Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (22 page)

Oswald appears to have been drawn at an early age to the epic and
intense ideological struggle between communism and democratic capitalism. He claimed his first contact with communist ideology came with a
pamphlet handed to him on a New York street corner. In a Moscow
interview shortly after arriving in Russia, Oswald told newspaper reporter
Aline Mosby:

I'm a Marxist ... I became interested about the age of 15. From an
ideological viewpoint. An old lady handed me a pamphlet about saving
the Rosenbergs . . . I looked at that paper and I still remember it for
some reason, I don't know why.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg had been convicted of passing atomic bomb
secrets to the Russians in a celebrated-and still controversial-case beginning in 1950. They were executed on June 19, 1953.

However, this story of early interest in communism must be taken with
a grain of salt. After all, this is simply what Oswald told a reporter at a
time he was trying hard to prove he was a devout communist supporter.

His brother Robert also expressed puzzlement over this story, writing:

If Lee was deeply interested in Marxism in the summer of 1955, he said
nothing about it to me. During my brief visit with him in New Orleans,
I never saw any books on the subject in the apartment on Exchange
Place. Never, in my presence, did he read anything that I recognized as
Communist literature. I was totally surprised when the information
about his interest in Marxism came out, at the time of his defection to
Russia. I was amazed that he had kept to himself ideas and opinions that
were evidently so important to him.

In New Orleans, Oswald's study of communism allegedly intensified.
Strangely enough, at the same time he was making a patriotic movejoining the Civil Air Patrol (CAP).

It was at this point that Oswald made one of the most intriguing
connections of his life. And it may have been in the Civil Air Patrol that
Oswald the "communist" was truly born.

It has been established that Oswald's CAP leader was a mysterious
character named David W. Ferrie. Ferrie, an airline pilot, private investigator, and outspoken right-winger, went on to have connections with
reputed Mafia boss Carlos Marcello, anti-Castro Cuban groups, former
FBI agent Guy Banister and his anti-Castro activities, and the CIA. Ferrie
will be discussed at length in other sections of this book.

Could Ferrie, who reportedly used his CAP position to establish homosexual contacts with young boys, have influenced Oswald to begin making
a procommunist "cover" for himself with an eye toward becoming a U.S.
agent?

Did Ferrie seek to take advantage of the impressionable young Oswald
with stories of using his intelligence contacts to help Oswald enter the
exciting world of espionage? Considering Ferrie's known homosexuality
and intelligence connections, this speculation is not as farfetched as it
sounds.

We may never know, however, since in 1967 Ferrie was found dead in
his New Orleans apartment the day after being released from protective
custody by District Attorney Jim Garrison, who named Ferrie as his chief
suspect in a plot to assassinate President Kennedy and described him as
"one of history's most important individuals."

A puzzling incident occurred involving David Ferrie and Oswald's
library card which, while not proving ongoing links between the two men,
provides tantalizing evidence that such a connection may have existed.

Within hours of Kennedy's assassination, an employee of former FBI
agent Guy Banister contacted New Orleans authorities and said both Banister and Ferrie had been in touch with Oswald. (Oswald used the same
address-554 Camp Street-as Banister's office on some of his Fair Play
For Cuba material, which will be discussed later in more detail.)

Banister, a supporter of right-wing causes, had been assisting antiCastro Cubans through his New Orleans private detective agency.

Authorities could not immediately locate Ferrie. Some time later, Ferrie
told New Orleans police he had driven to Texas the night of the assassination to go goose hunting. However, subsequent investigation of Ferrie's
companions revealed that they had decided not to hunt geese but, instead,
had gone to a Houston skating rink where Ferrie spent two hours at a pay
telephone making and receiving calls.

One of Ferrie's friends told New Orleans police that shortly after
Kennedy's assassination, an attorney named C. Wray Gill had come to
Ferrie's home and mentioned that when Oswald was arrested in Dallas, he
was carrying a library card with Ferrie's name on it.

Gill, an attorney for Carlos Marcello, promised to act on Ferrie's behalf
upon his return to New Orleans. On the evening of the Sunday that Jack
Ruby killed Oswald, Ferrie contacted Gill, who then accompanied Ferrie
to the authorities the next day. Ferrie denied knowing anything about
Oswald or the assassination and was released.

However, one of Oswald's former neighbors in New Orleans later
recalled that Ferrie visited her after the assassination asking about a library
card. And Oswald's former landlady said Ferrie came to her asking about
the library card just hours after the assassination and before the bizarre
Texas trip. After all this furor over the library card, there is nothing in the
official record indicating such a card was ever found in Oswald's possession. Yet the Secret Service, when they questioned Ferrie, reportedly
asked if he had loaned his library card to Oswald.

Could such a library card have disappeared from Oswald's belongings
while in Dallas police custody? It certainly would not be the only such
incident-an incriminating photograph of Oswald was discovered after nearly
fifteen years among the possessions of a retired Dallas policeman. And if
such a card existed, it would have been strong evidence that a relationship
between Oswald and Ferrie continued long after young Oswald moved away.

In the fall of 1955, Oswald began the tenth grade at Warren Easton High
School in New Orleans but dropped out soon after his birthday in October.

Oswald himself wrote to school authorities, stating:

To who it may concern,

Because we are moving to San Diego in the middle of this month Lee
must quit school now. Also, please send him any papers such as his
birth certificate that you may have. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Mrs. M. Oswald

This note gave evidence of what young Oswald had in mind. He had his
mother sign a false affidavit stating he was seventeen and he tried to join
the Marine Corps. Undoubtedly he was looking forward to Marine training
in San Diego. His brother Robert, who had joined the Marines three years
earlier, had given Lee his training manual. His mother later recalled: He
knew it by heart."

His desire to join the Marines was decidedly odd if we are supposed to
believe, as the Warren Commission did, that he was a full-blown Marxist
by this time. It makes more sense to believe that Oswald eagerly looked
forward to serving in the military because he already knew that plans were
being made for his service in intelligence. But his hopes were dashed when
the recruiting authorities failed to believe the affidavit. Oswald had to wait
another year for his chance at the Marines. His mother noted: "Lee lived
for the time that he would become seventeen years old to join the Marinesthat whole year. " During that time, he continued to build an identity as a
communist sympathizer.

During a meeting of the New Orleans Amateur Astronomy Association,
he began expounding on the virtures of communism, saying communism was
the only way of life for the workers and that he was looking for a Communist
cell to join but couldn't find one. Another time, he was kicked out of the home
of a friend after the friend's father overheard him praising the communist system.

Some have interpreted this penchant for communism as sincere and as
evidence of how deeply disturbed Oswald had become. However, when
viewed from another side, there is the real possibility that-believing the
promises of Captain Ferrie that the adventuresome world of spies lay ahead
of him-Oswald was already concocting a procommunist cover.

After all, up until his meeting with Ferrie his interest in politics and
ideology had been no different from that of any other bright kid. And his
family had a tradition of honorable military service.

It is clear that Oswald couldn't wait to join the military, yet at the same
time was going out of his way to offend nearly everyone with his
procommunist posturing.

The question of the genuineness of his regard for communism only
intensified after he entered the Marine Corps.

Six days after his seventeenth birthday, Oswald was sworn in as a U.S.
Marine.

On October 26, 1956, Oswald arrived at the Marine Corps Recruit
Depot in San Diego, California. Here he completed basic training with no
apparent problems, although his marksmanship on the rifle range was less
than what was desired by his fellow Marines.

Former Marine Sherman Cooley recalled that Oswald was given the
name "Shitbird" because initially he couldn't qualify on the M-1 rifle.
Cooley said: "It was a disgrace not to qualify and we gave him holy hell."

Another Marine buddy, Nelson Delgado, also has publicly told of
Oswald's ineptness with a rifle. However, when Delgado tried to tell this
to the FBI after the assassination, he claimed: "They attacked my competence to judge his character and shooting ability and criticized my efforts
to teach him Spanish." A hounded and fearful Delgado finally moved his
family to England because ". .. the conspirators may think I know more
than I do."

Oswald went on to qualify as a "sharpshooter" by only two points in
December, "sharpshooter" being the second of three grades of marksmanship. He did not do nearly so well when he again fired for the record
shortly before leaving the Marines.

On January 20, 1957, he completed basic and went on to Camp Pendleton, California, where he completed advanced combat training. While
learning combat skills, Oswald reportedly continued to speak favorably of
communism-an odd circumstance for the Marines in the 1950s unless he
was still trying to establish a procommunist "cover." Odder still is the
fact that at no time did any of Oswald's Marine superiors note for the
record his displays of procommunist sentiment.

During this time, Oswald apparently was liked well enough by his
fellow Marines, who called him "Ozzie Rabbit" after a TV cartoon
character "Oswald the Rabbit."

In March, Oswald reported to the Naval Air Technical Training Center
in Jacksonville, Florida. Here he studied to be a radar air controller, a job
given only to men with higher-than-average intelligence. This job also
required a security clearance of "Confidential," which Oswald obtained
the time he was promoted to private first class.

Daniel Patrick Powers, who was with Oswald in Jacksonville, recalled
that Oswald used almost all his weekend passes to go to New Orleans,
presumably to visit his mother. However, Mrs. Oswald was in Texas at the
time and relatives in New Orleans could only recall one phone call from
Oswald.

Could he have been gaining more advice on how to concoct a
procommunist "cover" in preparation for becoming a spy from Captain
Ferrie or someone else?

He graduated May 3 and was sent to Kessler Air Force Base in Mississippi, where he completed an Aircraft Control and Warning Operator Course.

After finishing seventh in a class of fifty, Oswald was given a Military
Occupational Specialty (MOS) of Aviation Electronics Operator and, after
a brief leave, was sent to the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro,
California. He stayed there until shipped to Japan aboard the U.S.S. Bexar
on August 22. Shipmates noticed that Oswald read Leaves of Grass by
Walt Whitman, and other "good type of literature."

Upon arriving in Japan, the young Marine was sent about twenty-five
miles southwest of Tokyo to the air base at Atsugi, home of the First
Marine Aircraft Wing-and one of two bases where the then top-secret
U-2 spy plane flights were originating. Also at Atsugi was an innocuous
group of buildings housing what was known only as the "Joint Technical
Advisory Group." In reality, this was the CIA main operational base in
the Far East and it was here that speculation has arisen that the young
Oswald got into the real spy business.

During his duty hours, Oswald sat in a hot, crowded, semicircular radar
control room known as the bubble and intently watched his radarscope for
signs of Russian or Chinese aircraft crossing into allied airspace. The job
was mostly monotony, broken only by an occasional unidentified aircraft
and the strange utility plane code-named "Race Car."

The radar operators would overhear Race Car asking for wind information at ninety thousand feet. They at first thought this was some sort of
joke, since the world altitude record at that time was only slightly more
than sixty-five thousand and the radar height-finding antenna read only up
to forty-five thousand.