Reclaiming History

by Vincent Bugliosi

  2:25 p.m.

  After their visit with Lee,1155 Marguerite and Marina and her children climb into a squad car, which circles the city for twenty minutes to shake any members of the press who might be following them on their way back to the Hotel Adolphus. At the eleventh floor in the hotel, the police ask Tommy Thompson of Life for his credentials—something Marguerite realizes she hasn’t thought to check herself. Satisfied of Thompson’s bona fides, the police officers leave the Oswalds in his care. Thompson opens the door and lets Marguerite, Marina, and her children into the suite.

  “Mrs. Oswald, what do you plan to do now?” Thompson says, turning to Marguerite.

  Marguerite fears he is about to renege on his promise.

  “Well,” she reminds him, “the arrangement was that we are going to stay here in the hotel for a few days, and you are going to pay expenses.”

  “But you haven’t given us any facts,” Thompson shoots back.

  Marguerite finds it strange that Thompson doesn’t ask about her visit with Lee, even though he knew they left that morning to talk to him.

  “Mrs. Oswald,” Thompson continues, “reporters will be coming here in flocks. They know where you are…Just a minute.”

  Thompson gets on the telephone and calls the ninth-floor room where the rest of Life’s representatives are staying.

  “Come up here,” he says into the phone.

  In a few minutes, Allen Grant and another Life rep show up. Marguerite helps Marina change the baby’s diaper while the men converse with Thompson in hushed tones. Thompson then tells Marguerite that they intend to move her and Marina to the outskirts of town, so reporters won’t know where they are. “Here is some money,” he tells her, “for your expenses in case you need anything.” He gives her a fifty-dollar bill for expenses. She stuffs it into the pocket of her nurse’s uniform without even looking at it. A few minutes later, Grant drives Marguerite, Marina, and the kids out to the Executive Inn, a hotel not far from Love Field.

  “Mrs. Oswald,” he says, “I’ve arranged for you to stay here for two or three days. I have to be back in San Francisco. Anything you want, you have the cash that Mr. Thompson gave you. He’ll be in touch with you.”

  Grant and a porter escort the women and children up to the rooms—two very nice adjoining suites. Marguerite is pleased with the arrangements. It is only after Grant leaves that she begins to have misgivings about her predicament, stranded with a Russian daughter-in-law she barely understands and two small children. Marguerite orders room service and shoos Marina out of sight when the food comes, to avoid being recognized—they had, after all, been paraded in front of those television cameras up at City Hall.

  Marguerite sees Marina hunched over an ashtray on the dressing table. Marina has torn up the photographs of Lee and his rifle that she’s kept hidden in her shoe and thrown them into the ashtray. She strikes a match and sets the pieces on fire. But the heavy photographic paper doesn’t burn very well. Marguerite decides to help and empties the remains into the toilet, flushing them away.1156

  3:00 p.m.

  With the help of Secret Service agent Mike Howard and his partner, Charley Kunkel, Robert Oswald has been trying to wrangle a visitor’s pass to see his brother for the better part of two and a half hours, with little success. Agent Kunkel heads down the hall again to see what he can do.

  Secret Service inspector Thomas J. Kelley comes into the Forgery Bureau a moment later and introduces himself. Howard explains to Kelley that Robert is being cooperative and answering any questions he can. The three men speculate as to whether Lee Oswald will admit anything to his brother when he sees him.

  “I’m just as anxious as anyone to learn the reason behind the assassination,” Robert tells them, “and to discover whether anyone else is involved.”

  Kelley sends Mike Howard down the hall to help Kunkel arrange the pass, then fights his way through the mob of reporters to retrieve some peanut-butter cookies and a soft drink for Robert from the machine at the end of the hall. It’s thirty minutes before Kelley returns. He picks up the telephone and checks on the pass several times. Finally, he turns to Robert, “Okay, we’ve got it.”1157

  3:37 p.m.

  Inspector Kelley, holding the pass signed by Captain Fritz, and a Dallas police officer take Robert Oswald upstairs in the elevator to the visiting room.1158

  Inspector Kelley and the officer wait outside. For a moment Robert is alone in the stifling atmosphere of the room, the only sound that of the portable camera in the hands of a cameraman who plants himself in the doorway and, without saying a word to Robert, grinds away, collecting footage to sell to television.

  Robert doesn’t even hear the clank of the steel door, and Lee is almost at the smudged glass before Robert realizes he has come in. Lee points to the telephone on Robert’s side of the transparent partition, as he picks up the one on his side. His voice is calm as he says, “This is taped.”*

  Robert realizes that Lee is warning him to be careful of what he says.

  “Well, it may or may not be,” Robert answers.

  “How are you?” Lee asks evenly.

  “I’m fine,” Robert replies. “How are you?”

  Robert is surprised at his brother’s physical appearance. He knew about the scuffle in the theater but didn’t know that Lee had sustained cuts and bruises. The liberally applied Mercurochrome makes it look worse than it is.

  “What have they been doing to you?” Robert asks. “Were they roughing you up?”

  “I got this at the theater,” Lee says. “They haven’t bothered me since. They’re treating me all right.”

  Robert is astonished at how completely relaxed Lee is, as though the world’s frenzied consternation over yesterday’s events had nothing to do with him. Lee talks as if they’re discussing a minor incident at the Depository. Robert doesn’t know how long he’s got to talk with Lee, but resists the temptation to ask the one question he wanted to ask most. Instead, they talk casually for a few minutes.

  “Mother and Marina were up earlier,” Lee says.

  “Yes, I know,” Robert replies.

  “What did you think of the baby?” Lee asks with a grin.

  “Yeah,” Robert says, “thanks a lot for telling me. I didn’t even know you had another one.”

  “Well, it was a girl,” Lee says, “and I wanted a boy, but you know how that goes.”

  Finally, Robert can’t resist anymore.

  “Lee, what the Sam Hill is going on?” he asks bluntly.

  “I don’t know,” Lee answers.

  “You don’t know?” Robert says, disbelieving. “Look, they’ve got your pistol, they’ve got your rifle, they’ve got you charged with shooting the president and a police officer. And you tell me you don’t know? Now, I want to know just what’s going on.”

  Lee stiffens, his facial expression suddenly becoming tight.

  “Don’t believe all this so-called evidence,” he says firmly.

  Robert studies his face, then his eyes, looking for some expression of the truth. Lee realizes what his brother wants.

  “Brother, you won’t find anything there,” he says.

  After an awkward silence, Lee, now more relaxed, mentions Marina again.

  “Well, what about Marina?” Robert interrupts. “What do you think she’s going to do now, with those two kids?”

  “My friends will take care of them,” he answers.

  “You mean the Paines?”

  “Yes,” Lee replies, obviously surprised that his brother knew of them.

  “I don’t think they’re any friends of yours,” Robert tells him, revealing his distrust and suspicion.

  “Yes, they are,” Lee snaps back.

  Another awkward silence.

  “Junie needs a new pair of shoes,” Lee finally says.

  Robert had noticed yesterday that one of the little girl’s shoes was practically worn through.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Robert says sympathetically. “I’ll t
ake care of that.”

  Robert asks about the attorney, Mr. Abt, that Lee has been asking for.

  “He’s just an attorney I want to handle my case,” Lee says.

  “I’ll get you an attorney down here,” Robert answers.

  “No, you stay out of it,” Lee commands.

  “Stay out of it?” Robert says, incredulously. “It looks like I’ve been dragged into it.”

  “Well, I’m not going to have anyone from down here,” Lee says firmly. “I want this one.”

  “All right,” Robert concedes.

  A police officer suddenly enters the room behind Lee, taps him on the shoulder, then steps back and waits for them to finish. Robert is surprised and disappointed at the interruption. He feels that they were just beginning to talk easily with each other.

  Robert hadn’t expected his brother to flat-out admit his guilt. But he felt it was conceivable that Lee had made up his mind that the assassination was necessary for some reason that was sufficient to him, and that he would have wanted to make that motive clear to someone, and Robert felt that he was closer to Lee than anyone else in a lot of ways. He had hoped he would tell him. But he hasn’t.

  “I’ll see you in a day or two,” Robert says.

  “You’ve got your job and everything,” Lee replies. “Don’t be running back and forth all the time and getting yourself in trouble with your boss.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Robert tells him. “I’ll be back.”

  “All right,” Lee says. “I’ll see you.”

  They are the last words Robert ever hears him say.1159 Secret Service inspector Kelley is still waiting for Robert outside the visiting room.

  “What did he say?” the inspector asks.

  “Let’s wait until we’re downstairs,” Robert replies, miffed that the persistent cameraman is still grinding away. It makes him feel like a zoo specimen. Back in the Forgery Bureau, and away from the prying ears of the news media, Robert tells Mike Howard and Inspector Kelley, “He didn’t say anything because he said the line was tapped.”

  “If that were true,” Kelley replies, “I wouldn’t be asking you, would I?”

  Robert can only shrug. Inspector Kelley asks Robert to reconstruct their conversation as carefully as he can, and Robert does exactly that. He is deeply unsatisfied by his brother’s demeanor, which he found disturbingly machine-like, with an uncanny lack of emotion for a man in Lee’s predicament, innocent or guilty. Robert was not talking to the brother he knew. The man in jail was a stranger to him.1160

  3:51 p.m. (4:51 p.m. EST)

  President Johnson, from the White House, issues a “Proclamation” which is “to the People of the United States,” in which he calls John F. Kennedy “a man of wisdom, strength and peace” who “molded and moved the power of our nation in the service of a world of growing liberty and order. All who love freedom will mourn his death.” Johnson proceeds to “appoint Monday next, November 25, the day of the funeral service of President Kennedy, to be a day of national mourning throughout the United States,” urging Americans to “assemble on that day in their respective places of divine worship.”1161 Other than an exhortation to go to one’s place of worship, the proclamation, of course, is unnecessary, as the shock, grief, and tears of millions of Americans had not even begun to subside.

  4:00 p.m.

  Dallas police lieutenant Thurber Lord is the jail lieutenant in charge on the 2:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. shift on November 23. Around 4:00 p.m. he gets a call from Detective M. G. Hall of the Homicide and Robbery Bureau telling him that Oswald had requested permission to use the telephone again and that it would be okay for him to do so. Lord telephones Officer J. L. Popplewell on the fifth floor, where he had been assigned to guard the area in front of Oswald’s cell.

  Popplewell takes Oswald to the phone and Oswald tells the operator he wants to call Mr. John Abt, an attorney in New York. Oswald apparently didn’t keep the number he had used earlier to call Abt because the operator looks up the number and gives it to him. Oswald hangs up, but can’t remember the number he was just given. He asks Popplewell for a pencil and a piece of paper to write on. The officer tears a corner from a telephone contact slip and gives it to Oswald, along with a pencil. Oswald calls the operator again and this time writes down the number she gives him. He then tries to place the call collect, but there is no answer.1162

  4:22 p.m.

  After Oswald unsuccessfully attempts to reach attorney John Abt in New York City from the phone booth on the fifth floor of the jail, he places a local call. In Irving, the telephone rings at the home of Ruth Paine. She answers it.

  “This is Lee,” a voice says. She knows who it is—Lee Oswald.

  “Well, hi!” she says, unable to hide the surprise in her voice that he would telephone her at all.

  “I would like you to call Mr. John Abt in New York for me after six o’clock this evening,” Oswald says. “I’ve got two numbers for you.” Mrs. Paine grabs a nearby pencil and notepad. He gives her two telephone numbers—an office and a home number. Mrs. Paine quickly scribbles the numbers down.

  “He’s an attorney I would like to have represent me,” Oswald tells her. “I would be grateful if you would call him for me.”

  She is very irritated by the fact that he sounds as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. It seems to him, she feels, that this is a call like any other call, a favor like any other favor. He doesn’t mention the assassination, the fact that he is in jail, or the reason he needs a lawyer. He seems so apart from the situation. Still, she agrees to make the call.

  “Okay,” Mrs. Paine manages to say.

  Oswald thanks her and hangs up. The receiver is barely back in the cradle when the telephone rings again. Ruth answers it.

  “Hi, this is Lee.”

  It’s Oswald, calling back again. Mrs. Paine is stunned to hear Oswald repeat his request, nearly word for word. It all seems so strange to her.1163*

  5:45 p.m.

  H. Louis Nichols, president of the Dallas Bar Association, trots up the concrete steps leading to City Hall. Nichols, a member of the American Bar Association since 1949, has been on and off the telephone since two o’clock this afternoon. He had gotten a call from the dean of an eastern law school who said that the media back there were reporting that Lee Oswald couldn’t get a lawyer to represent him in Dallas and he wanted to know if Nichols was doing anything about the situation. Nichols acknowledged that he hadn’t, but promised he would look into it. Under Texas law at the time, an attorney had to be appointed for an accused (if he didn’t already have one) only after he had been indicted by a grand jury, which Oswald hadn’t been yet. But if any defendant needed a lawyer immediately to make sure his rights were being protected, it was Oswald.

  Nichols had worked in the city attorney’s office, still represented the city’s credit union, and has a brother on the police force, so he knows many of the top men there. He telephones the assistant police chief, Captain Glen King, who tells him that so far as he knows, Oswald hasn’t asked for a lawyer.

  “Well, Glen,” Nichols says, “if you know at any time that he asks for a lawyer, or wants a lawyer, or needs a lawyer, will you tell him that you have talked to me? And that as president of the Bar Association, I have offered to get him a lawyer if he wants one?”

  “Why don’t you come down here and talk to him,” King says.

  “I don’t know whether I want to do that at this point or not,” Nichols replies.

  Within an hour, Nichols got a call from another law school dean, questioning whether the Dallas Bar was doing anything about Oswald’s right to an attorney. That was enough for Nichols, who decides he might as well go down and talk to Oswald directly.

  The Dallas Bar Association president takes an elevator to the third floor, where he knows he’ll find the Dallas police administrative offices. When the doors open, Nichols is flabbergasted to find an ocean of reporters and photographers stepping over and around a tangle of television cameras
, cables, and electrical cords stretched out across the corridor. He pushes his way through the jam to the eastern end of the building and into Chief Curry’s outer office. Nichols can see Chief Curry in his office talking with three or four men.

  “Is Captain King in?” Nichols asks an officer standing nearby.

  “I don’t think so,” the officer replies.

  Just then, Chief Curry looks up, recognizes Nichols, and motions for him to come in. Nichols tells Curry why he is there.

  “Well, I’m glad to see you,” Curry says. “I’ll take you up to see Oswald myself.” They walk out into the hallway and take an elevator to the fifth floor.

  The jailer opens the outer door of the maximum-security area of the fifth-floor jail and Nichols and Chief Curry step inside the narrow corridor. Oswald, in trousers and a T-shirt, is lying on his bunk. Oswald gets up as Curry asks the officer seated in the corridor to open Oswald’s cell.

  “Mr. Oswald,” Curry says, “this is Louis Nichols, president of the Dallas Bar Association. He’s come here to see whether or not you need or want a lawyer.”

  With that short introduction, Chief Curry steps back into the outer hallway, so that they can talk freely, without interference. Curry is far enough away that neither Nichols nor Oswald can see him from inside the cell.

  Oswald sits back down on the edge of the bunk. Nichols takes a seat on the bunk across from him, three or four feet away.

  “Do you have a lawyer?” Nichols begins.

  “Well, I really don’t know what this is all about,” Oswald says. “I’ve been incarcerated and held incommunicado.”