“Oswald is not an easy man to explain” — G. Robert Blakey, Chief Counsel and Staff Director for the House Select Committee on Assassinations 1977-1979
Origins
Lee Harvey Oswald is an incredibly difficult man to understand. There are very few interviews with people who knew him in existence. Depending on what you read and who you talk to, he was somewhere between a dead eyed psycho and an affable, bright, and competent young man. So let’s start with what we know.
Oswald was born in New Orleans in 1939. His father was a World War I veteran and descendent of Robert E. Lee. He died just before Oswald was born. He had a couple of half brothers, one a Marine and the other served in the Air Force. He moved around during his childhood, in an out of an orphanage at one point, and apparently arrived in New York City at age 12, back with his mother.
He was often truant from school but was an avid reader. He was intelligent, but seemingly uncared for. He had few friendships and tended to keep to himself.
In early 1954, he and his mother moved back to New Orleans. They lived in a seedy part of the city on the outskirts of the French Quarter. His street was filled with strip clubs, gambling houses, and other houses of the rising sun… surely the ruin of many a poor boy.
At 16 years old, Oswald joined the local Civil Air Patrol. In the 1950’s the Civil Air Patrol was a young men’s organization, funded by congress, to serve as sort of a civilian defense organization. It was founded during World War II to have boys, too young to go serve, man air sirens and spotlights in case of air raids. During the Cold War, the group was trained and funded to help population centers in the event of a nuclear attack. Think of it like the Boy Scouts with a dash of “Red scare”.
A brief aside
Before I continue this story, I want to make a quick point. Among the skeptical people out there, there is a habit of rolling one’s eyes the moment anyone mentions the CIA… and this is for good reason. There is so much nonsense out there about the CIA and its exploits, especially during the Cold War, it’s hard to know exactly what to believe.
Having said that, the CIA was and remains a very real, very secret, and very dangerous organization. During the late 50’s and early 60’s it was involved in a lot of cloak and dagger activities. Some of the people described below could be characters in novels, and indeed, many characters in novels are based on some of them. But these people were real. Their exploits were real. Much about their lives have been declassified. I’ll link sources where I can, but what is described below about the life of Lee Harvey Oswald and some of the people in his life is not a conspiracy theory, but verified fact. Indeed, much of it is in the Warren Report.
In this part of our JFK assassination series, I want you to ask yourself a few questions. Who was this kid from New Orleans? Was he a loser? Was he a dolt? Did he become a Soviet asset? Or… is it possible, that he was groomed by intelligence folks on our side to act as a communist sympathizer?
Let’s try to decide… Who was Lee Harvey Oswald?
Semper Fidelis (1956-1959)
A week after Oswald’s 17th birthday, he enlisted in the US Marine Corps. It was October of 1956. By 1958 Oswald had received certification in a new sensitive radar program and was sent to Atsugi, Japan. In 1958 Naval Air Station, Atsugi was one of three bases in the world that was supporting the U-2 program. An incredibly secret new spy plane that was used as a reconnaissance plane against the Soviets. The base was a hotbed of intelligence activity.
While stationed there, Oswald became interested in Marxist philosophy. He began to “teach himself” Russian. Although how he did this is a bit of a mystery as I don’t know if Rosetta Stone Russian was available to PFC Oswald in 1958 on a CIA base in Japan… but that’s the story.
While he was stationed in Atsugi, Oswald was also known to openly begin touting Marxist philosophy to his fellow Marines. He did this so much that they started to call him “Oswaldivich”. Again, in 1958, at a secret CIA U-2 airbase, one of the young Marines, with a security clearance, was espousing pro-Soviet sentiments, teaching himself Russian, and even went so far as to have his name in Russian letters printed on some of his equipment… and nobody objected.
In November of 1958 he was transferred back to El Toro Air Base in California where his job was to train other Marines on radar techniques and preparing them to serve overseas. In early 1959, the Marines invited him to take the Russian proficiency exam… which he passed in reading and writing.
Six months later on September 11th 1959, Lee Harvey Oswald was granted a “hardship discharge” from the United States Marine Corps. His mother was ailing and he needed to go tend to her in her failing health. Just as an aside, Marguerite Oswald was fine. She lived into her 70’s and died in the early 1980’s.
In six weeks after he received his discharge, in October of 1959, Lee Harvey Oswald was standing in Red Square in Moscow and ready to defect to the Soviet Union.
Mother Russia (1959-1962)
Oswald was now 20 years old. As of 9/11/59 he was out of the Marines. He stayed with is mother for only a couple of days. On 9/20 he boarded a ship in New Orleans bound for Le Havre, France where he arrived on 10/9. He immediately went to England, then flew to Helsinki where he checked into hotels, ate, and obtained a Soviet visa. He then took a train to Moscow.
The Warren Report states that he funded this with savings from his Marine Corps pay. If any of my readers are curious how a Private’s salary in the 1950’s Marine Corps gets someone a cruise to France, a flight to Finland and a train ride to Moscow… you aren’t alone.
Oswald kept a diary and wrote letters home during his time in Russia. Much of what we know about his time there comes from these writings. They are linked here and are also found around the internet. One thing to note is that it would be logical to assume that both these diaries and letters home would be read by the Soviets. Oswald would have known this. As I will describe, Oswald was a source of suspicion and curiosity for the Soviets. They never trusted him and watched him very closely.
At any rate, Oswald hired a tourist company in Moscow and a driver to show him around. He explained to the driver that he wished to become a Soviet citizen. She connected him with some government officials who denied his request. His visa was set to expire on 10/21 and he would then be escorted out of the USSR. In order to avoid this, Lee Oswald feigned a suicide attempt by superficially cutting his wrists! He was discovered by the tour guide and was checked into a Moscow hospital. (Yeah…)
On October 31, 1959 Lee Harvey Oswald walked into the US Embassy in Moscow. He met with an American State Department official named Richard Edward. Edward was, in fact, and employee of the CIA. Oswald explained to him that he wished to become a Soviet citizen and that he was a committed communist. He wished to renounce his American citizenship and become a Soviet man. Oswald turned in his passport and walked out of the Embassy. (As a side note, the American Embassy in Moscow was known to be bugged by the Soviets, and in hindsight, it wouldn’t be illogical for both of those men to assume their conversation was not private).
The Soviets ended up accepting Oswald on an extended visa. They were very suspicious of him and didn’t quite know what to do with him. He was a radar tech in the Marine Corps and did have a security clearance, but he wasn’t in possession of the type of secrets they were interested in. The Soviets knew all about our U-2 program and Oswald was a low level guy in all of that anyway. However they figured it was better to keep him around than to cause an incident with the Americans by throwing him out of the country. So they stashed him in Minsk, the capital of modern day Belarus.
Oswald was given a private apartment (which was almost certainly bugged) and a job at a factory. He was apparently not well liked by most of his coworkers, but was a bit of an anomaly, all the same. Who was this American man who showed up in Minsk trying to be a Soviet man? Why would he leave America to come here? It made very little sense.
By late 1960, Oswald was growing tired of Minsk and the Soviet Union in general. He wrote in his diary and in letters home that he was starting to reconsider his decision to defect. In 1961 he met Marina Prusikova, who only six weeks later became Marina Oswald. In February of 1962, they had their first child. (As an interesting side note, Marina Oswald is still alive, although quite reclusive. The last I could find of her implied she still lived in the Dallas area.)
Now for the weird part:
In what might be the most incredible part of this entire tale, in May of 1962 Lee Harvey Oswald walked back into the US Embassy in Moscow. He told the person there, who was still in possession of his old passport, that he had grown tired of the Soviet Union and would like to come back to America. Oh, and also he didn’t have any money, so the US taxpayer was going to have to pay for it. Oh, and also he didn’t have anywhere to stay in Dallas and also no money so they would need to set him up with a place to live. Oh yeah… and he has a Soviet wife and daughter and they are going to need to come too. So… why don’t you scamper on over to the money machine and get to making that happen.
Obviously, the US Government said “Sure! We can do all that!” They gave him some money, Marina and the baby got a visa, and the happy family was all headed home to Dallas.
This is seriously what they say happened…
The Big D: 1962-1963
If everything before this sounds a little odd to you, hold on to your daisy dukes ladies, because we are about to go through the looking glass.
Upon his return to Dallas in May or June of 1962, Oswald began to work a few low level jobs for low pay. He was fired a lot. He was constantly going on about Marxism and frankly annoyed the hell out of people. As a matter of fact, the only person Oswald ever considered a friend in this period of his life was a man named George de Mohrenschildt. (Let’s just call him GDH for short)
GDH was born in Russia. He emigrated to the United States in 1938 and lived in New York City. He worked for French intelligence during World War II. He also worked for the OSS and knew Wild Bill Donavan personally. GDH ran in exclusive circles in those days. He was even friends with the prestigious Bouvier family, and specifically a 10 year old young lady who used to call him “Uncle George” named Jaqueline. Her friends called her Jackie for short… and she would one day become the First Lady of the United States of America. That… was Lee Harvey Oswald’s only friend in Dallas Texas in 1962… a CIA informant who ran in such elite circles that he used to bounce a young Jackie Kennedy on his knee. (Mind = blown)
During this period, Oswald also opened a post office box and ordered an inexpensive, but capable bolt action rifle and a Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver out of a catalogue under the alias A. Hidell. These are the weapons that he is famously holding in this photograph and several others taken by Marina in the back yard of their rented home in Dallas about March of 1963.
The Walker Incident
Maj. Gen. Edwin (Ted) A. Walker was a flat out, undisputed, grade A, lunatic. He was an extreme right winger, anti-communist fanatic, and a racist. He was also a closeted homosexual (just as an interesting aside). Walker had been relieved of duty by Kennedy for promoting right wing political causes while in command, including telling soldiers under his command how to vote… a no-no even in 1961. He unsuccessfully tried to run for Governor of Texas. He went to the University of Mississippi in 1962 and led riots over the admission of James Meredith (a black man) to the University, a stunt which got him locked up in a looney bin for a few days. He hated JFK and thought he was a secret communist. The guy was an all around nutter butter.
Well, on April 10, 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald took his new rifle and went over to General Walker’s house and shot at him. He hid in the bushes one night and shot at Walker while he was sitting in his kitchen. The shot missed but scared the hell out of Walker, and Oswald ran off. The bullet pulled from the wall in Walker’s kitchen would later confirm the attempt, only after the Kennedy assassination.
As further evidence, before the attempt, Oswald left money and a note for Marina at their home. He later told her about it. There is no evidence that anyone else was involved in this attempted assassination. George de Mohrenschildt seems to have cut off communication with Oswald after this event, but reports on that are conflicting as well.
Things at home were rocky between Marina and Oswald… and Oswald decided, for some reason, to leave Dallas for several months and go to New Orleans, where things only got more convoluted.
The Big Easy: 1963 (Shady people everywhere)
Oswald’s time in New Orleans is a very difficult story to tell. The reason is that after all the research I’ve done, all the documentaries I’ve watched, books I’ve read on the subject, and interviews I’ve watched… I’m not sure I understand it any better than anyone else. I don’t think I could tell you exactly why he went down there. I don’t think I can explain with any authority exactly what he was doing while he was there. The only things I can tell you are some of the people he met with, who they were involved with, and some of his activities.
The only thing I am able to really conclude in this strange period, near the end of Oswald’s life, is that if he was trying to get the attention of intelligence networks, both foreign and domestic, this was probably a good way to do it. As for why he would want to, considering he already had the attention of every spy agency in the western world… your guess is as good as mine. Maybe he was trying to document a narrative.
Anyway, in late April of 1963 Oswald arrived in New Orleans where he rented a furnished apartment in the French Quarter. Marina followed in May. In late May Oswald contacted the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New York City. Fair Play for Cuba was a pro-Castro political action committee. It was openly Marxist and was under surveillance by the FBI from its inception. Oswald suggested that he begin a New Orleans chapter and open an office. Fair Play for Cuba in New York suggested against this, but Oswald did it anyway. He began a chapter under the name A.J. Hidell and ordered leaflets, membership cards, and other supplies. How he funded this is unclear.
While doing this, Oswald then began to engage with anti-Castro militants and groups in New Orleans, of which there are many. Most notably was a man by the name of Carlos Bringuier. Oswald came into his store and pretended to be a anti-Castro activist. He then positioned himself right outside the store and was openly handing out pro-Castro leaflets. Bringuier threw a punch at Oswald who then caused such a scene that the police showed up and arrested them both. Bringuier would later testify to the Warren Commission that he thought this was a set up.
As it turned out, Bringuier, this Cuban shop owner, was actually the local head of the DRE, a CIA funded group of anti-Castro militants who used to train in the swamps and bayous around south Louisiana… because of course he was. Isn’t everyone connected to intelligence?
Oswald wasn’t done in New Orleans. He actually managed not just to get himself an arrest record, something he had avoided up until this point since his time as a truant child. He also got himself several taped debates and interviews where he quite eloquently discusses communism, Marxism, the USSR, and Cuba. The link is below… Listen to a little of this and ask yourself if this guy sounds like a lunatic. Left wing Marxist drivel? Sure… but the rantings of a would be assassin? I don’t think so.
This is a tape about his interview on local New Orleans Television talking about Marxism.
Okay… we are getting into the weeds here. I’m going to move on from New Orleans now, but trust me when I tell you we have only scratched the surface. There is contact with Guy Bannister and David Ferrie. There are other intelligence contacts, some easy to confirm and some more difficult. There are hundreds of books written on the subject and there is more information that I can adequately summarize here… but one thing is clear, Oswald wanted to be noticed in New Orleans. He wanted there to be evidence that he was a communist sympathizer and Marxist that would be easily found and easily publicized. In that exercise, Oswald was monumentally successful.
No matter what anyone says, to this day, nobody knows why he would want to do that, considering what he was about to do.
Viva la Mexico! September, 1963
In 1963, Mexico City was one of those cities. Like Vienna or Berlin or Hong Kong, it was full of spies.
On September 27, 1963 a man walked into the Cuban embassy in Mexico City. The Warren Report claims this man was Oswald. He, speaking “terrible and barely recognizable Russian”, asked for a Cuban transit visa so that he may visit Cuba before continuing on to the Soviet Union. The Cubans told the man that he would need to get Soviet approval. Oswald walked the short distance to the Soviet Embassy. There he was denied.
The man went back and forth between the two embassies, Cuban and Soviet for the next five days, until someone at the Cuban embassy made it very clear that he did not want someone like Oswald in Cuba and he believed he would “do the revolution harm” (413).
Interestingly enough, Mexico City, being one of those cities, the CIA was keeping a pretty close eye on both the Soviet and Cuban embassies there. As a matter of fact, both embassies were extensively bugged, and they had people taking pictures of every unknown individual entering or exiting the compounds. So, obviously they would have tapes of Oswald making his case… and photos of him entering or leaving the premises, right? Well…
Interestingly enough, this is the photograph of the man in Mexico City that the CIA said was Lee Harvey Oswald. Spoiler alert… that dude ain’t Oswald. And as for this story of “barely recognizable Russian”… Lee Oswald began studying Russian as a teenager. He lived in the Soviet Union for three years. His wife was Russian and didn’t speak a word of English. His Russian was pretty good. It wouldn’t have been “barely recognizable”.
Now before we get all tinfoil hat, I must tell you that there are a ton of interviews from after the assassination with very credible, unconnected sources that swear that the real Lee Harvey Oswald was who they saw in Mexico City… but this is just another wrinkle in an already unbelievable story. We are just left scratching our heads.
At any rate, “Oswald” or whoever it was, failed to get a visa to go to Cuba… It doesn’t matter anyway, it’s almost November and it’s time to go back to Dallas. There’s work to be done.
Tune back in tomorrow and we will head back to Dallas in November of 1963 and follow Oswald in the run-up to the assassination and in the days following. Buckle in, because we are just getting started!
Thanks for reading Line of Fire! Share with a friend. —Virgil
P.S. One other interesting thing about Lee Harvey Oswald. He rarely drank, never smoked, and wasn’t known to womanize. He got by on very little money most of the time. Outside looking in, you’d think the guy was downright disciplined… especially for a lunatic. —V
Very interesting. Some history really is stranger than fiction.