Oswald's Game

by Davison, Jean

  The front-page story that day was again the president’s trip to Dallas. Two luncheon sites, one of them the Trade Mart, were under consideration, but no parades were yet being planned.

  Years later, Hosty’s receptionist, Nanny Lee Fenner, recalled that Oswald had come into the FBI office on Commerce Street two or three weeks before the assassination. He looked “fidgety” and asked to speak with Hosty. Informed that he wasn’t in, Oswald handed her a business-size envelope with the word “Hosty” written on it and walked out. Hosty later admitted that he had destroyed the note inside after Oswald’s death, on orders from his Dallas superior, J. Gordon Shanklin. (Shanklin was evidently concerned that the note would suggest that the FBI hadn’t kept a careful enough eye on the president’s assassin.) In 1975 Hosty told the Church committee that the unsigned note read, roughly:

  If you have anything you want to learn about me, come talk to me directly. If you don’t cease bothering my wife, I will take appropriate action and report this to proper authorities.1

  Hosty put the note in his workbox, where it remained until the day of the assassination.

  On Saturday the 9th Oswald borrowed Ruth’s typewriter to compose a letter to the Soviet Embassy in Washington. It was a characteristic mixture of guile and ingratiation.

  This is to inform you of recent events since my meetings with comrade Kostin in the Embassy of the Soviet Union, Mexico City, Mexico.

  I was unable to remain in Mexico indefinitely because of my Mexican visa restrictions which was for 15 days only. I could not take a chance on requesting a new visa unless I used my real name, so I returned to the United States.

  I had not planned to contact the Soviet Embassy in Mexico, so they were unprepared, had I been able to reach the Soviet Embassy in Havana as planned, the Embassy there would have had time to complete our business.

  Of course the Soviet Embassy was not at fault, they were, as I say unprepared, the Cuban [consul] was guilty of a gross breach of regulations, I am glad he has since been replaced.

  The Federal Bureau of Investigation is not now interested in my activities in the progressive organization “Fair Play for Cuba Committee,” of which I was secretary in New Orleans (state Louisiana) since I no longer reside in that state. However, the FBI has visited us here in Dallas, Texas, on November 1st. Agent James F. Hasty [sic] warned me that if I engaged in F.P.C.C. activities in Texas the F.B.I. will again take an “interest” in me.

  This agent also “suggested” to Marina Nichilayeva that she could remain in the United States under F.B.I. “protection,” that is, she could defect from the Soviet Union, of course, I and my wife strongly protested these tactics by the notorious F.B.I.

  Please advise us of the arrival of our Soviet entrance visas as soon as they come.

  Also, this is to inform you of the birth, on October 20, 1963, of daughter, AUDREY MARINA OSWALD in DALLAS TEXAS to my wife.

  Several points should be made. On his application at the Cuban Embassy, Silvia Duran had written, “He appeared at the Embassy of the U.S.S.R. in this city and requested that his visa be sent to the Soviet Embassy in Cuba”—thus Oswald’s reference to completing their business in Havana.

  Second, Oswald went out of his way to assure the Russian officials in Washington that he didn’t hold the Soviet Embassy responsible for his difficulties in Mexico City. It was as though he was afraid they might have gotten the “wrong” impression. In Mexico he had contacted the Soviet Embassy several times after learning there would be a four-month delay in getting a visa. He probably showed his anger there as he had at the Cuban Embassy. Thus, he may have had some fence-mending to do: “They were unprepared,” “Of course the Soviet Embassy was not at fault,” and so on.

  Consul Azcue had been replaced before Oswald’s in-transit visa was conditionally approved on October 15—but how did Oswald know this? Azcue’s replacement, Alfredo Mirabal, had been in the consul’s office when Oswald had his quarrel with Azcue, and it’s quite possible he picked up the information that Azcue was leaving from Duran or someone else at that time. But it’s also conceivable that Oswald checked back with Duran about his visa after he returned to Dallas—she said she couldn’t remember if he had ever called her or not—and learned that Azcue was no longer there. Although there’s admittedly no evidence of a phone call or other communication, this slim possibility might explain why he was now renewing his request for Soviet visas. Obtaining them would clear the path to Cuba. In any case, Oswald said nothing to Marina about this new request for Soviet entrance visas. Perhaps he wanted no arguments from her until the arrangements were an accomplished fact. With the FBI pursuing him, he may have wanted an exit out of the country, if he needed it.

  Finally, Oswald had given his own interpretation to what Hosty told Marina. Hosty hadn’t suggested that she “defect,”2 and he hadn’t “warned” Oswald of anything—Hosty hadn’t, of course, even seen Oswald on November I. But Oswald had found a way to use even the FBI’s renewed interest in him to his advantage. By making it appear that a Soviet citizen was being harassed, he could perhaps speed up those long-awaited visas.

  On the day he began working on this letter, Ruth drove Lee, Marina, and the children to a shopping center where Oswald could apply for a learner’s permit to drive a car. But since it was an election day, the driver’s license bureau was closed. Ruth recalled that on the way home, “Lee was as gay as I have ever seen him.… He sang, he joked, he made puns, or he made up songs mutilating the Russian language, which tickled and pained Marina, both at once.”

  Oswald stayed over an extra night on that Veteran’s Day weekend, and when he called Marina the following Thursday she suggested he not come out that week—he may have overstayed the last time, and besides, Ruth was giving one of her children a birthday party on Saturday. Oswald agreed. On Saturday morning he went back to the license bureau alone and filled out an application for a learner’s permit.

  There was still no indication that Oswald was planning the president’s assassination. On the same morning, November 16, the Morning News announced that the president would “drive west on Main Street at noon next Friday while en route to a luncheon at the Dallas Trade Mart beside Stemmons Freeway.” From this a reader familiar with the downtown streets might have deduced that the motorcade would have to pass by the Depository, but the president’s route was not explicit. Another front-page headline the next day said, “Incident-Free Day Urged for JFK Visit.” Dallas leaders were anxious to avoid any right-wing demonstrations that might embarass the city as it had been embarrassed by the Adlai Stevenson incident.

  That Sunday afternoon, June was playing with Ruth’s phone dial and Marina said, “Let’s call papa.” Ruth called the rooming house number and asked for Lee Oswald. The man who answered told her there was no Lee Oswald at that address. Oswald had registered as O.H. Lee—a circumstance he had forgotten when he gave Ruth the phone number during Marina’s last stage of pregnancy. On Monday, November 18, Oswald called Marina as he usually did after work. Marina testified, “I told him that we had telephoned him but he was unknown at that number.”

  Then he said that he had lived there under an assumed name. He asked me to remove the notation of the telephone number in Ruth’s phone book, but I didn’t want to do that. I asked him then, “Why did you give us a phone number, when we do call we cannot get you by name?”

  He was very angry, and he repeated that I should remove the notation of the phone number from the phone book. And, of course, we had a quarrel. I told him that this was another of his foolishness, some more of his foolishness. I told Ruth Paine about this. It was incomprehensible to my why he was so secretive all the time.

  Q. Did he give you any explanation of why he was using an assumed name?

  A. He said that he did not want his landlady to know his real name because she might [have] read in the paper of the fact that he had been to Russia and that he had been questioned.

  Q. What did you say about that?

  A. Noth
ing. And also that he did not want the FBI to know where he lived.

  Ruth overheard Marina’s side of the argument, and afterward Marina, who was obviously upset, told her it wasn’t the first time she had felt caught between “two fires.” But she didn’t mention to Ruth that Oswald wanted her to cross out the phone number. Oswald was clearly afraid that Ruth might give the number to the FBI, which could then use it to determine where he lived.

  That evening President Kennedy gave what was to be his last major address. Appearing in Miami, the president spoke on Latin America, and his remarks on Cuba were similar to the message he wanted Jean Daniel, who was now in Havana, to deliver to Castro.

  … The genuine Cuban Revolution, because it was against the tyranny and corruption of the past, had the support of many whose aims and concepts were democratic. But that hope for freedom and progress was destroyed. The goals proclaimed in the Sierra Maestra were betrayed in Havana. It is important now to restate what now divides Cuba from my country and from the other countries of the hemisphere. It is the fact that a small band of conspirators has stripped the Cuban people of their freedom and handed over the independence and sovereignty of the Cuban nation to forces beyond the hemisphere. They have made Cuba a victim of foreign imperialism, an instrument of the policy of others, a weapon in an effort dictated by external powers to subvert the other American republics. This, and this alone, divides us. As long as this is true, nothing is possible. Without it, everything is possible.… Once Cuban sovereignty has been restored we will extend the hand of friendship and assistance.…

  The speech was written in part by McGeorge Bundy, who knew of Daniel’s current trip to Havana, and its evident intent was to let Castro know that the United States could reach an accommodation with Cuba if Cuba backed away from the Soviet Union and ceased its interference in other Latin American countries. But the message was capable of being read another way.

  On November 19 both Dallas newspapers reported on the president’s speech. The afternoon Times Herald said that President Kennedy had “all but invited the Cuban people… to overthrow Fidel Castro’s Communist regime and promised prompt U.S. aid if they do.” The headline was “Kennedy Virtually Invites Cuban Coup.” Under its front-page article about the speech, the Morning News gave a street-by-street layout of the motorcade route, making it clear that the president would travel down Elm Street past the School Book Depository. The afternoon paper carried a comparable story on the motorcade route. Thus, on Tuesday Oswald could have known the unique vantage point his workplace had given him, and in the same issue he may have read an article suggesting that the president was calling for a coup against Fidel Castro.

  Late that afternoon there was a change in Oswald’s routine—he didn’t call Marina after work, or on Wednesday. Marina attributed this change to the quarrel they’d had on Monday, and that seems to be a reasonable explanation. But there was something else—a small slip of the mind that suggests he was no longer thinking about eluding the FBI and had turned his attention to some other matter. On Monday Oswald had been extremely anxious for his wife to remove his number from Ruth’s phone book. He was furious with Marina for refusing to do it. But after Monday he said no more about the phone number, and when he next went to Irving on Thursday, he didn’t remove the number himself, as he might have done.

  At the Depository on November 20 a textbook salesman brought in a new hunting rifle to show Roy Truly and some of the employees who happened to be in Truly’s office, Lee Oswald among them. Oswald filed this incident away for future use—he would refer to it later that week.

  On the morning of Thursday, November 21, Oswald approached Wesley Frazier at work and asked him for a ride to Irving that afternoon. Frazier readily agreed, but asked him why he was going home on a Thursday. Oswald said, “I am going to get some curtain rods. You know, put in an apartment.” Later that afternoon Ruth came home from the grocery store and saw Oswald with Marina and June on her front lawn—“I was surprised to see him.… I had no advance notice and he had never before come without asking whether he could.” As they all went inside, Ruth said to him, “Our President is coming to town.” Oswald replied, “Ah, yes,” and walked on into the kitchen.

  Oswald told his wife he had come home to make up with her. That night he watched TV, helped Marina fold diapers, and talked about getting an apartment in Dallas right away. Before Marina got up the next morning, Oswald tucked $170—almost all the money he had—into a wallet they kept in a drawer and left his wedding ring in an antique Russian cup on top of the bureau. When she woke he told her to buy something for herself and the children, and she wondered why he was being so kind all of a sudden. In the garage he picked up the disassembled rifle he had secretly wrapped in brown paper the night before. Then he rode into work with Frazier. After the Depository workers broke for lunch and most of them went outside to see the president pass by, he would have the sixth floor to himself.

  In Fort Worth early that morning President Kennedy addressed four thousand people who had assembled in a misting rain at his hotel parking lot. Like the crowds in San Antonio and Houston the day before, they gave him an enthusiastic welcome. “Where’s Jackie?” someone shouted, and Kennedy joined in the laughter. “Mrs. Kennedy is organizing herself,” he said. “It takes longer, but, of course, she looks better than we do when she does it. We appreciate your welcome.” During a breakfast speech later on, the president answered his right-wing critics by pointing to his efforts to improve the national defense. Afterward, at his hotel suite, he looked through the Dallas Morning News and saw a full-page advertisement that accused him of selling out to the Communists. Entitled “Welcome Mr. Kennedy” and bordered in black, the ad asked twelve impertinent questions, among them, “WHY do you say we have built a ‘wall of freedom’ around Cuba when there is no freedom in Cuba today? Because of your policy, thousands of Cubans have been imprisoned, are starving and being persecuted—with thousands already murdered and thousands more awaiting execution and, in addition, the entire population of almost 7,000,000 Cubans are living in slavery?” And, “WHY have you scrapped the Monroe Doctrine in favor of the ‘Spirit of Moscow’?” Referring to the ad he told his wife, “Oh, you know, we’re heading into nut country today.” It reminded him of something he had realized since he took office. Despite Secret Service protection, anyone who was willing to exchange his life for the president’s could do so. Now, to his aide Kenneth O’Donnell he said lightly, “Anyone perched above the crowd with a rifle could do it.” Always fatalistic, and having a fine sense of irony, Kennedy put himself in the assassin’s place—he pantomimed the imagined action, extending a forefinger like a weapon.

  At 11:40 that morning, Air Force One brought the presidential party to Love Field, where Kennedy greeted a crowd of well-wishers. An open limousine driven by a Secret Service agent was waiting. The president and Mrs. Kennedy sat in the back, and Governor and Mrs. Connally took the jump seats in front of them. With another limousine carrying armed Secret Service agents behind them, the motorcade formed and left for downtown Dallas.

  At 12:30 P.M., Lee Harvey Oswald entered history. Three shots from a sixth-floor Depository window hit Governor Connally once and the president twice. Oswald fled the building minutes later, caught a bus, and, when it got stalled in traffic, got out and took a cab to his rooming house. He picked up his revolver and a jacket and rushed out—on his way, Albert Newman believes, to try to assassinate Walker, too.3 At approximately 1:15 P.M., he was stopped by Patrolman J.D. Tippit, who had been cruising the area in a squad car. When Tippit got out to question him, Oswald shot and killed him. Within minutes, the manager of a shoe store a few blocks away heard police sirens and saw a disheveled young man outside his front window glancing back over his shoulder. The manager watched as he ducked into the lobby of a nearby movie theater.

  15 … The Arrest

  REPORTER Seth Kantor had been waiting at the Trade Mart for the motorcade to arrive. Upon learning of the assassination attempt, he j
oined the general scramble for transportation to the hospital where the president had been taken. Kantor’s first emotion was revulsion toward Dallas right-wing extremists. Running toward a station wagon, he wanted to scream, “God damn you, Dallas. Smug Dallas. God damn you.”

  At that hour AM/LASH was meeting with his case officer in Europe. The CIA man referred to President Kennedy’s November 18 speech and told AM/LASH that he could take Kennedy’s remarks on Cuba as a signal that a coup against Castro would receive American support—the CIA man was asking the Cuban official to read between the lines of the president’s speech. He told AM/LASH that the weapons he had asked for would be provided, and to establish his credibility he handed him a poison-pen device. As they were coming out the door from their meeting, they were told that President Kennedy had been shot.

  Fidel Castro was meeting with Kennedy’s unofficial envoy, Jean Daniel. When he received word of the shooting, Castro slumped in his chair and said, “Es un mala noticia” (“This is bad news”). After Kennedy’s death was confirmed, Castro said, “Everything is changed. Everything is going to change.… I’ll tell you one thing: at least Kennedy was an enemy to whom we had become accustomed. This is a serious matter, an extremely serious matter.”