Oswald's Game

by Davison, Jean

  When Ruby stopped by Sol’s Turf Bar that afternoon, a patron, Frank Bellochio, began blaming Dallas for the assassination and pulled out a copy of the anti-Kennedy page as evidence. Ruby became “upset and loud” and said that he didn’t believe there was such a person as Bernard Weissman, that the ad was the work of a group trying to create anti-Semitic feelings. An hour later Ruby was telling a friend that the black border was a “tipoff” that whoever placed the ad “knew the President was going to be assassinated.” Thus, Ruby suspected a scheme to murder Kennedy and use the Jews as scapegoats.

  After he shot Oswald the following morning, Ruby expected to get out of jail on bond and be interviewed by reporters as a hero. Instead, he found himself under suspicion of being involved in a plot to kill the president. Every aspect of his life was investigated, and reports of his past acquaintance with underworld figures made it appear that he was a Mafia hit man. Ruby assimilated this turn of events into the pattern that had already formed in his mind. He interpreted it as the work of the same people responsible for the Weissman advertisement.

  For Ruby, the irony was nightmarish. His act was supposed to absolve the Jews, by removing any possible doubt about where their sympathies lay. But in his mind, it had done just the opposite. He now believed that he had unwittingly played into the conspirators’ hands.

  By the time Ruby testified to the Warren Commission in June 1964, his conspiracy theory was full-blown. As he imagined it, the John Birch Society had convinced President Johnson that he was involved in Kennedy’s murder. Believing that, Johnson had “relinquished certain powers” to the organization, which was now beginning a widespread pogrom against American Jews. Speaking in his jail cell, Ruby insisted that he had shot Oswald on his own.

  And I have never had the chance to tell that, to back it up, to prove it. Consequently, right at this moment I am being victimized as a part of a plot in the world’s worst tragedy and crime.

  The bewildered Warren listened as Ruby tried to explain this plot:

  There is an organization here, Chief Justice Warren, if it takes my life at this moment to say it… there is a John Birch Society right now in activity.…

  Unfortunately for me, [by my] giving the people the opportunity to get in power, because of the act I committed, [this] has put a lot of people in jeopardy with their lives.

  Don’t register with you, does it?

  WARREN: NO; I don’t understand that.

  RUBY: Would you rather I just delete what I said and just pretend nothing is going on?

  WARREN: I would not indeed. I am only interested in what you want to tell this Commission.

  Ruby also said that his sister and brothers were going to be killed.

  Although he sounded completely irrational, his explanation for the shooting was virtually the same one that he had given after his arrest. He mentioned his use of diet pills and suggested that this might have been a “stimulus” on the morning of November 24, when

  suddenly I felt, which was so stupid, that I wanted to show my love for our faith, being of the Jewish faith … the emotional feeling came within me that someone owed this debt to our beloved President to save [Mrs. Kennedy] the ordeal of coming back.…

  I drove past Main Street, past the [jail], and there was a crowd already gathered there. And I… took it for granted [that Oswald] had already been moved.… So my purpose was to go to the Western Union—my double purpose—but the thought of committing the act wasn’t until I left my apartment.…

  I realize it is a terrible thing I have done, and it was a stupid thing, but I just was carried away emotionally.… I had the gun in my right hip pocket, and impulsively, if that is the correct word here, I saw him, and that is all I can say. And I didn’t care what happened to me.

  Throughout the interview, Ruby returned to the plot against him, begging Warren to take him to Washington for a lie detector test.

  I am as innocent regarding any conspiracy as any of you gentlemen in the room, and I don’t want anything to be run over lightly. I want you to dig into it with any … question that might embarrass me, or anything that might bring up my background, which isn’t so terribly spotted—I have never been a criminal.…

  I am making a statement now that I may not live the next hour when I walk out of this room.… it is the most fantastic story you have ever heard in a lifetime. I did something out of the goodness of my heart. Unfortunately, Chief Earl Warren, had you been around 5 or 6 months ago … and immediately the President would have gotten hold of my true story … a certain organization wouldn’t have so completely formed now, so powerfully, to use me because I am of the Jewish extraction, Jewish faith, to commit the most dastardly crime that has ever been committed.… The Jewish people are being exterminated at this moment.

  A few minutes later, Ruby said:

  It may not be too late, whatever happens, if our President, Lyndon Johnson, knew the truth from me But he has been told, I am certain, that I was part of a plot to assassinate the President.… I have been used for a purpose, and there will be a certain tragic occurrence happening if you don’t take my testimony and somehow vindicate me so my people don’t suffer because of what I have done.… All I want is a lie detector test.… And then I want to leave this world. But I don’t want my people to be blamed for something that is untrue, that they claim has happened.

  Some conspiracy theorists have taken Ruby’s remark “I have been used for a purpose” to mean that he was “used” to kill Oswald. Others think that he was speaking in a sort of code and that the “certain organization” he referred to was really the Mafia. For some reason, it is extremely difficult to take Ruby’s testimony at face value. Suspicious of his motives, one tends to focus on isolated details and give them a sinister interpretation. One naturally feels that there is “more to it” and that one must probe beneath the surface to get at it. This is a symptom of conspiracy thinking, the same human malady that afflicted Ruby in a more virulent form.

  But how can we be sure that Ruby wasn’t faking mental illness in order to conceal his role in a plot? Consider the implications of that hypothesis. If Ruby’s grief and delusions were sham, one must accept that prior to November 22 Ruby was persuaded to feign an obsession with the Weissman advertisement in order to legitimize the bizarre, puzzling explanation he would give after his arrest. Try to imagine a conspirator actually giving Ruby those instructions.

  In 1965 Ruby was seen briefly on television after he left jail for a court appearance. As he walked along a corridor he was heard to say, “complete conspiracy … and the assassination too … if you knew the facts you would be amazed.” Ruby’s vision of the forces against him eventually grew to include President Johnson. In a letter from jail he wrote, “… they alone had planned the killing, by they I mean Johnson and the others.” These disjointed comments, and others like them, have been offered in support of the very allegation Ruby desperately wanted to disprove. These writers have never considered the possibility that Ruby was talking about a different conspiracy—not one in which he silenced Oswald on orders, but one that tried to make it look as if he had.

  In December 1966 Ruby was diagnosed as having terminal cancer; he died less than a month later. In a tape recording made two weeks before the end, Ruby reiterated that his shooting of Oswald was pure chance and that he acted alone, not as part of a conspiracy. Sol Dann, one of his attorneys, told the press, “Ruby did not want to live. His death was a merciful release.”

  18 … Oswald’s Game

  IN large part, the assassination of President Kennedy was the tragic result of a steady accumulation of chance happenings, the elimination of any one of which might have spared Kennedy’s life.

  The chain of circumstance began in Oswald’s childhood, when someone innocently handed him a political pamphlet that gave his anger and resentment a direction. Six years later, he failed in an attempt to sign away his citizenship, which meant that he would be able to go back to the United States in 1962. Less than a year af
ter he returned, a bullet intended for General Walker missed. Then in September 1963, when he was trying to build a record to impress the Cubans, Castro’s warning appeared and gave him a new target. Finally, after his trip to Cuba was blocked, a neighbor of a friend suggested a job at a school book warehouse.

  Ultimately, these coincidences came to have a horrible significance, but only because they happened to a particular dangerous individual. The root cause of the assassination wasn’t blind fate, but Oswald’s sociopathic nature.

  As a child, Oswald isolated himself from other people. Raised by a mother who was monstrously self-centered, he grew to resemble her. He came to feel as if there were a veil separating him from everyone else, a barrier that he preferred to remain intact. As Evelyn Strickman said, he withdrew into a solitary and detached existence in which he didn’t have to obey any rules. Marguerite encouraged this tendency. Her constant defense of his rule-breaking fed his belief that he was a superior being who could do no wrong. Lee Oswald saw himself as an outsider, and he relished this role. (He would play it from youth onward, as Marxist Marine, American defector, Russian-speaking returnee.)

  With no personal relationships to anchor him in everyday life, Oswald created “his own world.” Robert noticed his “love of fantasy,” recalling that his kid brother would listen to children’s stories on the radio and hours later would still be pretending to be one of the characters. It would have been an innocent pastime, but Lee’s daydreams included visions of power and violence.

  Early on, his imagination drew him to the larger world reflected in news reports—an arena that must have seemed more meaningful, more real, than his daily existence. As Marguerite recalled, he would stop whatever he was doing to listen to the news, because he considered it important.

  Edward Voebel’s testimony reveals where his fantasy life was leading him. From local press reports, Oswald had gotten the idea of stealing a pistol. One can turn this incident and see Oswald’s ambitions reflected in it. He wanted to imitate the robbers—who had defied authority and gotten away with it. The theft would be dangerous and therefore exciting. Oswald made plans, obtaining a glass cutter and toy gun—the gun would be left in place of the stolen weapon, as a subterfuge. By outwitting his adversaries, he would assert his power over them.

  Oswald’s tactics and goals changed in the years ahead, but his psychological motivations did not. It would be for similar reasons that he tried to deceive Sylvia Odio, in another scheme inspired by a news report. In fact, the patterns seen in his robbery plan would be repeated in the three most dramatic episodes in his life. The defection, his attack on Walker, and the president’s murder were all daring acts that allowed him to strike back at authority and put himself in control. In a literal sense, Oswald lived in his fantasies—he acted them out. As George de Mohrenschildt put it, he played with his life.

  A few months after Voebel lost contact with him, Oswald discovered Karl Marx. He believed that Marxism gave him the “key” to his environment on an ideological level. But the system had a subconscious appeal. By redefining himself as the victim of an evil society, defiance of authority suddenly became not only legitimate, but heroic. He began thinking of himself as an idealist who acted on lofty principles. He immediately wanted to join the Communist party, a group of political outsiders, and achieve great things. By the time Kerry Thornley met him, Oswald saw Marxism as his religion, a means of justifying his life and obtaining a place in history.

  After converting to Marxism, Oswald’s conscious motives were political. He considered his defection to be a courageous protest against American military imperialism. His explanation for attacking Walker was also ideological: he would be eliminating a potential Hitler, thereby saving lives. Each time, he expected to be recognized as a fighter for justice. But his inner compulsions were the same as they had been. On learning that the Walker bullet had missed, he was disappointed, but Marina believed that he was also pleased “with the clever fellow he was” in getting away with the attempt. He had put one over on the police.

  Strip away the politics, and Oswald’s antisocial personality is evident. He resembles the typical St. Elizabeths criminal seeking power, control, and excitement. At Youth House he had been diagnosed as a “passive-aggressive” individual, someone whose outward compliance masked deep anger. This characteristic shows up in his political writings, where Oswald cast himself as a silent observer who waited in “stoical readiness” for the opportune moment to act.

  This complex of motivations reverberated in the Kennedy assassination. It would be a violent protest against American imperialism toward Cuba and a retaliation for the plots against Castro. But beneath Oswald’s rationalizations, there was a continuing self-aggrandizement and a desire for vengeance that came from something other than politics.

  Each of these incidents was also derived, in some way, from Oswald’s reading of press reports. His ideas were never entirely original. Oswald’s defection was preceded by that of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, a famous case that Oswald alluded to in a conversation with Nelson Delgado. It wasn’t so much that news stories “put ideas in his head.” It was almost the other way around: Oswald’s grandiose self-image drove him to project himself onto the world stage. The international political scene was the reality that mattered to him, and he was determined to make his mark on it.

  As each of his efforts was frustrated, Oswald’s schemes became progressively more violent. His defection resulted in a week’s publicity and two and a half years of obscurity. The Walker incident gained only a brief, anonymous attention. Then his plan to reach Cuba was thwarted by red tape—moreover, the Cubans didn’t take him seriously. His repeated attempts to join a revolutionary movement had failed, leaving him as isolated and unrecognized as ever.1

  After Oswald returned to Dallas in October 1963, events continued to narrow his path. His perception of the plots against Castro had already led him to threaten President Kennedy’s life on two occasions. On October 19th, a double feature about assassinations reminded him of “the actual situation” that existed in Cuba. The following evening his preoccupation was such that he didn’t think to ask about the birth of his second child.

  Having failed to get Russian visas, Oswald was stranded in Dallas. He made plans to renew his political activities. By “reading between the lines” of leftist newspapers, he would determine which line to follow. But in November there were new developments. His visit to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico had understandably reawakened the FBI’s interest in him. Cornered, feeling unjustly persecuted, Oswald wrote a note to Hosty and a letter to the Soviets in Washington protesting the FBI attention. At this juncture, he learned that the president’s motorcade would pass the building where he worked.

  It must have seemed to him that fate had spoken. All his past life was a rehearsal for the moment when he decided to act out his violent fantasies against President Kennedy. After his arrest, Oswald appeared calm, introspective, at peace with himself. He behaved as if he were now in control—as, in a real sense, he was, until Jack Ruby’s own obsessions intervened. At long last, Oswald had achieved what he had always wanted: vengeance, power, and even an infamous immortality.

  The assassination of John Kennedy was neither an act of random violence nor a conspiracy. It was carried out as a result of Oswald’s character and background interacting with circumstance. It’s likely that had there been no plots against Castro, Oswald would have eventually killed someone, but it would not have been President Kennedy. Castro’s warning had simply deflected his aim.

  A Selected Bibliography

  BOOKS

  Anson, Robert Sam. “They’ve Killed the President!” New York: Bantam Books, 1975.

  Becker, Ernest. Escape from Evil. New York: Free Press, 1975.

  Belin, David W. November 22, 1963: You Are the Jury. New York: Quadrangle Books, 1973.

  Bishop, Jim. The Day Kennedy Was Shot. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1968.

  Blakey, G. Robert, and Richard N. Billings
. The Plot to Kill the President. New York: Times Books, 1981.

  Brener, Milton E. The Garrison Case: A Study in the Abuse of Power. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1969.

  Damore, Leo. The Cape Cod Years of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967.

  De Bono, Edward. The Mechanism of Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969.

  De Gramont, Sanche. The Secret War. New York: Dell, 1963.

  Eddowes, Michael. The Oswald File. New York: Ace, 1978.

  Epstein, Edward Jay. Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth. New York: Viking, 1966.

  ——. Counterplot. New York: Viking, 1969.

  ——. Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald. New York:

  Reader’s Digest Press/McGraw-Hill, 1978.

  Halperin, Maurice. The Rise and Decline of Fidel Castro. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.

  Hartogs, Renatus, and Lucy Freeman. The Two Assassins. New York: Zebra Books/Kensington, 1976.

  Henderson, Bruce, and Sam Summerlin. 1:33. New York: Cowles, 1968. Kantor, Seth. The Ruby Cover-up. New York: Zebra Books/Kensington, 1978.