"Patsy!": The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald (30 page)

Then came word that Mario Zuniga successfully landed at Miami airport. After disembarking he swiftly launched into his fully rehearsed lie about how he and his companions bravely stole several planes from their hangers in Havana, headed up into the wild blue yonder, thereafter bombing their own base. Could this be considered a perfect morning? Perhaps not. Still, Stage One, Operation Mongoose, had more or less proceeded according to plan. There was every reason to believe Monday's sea-to-land attack, Code Name: Operation Zapata, would cinch the victory.

That meant Bissell could call ring up Adlai. First, though, the man at the top. So Richard Bissell, Jr. placed that initial call to JFK, the president then relaxing with a cool drink and a hot blonde at Glen Ora. This conversation concluded, Bissell dialed up Adlai, while JFK set about fucking the movie star, who had recently appeared with his sometimes pal Frank Sinatra in one of the popular Rat Pack films. In later years she would sarcastically refer to the experience as “the best seven seconds of my life.” Precisely what she also secretly whispered about JFK's world-famous entertainer friend.

The subsequent phone conversation between Richard Bissell and Adlai Stevenson lasted less than three minutes. This took place between 2:47 and 2:50 p.m., moments before the latter exited his office and proceeded to the special suite where the political committee would meet. Bissell would listen to the broadcast on his radio, nervous as to Adlai's famed idealism. Trusting though that, however much a milk-toast liberal Stevenson might be, he remained at heart a patriotic American, and would come across for his country and president.

Before the debate began, Bissell rearranged paperwork on his desk, hurriedly reading through notes, preparing to spend the hour listening to all that was said while checking each new report as it trickled in. Also, he'd try and keep track of what was going on down in Miami as Zuniga schmoozed with Ed Ahrens, in charge of the International Airport, then a bevy of reporters who were quickly invited out for an official press conference.

Bissell felt a little like a juggler, attempting to keep three balls in the air at once. Difficult, but not impossible. And, in truth, he loved that sort of thing. This explained why he'd left The Ford Foundation for the U.S. secret intelligence community after his World War II spy unit, then known as the OSS, evolved into the CIA. In so doing, Bissell had situated himself at the cusp of contemporary history-in-the-making; the very thought of his eminence provided a sudden rush.

Still, now, his mind kept returning to the question: Would Adlai do the right thing? Hardly superstitious, Bissell crossed his fingers as the three o' clock hour approached, then silently prayed. He wasn't much on religion. But as someone noted back in WWII, there are no atheists in foxholes.

Well, here was a whole new kind of war. And foxholes, if not always visible, still existed.

Half an hour later our American ambassador to the U.N. concluded by insisting those Cuban planes which landed on American soil would be impounded, and under no circumstances would the pilots be allowed to take off again.

Zuniga was, in fact, already readying to leave. Early the following day—Sunday, April 16—he, Jose Crespo and Lorenzo Perez departed in a C-54 on their way back to Happy Valley in Nicaragua to rejoin their anti-Castro Cuban forces and members of the CIA. The following afternoon, the two were off and flying again as part of the air command scheduled to give full support to those sea-to-land troops readying to attack. Crespo and Perez were shot down, dying on April 17 as Bay of Pigs turned from a no-brainer success into an unprecedented disaster.

Momentarily Richard Bissell, Jr. relaxed. So Adlai Stevenson had, as hoped for, proven himself a good soldier. Thank God for that! A God, of course, that loves America.

*

From day one, the success of the Bay of Pigs invasion had been pegged on one vital element: those air strikes carried out by Cuban pilots, flying out of Nicaragua on American planes. Even as back home knowledgeable Bissell and the unwitting Stevenson provided an elaborate cover, further bombings insured a victory by taking out the FAR, assuring no airborne counter response could be mounted two days later as sea-to-land forces swept up from the beach. Though our traditional military brass agreed with little that the CIA chiefs, who now co-opted many decisions which in the past were theirs to make, believed best, everyone involved in the long, elaborate planning process, JFK included, agreed that eliminating the FAR was essential.

This accomplished, it seemed impossible that the wave of well-armed, carefully-trained fighters could be halted as they marched on Havana. Even as dawn broke on Monday, 1,447 patriots prepared to disembark from the safety of seven U.S. ships and attack.

How could they—we—lose?

True, there had been mis-haps, Bissell knew. But he was a realist. When he called JFK, then Stevenson on that Saturday afternoon, Bissell had learned from his information sources that his pilots reported knocking out at least two dozen planes; earlier bulletins warned that there weren't that many T-3 jets, B-26 bombers, English-built Sea Furies and recently arrived aircraft from Russia in all of Cuba. Nonetheless, this meant at least some, maybe most, of Castro's air force no longer existed. When our Cuban pilots, after returning to Nicaragua for fuel and a brief rest, returned on Monday, they'd complete the job.

Exhausted, Bissell headed home for some much needed sleep. Here was a done deal/political coup America would approve of if one which, at least for the record, we'd had nothing to do with.

Yet during the night, Bissell found himself plagued by a series of dark dreams. In them, the operation went terribly awry. Burning pilots dropped from their planes, whirling without chutes to the ground below. Armed men in camouflage were mowed down on the thin green line separating thick jungle from white sand. A few survivors hurried back to the big blue only to realize their landing crafts had returned to the convoy, leaving them trapped, helplessly and hopelessly awaiting their deaths.

Bissell irregularly woke from the oppressive nightmare. He felt chilled to the bone each time, sweating profusely as he made a valiant effort to force such horrific images out of his mind. He'd roll over, soon drifting back into a sullen sleep.

When Bissell did at last rise the next morning, he felt more exhausted than when he'd retired. The first thing he did was
reach for the New York
Times,
hoping the headline might make a mockery of his fantasies.

To his surprise, even horror, the newspaper confirmed them. Questioning whether Adlai Stevenson's statement before the United Nations the previous day had been true, hinting that Honest Adlai had been sold a bill of goods by the State Department or, for the first time in his life, set integrity aside, becoming complicit in an obvious con job. Other articles, scattered through the thick black-and white encyclopedia of the week's events, deconstructed the U.S.'s official position.

Bissell felt faint. Any person who read this would know that the whole shebang had all been a ruse.

Some time later, as a special news service truck rolled up to his home with papers from all across the country, Bissell took heart from what he found there. Most featured nothing on the Cuban crisis other than an Associated Press summary of what our government had told them. How reassuring it was to know that ninety per cent of loyal Americans would read only this today.

Bissell, however, was far too savvy to continue for long in this cushion of denial. Only a small number of intelligentsia would see today's
Times
; tomorrow, though, other reporters would have devoured it, harbored second thoughts, composed better-late-than-never follow-ups. There was no way to head off the coming storm. Still, Bissell might yet minimize any problems this might create and inflate. There was indeed a way!

A Connecticut born-and-raised member of the unofficial U.S. aristocracy of Ivy Leaguers, this old school blue-blood had earned his straight-A grades at Yale by studying seriously in a way he knew the nouveau-riche upstart JFK only pretended to do a generation later at Harvard. It all came down to one inviolable rule: History is written by the victors. So what if word leaked out about what we'd done? So long as those in charge reassured the American people that victory loomed on the horizon, a grave threat eliminated, the vast majority would accept whatever had happened. With victory, the ends would justify the means.

Richard M. Bissell, Jr. believed that to the marrow of his bones. Things would work out so long as the president backed him one-hundred percent. Bissell could not allow himself to even consider the odious possibility that JFK might blink.

Such a notion was unthinkable. He had JFK's word, didn't he? Even if the promise had been followed by a phrase that did not sit well with Bissell, whose hand shook as he reached for the phone to once again make contact with JFK ...

THE IDES OF TEXAS

 

“Why are we always attracted to innocence when we ought to be repelled by it? Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell: wandering the earth, meaning no harm, endangering us all.”

 

—Graham Greene, 1948

“I always felt that the Cubans were being pushed into

the Soviet block by American (foreign) policy.” —Lee Harvey Oswald, 1962

 

So where was Lee Harvey Oswald when Bay of Pigs went down? According to official records, in Minsk. Lee had arrived in Moscow on October 16, 1959, announcing to Soviet officials there and the American ambassador his plans to defect. Russian authorities sent him to Minsk in January, 1960; Lee had lived there ever since. On March 30, 1961, complaining of an inner ear infection, he had been admitted to a hospital. During his twelve days there he was often visited by his latest girlfriend, a pretty if none too bright young thing named Marina. On April 11, Lee would be discharged.

Most of this was “legend,” a cover-up for what Lee had been assigned to try and achieve during this time period. George had remained in contact on a regular basis since the defection, via several couriers, while Lee divided his stay between two Moscow hotels, later via a single go-between once he reached the smaller provincial city. The assigned courier appeared on Lee's first day in Minsk. An elderly American had approached him on the street, mentioning that he too had defected. They genially shook hands. When that was done, Lee walked away with a piece of paper in his hand. The following morning when the men passed each other again, they stopped, chatted, and shook hands once more. This time it was Lee who passed a message through this intermediary back to George. And so on and so on.

On March 28, the brief note from George instructed Lee to enter the hospital within two days, complaining of unbearable pain in his right ear. Admitted on March 30 and putting on a convincing performance, Lee noticed in the midnight darkness a male coming up the aisle to his bed. This shadowy figure stepped close, whispering in Lee's ear. Finally Lee got a good look at the intruder's face, a duplicate of his own. Realizing that what George had explained to him would be a transfer was occurring, Lee slipped out of bed even as the twin took his place. Quietly Lee exited. As he left the hospital a car pulled up, the driver signaling to Lee. Two hours later he was dropped off in a remote field where a plane awaited. Once aboard Lee found himself headed to Helsinki, transferring there to a jet bound for Miami.

Lee stepped off that craft four hours later and, exhausted, headed into the main terminal. George and Johnny Rosselli were waiting for him. They greeted the bleary-eyed arrival, took Lee out for breakfast, and described the upcoming mission. Something big was about to go down in a week and a half. Lee was not to be briefed about any of it for fear that if captured by Castro's forces he might be tortured into talking, so the less he knew the better for all. George would only say that in less than 24 hours Lee would be off to Cuba, there to serve as part of a three-pronged assassination attempt on Castro. Johnny would be one of the other two operatives, as would a sometimes employee of the government to be known to Lee only as ‘Dick Tracy.'

Just like in the James Bond books ... and the upcoming movies based on them, which I read are already in pre-production ... my private fantasy is about to become public reality ... 007 and, now, Lee Harvey Oswald are ... licensed to kill!

Kill, but not drive. As Sinatra would say, now ain't that a kick in the head? I doubt I'll ever master it. Something comes over me every time I try. I shake and shiver and give up.

Killing? Ah, that's easy. Driving? Difficult!

*

The following day, according to plans, Lee arrived at the Tamiami airport at precisely six a.m. He waited in the lobby, miniscule compared to the one in Miami's
International Airport, until Johnny Handsome stepped alongside him, motioning for Lee to follow. At the ticket counter stood a young attendant, the only person on duty so early. Johnny explained that he and his friend had paid in advance for the rental of a Cessna 172, the three-year-old model most popular with amateurs who wanted to take flying lessons. A pilot had been arranged for as well. She checked over their identification, with a smile instructing them to pass through the lobby and onto the runways out back.

A pilot, wearing the traditional brown-leather jacket that had been popularized during the war by the Flying Tigers, smiled broadly, waving for them to board. Johnny slipped into the back while Lee hopped in next to the flyboy. Several attendants on the ground scurried about, making the final checks. These men stepped back and signaled for what was to be a conventional take-off. Each was shocked to see that the man in the backseat pulled out a pistol, crammed it into the pilot's right cheek, and roared:

“We are defecting to Cuba. You will fly us there at once.”