Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (24 page)

I have never personally known an individual more motivated by what
appeared to be a genuine concern for the human race than Lee Harvey
Oswald . . . His concern for other people, not as individuals but as a
mass, was real. Oswald was unselfish. He was so unselfish that he
couldn't seem to concentrate on his own affairs. He would rather be
busily solving the problems of mankind . . . [Once] I explained that I
was an atheist.

"So am I," said Oswald, glancing up from his notebook. "I think
the best religion is Communism."

"Yeah, Oswald's a Red," said one of the men, to me.

"No, I'm not a Communist. I just think they have the best system."

"Why?" I wanted to know.

"Because they have a purpose. And the Communist way of life is
more scientific than ours. You don't have to believe in a bunch of fairy
tales to accept it."

... What causes me to have second thoughts about his commitment
to Communism is his enthusiasm for a book unpopular with the few
self-admitted Communists I have known, for obvious reasons. The book
is George Orwell's 1984, a severe criticism in fiction form of socialist
totalitarianism. . . . I read 1984 and for a while decided Oswald was
not truly in sympathy with Marxism. It had to be a joke, I concluded.
That explained his tight little smile. He was laughing to himself, I was
sure. He saw all the fallacies in socialism that George Orwell saw. And,
on this final point, I am still not convinced I was wrong . . . And, the
one thing I remember most about Lee is that he was a comedian . . . his
wit got him into the most trouble . . . One of his favorite games was to
compare the United States Marine Corps to the society in 1984. "Be
careful, comrade, with Big Brother's equipment," he would say . . .

Thornley said he was greatly surprised when he read about Oswald
going to Russia. He was even more surprised to learn that Oswald was
identified as Kennedy's assassin. Although he was convinced of Oswald's
guilt by the time he put down his recollections, thanks to the barrage of
damaging information offered by the authorities through the news media,
he nevertheless wrote:

From the moment I first heard of his arrest until after he was gunned
down by Jack Ruby, I did not believe Oswald could be guilty. But, as
the facts came in, as the evidence piled up, I decided there must have
been more violence in him than I thought.

Another Marine, Nelson Delgado, also got along well with Oswald.
Delgado, a Puerto Rican, said Oswald "treated him like an equal."
Oswald and Delgado talked at length about Cuba and Fidel Castro's
coming to power. After a while, Oswald began asking Delgado how he
could get in touch with some Cubans.

Delgado said one day he handed Oswald a note saying he should write
the Cuban embassy in Washington, D.C. Not long after that, Delgado
noticed that Oswald, who previously received few letters, began receiving
mail several times a week and that at least some of this mail came from the
Cuban consulate.

Delgado also told investigators after the assassination that during this
time, Oswald was often "gigged" for having a dirty rifle and that, when
the unit went to the rifle range, Oswald got "Maggie's drawers"-a red
flag signifying that he hadn't even hit the target.

If Oswald was a genuine Marine communist, it begs the imagination to
think that his officers took no notice.

In fact, Thornley tells of an incident in which a young lieutenant did
notice that Oswald was receiving a Russian newspaper in the mail. According to this story:

.. . the lieutenant grew very excited over his discovery and possibly
made an open issue of Oswald's probable sympathy to the communist
cause. Most of the troops . . . were very much amused at the lieutenant's having "pushed the panic button." Oswald, of course, didn't
think it was so funny. But apparently the lieutenant's warnings were
ignored by the command .. .

Were these warnings ignored or were higher-ups more knowledgeable
about Oswald's communist activities?

Another hint as to Oswald's true allegiances may be found in an odd
incident involving his friend Thornley, with whom Oswald spent many
hours in ideological and philosophical discussions.

Thornley told the Warren Commission that one day while he and
Oswald were preparing for a military parade and were remarking about the
stupidity of the thing, Oswald said it made him angry. Thornley then said:

"Well, comes the revolution you will change all that." .. . at which
time [Oswald] looked at me like a betrayed Caesar and screamed, "Not
you, too, Thornley!" And I remember his voice cracked as he said this. He was definitely disturbed at what I had said and I didn't really think I
had said that much. . . . I never said anything to him again and he
never said anything to me again.

This sounds more like a person deeply hurt that a good friend would
seriously believe him to be a communist than like a communist sympathizer angered over an innocuous jibe.

James Botelho, today a California judge, was a roommate of Oswald's
during his stay at El Toro. Botelho even once took Oswald home to meet
his parents. He has never bought the idea that Oswald turned Communist.
In an interview with Mark Lane, Botelho stated:

I'm very conservative now and I was at least as conservative at that
time. Oswald was not a Communist or a Marxist. If he was I would
have taken violent action against him and so would many of the other
Marines in the unit.

Whatever his true beliefs about communism, Oswald at this time knew
bigger things were looming on his horizon.

In the spring of 1959, he had applied to study philosophy at the Albert
Schweitzer College in Switzerland and had been accepted. In a cryptic
letter to his brother, he wrote: "Pretty soon I'll be getting out of the Corps
and -I know what I want to be and how I'm going to be it ..."

Years later, Marine Bucknell told Mark Lane that during 1959, both he,
Oswald, and other Marines at El Toro Base were ordered to report to the
military Criminal Investigation Division (CID). There a civilian tried to recruit
those present for an intelligence operation against "Communists'-' in Cuba.

Oswald was selected to make several more trips to CID and later told
Bucknell that the civilian was the same man who had been his intelligence
contact at Atsugi. Some time later, Oswald confided to Bucknell that he
was to be discharged from the Marines and go to Russia. Oswald said he
was being sent to Russia by American intelligence and that he would
return to America in 1961 as a hero.

Judge Botelho, the former roommate of Oswald, told of his reaction to
Oswald's trip to Russia:

Well, when Oswald's presence in the Soviet Union was made public, it
was the talk of everyone who knew him at the base. First of all, I was
aware of the fact that the radio codes and other codes were not changed
and that Oswald knew all of them. That made me suspicious. I knew
Oswald was not a Communist and was, in fact, anti-Soviet. Then, when
no real investigation about Oswald occurred at the base, I was sure that
Oswald was on an intelligence assignment in Russia. . . . Two civilians
dropped in [at El Toro], asked a few questions, took no written statements, and recorded no interviews with witnesses. It was the most casual of investigations. It was a cover-investigation so that it could be
said that there had been an investigation. . . . Oswald, it was said, was
the only Marine ever to defect from his country to another country, a
Communist country, during peacetime. That was a major event. When
the Marine Corps and American intelligence decided not to probe the
reasons for the "defection," I knew then what I know now: Oswald was
on an assignment in Russia for American intelligence.

Whether intelligence agent or true defector, Oswald obviously had plans
made and the Navy seemed oddly obliging.

On August 17, 1959, Oswald applied for a dependency discharge on the
grounds that his mother needed his support. This application was accompanied by affidavits from his mother, an attorney, a doctor, and two friendsall supplied by his mother-stating she had been injured at work in
December 1958 and was unable to support herself. Later investigation
showed a candy box had fallen on her nose and that she had not even
bothered to see a doctor until well after the incident. Nevertheless, within
two weeks, to the surprise of his fellow Marines, Oswald's request was
approved and he was released from service on September 11.

On September 4, Oswald applied for a passport, plainly stating that he
might travel to various countries including Russia and Cuba. This, of
course, was in opposition to his claim that he was going home to care for
his injured mother. His passport was "routinely" issued six days later, just
in time for his exit from the Marines.

After a brief stopover in Texas with his mother, Oswald withdrew $203
from his only known bank account and continued on to New Orleans,
where he purchased a ticket for Le Havre, France, on the freighter Marion
Lykes for $220.75.

He had told his mother he was going to New Orleans to work for an
import-export firm, but in a letter mailed just before he sailed, he wrote:

I have booked passage on a ship to Europe. I would have had to sooner
or later and I think it's best I go now. Just remember above all else that
my values are different from Robert's or yours. It is difficult to tell you
how I feel. Just remember, this is what I must do. I did not tell you
about my plans because you could hardly be expected to understand.

On September 20, 1959, Oswald left on the first leg of a journey that
would take him to his destiny-via Russia.

Lee Harvey Oswald had a childhood that was no better nor worse than
that of millions of other Americans. He was bright and eager to learn,
despite a disrespect for educational systems and authorities.

At age sixteen, after joining the Civil Air Patrol and meeting Captain
David Ferrie, he suddenly made some public posturings as a procommunist,
despite the fact that he tried to join the Marine Corps at this same time.

Once a Marine, several odd and troubling items appeared in his military
record.

Despite prior-service statements indicating interest in Communist activities, Oswald was granted a security clearance and stationed at the Japanese
base where supersecret spy flights were being launched. Further evidence
of Oswald's involvement with undercover work can be seen in his off-duty
activities at the Queen Bee and his strange case of venereal disease "in
line of duty." Fellow Marines and even a former CIA clerk have stated
publicly that Oswald was recruited into U.S. intelligence while stationed in
Japan.

Various discrepancies in Oswald's military records-notations made for
the same date but different locations, unaccounted-for periods of timesupport the idea that Oswald was given secret intelligence training.

And consider the circumstance of a Marine in 1959 who was vocally
supportive of communism and Castro, yet was "ignored" by higher
command-further evidence that Oswald was creating a cover story as a
procommunist on orders.

The speed and ease with which he obtained a hardship discharge from
the Marines and a United States passport raise questions regarding Oswald's
possible relationship with U.S. intelligence.

Until the United States government decides to divulge all it knows about
Oswald's career-there are still numerous files locked away until the year
2039 and Oswald's military files were reported "routinely" destroyed-it
may be impossible to conclusively prove Oswald's intelligence connections.

Until the day she died, Oswald's mother maintained her son was an
agent of the U.S. government, and the evidence of Oswald's spy work is
there for anyone to see.

I believe [Oswald] worked for the American government.

-Marina Oswald

Stretching from the Baltic to the Pacific, the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics, which many still refer to as Russia, covers the largest territory
in the world. It contains a wide diversity of peoples, many with separate
customs, traditions, and even languages.

Spreading from the duchies around Moscow and Kiev, Ivan the Great
and his son ultimately brought areas from the Volga Steppes and the
Caspian Sea under control during the sixteenth century.

Modern Russia was created by annexing or conquering a long string of
small nations such as the Ukraine, Belorussia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldavia,
Kazakh, Armenia, Uzbek, Turkmen, Latvia, Estonia, and Azerbaijan.

By World War I, this giant collection of peoples was held together by
the czarist monarchy. Battered by world war, famine, public discontent, a
shattered economy, and political intrigues within the monarchy, Russia
collapsed into revolution in February 1917. With the abdication of Czar
Nicholas II and Czarina Alexandra, a provisional government was set up
under Aleksandr Kerenski. Kerenski attempted to bring Western democratic ideals to his beleaguered nation, but the fury of the revolution
continued unabated.