"Patsy!": The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald (3 page)

He, too, would be famous for at least fifteen minutes. Who knew? Maybe more. Perhaps his fame would have longevity.

Yes, Lee too would have his moment, though only if he pursued such a fruition endlessly, tirelessly, every day of his life. Fame and, with a little luck, immortality.

*

At 1:04 p.m. in the Parkland Memorial, Dallas, Texas, the same hospital where President John Fitzgerald Kennedy had passed away two days earlier, Lee Harvey Oswald stirred on his bed. The doctors and nurses observed the patient gasping desperately for breath even as they sensed that they were about to lose him. The medical people could not guess a final idea had passed through what was left of the 24-year-old's brain, still able to function as a terrible darkness closed in, tightening on the fast-fading cells that store memory and awareness.

A final thought and/or emotion Lee so wanted to share with somebody—them, anyone—while time remained to do so.

Something else I heard once. It too comes from a movie. I'm pretty sure. Most of what I know and believe does. There's an image in my mind and, in it, a great artist is interviewed by a pretty girl reporter. She asks him what he most wants to achieve in his lifetime. He responds: 'to become immortal, then die.' All the TV cameras on him. Just as, this morning, they were on me. As I always dreamed and hoped, the whole world was watching.

And, far more important, waiting to hear what I would say. I didn't get it all out—only the first part, 'I'm a patsy!'

That's alright. Seven days ago, I wrote everything down, the whole horrible business. What actually was going down as compared to what the public had been told by those in power and so believed. I handed my manuscript to a receptionist at FBI headquarters, right here in Dallas, a few blocks away from the book depository. With the inscription: “to be opened and made public in the case of my death.”

Yes, yes, of course, so that means the truth will all come out. If the FBI can be trusted ...

Not that things turned out as I hoped, what with Kennedy gone. All the same, I achieved my life's goal. Became famous. And, as time may tell, immortal. I can stop struggling to hold on, despite all the pain. It's okay to let go—

*

Less than two minutes later, the doctors and nurses of Parkland Memorial gathered close as Lee Harvey Oswald departed this world. Afterwards, when questioned by the press about what they'd seen, each shook his or her head in confusion. What these medical experts couldn't grasp was how and why a man who must be going through such an unbearable ordeal had somehow managed to expire with a smile—a sneer, actually—on his face.

That secret, everyone decided, Lee Harvey Oswald had taken with him to the grave.

“If surviving assassinations were an Olympic

event, I would win a gold medal.”

—Fidel Castro, 1967

 

Eclectic, Frank Anthony Sturgis (CIA Codename: George) decided was the term to best describe the cityscape of
Habana.
At mid-morning, Sturgis had stepped out onto the sharp, jutting formation of craggy rocks by the harbor which tourists so loved to mount. Standing alone there, as if he were the most ordinary guy in the world, Sturgis had for the better part of an hour gazed out at the sharp, clean lines of El Morro lighthouse while the tide whipped white-tipped waves against its timeworn stucco surface, up onto the natural formation on which George stood. Droplets of salt water ricocheted onto his face. Later, after checking his watch to make certain he would be on time for his appointment, Sturgis strolled along the crowded
Malecon,
taking in the local color. This included diverse little shops where bright Cuban clothing and such enticing foodstuffs as cold pork sandwiches with thin-sliced-red-onion on a foot-long roll were hawked, in tandem with the charming array of happy, noisy people.

At noon Sturgis continued on to
Habana Vieja
, the historic old city. There, ghosts of conquistadores were rumored to peek out from every alley. Sturgis paused long enough to marvel at the diversity of architectural styles, each unique building reflecting some successive era from this city's 400-year history.
Yes,
he decided.
The correct term is eclectic
.

For now, during this sunny siesta hour, Sturgis (or more correctly the man who had gone by that name for the past eight years) had plenty of time to closely study the appealing if incongruous arrangement of structures. He sat uncomfortably in a wobbly metal-frame chair, hunched over a small matching table ever since arriving at Banana Royale, a humble café kitty-corner to the stately
Plaza de la Caterdral
. Impatiently, Frank Sturgis waited for his assigned rendezvous, commencing with the arrival of his contact. Little more than a hundred feet away, the vast baroque building that lent this plaza its identity stretched high
into an unblemished turquoise sky, its solid frame flanked by
crumbling palaces that had somehow survived the end of the Colonial period intact. Each offered its own striking contrast to the area's dominant centerpiece, the
Caterdral
itself, which in its grandeur commanded any visitor's attention: the history of Cuba, crystallized in the building's crumbling stones.

When will she show up ... ? The bitch, the bitch ...

Sturgis glanced at his watch: 2:35 P.M. already. Joe the Courier, his sea-green eyes glowing, had stopped by on time, handing George the anticipated packet at precisely 1:45. ‘The Kraut,' as Sturgis mentally referred to the awaited young woman, apparently had decided to pull her 'how-late-can-I-make-my-grand-entrance-without-causing-you-to-throw-a-tantrum' routine. That was to be expected. Sturgis had never known a beautiful female who didn't believe her breathtaking appearance granted her special privilege to keep the whole world waiting. Desperate to contain his mounting frustration (how dare she be late on this all-important occasion?), George forced himself to focus his mind on the remarkable buildings and architectural
melange.

The styles on view ranged from ancient Moors, Renaissance Spanish and Italian, to the art-nouveau style so trendy back in the U.S. during the 1920s. George appreciated each. Few people would have expected that from one in his profession. Thanks to a course he'd opted for at Virginia Poly-tech Institute while studying there on the G.I. Bill following his discharge from the Marines during WWII, he—Frank Angelo Fiorini then—grasped the background of each element in the wide spectrum as more casual tourists could not. Frank/George knew beauty when he saw it.

He had always respected and admired beauty, in art as in women ... this short, dark man whose complicated and varied life (Virginia policeman, nightclub owner, gunrunner, agent) had led him here as a courier between the CIA and the Mafia, that powerful institution of organized crime with which his agency, known as The Company to members, had recently aligned.

If that freakin' bitch doesn't show, what will I ...

Then, all at once, there she was. A vision of loveliness as always, The Kraut floated toward George from around a corner, smiling brightly as if that solved everything. A triumph of her will would cause any man to forget all about being angry, even what he'd been upset about. She proceeded, in what appeared a ballet-like manner of moving, down an angular boulevard, not so much stepping across pavement like a normal human being, rather by some magic seeming to glide along on air itself. Approaching, she nodded and winked, basking in the confidence of beauty.

How did a corny song from some old Hollywood film put it? You stepped out of a dream ... Few women George had known and bedded were capable of the heat he'd experienced with The Kraut, that cool-as-an-iceberg surface (half-German, half English) dissolving the moment this beautiful little brat hit the sheets.

Not today, though. Not for me, at least. The Beard? Likely he'll have her. Then, of course, she'll ‘have' him.

As George reached into a jacket pocket for the cellophane wrapped package of blue pills that Joe the Courier, aka Santo Trafficante, Jr., had instructed him to pass to her, the agent considered the sleek killing-machine he had, in only a year, created out of a pretty, giddy, oblivious teenager. Now, today, the still child-like beauty, assigned the Code Name 'Lolita,' looked like something out of an Ian Fleming novel: a deliciously duplicitous dame, elegant but deadly. A fictional female agent who enjoyed sex most when knowing the man in her arms was doomed to die there. First,
le petite morte
. Then, the Big Chill.

What pleasure such a woman took in slowly playing with her prey ... like a black widow spider, or some human tarantula.

God, if only there were time to fuck her again. I'd die for ... hey, that's funny. I didn't mean to make a joke but I did.

Yes
, the CIA operative thought as he rose and seemingly shook hands with a friend who just happened to stroll by, one secret agent passing a packet to another, Lorita Morenz rated as a real-life Bond woman, if with a touch of an underage beach-bunny Swingin' Sixties dream-girl thrown in for good measure.

Truly, all men would agree, a woman to die for!

*

“Who is here?”

The moment that Fidel Castro stepped into his suite at the Havana Hilton on November 30, 1960, the communist dictator sensed someone had entered earlier, awaiting him in the dark. Instinctually, Castro's hand reached for the wall-switch so as to flip on the lights. Swift thinking prevented Castro from doing so. This hulking man grasped that so long as he and his unknown 'companion' remained in darkness, the intruder could not perceive him any more clearly than he could that hidden figure.

Castro maintained self-control, refusing to give in to a panic that urged him to turn and dart out through the still-partially open door, back toward the elevator. When silhouetted against the hallway light, he would offer an easy target.

Regaining his nerve with the speed of a man who has spent the past several years on the run, Castro kicked the door closed behind him. This decisive action plunged the living-room area of his suite into a pitch black, the window shades having earlier been drawn down. Who waited in the void? How anyone could slip past security struck Castro as beyond belief. Might one of his hand-selected bodyguards have proven susceptible to bribery?

“Calm down, Fidel. It's merely me.”

Light footsteps in the dark, swiftly moving forward, all at once distinguishable. Every person has his or her own gait, this as much a signature as a fingerprint. Simultaneously, Castro experienced déjà vu owing to the familiar pungent scent of deep, spicv mango, revealing the presence of a perfume he knew well. Then Castro felt the slender arms embrace him as had happened numerous times before, followed by a furtive kiss in the night.

“Lorita?”

“Yes, Fidel. Your own personal little ‘Lolita'.”

*

The female who occupied the room with Castro now glided to the wall switch, flipping on the lights. He marveled at the 19-year-old's body, displayed for his consideration in a skin-tight white sheath adorned with silver rhinestones. So she had come crawling back after all: the Bremen-born beauty who had made her way to Cuba, sought Castro out up in the hills during his exile, haughtily announcing to the stunned bearded-giant that she fully intended to become the divorced Castro's lover and confidant.

And, furthermore—
just look at me, Fidel
—there was not a damn thing he could do but succumb.

“I must share this great moment in world history which is about to occur. Be at the great man's side, when the hour of triumph arrives,” Lorita had explained. He viewed her warily. Lorita might be an agent from right-wing dictator Fulgencia Batista. Or from the American Mob. Perhaps even the CIA.

A lethal Lolita, perhaps? I should send her away at once. Just in case. But of course she is far too lovely for that.

So Castro had taken Lorita for his mistress. Together, they would enter Havana atop a tank, several days following the New Year's Eve Revolution of December 31, 1958.

*

“How did you get in?”

“With this.”

Lorita held high the key he had presented to her that first night together here, before the once-spectacular relationship soured. Castro recalled the incident that had precipitated her bitterness. Lorita yelped like a slapped puppy when he informed her that, having now been recognized as Cuba's supreme leader, perhaps it was time to reconcile with his estranged wife Mirta.

“
What
? You bearded bastard! After all I've—”

Whether a marital reconciliation could be managed, Castro explained, he absolutely must bring his son, young Fidel, here to live with him.

Listen to reason, will you? The legendary American newsman Edward R. Murrow had contacted him, requesting a “Person to Person” interview for CBS later that year. Imagine that!

“I want to sit beside you at that moment,” Lorita said.

“Lorita, stop screaming. Be reasonable.”

“Reasonable? If you truly loved me, you'd want the entire world to know of our great love.”

“Even a communist must deal with appearances—”

“You're a phony. Everything I believed that you stood for was but a show. You're no better than the man you ousted.”

At that moment, Castro's ego deflated. His mind knew that Lorita had spoken a truth he lived in daily denial of. The giant then lost control and slapped Lorita hard across her cheek. He knew this to be a great mistake even before the contact could be completed yet had not been able to halt the movement of his arm in mid-air. As his club-like hand whacked against the tiny female's face, Lorita emitted a shriek which resounded throughout the room, likely the entire hotel. Castro knew that momentarily guards would rush in to check on his well-being.