Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK (42 page)

Oswald stated he does not know where his birth certificate is and he denied that he took same to Russia with him.

On April 10, 1961, Marguerite Oswald said that Oswald took his birth certificate with him when he left Fort Worth." In the interview, Oswald denies knowledge of the location of his birth certificate. Yet, as soon as September 17, Oswald presented his birth certificate in New Orleans to get a Mexican tourist card." On November 22, 1963, a negative of Oswald's birth certificate was found and became Exhibit 800 in the Warren Report.13

Oswald was evidently willing to alter any truth that suited his advantage in the conversation. Here is a portion of the interview with a point-by-point critical analysis:

1. "Oswald denied that he had renounced his United States citizenship and stated that he did not seek Soviet citizenship while in Russia." False. He had sought Soviet citizenship while in the Soviet Union.

2. "Oswald stated that he was never approached by the Soviet officials in an attempt to pull information from him concerning his experiences while a member of the US Marine Corps." Possibly true, but it is likely that the circle around him in Minsk was used for such a purpose. It would not be surprising if he had been approached for his information. After all, he had offered it, with KGB ears listening, inside the American Embassy in Moscow.

3. "Oswald also stated that he was not recruited at any time while in Russia by the Soviet intelligence." Probably true.

4. "He stated that he made no deal with the Soviets in order to obtain permission to return to the United States." Possibly true, but it would not be surprising if the reverse were true.

5. "He stated that the Soviets made it very difficult for him to obtain permission for his wife to leave Russia, and that the process of obtaining permission for her to leave was a long difficult course requiring much paper work." Mostly accurate.

6. "He stated that no attempt was made by the Soviets at any time to "brainwash" him." Possibly true, but it is difficult to be certain.

7. "Oswald stated that he never at any time gave the Soviets any information which would be used in a detrimental way against the United States." This is doubtful. It certainly appeared to be his intention to do so. A pat denial afterward is difficult to accept in the face of his earlier eagerness.

8. "He stated that the Soviets never sought any such information from him. Oswald denied that he at any time while in Russia had offered to reveal to the Soviets any information he had acquired as a radar operator in the US marines." False. He made precisely such an offer in front of American officials.

Oswald provided Marina's Soviet passport number, Ky37790, and explained she was required to keep the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. informed of her address and her periodic "whereabouts" while she was in the United States. Oswald mentioned that he was thinking of contacting the Soviet Embassy in "a few days" to tell them what Marina's current address was. But Oswald went a little further than that. Soon, in July, according to FBI director Kelley," the FBI found out that Oswald "had sought information from the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., about Russian newspapers and periodicals." Of course, Fain's report included this passage:

Oswald stated that in the event he is contacted by Soviet Intelligence under suspicious circumstances or otherwise, he will promptly communicate with the FBI. He stated that he holds no brief for the Russians or the Russian system.15

Oswald neglected to say that he would tell the FBI if he contacted the "Russians or the Russian system." He did not have to tell them. Oswald's mail was a kaleidoscope of communist literature and organizations, and, as we will see, the FBI knew it.

On July 16, 1962, Oswald went to work as a metal worker for $1.25 per hour at Leslie Welding Company.16 Oswald then rented a house, 2703 Mercedes, Fort Worth, for $59.50 a month from Chester Allen Riggs, Jr." On August 17, Oswald filed a change of address notice from 7313 Davenport to 2703 Mercedes, Fort Worth.1e At this time, Oswald started bugging the Navy yet again: On August 1 he wrote, using his 2703 Mercedes address, complaining about his undesirable discharge." On August 6, the U.S. Navy Review Board responded.20 He lost his job at Leslie Welding on October 9, which is not surprising, as it seems Oswald's primary interest was his pursuit of communist literature and organizations. Chester Riggs knew that something about Oswald's mail was out of the ordinary. Riggs told the Secret Service after the assassination that the U.S. Postal Inspection Service had investigated Oswald for receiving subversive mail while he was living at 2703 Mercedes.21

Oswald lived at the Mercedes address between August 17 and October 7, 1962.22 The mail to and from that address during this period was so unusual for Texas that Oswald was probably watched closely. He began with a two-dollar subscription to the Worker on August 5,23 and an August 12 inquiry to the Socialist Workers Party,24 both using 2703 Mercedes as the return address. The Socialist Workers Party was, of course, on the list of subversive organizations," and FBI agent Hosty later testified he considered it a "Trotskyite" type of political party.26 On August 23, 1962, the Socialist Workers Party answered Oswald's inquiry," and Oswald was at it again on August 26, sending $.25 for material on Trotsky.28 On September 29, Pioneer Publishers wrote to Oswald telling him that the Trotsky pamphlet he had ordered was not available.29 In September, Oswald sent another $2.20 for a one-year subscription to the Russian periodical Krokodil.30

Meanwhile, Fain admitted the first interview had been a failure. "Agent Fain reported to the special agent-in-charge of the Dallas office," says Director Kelley, "that the interview had been most unsatisfactory, that he was less than trusting of Oswald's answers, and that he would attempt another interview with Oswald." On August 14, 1962, FBI agent Fain called Robert Oswald to find out where his brother was working." Fain got his opportunity on August 16, 1962, when he and Agent Arnold Brown pulled up in front of Oswald's house on Mercedes. All three sat in the FBI agents' car during the interview.

Because in this, the second interview, Fain claimed relative success, we must carefully compare it to the first interview to see where he makes progress. Unlike the June 26 interview, the FBI report on this interview was sent to the CIA. We will return to that point shortly. For convenience we will reconstruct the second interview, beginning with what was similar to the first one.

Oswald repeated the requirement to keep the Soviet Embassy informed about Marina's address,32 lied about his attempt to re nounce his U.S. citizenship and affirm allegiance to the Soviet Union," lied about his offer of military information to the Soviets," complained about his travails in returning home with his family," refused to answer why he had gone to the Soviet Union in the first place, and then added:

He stated he considers it "nobody's business" why he wanted to go to the Soviet Union. Oswald finally stated he went over to Russia for his "own personal reasons." He said it was a "personal matter" to him. He said, "I went, and I came back!" He also said "it was something that I did."

This hostile rhetoric added little new to the equation. But this had a crucial bearing on several other questions that Oswald glibly dismissed, such as the question of possible KGB recruitment or attempted recruitment. He acknowledged but did not answer the question about having different values from those of his mother,36 still declined to give names of relatives in the U.S.S.R., still denied making any "deals," discounted the idea of Soviet intelligence interest in his activities," and said no one ever attempted to recruit him or elicit any secret information.

After complaining about the Marine Corps and a few comments about his new address and job, along with assurances that no Soviet intelligence agents were in contact with him, Oswald said this:

Oswald advised when he first arrived in the Soviet Union, and also when he started to leave, he was interviewed by representatives of the MVD, which he characterized as being the secret police, who, for the most part handle criminal matters among the population generally. He stated their operation is widespread.

In addition, Oswald stated he might have to return to the Soviet Union in about five years in order to take his wife back home to see her relatives. No definite plans had been made. A useful piece of news was Oswald's clarification that he had not taken his birth certificate to the Soviet Union; he said he thought it had been "packed in a trunk at his mother's home."

Director Kelley described the second interview with Oswald this way: "Oswald, though much more placid this time, still evaded as many questions as he could."38 But, strangely, the Dallas office decided to close Oswald's file. Kelley's account picks up the story:

Agent Fain and officials at FBI headquarters, however, were apparently satisfied that Oswald was not a security risk, that he was not violent, and that, as a sheet metal worker in Fort Worth, he was not working in a sensitive industry in this country. They, therefore, recommended that his file be placed in an inactive status, a decision routinely made by officials within the FBI's Soviet espionage section.39

The inactive status lasted from late August through October. In that later month John Fain retired and Oswald's file was officially closed instead of being reassigned to Hosty. We will return to this closing shortly.

Why did the FBI send only the second Oswald interview to the CIA? Of the two, the first would have been more interesting to the Agency. That interview contained more information about Oswald's activities in the Soviet Union and therefore would have been more useful from a "Soviet Realities" SR/6 perspective. Obviously, the FBI should have sent them both, just as both were sent to the State Department. Therefore, we should not overlook the possibility that the FBI did send a copy to the CIA, and that it is the Agency that is responsible for the missing document. Whatever the explanation, the incident is worth noting, because it appears to be part of a pattern in Oswald's CIA and FBI files, a pattern that continued through 1963.

Unworthy of Any Further Consideration

When Oswald left his job at Leslie Welding, his time card for that day is marked with the word "quit."' Oswald asked Leslie Welding to forward his pay to P. O. Box 2915, Dallas." He had rented that post office box that same day for $4.50 at the main post office, where he received two keys.42 This post office box would be used to order the alleged murder weapon of President Kennedy. Then there was the baby baptism flap.43 Mrs. Elena Hall brought Marina to St. Seraphim Eastern Orthodox Church, Dallas, where Father Dimitri Royster baptized June Lee Oswald. Mrs. Hall was named as the godparent.' Marina claimed Oswald knew about the baptism."5 But on October 19, Oswald asked Marina's friend, Mrs. Taylor, why Marina had not told him about it.06

Oswald and Marina had been having marital difficulties, but Oswald tried to put on a good performance at a Thanksgiving gathering at Robert Oswald's house. On November 17, Oswald had written to Robert accepting the invitation to come," and on November 22, Thanksgiving Day, the Oswalds went by bus to Fort Worth, where brothers John Pic and Robert met them. Marguerite, oddly, was not invited. The families enjoyed a pleasant day. John Pic reportedly said Oswald could not get a driver's license with his undesirable discharge, and Oswald spoke about getting his discharge changed.' Later, at the bus station, the Oswalds bought a recording of the theme music from Exodus and had snapshots made."9

The Thanksgiving Day event obscures what the baby baptism flap demonstrated: that Oswald was often in his own sphere, unconnected to ordinary events. Oswald was far from idle, however, at least where the U.S. mail was concerned. His mail was so radically left wing that he could have expected to be the subject of FBI scrutiny. The date September 28 is a benchmark, for on that day the FBI learned that Oswald subscribed to the Worker.50 Oswald now looked like a Communist. An FBI source in New York, NY 2354-S*, had turned over photographs that included Oswald's subscription sent on August 5.1I This led to a memorandum from New York to Dallas, on October 17,52 with an enclosed photograph of Oswald's name and address-taken from a subscriber list for the Worker, obtained from inside the newspaper's premises.

Strangely, these new additions to Oswald's FBI files did not find a receptive audience. Stranger still is what the FBI says it did with Oswald's file at this point: They closed it down. Kelley acknowledges that the FBI knew in July 1962 that Oswald had sought information about Russian newspapers and periodicals from the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., and knew in October that Oswald had "renewed his subscription to the Worker, the U.S. Communist Party newspaper."S' Then the FBI closed its file on Oswald in October 1962, when Fain retired. Kelley says that at that time the Oswald case "was regarded as merely routine, unworthy of any further consideration."'

As odious and deplorable as the tracking of private American citizens is, we know that many people with a far more benign history than Oswald were closely watched. Oswald was a known redefector married to a Soviet citizen. Headquarters had ordered Oswald thoroughly interviewed, but Oswald proved contentious as well as untruthful, and the FBI agents did not believe his story. The second interview was at best inconclusive, and Fain's reasons for not considering Oswald a threat-as described by FBI director Kelley-took no account of what the FBI had already learned about his mail activities. These activities had taken place since the first interview, and Oswald had hidden them from the FBI during the second interview. At this point, Fain could just as easily have argued for aggressively pursuing the case. Oswald's behavior was not "routine," even if closing his file was.

To add a twist of irony, in October 1962, according to Kelley, "Agent Hosty was given the assignment of reopening Marina Oswald's file. His instructions were to interview her in six months, which meant the FBI agent was to contact her in March of 1963."11 So it was against the backdrop of Marina's open case and Oswald's closed case that the following sequence of left wing mail activity took place: on October 27, Oswald notified the Washington Book Store, through which he ordered Soviet magazines from Washington, D.C., of his change of address to Box 2915, Dallas56; on October 30, Oswald applied for membership in the Socialist Workers Party57; on November 5, 1962, the Socialist Workers Party responded that "as there is no Dallas chapter there can be no memberships in this area"58; on November 10, Oswald sent $.25 with a self-addressed envelope to New York Labor News59; on December 6 Oswald sent examples of his photographic work to the Socialist Workers Party60 and they answered him on December 961; in early December, Oswald sent examples of his photographic work to the Hall-Davis Defense Committee, a communist front, in New York62; on December 13, the Hall-Davis Committee answered63; on December 15, Oswald sent one dollar for a subscription to the Militantb4; on December 19, Louis Weinstock of the Worker wrote to Oswald65; on January 1, 1963, Oswald contacted Pioneer Press for speeches by Castro'; in January, Oswald wrote to the Washington Book Store, which was probably recommended to him by the Soviet Embassy, and enclosed $13.20 for a subscription to Ogonek, The Agitator, and Krokodil, or Sovetakaya Belorussia,67 and also requested that these subscriptions end in December 196368; in September 1962, Oswald sent two dollars for a subscription to Krokodit' ; on January 2, 1963, Oswald sent $.35 for some communist literature, including the English words for the "Internationale." In this various correspondence, Oswald used Box 2915, Dallas, as his address.70