In August, 1964, the Commission apparently became concerned about the Odio episode, thinking it might really indicate a conspiracy. On August 28, 1964, Rankin, the Commission’s chief counsel, wrote J. Edgar Hoover, “It is a matter of some importance to the Commission that Mrs. Odio’s allegations either be proved or disproved” (XXVI: 595. See Appendix IV). The Commission had figured out that Oswald actually had enough time to leave New Orleans, come to Dallas and meet Mrs. Odio, then go on to Houston and Mexico, though this seemed very unlikely. It was probably with great relief that they received the FBI report of September 21, 1964. (See Appendix V.) This stated that on September 16 the FBI had located one member of the group that had visited Mrs. Odio and he had denied Oswald had been there, but had given the names of the other two, one of whom was a man “similar in appearance to Lee Harvey Oswald.” The FBI said it was continuing research into the matter and “The results of our inquiries in this regard will be promptly furnished to you” (XXVI:834-35).
The Commission seems to have been satisfied that it had established that Oswald had not visited Mrs. Odio, and did not care that it appeared to have also established a strong possibility that there was a double for Oswald, that is, a man who looked like him and may have used his name. One would have expected that, if the Commission had really been interested in clearing up all of the questions and rumors about the case, it would have stopped everything, located this man and the other two, found out if he had been masquerading as Oswald, and, if so, why. Weisberg uses this as crucial evidence that the Commission had established a conspiracy, and subsequently ignored it. But Epstein shows that by September 21, the mad rush to publish the Report was so great that this took precedence over anything else.
The FBI report does appear to support Mrs. Odio’s account that a meeting took place. One wonders then, gnawingly, what did they find out next? Was the man “similar in appearance” acting as a double for Oswald? Did he use Oswald’s name? What was he involved in when he went to see Mrs. Odio? Was he connected with the other double-Oswald episodes?
This matter remained in the dark until very recently. Lane, in his Rush to Judgment, pp. 340-42, reports on some of the subsequent developments, based on material that has come to light in the National Archives. These documents, (Commission Document No. 1553), were sent to the Commission by the FBI on November 9, 1964, long after the Report had appeared. (See Appendix VI.) Right after obtaining the testimony of Mrs. Loren Hall about the meeting with Mrs. Odio, the FBI checked with the other alleged participants, both of whom denied ever having met Mrs. Odio.
Both also denied having been in Dallas together. Mrs. Odio was shown photographs of all of the parties, as well as photos of some others who had been involved with this group. Both she and her sister stated that none of the individuals seemed to be the ones they had seen, with the possible exception of one who looked something like “Leopoldo.” In fact, by the time J. Edgar Hoover sent his letter concerning the matter to the Commission on September 21, 1964, the FBI had pretty well discredited its report, which Hoover was passing on to the Commission.
Lane does not discuss some interesting new information in the FBI documents. They show that all of the people involved with Hall were engaged in anti-Castro paramilitary activities, and the purpose of their trips to Dallas (there were at least two, in September and October, 1963), was to get financing and equipment for a military venture against Cuba. The accounts, which do not always agree, indicate that at least some of this group visited another Cuban refugee in the same group of apartments where Mrs. Odio lived, and Hall originally thought he and some of the others had met her. In October, 1963, Hall and another man were even arrested in Dallas for possessing dangerous drugs and were interrogated by various intelligence services.
If the FBI findings in Commission Document No. 1553 finally suggest that these were not the people involved in the Odio incident, then who was? (One report, dated October 2, 1964, states without comment or further explanation that Mrs. Odio “had attempted suicide during the last week.”) Were there other anti-Castro groups in Dallas at the time, or was there some group pretending to be anti-Castro in order to introduce Mrs. Odio to the second Oswald? Since the evidence, including that in the later FBI reports, shows that Mrs. Odio is considered quite reliable by almost everyone who knows her, then who did visit her on September 26, 1963, and why did they do so? (Also, why did the FBI not correct its report of September 21, when they already knew it to be questionable, and why did they let the Commission finish off its Report under the possibly mistaken impression that the participants in the Odio affair had been found, and did not include the real Lee Harvey Oswald?)
The Odio episode strongly indicated that duplication and conspiratorial activities involving Oswald were going on; and indeed the possibility remains open that Mrs. Odio was visited by Oswald himself, since the FBI’s later findings do not preclude this. Two items connected with Oswald’s return from Mexico to Dallas seem further suggestive. A Mexican bus roster shows the name “Oswald,” written in a different hand from the other names. It is known that Oswald was not on that bus, yet no satisfactory answer was ever found for his name being put on the roster, though it apparently happened after the trip on October 2 (XXII: 155; XXIV:620; XXV:578 and XXV:852).
On October 4, when Oswald was back in Dallas, the manager of radio station KPOY in Alice, Texas, reported that Oswald, his wife, and small child visited him for twenty-five minutes, arriving in a battered 1953 car. The Report diligently points out that (a) Oswald didn’t drive, and (b) he could not have been in Alice at that time (Report, p. 666). The incident is the first of several in which it appears that Oswald and his family may have been duplicated. Instead of seeing it as part of a possibly significant pattern and considering it further, the Commission was satisfied once Oswald had been disassociated, from the event.
In October there seems to have been little double-Oswald activity. This may be explained by the facts that Oswald was looking for a job at the time and that his second daughter was born on October 20. But a second group of incidents can be traced from early November until November 22, almost all in the Dallas-Irving area. (Irving is the Dallas suburb where Marina lived with Mrs. Paine.) These begin to occur at about the same time as Oswald’s resumption of conspiratorial activities. Having settled down in Mrs. Johnson’s rooming house and having obtained a job, Oswald attended two meetings, one on October 23 to hear General Walker, the other on October 25, a meeting of the ACLU, at which he spoke up and criticized Walker, and told one person after the meeting that John F. Kennedy “is doing a real fine job, a real good job” (IX:465). The housekeeper at Mrs. Johnson’s, Earlene Roberts, said that Oswald never went out in the evenings. She was obviously mistaken (VI:437 and 442).
On November 1, Oswald rented a Post Office box and listed as users the FPCC plus, of all things, the ACLU. (Was he getting ready to set up a fake branch of that organization for some dark purpose?) On the same date he wrote and posted a letter to Arnold Johnson of the Communist Party in New York. This was an airmail letter which was delivered, incidentally, after Oswald was dead, and which is almost entirely devoid of Oswald’s usual misspellings. In it he asked for advice on infiltrating and agitating within the ACLU (XX: 271-73). He also explained to Johnson that he had changed his summer plans to move East, and that he had now settled in Dallas. On November 4, he joined the ACLU and asked its national office how he could get in touch with “ACLU groups in my area” (XVII:673), although he had attended a meeting, knew well that Michael Paine was a member, and, in the November 1, 1963, letter to the Communist leader, Johnson, had stated when and where the ACLU meetings were regularly held in Dallas.
On November 6th or 7th, another interesting episode occurred. Someone looking like Oswald, of course, came into a furniture store in Irving, Texas, looking for a part for a gun. (The store had a sign indicating it was also a gun shop.) This person then went out and got his wife and two infants out of a car, returned, and looked at furnit
ure for a while. The children turned out to be exactly the ages of the Oswald children. Two people saw and talked to this Oswald and later identified him and Marina as the people in question. (When Marina was confronted by these witnesses, she insisted she had never seen them before, though they stuck to their story.) The “Oswalds” then drove off, after getting directions as to where to find, a gun shop (XXII: 524, 534-36, 546-49). This may well have been the day an Oswald took a gun into the Irving Sports Shop, right near by, an episode that occurred in early November.
A clerk in the shop found a receipt on November 23 that he had made to a man named Oswald for drilling three holes in a rifle. Yet Oswald’s rifle had two holes and they were drilled before Oswald got the gun. An anonymous caller told the FBl about this episode on November 24 (so as to make sure it was known?). The receipt seems genuine; the clerk is sure he ran into Oswald somewhere, and the clerk seems reliable. His boss was convinced, but the Commission dismissed the case since there was no evidence that Oswald owned a second rifle (XXII: 525 and 531; XI:224-40, 245753). Incidentally, all other Oswalds in the Dallas-Fort Worth area were checked, and it was found that none of them was the Oswald who had had his gun repaired.
November 8 seems to have been a crucial day in the development of whatever conspiratorial activities Oswald and the second Oswald were up to. The Report blandly states that “the following Friday, November 8, Oswald as usual drove to the Paine house with Frazier” (p. 740), but there is no evidence for this. The footnote reference is to Wesley Frazier’s testimony, where he says nothing of the kind. And Marina has unequivocally stated that Oswald did not come home on November 8, that he claimed he was looking for another job, and that he came to Irving around 9 A.M. on the 9th, without explaining how he got there (XXIII: 804). (This is a not-untypical example of the sloppy documentation in the Report, in which potentially interesting leads were overlooked.)
On November 8, two marked cases of double Oswaldism took place in Irving, Texas. A grocer, Hutchinson, reported that on that day Oswald came in to cash a check for $189, payable to Harvey Oswald (XXVI: 178-79 and X: 327-40). He claimed that Oswald subsequently came to the store once or twice a week in the early morning and always bought a gallon of milk and cinnamon rolls, items that Oswald probably would not have purchased, according to Mrs. Paine and Marina. Such an event as the attempt to cash a check is no doubt memorable and, as Marina wondered, where would Oswald get $189?
Also, a barber, right near the grocer, reported Oswald came into his shop on the 8th with a fourteen-year-old boy, and they both made leftist remarks. The barber said Oswald had been in his shop on previous occasions—although it seems most unlikely that Oswald could have been in Irving at any of these times—and had indicated he had been in Mexico (X: 309-27). The barber had even seen Oswald driving, and going with Marina into the grocery store, though the real Marina insists she was never in the store. And, of course, both the barber and the grocer immediately identified the photos of Oswald as their customer. The Commission dismisses all these reports on grounds that Oswald could not have been present or that they are denied by Marina.
The second Oswald became more active on the 9th. Except for a trip with Mrs. Paine to attempt to get a learner’s permit for driving a car, the real Oswald spent the day at the Paine house writing a letter to the Russian Embassy strongly implying he was a Russian agent. (See Appendix. VII.) The letter was probably unintelligible to them, in that it referred to all sorts of events they presumably knew nothing about. It also contained a good many false statements concerning a conversation with FBI agent Hosty that probably never took place. Oswald thought the letter important enough to draft by hand, and then to type (XVI:33 and 443), a unique event, since Oswald always sent anybody and everybody handwritten, misspelled documents. He then left the draft lying around, partly exposed, and made no effort to rush his letter off. It is post-marked November 12th. Mrs. Paine saw it, was startled by what it contained, and made a copy to show the FBI (III: 13-17).
The FBI intercepted it, and its report on the matter showed no interest at all in Oswald’s statements portraying himself as a man who had used a false name in Mexico, had “business” with the Soviet Embassy in Havana, and had been threatened by the “notorious FBI” for pro-Castro activities. The FBI report concluded that Oswald’s letter merely indicated he wanted a Russian visa (XVII: 803).
While Oswald was writing his strange letter, two second Oswald cases occurred. One was the Bogard incident, which I have already mentioned, when an Oswald tested a car, driving over 70 miles per hour, dropped hints about receiving lots of money in a couple of weeks, and told the credit manager that if he were not given credit, he would go back to Russia and buy a car (XXVI : 450-452, 664, 684-85, 687 and 702-03).
This memorable performance at the Lord-Lincoln agency was coupled with one of the first appearances of a second Oswald at a rifle range. (There are indications of an earlier appearance during his Mexico trip.) From November 9th onward someone who looked just like Oswald was noticed at the Sports Dome Range, by several witnesses, always at times when the real Oswald could not have been there, either because he was at work, or was with his family. The second Oswald was an excellent shot, who did a number of things to attract attention to himself, firing odd weapons (some of whose descriptions fit Oswald’s rifle), shooting at other people’s targets, etc.
The Commission was impressed by the fact (Report, p. 318) that several witnesses, who seemed to be reliable, all gave similar descriptions of the man whom they saw, and of the kind of weapon that was being employed. Some of these witnesses had ample opportunity to observe the man in question. Malcolm Price, a friend of the owner of the rifle range, adjusted the scope on the man’s weapon, and talked to him on one occasion, and saw him hit bull’s-eyes (X: 370-72).
Garland Slack, a contractor and real estate developer, talked to “Oswald” on November 10th, and had an altercation with him on November 17th, when “Oswald” shot at Slack’s target (X: 380). A dentist, Homer Wood, and his son were shooting next to “Oswald.” “Oswald” was firing an odd weapon from which “a ball of fire” came out of the barrel each time it was used, and the marksman was shooting mostly bull’s-eyes. Dr. Wood’s son talked briefly to “Oswald” and identified his rifle as an Italian 6.5 carbine. Both Dr. Wood and his son independently recognized Oswald as the man they had seen at the rifle range.
The Report (p. 318), in evaluating these and other reports, said that in view of the number of witnesses and the similarity of their descriptions and reports, “there is reason to believe that these witnesses did see the same person at the firing range.” But the Report goes on to insist that “’there was other evidence which prevented the Commission from reaching the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the person these witnesses saw” (p. 319). Among the evidence offered is that Oswald could not have been there. He was in Mexico City when Price reported having seen him. He was in the Paine house and in his rooming house when Slack is supposed to have run into him. Some of the witnesses said they saw Oswald driving a car, which he did not do. The weapon reported being fired by “Oswald” differed in some respects from Oswald’s Carcano.
For all of these and some other reasons, the Commission decided that it was not Oswald who was seen on the rifle range. But it could well have been second Oswald getting ready for his role in the assassination. I saw some of these rifle range witnesses being interviewed on television just after the Report was issued, and they still insisted that they had seen Oswald.
From November 12, the end of a long holiday weekend, until November 21, Oswald himself did not go to Irving. The weekend of the 16th and 17th he was reported to be at his room almost all of the time. He worked every week day. We know of no letters he wrote during this period, and of no extra-curricular activities at all. But a second Oswald is reported on November 13, at the grocery store in Irving with Marina; and on the rifle range on the 16th, 171h, 20th, and 21st.
The only information about Oswald’s
own activities is from merchants in his Beckley Street area in Dallas: he went to a grocery (one also used by Jack Ruby); he made calls (apparently long distance) at a gas station (XXVI: 250); he was in a laundromat at midnight on the 20th or 21st (if the latter, it has to be second Oswald again); he took coffee at the Dobbs House restaurant on North Beckley in the early morning. One very suggestive sign of a second Oswald is a report by Mary Dowling, a waitress (XXVI: 516), that he had come into the Dobbs House on November 20 at 10 A.M. (when the real Oswald was at work) and had become very nasty about the way his order of eggs was prepared. (See Appendix VIII.) At this time, Officer J. D. Tippit was there “as was his habit” each morning at this hour, and glowered at Oswald. The FBI, in this report, rather than being excited at this sign that Oswald and Tippit had encountered each other before November 22, merely commented that Oswald was reported to have worked from 8:00 until 4:45 on November 20. They also showed no interest in why Tippit stopped on North Beckley each morning when it was not in his district or near his home.
The Second Oswald Page 6