Chapter VII: Lee Harvey Oswald: Background and Possible Motives (2)

I have entered the Soviet Union for the express purpose of
appling for citizenship in the Soviet Union, through the means
of naturalization.

My request for citizenship is now pending before the Surprem
Soviet of the U.S.S.R..

I take these steps for political reasons. My request for the
revoking of my American citizenship is made only after the
longest and most serious considerations.

I affirm that my allegiance is to the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics.[C7-180] (See Commission Exhibit 913, p. 261.)

As his “principal reason” for renouncing his citizenship Oswald stated: “I am a Marxist.”[C7-181] He also alluded to hardships endured by his mother as a worker, referring to them as experiences that he did not intend to have himself,[C7-182] even though he stated that he had never held a civilian job.[C7-183] He said that his Marine service in Okinawa and elsewhere had given him “a chance to observe ‘American imperialism.’” but he also displayed some sensitivity at not having reached a higher rank in the Marine Corps.[C7-184] He stated that he had volunteered to give Soviet officials any information that he had concerning Marine Corps operations,[C7-185] and intimated that he might know something of special interest.[C7-186] Oswald’s “Historic Diary” describes the event in part as follows:

I leave Embassy, elated at this showdown, returning to my hotel
I feel now my energies are not spent in vain. I’m sure Russians
will except me after this sign of my faith in them.[C7-187]

The Soviet authorities finally permitted Oswald to remain in their country.[C7-188] No evidence has been found that they used him for any particular propaganda or other political or informational purposes. They sent him to Minsk to work in a radio and television factory as a metal worker.[C7-189] The Soviet authorities denied Oswald permission to attend a university in Moscow,[C7-190] but they gave him a monthly allowance of 700 rubles a month (old exchange rate)[C7-191] in addition to his factory salary of approximately equal amount[C7-192] and considerably better living quarters than those accorded to Soviet citizens of equal age and station.[C7-193] The subsidy, apparently similar to those sometimes given to foreigners allowed to remain in the Soviet Union, together with his salary, gave Oswald an income which he said approximated that of the director of the factory in which he worked.[C7-194]

Even though he received more money and better living quarters than other Russians doing similar work, he envied his wife’s uncle, a colonel in the MVD, because of the larger apartment in which he lived. Reminiscent of his attitude toward his superiors in the Marine Corps, Oswald apparently resented the exercise of authority over him and the better treatment afforded to Communist Party officials.[C7-195] After he returned to the United States he took the position that the Communist Party officials in the Soviet Union were opportunists who were betraying their positions for personal gain. He is reported to have expressed the conclusion that they had “fat stinking politicians over there just like we have over here.”[C7-196]

Oswald apparently continued to have personal difficulties while he was in Minsk. Although Marina Oswald told the Commission that her husband had good personal relationships in the Soviet Union,[C7-197] Katherine Ford, one of the members of the Russian community in Dallas with which the Oswalds became acquainted upon their arrival in the United States, stated that Mrs. Oswald told her everybody in Russia “hated him.”[C7-198] Jeanne De Mohrenschildt, another member of that group, said that Oswald told her that he had returned because “I didn’t find what I was looking for.”[C7-199] George De Mohrenschildt thought that Oswald must have become disgusted with life in the Soviet Union as the novelty of the presence of an American wore off and he began to be less the center of attention.[C7-200]

The best description of Oswald’s state of mind, however, is set forth in his own “Historic Diary.” Under the entry for May 1, 1960, he noted that one of his acquaintances “relats many things I do not know about the U.S.S.R. I begin to feel uneasy inside, its true!”[C7-201] Under the entry for August-September of that year he wrote:

As my Russian improves I become increasingly concious of just
what sort of a sociaty I live in. Mass gymnastics, complusory
afterwork meeting, usually political information meeting.
Complusory attendence at lectures and the sending of the entire
shop collective (except me) to pick potatoes on a Sunday, at
a state collective farm: A “patroict duty” to bring in the
harvest. The opions of the workers (unvoiced) are that its
a great pain in the neck: they don’t seem to be esspicialy
enthusiastic about any of the “collective” duties a natural
feeling. I am increasingly aware of the presence, in all thing,
of Lebizen, shop party secretary, fat, fortyish, and jovial on
the outside. He is a no-nonsense party regular.[C7-202]

Finally, the entry of January 4-31 of 1961:

I am stating to reconsider my disire about staying the work is
drab the money I get has nowhere to be spent. No night clubs
or bowling allys no places of recreation acept the trade union
dances I have have had enough.[C7-203]

Shortly thereafter, less than 18 months after his defection, about 6 weeks before he met Marina Prusakova, Oswald opened negotiations with the U.S. Embassy in Moscow looking toward his return to the United States.[C7-204]

Return to the United States

In view of the intensity of his earlier commitment to the Soviet Union, a great change must have occurred in Oswald’s thinking to induce him to return to the United States. The psychological effects of that change must have been highly unsettling. It should be remembered that he was not yet 20 years old when he went to the Soviet Union with such high hopes and not quite 23 when he returned bitterly disappointed. His attempt to renounce his citizenship had been an open expression of hostility against the United States and a profound rejection of his early life. The dramatic break with society in America now had to be undone. His return to the United States publicly testified to the utter failure of what had been the most important act of his life.

Marina Oswald confirmed the fact that her husband was experiencing psychological difficulties at the time of his return. She said that “immediately after coming to the United States Lee changed. I did not know him as such a man in Russia.”[C7-205] She added that while he helped her as he had done before, he became more of a recluse, that “[he] was very irritable, sometimes for a trifle” and that “Lee was very unrestrained and very explosive” during the period from November 19, 1962 to March of 1963.[C7-206]

After the assassination she wrote that:

In general, our family life began to deteriorate after we
arrived in America. Lee was always hot-tempered, and now this
trait of character more and more prevented us from living
together in harmony. Lee became very irritable, and sometimes
some completely trivial thing would drive him into a rage. I
myself do not have a particularly quiet disposition, but I had
to change my character a great deal in order to maintain a more
or less peaceful family life.[C7-207]

Marina Oswald’s judgment of her husband’s state of mind may be substantiated by comparing material which he wrote in the Soviet Union with what he wrote while on the way back to the United States and after his return. While in the Soviet Union he wrote his longest and clearest piece of work, “The Collective.” This was a fairly coherent description of life in that country, basically centered around the radio and television factory in which he worked.[C7-208] While it was apparently intended for publication in the United States, and is in many respects critical of certain aspects of life in the Soviet Union, it appears to be the work of a fairly well organized person. Oswald prefaced his manuscript with a short autobiographical sketch which reads in part as follows:

Lee Harvey Oswald was born in Oct 1939 in New Orleans La. the
son of a Insuraen Salesmen whose early death left a far mean
streak of indepence brought on by negleck. entering the US
Marine corp at 17 this streak of independence was strengthed by
exotic journeys to Japan the Philipines and the scores of odd
Islands in the Pacific immianly after serving out his 3 years
in the USMC he abonded his american life to seek a new life
in the USSR. full of optimism and hope he stood in red square
in the fall of 1959 vowing to see his chosen course through,
after, however, two years and alot of growing up I decided to
return to the USA. * * *[C7-209]

COMMISSION EXHIBIT 2891

COMMISSION EXHIBIT 2892

(COMMISSION EXHIBIT 2788)

PHOTOGRAPH OF LEE HARVEY OSWALD TAKEN AFTER HIS RETURN FROM THE SOVIET UNION]

“The Collective” contrasts sharply with material which Oswald seems to have written after he left the Soviet Union,[C7-210] which appears to be more an expression of his own psychological condition than of a reasoned analysis. The latter material expresses great hostility to both communism and capitalism. He wrote, that to a person knowing both of those systems, “their can be no mediation between those systems as they exist to-day and that person. He must be opposed to their basic foundations and representatives”[C7-211]

and yet it is imature to take the sort of attitude which
says “a curse on both your houses!” their are two great
represenative of power in the world, simply expressed, the left
and right, and their ~offspring~ factions and concers. any
practical attempt at one alternative must have as its nuclus
the triditionall ideological best of both systems, and yet be
utterly opposed to both systems.[C7-212]

Such an alternative was to be opposed both to capitalism and communism because:

No man, having known, having lived, under the Russian Communist
and American capitalist system, could possibly make a choice
between them, there is no choice, one offers oppresstion the
other poverty. Both offer imperilistic injustice, tinted with
two brands of slavery.[C7-213]

Oswald actually did attempt to formulate such an alternative[C7-214] which he planned to “put forward” himself.[C7-215] He thought the new alternative would have its best chance to be accepted after “conflict between the two world systems leaves the ~world~ country without defense or foundation of goverment,”[C7-216] after which the survivors would “seek a alturnative ~opposed~ to those systems which have brough them misery.”[C7-217] Oswald realized that “their thinking and education will be steeped in the traiditions of those systems [and] they would never except a ‘new order’ complete beyond their understanding.”[C7-218] As a result he thought it would be “neccary to oppose the old systems but at the same time support their cherised trations.”[C7-219]

Expanding on his ideas on how his alternative to communism and capitalism might be introduced, he wrote of a “readily foreseeable * * * economic, political or military crisis, internal or external, [which] will bring about the final destrution of the capitalist system,”[C7-220] and indicated that “preparation in a special party could safeguard an independant course of action after the debacle,”[C7-221] which would achieve the goal, which was:

The emplacement of a separate, democratic, pure communist
sociaty * * * but one with union-communes, democratic
socializing of production and without regard to the twisting
apart of ~Marxism~ Marxist Communism by other powers.[C7-222]

While “[r]esoufualniss and patient working towards the aforesaid goal’s are prefered rather than loud and useless manifestation’s of protest,”[C7-223] Oswald went on to note:

But these prefered tactics now, may prove to be too limited in
the near future, they should not be confused with slowness,
indesision or fear, only the intellectualy fearless could even
be remotly attracted too our doctrine, and yet this doctrine
requirers the ~uptmost~ utmost restraint, a state of being in
itself majustic in power.[C7-224]

Oswald’s decided rejection of both capitalism and communism seemed to place him in a situation in which he could not live with satisfaction either in the United States or in the Soviet Union. The discussion above has already set forth examples of his expression of hatred for the United States. He also expressed hatred of the Soviet Union and of the Communist Party, U.S.A., even though he later referred to the latter as “trusted long time fighters for progress.”[C7-225] He wrote:

The Communist Party of the United States has betrayed itself!

it has turned itself into the tradional lever of a foreign
power to overthrow the goverment of the United States; not in
the name of freedow or high ideals, but in servile conformity
to the wishes of the Soviet Union and in anticipation of Soviet
Russia’s complete domination of the American continent.[C7-226]

* * * * *

There can be no sympathy for those who have turned the idea of
communism into a vill curse to western man.

The Soviets have committed crimes unsurpassed even by their
early day capitalist counterparts, the imprisonment of their
own peoples, with the mass extermination so typical of Stalin,
and the individual surpresstion and regimentation under
Krushchev.

The deportations, the purposefull curtailment of diet in the
consumer slighted population of Russia, the murder of history,
the prositution of art and culture.[C7-227]

A suggestion that Oswald hated more than just capitalism and communism is provided by the following, which was apparently written either on the ship coming back, or after his return from the Soviet Union:

I have offen wondered why it is that the communist, ~anarchist~
capitatist and even the fasist and anarchist elements in
american, allways profess patrotistism toward the land and the
people, if not the goverment; although their ~ideals~ movements
must surly lead to the bitter destruction of all and everything.

I am quite sure these people must hate not only the goverment
but ~our~ the ~peop~ culture, ~traditions,~ heritage and very
people itself, and yet they stand up and piously pronouce
themselfs patriots, displaying their war medles, that they
gained in conflicts ~long-past~ between themselfs.

* * * * *

I wonder what would happen it somebody was to stand up and say
he was utterly opposed not only to the goverments, but to the
people, too the entire land and complete foundations of his
socically.[C7-228]

Oswald demonstrated his thinking in connection with his return to the United States by preparing two sets of identical questions of the type which he might have thought he would be asked at a press conference when he returned. With either great ambivalence or cold calculation he prepared completely different answers to the same questions. Judged by his other statements and writings, however, he appears to have indicated his true feelings in the set of answers first presented and to have stated in the second what he thought would be least harmful to him as he resumed life in the United States. For example, in response to his questions about his decision to go to the Soviet Union, his first draft answered “as a mark of dicuss and protest against american political policies in foriengn countrys, my personal sign of discontent and horror at the misguided line of resoning of the U.S. Goverment.”[C7-229] His second answer was that he “went as a citizen of the U.S. (as a tourist) residing in a forieng conutry which I have a perfect right to do. I went there to see the land, the people and how their system works.”[C7-230]

To the question of “Are you a communits?” he first answered “Yes, basically, allthough I hate the USSR and socialist system I still _think_ marxism can work under different circumstances.”[C7-231] His second answer to this question was, “No of course not, I have never even know a communist, outside of the ones in the USSR but you can’t help that.”[C7-232] His first set of questions and answers indicated his belief that there were no outstanding differences between the Soviet Union and the United States, “except in the US. the living standard is a little higher, freedoms are about the same, medical aid and the educational system in the USSR is better than in the USA.”[C7-233] In the second simulated transcript which ended with the statement “Newspapers, thank you sir; you are a _real_ patriot!!” he apparently concluded that the United States offered “freedom of speech travel outspoken opposition to unpopular policies freedom to believe in god,” while the Soviet Union did not.[C7-234]

Despite the hatred that Oswald expressed toward the Soviet Union after his residence there, he continued to be interested in that country after he returned to the United States. Soon after his arrival he wrote to the Soviet Embassy in Washington requesting information on how to subscribe to Russian newspapers and magazines and asked for “any periodicals or bulletins which you may put out for the beneifit of your citizens living, for a time, in the U.S.A..”[C7-235] Oswald subsequently did subscribe to several Soviet journals.[C7-236] While Marina Oswald tried to obtain permission to return to the Soviet Union she testified that she did so at her husband’s insistence.[C7-237]

In July of 1963, Oswald also requested the Soviet Union to provide a visa for his return to that country.[C7-238] In August of 1963, he gave the New Orleans police as a reason for refusing to permit his family to learn English, that “he hated America and he did not want them to become ‘Americanized’ and that his plans were to go back to Russia.”[C7-239] Even though his primary purpose probably was to get to Cuba, he sought an immediate grant of visa on his trip to Mexico City in late September of 1963.[C7-240] He also inquired about visas for himself and his wife in a letter which he wrote to the Soviet Embassy in Washington on November 9, 1963.[C7-241]

Personal Relations

Apart from his relatives, Oswald had no friends or close associates in Texas when he returned there in June of 1962, and he did not establish any close friendships or associations, although it appears that he came to respect George De Mohrenschildt.[C7-242] Somewhat of a nonconformist,[C7-243] De Mohrenschildt was a peripheral member of the so-called Russian community, with which Oswald made contact through Mr. Peter Gregory, a Russian-speaking petroleum engineer whom Oswald met as a result of his contact with the Texas Employment Commission office in Fort Worth.[C7-244] Some of the members of that group saw a good deal of the Oswalds through the fall of 1963, and attempted to help Mrs. Oswald particularly, in various ways.[C7-245] In general, Oswald did not like the members of the Russian community.[C7-246] In fact, his relations with some of them, particularly George Bouhe, became quite hostile.[C7-247] Part of the problem resulted from the fact that, as Jeanne De Mohrenschildt testified, Oswald was “very, very disagreeable and disappointed.”[C7-248] He also expressed considerable resentment at the help given to his wife by her Russian-American friends. Jeanne De Mohrenschildt said:

Marina had a hundred dresses given to her * * * [and] he
objected to that lavish help, because Marina was throwing it
into his face.

* * * * *

He was offensive with the people. And I can understand why, *
* * because that hurt him. He could never give her what the
people were showering on her. * * * no matter how hard he
worked--and he worked very hard.[C7-249]

The relations between Oswald and his wife became such that Bouhe wanted to “liberate” her from Oswald.[C7-250] While the exact sequence of events is not clear because of conflicting testimony, it appears that De Mohrenschildt and his wife actually went to Oswald’s apartment early in November of 1962 and helped to move the personal effects of Marina Oswald and the baby. Even though it appears that they may have left Oswald a few days before, it seems that he resisted the move as best he could. He even threatened to tear up his wife’s dresses and break all the baby things. According to De Mohrenschildt, Oswald submitted to the inevitable, presumably because he was “small, you know, and he was rather a puny individual.”[C7-251] De Mohrenschildt said that the whole affair made him nervous since he was “interfering in other people’s affairs, after all.”[C7-252]

Oswald attempted to get his wife to come back and, over Bouhe’s protest, De Mohrenschildt finally told him where she was. De Mohrenschildt admitted that:

if somebody did that to me, a lousy trick like that, to take my
wife away, and all the furniture, I would be mad as hell, too.
I am surprised that he didn’t do something worse.[C7-253]

After about a 2-week separation, Marina Oswald returned to her husband.[C7-254] Bouhe thoroughly disapproved of this and as a result almost all communication between the Oswalds and members of the Russian community ceased. Contacts with De Mohrenschildt and his wife did continue and they saw the Oswalds occasionally until the spring of 1963.[C7-255]

Shortly after his return from the Soviet Union, Oswald severed all relations with his mother; he did not see his brother Robert from Thanksgiving of 1962 until November 23, 1963.[C7-256] At the time of his defection, Oswald had said that neither his brother, Robert, nor his mother were objects of his affection, “but only examples of workers in the U.S.” He also indicated to officials at the American Embassy in Moscow that his defection was motivated at least in part by so-called exploitation of his mother by the capitalist system.[C7-257] Consistent with this attitude he first told his wife that he did not have a mother, but later admitted that he did but that “he didn’t love her very much.”[C7-258]

When they arrived from the Soviet Union, Oswald and his family lived at first with his brother Robert. The latter testified that they “were just together again,” as if his brother “had not been to Russia.” He also said that he and his family got along well with Marina Oswald and enjoyed showing her American things.[C7-259] After about a month with his brother, Oswald and his family lived for a brief period with his mother at her urging, but Oswald soon decided to move out.[C7-260]

Marguerite Oswald visited her son and his family at the first apartment which he rented after his return, and tried to help them get settled there. After she had bought some clothes for Marina Oswald and a highchair for the baby, Oswald emphatically told her to stop. As Marguerite Oswald testified, “he strongly put me in my place about buying things for his wife that he himself could not buy.”[C7-261] Oswald objected to his mother visiting the apartment and became quite incensed with his wife when she would open the door for her in spite of his instructions to the contrary.[C7-262] Oswald moved to Dallas on about October 8, 1962, without telling his mother where he was going. He never saw or communicated with her in any way again until she came to see him after the assassination.[C7-263]

Even though Oswald cut off relations with his mother, he attempted for the first time to learn something about his family background when he went to New Orleans in April of 1963. He visited some of his father’s elderly relatives and the cemetery where his father was buried in an effort to develop the facts of his genealogy.[C7-264] While it does not appear that he established any new relationships as a result of his investigation, he did obtain a large picture of his father from one of the elderly relatives with whom he spoke.[C7-265] Oswald’s interest in such things presents a sharp contrast with his attitude at the time of his defection, when he evidenced no interest in his father and hardly mentioned him, even when questioned.[C7-266]

Employment

Oswald’s defection, his interest in the Soviet Union, and his activities on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee not only caused him difficulties in his employment relations, but they also provided him with excuses for employment failures which were largely of his own making. Oswald experienced some difficulty finding employment. Perhaps this was partially because of his lack of any specific skill or training.[C7-267] Some of his acquaintances, feeling that Oswald tried to impress people with the fact that he had lived and worked in Russia, were led to the belief that his employment difficulties were caused by his telling prospective employers that he had last been employed in Minsk.[C7-268] While he might have expected difficulty from such an approach, in fact the evidence indicates that Oswald usually told his prospective employers and employment counselors that he had recently been discharged from the Marine Corps.[C7-269]

Oswald obtained a job in July of 1962 as a sheet metal worker with a company in Fort Worth. His performance for that company was satisfactory.[C7-270] Even though he told his wife that he had been fired, he voluntarily left on October 8, 1962, and moved to Dallas.[C7-271]

On October 9, 1962 he went to the Dallas office of the Texas Employment Commission where he expressed a reluctance to work in the industrial field.[C7-272] He indicated an interest in writing. An employment counselor testified, on the basis of a general aptitude test Oswald had taken, that he had some aptitude in that area, “because the verbal score is high and the clerical score is high.”[C7-273] While that counselor found that he was qualified to handle many different types of jobs, because of his need for immediate employment she attempted to obtain for him any job that was available at the time. Oswald made qualifying marks in 19 of 23 categories included on the general aptitude examination and scored 127 on the verbal test, as compared with 50 percent of the people taking it who score less than 100. The counselor testified that there was some indication that Oswald was capable of doing college work and noted that Oswald’s verbal and clerical potential was “outstanding.”[C7-274] Employment Commission records concerning Oswald stated: “Well-groomed & spoken, business suit, alert replies--Expresses self extremely well.”[C7-275] Oswald said that he hoped eventually to develop qualifications for employment as a junior executive through a work-study program at a local college. He indicated, however, that he would have to delay that program because of his immediate financial needs and responsibilities.[C7-276]

On October 11, 1962, the Employment Commission referred Oswald to a commercial advertising photography firm in Dallas,[C7-277] where he was employed as a trainee starting October 12, 1962.[C7-278] Even though Oswald indicated that he liked photographic work,[C7-279] his employer found that he was not an efficient worker. He was not able to produce photographic work which adhered with sufficient precision to the job specifications and as a result too much of his work had to be redone.[C7-280] He also had difficulty in working with the other employees. This was at least in part because of the close physical confines in which some of the work had to be done.[C7-281] He did not seem to be able to make the accommodations necessary when people work under such conditions and as a result became involved in conflicts, some of which were fairly heated, with his fellow employees.[C7-282]

In February or March of 1963, it began to appear that Oswald was having considerable difficulty doing accurate work and in getting along with the other employees. It appears that his discharge was hastened by the fact that he brought a Russian language newspaper to work.[C7-283] It is not possible to tell whether Oswald did this to provide an excuse for his eventual discharge, or whether he brought the Russian language newspaper with him one day after his other difficulties became clear. It is possible that his immediate supervisor noticed the newspaper at that time because his attention had otherwise been drawn more directly to Oswald. In any event, Oswald was discharged on April 6, 1963, ostensibly because of his inefficiency and difficult personality. His supervisor admitted, however, that while he did not fire Oswald because of the newspaper incident or even weigh it heavily in his decision, “it didn’t do his case any good.”[C7-284]

Upon moving to New Orleans on April 24, 1963, Oswald’s employment problems became more difficult. He left his wife and child at the home of a friend, Mrs. Ruth Paine, of Irving, Tex.[C7-285] In New Orleans he obtained work as a greaser and oiler of coffee processing machines for the William B. Reily Co., beginning May 10, 1963.[C7-286] After securing this job and an apartment, Oswald asked his wife to join him. Mrs. Paine brought Oswald’s family to New Orleans.[C7-287] Refusing to admit that he could only get work as a greaser, Oswald told his wife and Mrs. Paine that he was working as a commercial photographer.[C7-288] He lost his job on July 19, 1963, because his work was not satisfactory[C7-289] and because he spent too much time loitering in the garage next door, where he read rifle and hunting magazines.[C7-290] Oswald apparently concluded that his Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities were not related to his discharge.[C7-291] The correctness of that conclusion is supported by the fact that he does not seem to have been publicly identified with that organization until August 9, 1963, almost a month after he lost his job.[C7-292]

His Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities, however, made it more difficult for him to obtain other employment. A placement interviewer of the Louisiana Department of Labor who had previously interviewed Oswald, saw him on television and heard a radio debate in which he engaged on August 21, 1963. He consulted with his supervisor and “it was determined that we should not undertake to furnish employment references for him.”[C7-293] Ironically, he failed to get a job in another photographic firm after his return to Dallas in October of 1963, because the president of the photographic firm for which he had previously worked told the prospective employer that Oswald was “kinda peculiar sometimes and that he had some knowledge of the Russian language,” and that he “may be a damn Communist. I can’t tell you. If I was you, I wouldn’t hire him.”[C7-294] The plant superintendent of the new firm testified that one of the employees of the old firm “implied that Oswald’s fellow employees did not like him because he was propagandizing and had been seen reading a foreign newspaper.” As a result Oswald was not hired.[C7-295] He subsequently found a job with the Texas School Book Depository for which he performed his duties satisfactorily.[C7-296]

Attack on General Walker

The Commission has concluded that on April 10, 1963, Oswald shot at Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker (Resigned, U.S. Army), demonstrating once again his propensity to act dramatically and, in this instance violently, in furtherance of his beliefs. The shooting occurred 2 weeks before Oswald moved to New Orleans and a few days after he had been discharged by the photographic firm. As indicated in 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.

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]