, or to terminate the protection at any time.[A12-127]

_Speculation._--Mrs. Marguerite Oswald was shown a photograph of Jack Ruby by an FBI agent the night before Ruby killed her son.

_Commission finding._--On the night of November 23, 1963, Special Agent Bardwell D. Odum of the FBI showed Mrs. Marguerite Oswald a picture of a man to determine whether the man was known to her. Mrs. Oswald stated subsequently that the picture was of Jack Ruby. The Commission has examined a copy of the photograph and determined that it was not a picture of Jack Ruby.[A12-128]

_Speculation._--The son of the only witness to the Tippit slaying was arrested after talking to some private investigators and soon plunged to his death from an unbarred jail window.

_Commission finding._--According to Mrs. Helen Markham, one of the witnesses to the Tippit slaying, Mrs. Marguerite Oswald and two men who claimed to be reporters from Philadelphia sought to interview her on June 27, 1964. Mrs. Markham did not wish to be interviewed and put them off. Afterward, Mrs. Markham’s son, William Edward Markham, talked with Mrs. Oswald and the men about the Oswald matter and the shooting of Patrolman Tippit. William Edward Markham had been in Norfolk, Va., at the time of the assassination and had not returned to Dallas until May 7, 1964. He had no personal knowledge of the shooting of Patrolman Tippit. On June 30, 1964, another of Mrs. Markham’s sons, James Alfred Markham, was arrested at Mrs. Markham’s apartment by Dallas Police on a charge of burglary. While trying to escape, he fell from the bathroom of the apartment to a concrete driveway about 20 feet below. He was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, treated for injuries, and after 6½ hours was taken to jail. As of July 31, 1964, he was in Dallas County Jail awaiting trial. There was also a warrant outstanding against him for parole violation.[A12-129]

_Speculation._--The headquarters detachment of the U.S. Army, under orders from [Secretary of Defense Robert S.] McNamara’s office, began to rehearse for the funeral more than a week before the assassination.

_Commission finding._--This assertion is based on an interview with U.S. Army Capt. Richard C. Cloy that appeared in the Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger of February 21, 1964. The newspaper quotes Captain Cloy, who was a member of the Army unit charged with conducting funeral ceremonials in honor of deceased Chiefs of State, as having said that, “we were in a state of readiness and had just finished a funeral rehearsal because there was grave concern for President Hoover’s health. But we never expected that our practice was preparing us for President Kennedy.”[A12-130]

_Speculation._--The ship in which Oswald went to Europe in 1959 stopped in Havana on the way.

_Commission finding._--Oswald boarded the SS _Marion Lykes_ in New Orleans and it sailed on September 20, 1959. It docked in Le Havre, France, on October 8 with only one previous stop--at another French port, La Pallice.[A12-131]

APPENDIX XIII

Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald

EARLY YEARS

Marguerite Claverie, the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald, was born in New Orleans in 1907,[A13-1] into a family of French and German extraction.[A13-2] Her mother died a few years after Marguerite was born, leaving her and five other young children in the care of their father, a streetcar conductor.[A13-3] Although Marguerite describes herself as “a child of one parent,” she recalls being “one of the most popular young ladies in the [grammar] school,” and thinks of her childhood as a “very full happy” one.[A13-4] Her older sister, Mrs. Lillian Murret, remembers Marguerite as “a very pretty child, a very beautiful girl,”[A13-5] as does a former acquaintance, Clem H. Sehrt, who knew the Claveries.[A13-6] The family was poor but, according to Mrs. Murret, was a “happy family * * * singing all the time.”[A13-7] Marguerite had 1 year of high school.[A13-8] Shortly before she was 17, she went to work as a receptionist for a law firm in New Orleans.[A13-9]

In August 1929, while she was still working at the law firm, Marguerite married Edward John Pic, Jr.,[A13-10] a quiet man of her own age, who worked as a clerk for T. Smith & Son, a New Orleans stevedoring company.[A13-11] The marriage was not a success, and by the summer of 1931 she and Pic were separated.[A13-12] Marguerite was then 3 months pregnant; she told her family that Pic did not want any children and refused to support her.[A13-13] Pic ascribed the separation simply to their inability to get along together.[A13-14] A boy was born on January 17, 1932, whom Marguerite named John Edward Pic.[A13-15] Pic saw his son occasionally until he was about 1 year old; after that, he did not see the boy again[A13-16] but contributed to his support until he was 18 years old.[A13-17]

During her separation from her first husband, Marguerite saw a great deal of Robert Edward Lee Oswald, an insurance premium collector,[A13-18] who also was married but was separated from his wife.[A13-19] In 1933, Marguerite was divorced from Pic[A13-20] and, Oswald’s wife also having obtained a divorce,[A13-21] they were married in a Lutheran church on July 20.[A13-22] Marguerite has described the period of her marriage to Oswald as “the only happy part” of her life.[A13-23] A son was born on April 7, 1934, who was named for his father;[A13-24] Oswald wanted to adopt John Pic, but his mother objected on the ground that John’s father might cut off the support payments.[A13-25] In 1938, the Oswalds purchased a new house on Alvar Street for $3,900,[A13-26] in what John remembered as “a rather nice neighborhood.”[A13-27] The house was across the street from the William Frantz School,[A13-28] which first John and later both he and Robert, Jr., attended.[A13-29] On August 19, 1939, little more than a year after the Oswalds bought the Alvar Street house, Robert Oswald died suddenly of a heart attack.[A13-30]

Two months later, on October 18, 1939, a second son was born.[A13-31] He was named Lee after his father; Harvey was his paternal grandmother’s maiden name.[A13-32] For a while after her husband’s death, Mrs. Oswald remained in the Alvar Street house without working; she probably lived on life insurance proceeds.[A13-33] Sometime in 1940, she rented the house to Dr. Bruno F. Mancuso, the doctor who had delivered Lee.[A13-34] (Dr. Mancuso continued to rent the house until 1944,[A13-35] when Marguerite obtained a judgment of possession against him.[A13-36] She sold the house for $6,500 to the First Homestead and Savings Association, which resold it to Dr. Mancuso.)[A13-37] She herself moved to a rented house at 1242 Congress Street, where she lived for about half a year.[A13-38] For part of this period after Oswald’s death, the two older boys were placed in the Infant Jesus College, a Catholic boarding school in Algiers, La., a suburb of New Orleans.[A13-39] Neither they nor their mother liked this arrangement,[A13-40] which John thought was intended to save money;[A13-41] it lasted for less than a year, after which the boys returned to the school Frantz and then transferred to the George Washington Elementary School.[A13-42]

On March 5, 1941, Mrs. Oswald purchased a frame[A13-43] house at 1010 Bartholomew Street, for $1,300.[A13-44] According to John’s recollection, the neighborhood was not as pleasant as Alvar Street; the house had a backyard, and the family kept a dog named “Sunshine.”[A13-45] A neighbor, Mrs. Viola Peterman, recalls that Mrs. Oswald kept to herself but appeared to be “a good mother to her children.”[A13-46] She opened a shop in the front room, where she sold things like sewing supplies and small groceries.[A13-47] Oswald’s Notion Shop, as it was called,[A13-48] failed to make money,[A13-49] and on January 16, 1942, Mrs. Oswald sold the house back to the Third District Home Association, from which she had purchased it, for a profit of $800.[A13-50]

Probably in contemplation of the sale of the house, Mrs. Oswald applied in December 1941 to the Evangelical Lutheran Bethlehem Orphan Asylum Association for the admission of her two older sons to the orphan asylum, known as the Bethlehem Children’s Home; she stated on the application that she could contribute $20 per month to their maintenance and would supply shoes and clothing.[A13-51] She had inquired also about Lee, who was too young to be admitted.[A13-52] John and Robert were accepted and entered the home on January 3, 1942.[A13-53]

Mrs. Oswald moved to an apartment at 831 Pauline Street,[A13-54] and returned to work. In December 1942, she listed her occupation as “telephone operator”;[A13-55] this may be the job she held at the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., a company for which she worked at some point during this period.[A13-56] She left Lee for much of this time with his aunt, Mrs. Murret, who thought him a good looking, friendly child, but could not devote a great deal of attention to him because she had five children of her own.[A13-57] In the late spring of 1942, Lee was watched for several weeks by Mrs. Thomas Roach, who lived with her husband in the same house as the Oswalds.[A13-58] Lee evidently did not get along with Mrs. Roach who told the next occupant of the house that Lee was a bad, unmanageable child who threw his toy gun at her.[A13-59] Apparently referring to the Roaches, Mrs. Oswald testified that she had once hired a couple to care for Lee; the couple neglected him, so she “put them out” and cared for Lee herself until Mrs. Murret was able to help her again.[A13-60] Soon after the incident with the Roaches, Mrs. Oswald moved again,[A13-61] this time to 111 Sherwood Forest Drive, near the Murrets.[A13-62]

Mrs. Murret took care of Lee for several months longer. Near Lee’s third birthday, Mrs. Oswald again inquired about his admission into the Bethlehem Children’s Home,[A13-63] perhaps because a disagreement with her sister made it impossible to leave him with her any longer.[A13-64] He was admitted on December 26.[A13-65] On his application, Mrs. Oswald agreed to contribute $10 per month and to supply shoes and clothing, as for the other boys.[A13-66]

Lee remained in the home for about 13 months, but according to John’s testimony, left on several occasions to spend short periods of time with his mother or the Murrets.[A13-67] John and Robert have pleasant memories of the home,[A13-68] which apparently gave the children a good deal of freedom.[A13-69] Robert described it as nondenominational but having “a Christian atmosphere”; “it might have been just a Protestant home.”[A13-70] Mrs. Oswald visited them regularly,[A13-71] and they occasionally left the home to visit her or the Murrets.[A13-72]

In July 1943, Mrs. Oswald was hired to manage a small hosiery store.[A13-73] This is probably the store to which she referred in her testimony as the “Princess Hosiery Shop on Canal Street,” at which, she testified, she was left by herself and “in 6 days’ time * * * hired four girls.”[A13-74] Her employer remembers her as a neat, attractive, and hardworking woman, an aggressive person who would make a good manager.[A13-75] She was not good with figures, however, and after several months he discharged her.[A13-76] At about this same time, she met Edwin A. Ekdahl, an electrical engineer older than herself, who was originally from Boston but was then working in the area.[A13-77] They saw each other often. Ekdahl met the boys[A13-78] and, according to John’s testimony, on at least one occasion, they all spent a weekend at a summer resort area in Covington, La.[A13-79]

By January 1944, Mrs. Oswald and Ekdahl had decided to marry.[A13-80] She withdrew Lee from the Children’s Home[A13-81] and moved with him to Dallas, where Ekdahl expected to be located.[A13-82] They planned to postpone the marriage until the end of the school year so that the older boys could complete the year at the home before they left it.[A13-83] In the meantime, she would care for Ekdahl,[A13-84] who was recovering from a serious illness, probably a heart attack.[A13-85] Mrs. Oswald has testified that when she arrived in Dallas, she decided that she did not want to marry Ekdahl after all.[A13-86] Using part of the proceeds from the sale of the Alvar Street house,[A13-87] she purchased a house at 4801 Victor Street,[A13-88] a portion of which she rented.[A13-89] In June, John and Robert left the Children’s Home and joined their mother in Dallas.[A13-90] They entered the nearby Davy Crockett Elementary School the following September.[A13-91]

Ekdahl visited Mrs. Oswald on weekends and stayed at Victor Street.[A13-92] By the following year she had resolved her doubts about marrying him, influenced in part by his substantial income[A13-93] and perhaps by the visit some time earlier of his sister, who favored the marriage because of his ill health.[A13-94] Explaining that she expected to travel a great deal, Mrs. Oswald tried unsuccessfully to return the older boys to the home in February 1945.[A13-95] She and Ekdahl were married in May.[A13-96] After a brief honeymoon, they returned to Victor Street.[A13-97]

Ekdahl got along well with the boys, on whom he lavished much attention.[A13-98] John testified that Ekdahl treated them as if they were his own children and that Lee seemed to find in Ekdahl “the father he never had”; John recalled that on one occasion he told Lee that Ekdahl and his mother had become reconciled after a separation, and that “this seemed to really elate Lee, this made him really happy that they were getting back together.”[A13-99]

Because Ekdahl’s business required him to make frequent trips, in September, John and Robert were placed in the Chamberlain-Hunt Military Academy at Port Gibson, Miss.;[A13-100] their mother paid the tuition herself, using the proceeds from the sale of the Alvar Street property.[A13-101] They remained at the academy for the next 3 years, returning home only for vacations.[A13-102] Lee accompanied his parents on their travels.[A13-103] Mrs. Myrtle Evans, who had known both Marguerite and Ekdahl before their marriage,[A13-104] testified that Marguerite insisted on keeping Lee with her; Mrs. Evans thought that Marguerite was “too close” to Lee and “spoiled him to death,” which hurt her marriage to Ekdahl.[A13-105]

Sometime in the fall after John and Robert were at boarding school, the Ekdahls moved to Benbrook, a suburb of Fort Worth, where they lived on Granbury Road,[A13-106] in a house of stone or brick, set on a large plot of land.[A13-107] Records of the Benbrook Common School show Lee’s admission into the first grade on October 31; his birth date is incorrectly given as July 9, 1939, his mother presumably having given that date to satisfy the age requirement.[A13-108] On February 8, 1946, he was admitted to the Harris Hospital in Fort Worth with “acute mastoiditis.”[A13-109] A mastoidectomy was performed without complications, and Lee left the hospital in 4 days.[A13-110] (In 1955, Lee indicated on a school form that he had an “abnormal ear drum in left ear,”[A13-111] presumably a reference to the mastoidectomy; but when he entered the Marines 1 year later, physical examination disclosed no physical defects.)[A13-112]

The Ekdahls’ marriage quickly broke down. Before they had been married a year, Marguerite suspected Ekdahl of infidelity.[A13-113] She thought him stingy,[A13-114] and there were frequent arguments about his insistence that she account for her expenditures and his refusal to share his money with her.[A13-115] In the summer of 1946, she left Ekdahl, picked up John and Robert at Chamberlain-Hunt, and moved with the boys to Covington, La.,[A13-116] where they lived for at least part of the time at 311 Vermont Street. [A13-117] Mrs. Evans described them at Covington, possibly during this summer, as “really a happy family”; Lee seemed like a normal boy but “kept to himself” and seemed not “to want to be with any other children.”[A13-118] The separation continued after the two boys returned to boarding school, and in September Lee was enrolled in the Covington Elementary School.[A13-119] His record at Benbrook had been satisfactory--he was present on 82 school days and absent on 15, and received all A’s and B’s[A13-120]--but he had not completed the work of the first grade, in which he was enrolled for a second time.[A13-121]

Lee received no grades at the Covington School, from which he was withdrawn on January 23, 1947,[A13-122] because his parents, now reconciled, were moving to Fort Worth, where they lived at 1505 Eighth Avenue.[A13-123] Four days later, he enrolled in the Clayton Public School; he was still in the first grade, which he completed in May with B’s in every subject except physical education and health, in which he received A’s.[A13-124] In the fall, he entered the second grade in the same school but, relations between his parents having deteriorated again, was withdrawn before any grades were recorded.[A13-125]

After the move to Fort Worth, the Ekdahls continued to argue frequently; according to John, “they would have a fight about every other day and he would leave and come back.”[A13-126] That summer, Marguerite obtained what she regarded as proof that Ekdahl was having some sort of affair. According to her testimony, a neighbor told her that Ekdahl had been living on Eighth Avenue with another woman while she was in Covington.[A13-127] Then, at a time when Ekdahl was supposed to be out of town,[A13-128] she went with John and several of his friends to an apartment in Fort Worth; one of the boys posed as a telegram carrier, and when the door opened she pushed her way into the apartment and found Ekdahl in his shirt sleeves in the company of a woman in a negligee.[A13-129]

Despite this apparent confirmation of her suspicions, Marguerite continued to live with Ekdahl until January 1948.[A13-130] In January, according to Ekdahl’s allegations in the subsequent divorce proceedings, she “directed * * * [him] to leave the home immediately and never to return,” which he did.[A13-131] Ekdahl filed suit for divorce in March.[A13-132] The complaint alleged that Marguerite constantly nagged Ekdahl and argued “with reference to money matters,” accused him of infidelity, threw things at him, and finally ordered him out of the house; that these acts were unprovoked by Ekdahl’s conduct toward her; that her acts endangered his already impaired health; and that her “excesses, harsh and cruel treatment and outrages” toward him made it impossible for them to live together.[A13-133] She denied all these allegations.[A13-134] After a trial, at which John testified and, he thought, Lee was called to the stand but was excused without testifying,[A13-135] the jury found on special issues that Marguerite was “guilty of excesses, cruel treatment, or outrages” unprovoked by Ekdahl’s conduct.[A13-136] On June 24, the court granted the divorce and approved an agreement between the parties disposing of their property between them and awarding Marguerite $1,500; at her request, the divorce restored to Marguerite her former name, Marguerite C. Oswald.[A13-137]

While the divorce suit was pending, Marguerite moved from Eighth Avenue to a house on 3300 Willing Street, next to railroad tracks.[A13-138] The boys found her there in May when they returned from the military academy; for John, the move signified that they “were back down in the lower class again.”[A13-139] Lee’s withdrawal from the Clayton School on March 18, 1948,[A13-140] probably coincided with the move to Willing Street. He entered the Clark Elementary School on the following day, and in June completed the second grade with a record mostly of B’s and A’s.[A13-141] Philip Vinson, a classmate at the Clayton School, has described Lee at that time as “a quiet type of kid,” who “didn’t make a lot of noise.”[A13-142] Lee was “stocky and well built,” which made other boys look up to him and regard him as the leader of one of their schoolyard “gangs.”[A13-143] Vinson thought that Lee was not a bully and got along with his classmates, but had the impression that he rarely played with them or brought them home after school.[A13-144]

Shortly after the divorce, Mrs. Oswald purchased a small house in Benbrook, on what is now San Saba Street;[A13-145] John has testified that it had a single bedroom, in which Lee slept with his mother, and a screened porch where John and Robert slept.[A13-146] Mrs. Oswald worked at a department store in Fort Worth, and left the three boys home alone.[A13-147] A neighbor, Mrs. W. H. Bell, has stated that Lee seemed to enjoy being by himself and to resent discipline;[A13-148] another neighbor, Otis R. Carlton, stated that he once saw Lee chase John with a knife and throw it at him, an incident which, Carlton said, their mother passed off as a “little scuffle.”[A13-149] At the end of the summer, Carlton purchased the property. He stated that he appraised it at $2,750 at Mrs. Oswald’s request; she then insisted that he had made an offer to purchase at that price, which he finally agreed to do.[A13-150]

After the house was sold, the family returned to Fort Worth, a move necessitated by Mrs. Oswald’s, and now John’s, employment.[A13-151] Mrs. Oswald bought a two-bedroom, frame house at 7408 Ewing, from which Robert and Lee could walk to school.[A13-152] John, who was then 16, obtained a job as a shoe stockboy at Everybody’s Department Store; he testified that he wanted to finish high school at the military academy, but that his mother advised him to leave school and help to support the family.[A13-153] He gave her $15 per week out of his salary of $25.[A13-154] Robert returned to school.[A13-155]

Lee entered the third grade at the Arlington Heights Elementary School.[A13-156] He remained at Arlington Heights for the entire school year, completing the third grade with a satisfactory record, which included A’s in social studies, citizenship, elementary science, art, and music, and a D in spelling.[A13-157] In September 1949, he transferred to the Ridglea West Elementary School, where he remained for the next 3 years.[A13-158] Lee’s record at Ridglea is not remarkable in any respect. In the fourth and fifth grades, he received mostly B’s; in the sixth grade, B’s and C’s predominate.[A13-159] He received D’s in both the fifth and sixth grades in spelling and arithmetic; in the fourth and sixth grades, C’s are recorded for Spanish,[A13-160] which may account for his rudimentary familiarity with that language later on.[A13-161] In the fourth grade his IQ was recorded at 103; on achievement tests in each of the 3 years, he twice did best in reading and twice did worst in spelling.[A13-162]

Lee is generally characterized as an unexceptional but rather solitary boy during these years. His mother worked in a variety of jobs,[A13-163] and, according to her own testimony, told Lee not to contact her at work except in an emergency.[A13-164] He ordinarily returned home alone directly after school, in obedience to his mother’s instructions.[A13-165] A fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Clyde I. Livingston, described him as a lonely boy, quiet and shy, who did not easily form friendships with other students.[A13-166] But Richard W. Garrett has stated that he was a classmate of Lee in the fourth or fifth grade and found him easy to get along with; he recalled playing with Lee often at school and sometimes walking home together with him.[A13-167] Mrs. Livingston recalled that at Christmas 1949, Lee gave her a puppy and afterward came to her home to see the puppy and talk to her and her family.[A13-168]

Lee’s relationship with his brothers was good but limited by the difference in their ages.[A13-169] He still had a dog,[A13-170] but there were few children of his age in the neighborhood, and he appears to have been by himself after school most of the time.[A13-171] He read a lot,[A13-172] had a stamp collection, and played chess and Monopoly with his brothers.[A13-173] Mrs. Murret remembered that on a visit to her home in New Orleans, Lee refused to play with other children or even to leave the house; he preferred to stay indoors and read (mostly “funnybooks”) or listen to the radio.[A13-174] After several weeks with the Murrets, Lee wrote to his mother and asked her to come for him.[A13-175] Hiram Conway, a neighbor on Ewing Street, thought Lee was an intelligent child, who picked things up easily; although he did not recall many specific incidents to support his impressions, Conway regarded Lee as “a bad kid,” who was “quick to anger” and “mean when he was angry, just ornery.”[A13-176] John’s general picture of Lee in these years is that of “a normal healthy robust boy who would get in fights and still have his serious moments.”[A13-177]

John returned to high school in January 1949, but continued to work part time.[A13-178] Early in 1950, he entered the Coast Guard.[A13-179] Robert left school soon after John’s departure and went to work full time, contributing most of his earnings to the support of his family.[A13-180] He returned to school in 1951-52, and after completing his junior year in high school, joined the Marines in July 1952.[A13-181] In August, Mrs. Oswald and Lee moved to New York, where John was living with his wife and a very young baby in an apartment at 325 East 92d Street; the apartment belonged to John’s mother-in-law, who was temporarily away.[A13-182] Mrs. Oswald has explained that with Robert gone she did not want Lee to be alone while she worked and that she went to New York City “not as a venture,” but because she “had family” there.[A13-183]

The visit began well. John testified of his meeting with Lee: “We met in the street and I was real glad to see him and he was real glad to see me. We were real good friends.”[A13-184] He took about a week of leave and showed Lee the city; he remembered trips to the Museum of Natural History and Polk’s Hobby Shop, and a ride on the Staten Island ferry.[A13-185] But when it became obvious that his mother intended to stay, the atmosphere changed. Mrs. Oswald did not get along with John’s wife, with whom she quarreled frequently.[A13-186] There was difficulty about her failure to contribute anything towards her own and Lee’s support.[A13-187] According to John, his wife liked Lee and would have been glad to have him alone stay with them but felt that his mother set Lee against her; they never suggested that Lee remain with them since they knew that it would not work out.[A13-188] The visit ended when Lee threatened Mrs. Pic with a pocket knife during a quarrel,[A13-189] and she asked Mrs. Oswald to leave.[A13-190] John testified that during this same quarrel Lee hit his mother, who appeared to have lost all control over him.[A13-191] The incident permanently destroyed the good relationship between Lee and his brother.[A13-192]

Mrs. Oswald and Lee moved uptown to a one-room basement apartment[A13-193] in the Bronx, at 1455 Sheridan Avenue.[A13-194] While they were still at the Pics, he had been enrolled at the Trinity Evangelical Lutheran School on Watson Avenue.[A13-195] He was withdrawn on September 26, after several weeks of irregular attendance, and 4 days later enrolled in the seventh grade of Public School 117, a junior high school.[A13-196] Mrs. Oswald found a job at one of the Lerner Shops, a chain of dress shops for which she had worked briefly in Fort Worth several years before.[A13-197] In January, they moved again, to 825 East 179th Street,[A13-198] and a few weeks later, she left the employ of Lerner Shops.[A13-199] In April, she was working at Martin’s Department Store in Brooklyn, where she earned $45 per week;[A13-200] in May, she went to work for a chain of hosiery shops, with which she remained until December.[A13-201] Lee was registered at Public School 117 until January 16, 1953,[A13-202] although the move to 179th Street, which took him out of that school district, probably took place before that date.[A13-203] He had been at Public School 117 for 64 schooldays, out of which he had been present on 15 full and 2 half days;[A13-204] he had received failing grades in most of his courses.[A13-205]

Lee’s truancy increased after he moved; he was now located in the school district of Public School 44 but refused to go to school there.[A13-206] On one occasion that spring, an attendance officer located Lee at the Bronx Zoo; the officer testified that Lee was clean and well dressed, but was surly and referred to the officer as a “damned Yankee.”[A13-207] Several truancy hearings were held in January, at the first of which at least, both Mrs. Oswald and Lee evidently failed to appear.[A13-208] At a hearing on January 27, by which time it was known that Lee was living in the Public School 44 district, it was decided to commence judicial proceedings if his truancy continued.[A13-209] Meanwhile, on January 16, his mother called the Community Service Society, to which she had been referred by the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, and asked for an appointment to discuss the problem.[A13-210] She mentioned that a truancy hearing had been held and said that Lee would not attend school despite the threat of official action; she thought that his behavior was due to difficulty in adjusting to his new environment.[A13-211] An appointment was scheduled for January 30, but she failed to appear, and the case was closed.[A13-212] Sometime in February, the Pics visited the Oswalds. John testified that his mother told him about Lee’s truancy and asked how she could get Lee to accept psychiatric aid. Nothing came of these discussions.[A13-213]

On March 12, the attendance officer in charge of Lee’s case filed a petition in court which alleged that Lee had been “excessively absent from school” between October and January, that he had refused to register at Public School 44 or to attend school there, and that he was “beyond the control of his mother insofar as school attendance is concerned.”[A13-214] On the same day, Mrs. Oswald appeared in court alone and informed the presiding judge that Lee refused to appear in court.[A13-215] Evidently impressed by the proceedings, however, Lee did register at Public School 44 on March 23.[A13-216] Nevertheless, on April 16, Justice Delany declared him a truant, and remanded him to Youth House until May 7 for psychiatric study.[A13-217]

In accordance with the regular procedures at Youth House, Lee took a series of tests and was interviewed by a staff social worker and a probation officer, both of whom interviewed Mrs. Oswald as well.[A13-218] Their findings, discussed more fully in