Oswald, Mexico, and Deep Politics
Page 32
CIA Doc. #131-593; JKB memo of 11/26/63 and 10-page attachment: Summary of first Mexican interview of Silvia Durán et al, pp. 7 (twice), 8, 9, 10: "Asevero no conocer a Harvey Lee Oswald." Versions of this sentence are used five times in all in this document, in statements of Ruben Durán, Betsy Serratos, Agata Roseno, Barbara Ann Bliss, and Charles Bentley.
B. In the Oswald Family
26 WH 765; CE 3119; Secret Service Report of 11/30/63: Mrs. Hazel Oswald (aunt) "told Harvey that she had a large, framed picture of his father. . . . William Stout Oswald. . . stated that although Harvey Lee Oswald is said to be his second cousin, he had never met him nor had he known Harvey was also employed by the William B. Reily Coffee Company. . . .As Henry Davis had accompanied William to the office, he was interviewed on 11-23-63. He said that he did not know Harvey Lee Oswald."
21 WH 127; Pic Exh. No. 60 (Pic address book): (Mostly in LHO handwriting): "P.O. Box 2915 Dallas, Texas O—Harvey." (11 WH 60-61 explains that Secret Service in San Antonio introduced marks "to identify the handwritings in the book. . . with the circle being the handwriting of Lee Harvey Oswald" 11 WH 60). Re last page ("O—Harvey"), Pic testifies: "This is the identifying mark in the hand of Secret Service Ben A. Vidles, in San Antonio, Tex." (11 WH 61). *** What this all means is that Oswald on Thanksgiving Day 1962 entered his name in his half-brother’s address book as "Harvey."
Secret Service Interview of Marina Oswald, 11/25/63, WCD 344.9: "After you married Harvey, where did you and Harvey maintain your address or residence?"
C. In the Marines
8 WH 319 (affidavit of Paul Edward Murphy): "Oswald was nicknamed ‘Harvey’ after ‘Harvey the Rabbit,’ a movie which was then circulating. So far as I know, Oswald acquired this nickname for no reason other than that it was his middle name."
8 WH 317 (affidavit of Peter Francis Connor): "Oswald was nicknamed ‘Harv.’ This was a shortened version of his middle name; for some reason it upset him to be called by it."
FBI HQ 105-82555-204 (Memphis newspaper interview of Memphis patrolman J.E. Pitts, 11/24/63): "Oswald. . . had an intense hate for anyone that called him by the nickname of ‘Harve’ or by his middle name of ‘Harvey’ and he wanted to fight anyone that did it."
Pitts in Epstein, Legend, 282: "the guys found out he didn’t like being called Harvey or Harve, so that’s what a lot of guys called him."
Cf. 8 WH 270 (Daniel Patrick Powers): "He had the name of Ozzie Rabbit, as I recall."
Epstein, Legend, 68: "He [LHO] would mimic Bugs Bunny. . . earning him the nickname Bugs."
D. In the Soviet Union
18 WH 450; CE 985: State Dept, translation of 3/61 LHO medical records from Minsk: "Name: Oswald, Harvey Alik" (also "A. Oswald). Cf. 18 WH 454: "Name: Oswald, Harvey A. . . .Oswald, H.A." (The Russian originals were not supplied to the Warren Commission, and hence not published.) Medical records of 10/28/59 from Botkin Hospital, Moscow (18 WH 461, 466) have "Name: Oswald, Lee Harvey." A medical card of Feb. 3?, 1962, has "Lee Hardy Oswald" (18 WH 474-75).
State Department Security Office Memo from Emery J. Adams, SY/E, to Passport PPT, 3/2/61 (covering FBI memo from WFO 2/27/61): "It is requested that the recipients advise if the FBI is receiving info about Harvey on a continuing basis."
16 WH 234; CE 72: Letter of 5/3/61 to LHO from P. Chikarev (but signed Voloshin): "Esteemed citizen Harvey Oswald" Cf. Epstein, Legend, 111; CD 206.360; WCD 1084 (e), 122-23 (as indexed to Mary L. Petterson, before being dropped and replaced by old pp. 124-25 (24 WH 631; CE 2121)
Cf. 18 WH 433; CE 985: Document # NO/4522 12/11/61 as translated by State Dept, Doc. 8A: "Citizen Harvey Lee Oswald." BUT original at at 18 WH 434 has (in Russian) "Citizen Lee Harvey Oswald."
4 AH 210 (=3 AH 572): CIA Doc. #435-173A, covering memo of 25 November 1963: "It was partly out of curiosity to learn if Oswald’s wife would actually accompany him to our country, partly out of interest in Oswald’s own experences in the USSR, that we showed intelligence interest in the Harvey story."
E. On Return to the United States—Pre-Assassination
4 WH 432; Testimony of FBI Agent John Lester Quigley, who interviewed Oswald 8/10/63: "[T]he jailer brought in an individual who was then introduced to me by Lieutenant Martello as Harvey Lee Oswald. I then identified myself by credentials to Lee Harvey Oswald. Mr. STERN. You said Harvey Lee Oswald. Mr. QUIGLEY. I beg your pardon. Mr. STERN. You meant Lee Harvey Oswald? Mr. QUIGLEY. Yes; Lee Harvey Oswald." (If Quigley could be believed on this point, Martello’s would be the earliest reported use by law enforcement of the name "Harvey Lee Oswald.")
3 WH 8; Testimony of Ruth Paine, 3/19/64: "He [LHO in New Orleans, August 1963] went out to buy groceries, came in with a cheery call to his two girls, saying ‘Yabutchski,’ which means girls, the Russian word for girls, as he came in the door. It was more like Harvey than I had seen him before." Cf. 17 WH 185.
24 WH 732; 24 WH 745: CEs 2137, 2138; FBI interviews 12/20/63 and 2/6/64 of Mrs. Lee Dannelly of Austin re "the person who contacted her giving his name as HARVEY OSWALD on or about September 25, 1963."
26 WH 178; CE 2789; CD 205-629-32: Leonard Hutchinson story to FBI about LHO’s attempt to cash check for SI89 payable to "Harvey Oswald." Cf. WR 331-32.
F. Post-Assassination: CIA
CIA Doc. #1277-1025; Memo of 25 Mar 1964 from A.E. Shrout to Chief/Employee Activity Branch. Subj: Bielefeldt, Talbot, who reported contact with Mrs. Carol Hyde, "mother of Ruth Payne. . . . Mrs. Payne is the former landlady to the Harvey Lee Oswald family." ["Payne," like "Harvey Lee Oswald," is a recurring anomaly.]
"CIA #180" (in CIA 1975 release): CIA memo of 30 Dec 1963 in LHO 201 file: "Reference is made to [redacted] an incoming [redacted] telegram dated 19 December 1963, in connection with the Harvey Lee OSWALD Case [redacted] This telegram concerns a Mr. and Mrs. DEMOHRENSCHILDT who appear to have lived in Dallas, Texas, but on 2 June 1963 went to Haiti."
CIA Doc. #435-173A; Memo of 12 Dec 1963 from [redacted]; covering memo of 25 November 1963: "Subject: Mr. Lee Harvey Oswald. . . . It was partly out of curiosity to learn if Oswald’s wife would actually accompany him to our country, partly out of interest in Oswald’s own experiences in the USSR, that we showed intelligence interest in the Harvey story." 3 AH 572; = 4 AH 210.
G. Post-Assassination: Military Intelligence
U.S. Army Cable 480587 from Fort Sam Houston, Texas, to U.S. Strike Command, McDill AFB, Florida, 230405Z (Nov. 22, 10:05 CST): ‘‘Following is additional information on Oswald, Harvey Lee. . . . Don Stringfellow, Intelligence Section, Dallas Police Dept., notified 112th Intc Gp, this HQ, that information obtained from Oswald revealed he had defected to Cuba in 1959 and is card carrying member of Communist Party."
ONI Teletype of 11/27/63 (272130Z) from NAVCINTSUPPCEN.3 to DIO 8ND: "Subject: OSWALD, HARVEY LEE." (ONI-229)
ONI Teletype of 11/27/63 (272210Z) from DIO 8ND to NAVCINTSUPPCEN.3: "Subject: OSWALD, HARVEY LEE." (ONI-230)
H. Post-Assassination: FBI
First question of FBI to Robert Oswald 11/22/63 in Dallas Police Station: "‘Is your brother’s name Lee Harvey Oswald or Harvey Lee Oswald?. . . We have it here as Harvey Lee.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s Lee Harvey Oswald.’" (Robert Oswald, Lee: A Portrait of Lee Harvey Oswald [New York: Coward-McCann, 1967), 18). (This agent may have been SA Charles T. Brown: cf. 15 WH 619, testimony of Detective Roy Standifer.)
FBI HQ File 105-82555-88, Cable # 241 from Legat Bern to DIR: [Title] "Changed. Lee Harvey Oswald, aka Harvey Lee Oswald, Internal Security—R and Cuba. Title changed to show correct sequence of first and middle names"
FBI HQ File 105-82555-1st no. 96, Urgent 5-11 PM 11-24-63 from SAC New York to HQ, HQ file 100-3-7717: "Allegations that Lee Oswald is a Communist have created panic among members of National Board of CP, USA." Unrecorded copy to HQ Oswald file on 12/11/63 with handwritten notation, "Harvey Lee Oswald."
Paul Scranton Memo to SAC Miami 11/27/63 (FBI Miami 105-8342-29): "Informant advised that SALVAT told him the DRE has a tape re
cording of HARVEY LEE OSWALD’S trial at New Orleans [i.e. the radio debate] in which OSWALD states he is not a Communist but a Marxist. This tape is in the possession of LUIS FERNANDEZ ROCHA."
SAC New Orleans to DIR 11/27/63, FBI HQ 105-82555-166 (response to Alvarado story): "HARVEY LEE OSWALD"
23 WH 207; CE 1711; CD 84.177-79: LA FBI interview in Sherman Oaks, CA, 11/29/63 of Herbert Eden: Ruby’s "action in shooting HARVEY LEE OSWALD is the result of a ‘brooding sick man.’"
23 WH 373; CE 1763; CD 223.65-67: (informed) FBI interview in Mobile 12/26/63 with Jack Hardee; says "the police officer whom HARVEY LEE OSWALD allegedly killed. . . was a frequent visitor to Ruby’s night club."
FBI Report of Frederick Slight, Tampa, 1/30/64 on Fair Play for Cuba Committee, Tampa Division (10/17/63-1/14/64), p. 12: "A DON SIDER, who claimed to be a representative for ‘Time’ magazine contacted MANUEL AMOR at which time he told AMOR that it was his understanding that HARVEY LEE OSWALD had been connected with the FPCC at Tampa and wanted to know if this was true."
FBI #836: Enrique Lorenzo-Luaces y Vilaseca saw Robert Taber of FPCC with Harvey Oswald.
I. Post-Assassination: Dallas Police
19 WH 438; Dean Exhibit No. 5009; CD 85.325: FBI copy of DPD Sergeant P.T. Dean memo of 11/26/63 (see below, 24 WH 87): re "the transfer of Harvey Lee Oswald, W/M/24."
24 WH 87; CE 2002, p. 27; Patrick Dean memo of Nov. 26, 1963, about his assignment re "the transfer of Harvey Lee Oswald, W/M/24, to the County Jail."
24 WH 142; CE 2002, p. 76; memo from Detective Louis D. Miller re "Shooting of Harvey Oswald;" mentions "prisoner Harvey Oswald."
24 WH 259; CE 2003, p. 125; Westphal/Parks memo of Nov.22 thru Lt. Jack Revill to Captain W.P. Gannaway of SSB, re TSBD: first name is "HARVEY LEE OSWALD 605 ELSBETH" (Deep Politics, 277).
24 WH 329; CE 2003, p. 252; F.M. Turner report of his duties: "On November 25, 1963, we took a picture of Harvey Lee Oswald, DPD #54018 and showed it to witness Ronald Fischer."
J. Post-Assassination: Secret Service
16 WH 721; CE 270: Transcript of Secret Service Agent J.M. Howard interview 11/25/63 with "Mrs. Marguerite Oswald, mother of Harvey Lee (replaced by "Lee Harvey") Oswald:" "This is an interview with Mrs. Marguerite Oswald, mother of Harvey Lee Oswald."
16 WH 749; CE 270: Transcript of Secret Service Agent J.M. Howard interview 11/25/63 with "Robert Lee Oswald, brother of Harvey Lee (replaced by "Lee Harvey") Oswald:" "This is an interview with Robert Lee Oswald, brother of Lee Harvey Oswald." (Both interviews refer to LHO as "Lee" [Marguerite] or "Lee Harvey" [Robert]).
26 WH 30-31; CE 2675 "Title or Caption Harvey Lee Oswald." Interview 2/28/64 by Secret Service Austin TX of Billy Joe Lord "regarding his and Harvey Lee Oswald’s trip to France aboard the SS Marion Lykes" in 1959. "Harvey Lee Oswald" used a total of nine times.
K. Post-Assassination: Warren Commission Testimony
4 WH 32; Testimony of Sebastian Latona, FBI HQ fingerprint expert, 4/2/64: "Mr. EISENBERQ. And whose prints were they? Mr. LATONA. The fingerprint was identified as Harvey Lee Oswald. Mr. EISENBERG. That is Lee Harvey Oswald? Mr. LATONA. That is right. Mr. EISENBERG. And the palm? Mr. LATONA. The palmprint was identified also as Harvey Lee Oswald. Mr. EISENBERG. Again Lee Harvey Oswald? Mr. LATONA. That is right.
4 WH 38: Mr. LATONA. Exhibit 649. . . has been identified as a palmprint of Harvey Lee Oswald, the right palmprint. Mr. EISENBERG. That is Lee Harvey Oswald, Mr. Latona? Mr. LATONA. That is right, Lee Harvey Oswald." (Compare J.C.Day at 4 WH 261.)
4 WH 261; Testimony of J.C. Day, DPD fingerprint expert, 4/22/64: "Mr BELIN: What was your opinion so far as it went as to whose [fingerprints] they were? Mr. DAY. They appeared to be the right middle and right ring finger of Harvey Lee Oswald, Lee Harvey Oswald." (Compare Latona on fingerprints above.)
6 WH 438; Testimony of Mrs. Earlene Roberts, 4/8/64: "Mr. BALL. And the police officers came out there? Mrs. ROBERTS. Yes, sir. Mr. BALL. Do you remember what they said? Mrs. ROBERTS. Well, it was Will Fritz’ men [DPD Plainclothesmen Senkel, Potts, and Cunningham, joined later by
F. M. Turner]. . . .They asked him [Mr. Johnson] if there was a Harvey Lee Oswald there. . . .Mr. BALL. And you didn’t have that name. . . . Mrs. ROBERTS. No—he registered as O.H. Lee and they were asking for Harvey Lee Oswald." N.B. Senkel is the partner of F.M. Turner (above at 24 WH 329).
12 WH 51: "Mr. HUBERT. Let me mark this document, then—I am marking it. . . as Exhibit 5323, Deposition of Sheriff J.E. Decker. . . .It is called Acco Press on the inside and bears the label on the outside, "Harvey Lee Oswald, WM 24, Murder—11-22-63 of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. . . ." Deposition as reproduced bears title "Lee Harvey Oswald" (19 WH 54).
L. Since the Warren Commission
Robert Kennedy to Jeff Greenfield, 1968 (after the assassination of Martin Luther King): "‘You know that fellow Harvey Lee Oswald, whatever his name is, set something loose in this country.’ The first stories after Dallas, Greenfield remembered, had so miscalled Oswald. ‘That’s the way he remembered [the name] because obviously he never took another look at it again." Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy (New York: Ballantine Books, 1978), 941-42; citing Jeff Greenfield recorded interview of 1969, RFK Oral History Program.
William George Gaudet to Fensterwald, 1975: speaks of "Harvey Oswald"
Ray Zauber to Peter Dale Scott, 1977: speaks of those who knew "Harvey Oswald"
APPENDIX III: "HARVEY" AND "HARVEY ALIK OSWALD" IN THE SOVIET UNION
References to Oswald as Harvey antedate his Fall 1963 visit to Mexico City. The earliest documentary references to Oswald as "Harvey" are from 1961, when there are at least four from a ten-month period. In the State Department’s Security file on Oswald, there is a March 1961 internal memo from Emery J. Adams of the Security Staff, asking the Passport Bureau to advise "if the FBI is receiving info about Harvey on a continuing basis."1 There is no known bureaucratic precedent for calling Oswald "Harvey," although two years later a CIA officer would write that his division had "showed intelligence interest in the Harvey [i.e. Oswald] story.2
But Mr Emery Adams may have had better intelligence of Oswald than we know of today. (The State Security Staff had close liaison with the CIA’s Office of Security, and indeed a number of CIA officers went overseas under State Department Security Staff cover.) Less than one month after Mr. Adams wrote his memo, Oswald checked into a Minsk hospital, not as "Lee Harvey Oswald" (the name he had used in a Moscow hospital in 1959), but as "Oswald, Harvey Alik" ("Alik" being the name he had come to substitute in Russia for the Chinese-sounding "Lee").3 Oswald must have used the name "Harvey" to other Soviet officials at this time as well. In May he received a letter, addressed to "Esteemed citizen Harvey Oswald," in which an administrator called Voloshin told him officially that he was not eligible to study at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow.4 This letter is ignored in the Warren Report’s biography of Oswald, but we hear from Edward Jay Epstein that it was taken much more seriously by at least one of the Oswald-watchers in CIA counterintelligence (who claimed to have thought that Voloshin could have been Oswald’s Soviet recruiter).5
We have to place in context these Soviet references in March, April and May 1961 to a "Harvey Oswald," or "Harvey Alik Oswald," which can be seen as anomalous. Most of Oswald’s Soviet documentation is in the name of "Lee Harvey Oswald," including his work papers and most significantly his marriage certificate of April 30, 1961.6
At the same time, if we consider Oswald stay in Minsk, the "Lee Harvey Oswald" documentation can also be seen as anomalous. He was not called "Lee" by his friends in Minsk, he was called "Alek;" "Alek" was indeed the name by which he was introduced to Marina in March 1961.7 All of the published letters and notes written to or from Oswald by friends in Minsk (some fifteen in all) use the name "Alek" (except for one addressed to "Marina" and "Olegushka").8 When Marina visited her aunt in Kharkov in October 1961. Oswald’s letters to her bore the return address "A. Oswald" (16 WH 197), or "A.H. Oswald" (16 WH 219).
It would appear that Oswald named himself in two different ways for two different audiences. Officially, whether addressing the Soviet or the American authorities, he was "Lee Harvey Oswald," or "L.H. Oswald."9 Unofficially, to his friends, he was "Alek," or "A.H. Oswald."
But this distinction does not begin to explain his hospital registration as "Harvey Alik Oswald," and "H.A. Oswald," or the letter from Patrice Lumumba University to "Esteemed citizen Harvey Oswald." We have as it were a second family of Oswald records from Minsk, in which the order of the forenames is mysteriously reversed.
I will now mention a tiny clue which makes the "Harvey Alik Oswald" records more credible, at least for me. I have already mentioned that Oswald’s Minsk hospital records carry the name variants "Harvey Alik Oswald," "Harvey A. Oswald," and "H.A. Oswald."10 There is one added note and name variant: "Money, documents and other valuable were left with the patient. A. Oswald."11 In other words, Oswald was registered with the name "Harvey" first, but those working with him, including the nurse who took his valuables, knew that he was addressed familiarly as "Alik."
This is a common enough American phenomenon, even among government personnel and covert operatives (the names of E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy come to mind.) Oswald would be completely familiar with this habit from the case of his own father. Officially, beyond question, his father was "Robert Edward Lee Oswald."12 Familiarly, however, Robert E. L. Oswald was known to his wife, close family and friends, as "Lee," or "Lee Sr."13
The available evidence further suggests that in the Marines Oswald himself, enrolled as "Lee Harvey Oswald," was more commonly known as "Harvey," or as "Harv," than as "Lee." Nelson Delgado, perhaps Oswald’s closest friend at Santa Ana (and certainly the Marine who testified at greatest length about him to the Warren Commission) lived in the same Quonset hut, yet "didn’t even know his name was Lee."14 Like most Marines, Delgado called him "Oswald," "Os," or "Ozzie."15 As for the name "Lee," there was just one fellow-Marine, Peter Connor, who told Life magazine that Oswald "used to bring up this stuff about his name, Lee. . . because he said he was named after Robert E. Lee."16 The same Peter Connor told the Warren Commission, however, that "Oswald was nicknamed ‘Harv.’ This was a shortened version of his middle name."17 The nickname "Harvey" or "Harv" was corroborated by two other Marines.18 For whatever reason, it seems to have been the custom to call Oswald, like his father, by his middle name.