“Then you didn’t have to play by those principles.”
“I’m tired of your principles,” she said. “Even in games I see your petty spirit. I see it in the grocery store. We go in and you give me thirty cents. Afterwards, you want to know what I spent it on…You save on everything. What for? To buy a dress for your wife? Food or a toy for your child? No. You have money for a gun. You have money for your Mexico. But for your own baby, no! What joy is your Cuba, your Mexico, your Castro, to me? You never even think about our new baby. I have to ask Ruth to help because papa has got something more important on his mind. I’m tired of your ‘important’ things. When will you start to think the way normal people do? You imagine that you’re a great man. Nobody thought that up but you.” Marina’s grievances about his penny-pinching came pouring out of her in a way that stunned him into silence. Then she started packing her clothes in a suitcase. She would go stay with the Murrets until Ruth arrived on the twentieth.
He took her clothes out of the suitcase and returned them to the closets and drawers, and she took them out again and repacked them. Eventually she quieted down and went to bed. Lee retreated to the bathroom to read. When he did come to bed, she told him to go sleep on the floor, although she eventually relented on that too.1373
The cause of the fight seems trivial enough, but it was probably sparked by the underlying and largely unspoken tensions between them. Marina, after all, was days away from the rupture, perhaps a final one, of her marriage. She knew that Lee was planning to dump her on Ruth Paine, whom he was counting on to cope with the trouble and expense of the birth of their second child. And he still threatened to send her and their children back to the USSR. The only chance that they would ever be reunited was that he might send for them if he succeeded in establishing himself in Cuba. With a resignation or wisdom uncommon in such a young woman—she was still only twenty-two—she realized that Lee would never be able to settle down until he got his Cuban fantasy out of his system. But apart from this, Lee, she was convinced, wanted only to be rid of her. Ruth was her only real hope of staying in America. Yet she clung to a hope that Lee might one day want his wife and children back again.1374
Many have asked if Lee and Marina loved each other, and if so, what kind of love it was. I wouldn’t presume to know the answer except to observe that the opposite of love in any relationship is indifference, not hate, where at least some passion remains. And one thing that no one could ever say about Marina and Lee—they were not indifferent to each other.
On September 9, 1963, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported on a September 7 interview Castro gave to an AP reporter in Havana. The headline on the article was “Castro Blasts Raids on Cuba; Says U.S. Leaders Imperiled by Aid to Rebels. Havana (AP).” The article read, “Prime Minister Fidel Castro said Saturday night ‘United States leaders’ would be in danger if they helped in any attempt to do away with leaders of Cuba. Bitterly denouncing what he called U.S.-prompted raids on Cuban territory, Castro said, ‘We are prepared to fight them and answer in kind. United States leaders should think that if they are aiding terrorists’ plans to eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not be safe.’” The article said that Castro accused the United States of “double-crossing” policies and called President Kennedy a “cheap and crooked politician.”1375 If, in Oswald’s mind, there ever was a time that Castro and his tender revolution needed him, it was now.
On September 17 Oswald visited the Mexican consulate in the Whitney Building in New Orleans and filled out an application for a tourist card. He described himself as a twenty-three-year-old, married, American-born “photographer” residing at 4907 Magazine Street. Giving in once again to his congenital lying, he put down 640 Rampart Street as his “business address” and said he was “Catholic.” Under the heading “Destination in Mexico” he wrote, “Transit tourist.” He would travel by bus, “$300.00” was listed as the approximate amount of money he was taking for the trip, and “10 days” was listed as the duration of the trip.1376 Lee paid fifty cents for tourist card number 24085, valid for a single journey to Mexico for a period of fifteen days.1377
A few days later, Thursday, September 19, Arnold Johnson, information director of the U.S. Communist Party, finally got around to answering Lee’s August 28 letter to the Central Committee1378 and Oswald’s September 1 letter a few days later to Communist Party headquarters.1379 Johnson’s letter to Lee was as meaningless as could be. As to the advice Lee sought, Johnson suggested he “remain in the background” in his FPCC activities, whatever that meant, and “not [go] underground.” And as to Lee moving to Baltimore, Johnson told Lee to “get in touch with us” once he arrived.1380 At one point, any contact from the national office of the Communist Party would have been important to Lee, but now that he was headed for the big time in Cuba, Johnson’s letter was just another document he would put in his folder to establish his bonafides with the Cuban embassy in Mexico City.
On Friday afternoon, Marina went out to buy some groceries, and Ruth was waiting for her when she got back—September 20, exactly as promised. Lee was entertaining Ruth and her children on the porch in a way Ruth had never seen before. He was in high spirits. It was in marked contrast to her last visit, when she had driven Marina from Dallas to New Orleans. Then he had found fault with Marina constantly, as though he wanted only to rid himself of her.1381 That first time she found the atmosphere so unpleasant she left, as previously noted, a day early. This time, however, she lingered through the weekend.1382
It was a pleasant time, enlivened by the visit of Ruth Kloepfer. Kloepfer brought along her two college-age daughters. The one who had been studying Russian had recently visited Russia, and Lee played the gracious host, looking at her slides of Moscow, a few of which he recognized from his own trip there.1383
Marina wanted to take Ruth Paine for another tour of the French Quarter, this time in the evening. Lee could not be prevailed upon to accompany them, so the two young women, with their three very small children, strolled along Bourbon Street, soaking up the special atmosphere of that storied street.
Back at Magazine Street, they found Lee to be in an unusually good mood. He had straightened up the apartment, washed the dishes, and started packing their things into and atop Ruth’s station wagon. Looking back, Ruth realized he had been “distinctly” eager to do the packing.1384 He was probably trying to avoid having her handle, any more than she had to, the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, which he had disassembled, wrapped in a brown paper package, and tied up in a blanket.*
Other than packing for the trip to Texas, it was a restful weekend, and the two women had plenty of opportunity to talk. But Ruth was never told about Lee’s plans to go to Cuba by way of Mexico. He had insisted to Marina that she not tell Ruth about this. Ruth had not even known, before she arrived, that Marina had decided to accept her invitation and that Marina and June would be returning to Dallas with her for Marina’s childbirth the next month. She could see that Lee was greatly relieved when she offered to take care of Marina and help ensure that Marina got good care at Parkland. Lee told Ruth that he was going to seek work in Houston or Philadelphia, and that he would leave as soon as Ruth and Marina were gone. He said when he got established there, he would send for Marina once she had given birth. Thus, Ruth thought Marina would be with her for only a brief period.1385 Lee did tell Ruth about the fracas and his arrest when he was passing out pro-Cuba leaflets on the streets of New Orleans, and it was one of the few conversations she ever had with him in which he deigned to speak English.1386
Mr. Garner, noticing Lee packing Ruth’s station wagon with his family’s personal belongings, approached Lee and asked him if he was moving, since Garner was concerned that Lee already owed about fifteen days’ rent. But Oswald reassured Garner that he was not leaving, saying that his wife was only going to Texas to have their baby, after which she was going to return to New Orleans.1387
On Monday morning, September 23, Ruth and Marina were finally ready to leave.13
88 The car was severely overloaded with all of the Oswalds’ possessions added to Ruth’s, which included a boat on the roof rack, to which they attached a playpen, stroller, and other things. Lee kissed Marina tenderly, each struggling not to break down; Marina, knowing Lee was going to Cuba, tried to conceal from Ruth that she might be losing him forever. Lee watched as the car drove away, long enough to see that they made it no farther than a few blocks to a gas station—a tire was about to give out. He went down to the station and Marina took Lee a few steps away, and they kissed tenderly again. She told him to please be careful and take care of himself. “Stop,” he told her. “I can’t stand it. Do you want me to cry in front of Ruth?” Ruth bought a new tire and had it mounted. “This is sure going to cost a lot, isn’t it?” Lee said to Ruth. “Yes,” Ruth said, “but car owners have to expect that.” He did not offer to contribute anything to the trip financially. In fact, Ruth sensed that he didn’t even give Marina any spending money to take with her. But Ruth didn’t let it bother her. She knew that he had been unemployed for a long time and probably needed every cent he had to find a new job and rent a new apartment for them.1389 Ruth’s attitude toward him had softened. When she had seen him kiss Marina good-bye very fondly, she felt that he really did care for his wife, and she recalled that he had told her not to tell anyone at Parkland that he had “abandoned her.”1390 Ruth, Marina, and the kids made it to a motel that night just across the line in Texas, and arrived at Ruth’s home in Irving the next day.1391
Oswald appears to have spent one more night in the empty apartment on Magazine Street. On Tuesday, September 24, he filed a change-of-address card at the post office to redirect mail from his New Orleans post office box to Ruth’s address in Irving, Texas, and Oswald’s box was closed on September 26.1392
That evening, Tuesday, Lee’s next-door neighbor, Eric Rogers, saw him leave the apartment in a hurry with two cloth suitcases, one large, the other small, run across the street, and catch a bus at the bus stop headed for downtown.1393 In a December 11, 1963, interview with the FBI, the bus driver recalled picking up a passenger one evening around September 24 near Lee’s apartment with two suitcases who asked what was the best bus to take to the Greyhound bus terminal, but he was unable to describe the individual or identify Lee as the passenger. He did recall seeing a station wagon parked in front of the apartment where Oswald lived for one or two days (presumably Ruth Paine’s) “several months ago.”1394
Where Oswald spent Tuesday night is unknown. The Warren Commission concluded that “he probably returned to the apartment to sleep after checking his luggage at [the] bus station, or spent the night at an inexpensive hotel or rooming house.”1395 (But in the possibility that Oswald did not return to his Magazine apartment on the night of September 24, 1963, on September 8 and 9, 1964, the FBI checked with the owners, managers, or desk clerks of forty-one inexpensive hotels located in the vicinity of the Continental Trailways bus depot, Greyhound bus depot, and main U.S. Post Office in New Orleans, as well as the YMCA and Baptist Rescue Mission, and the name Lee Harvey Oswald did not show up on any of the hotel registers or those of the YMCA and Baptist Mission for the night of September 24, 1963.)1396 The only reason why Oswald would have to go through the trouble of making a separate trip to check his bags at the bus station would be if he wanted to conceal from his landlord the fact that he was skipping out on his rent, so he left after dark hoping the Garners wouldn’t see him, and if they saw him the next day leaving the apartment, he wouldn’t be carrying any baggage. But they didn’t see him the next day. Moreover, this reasoning falls when his neighbor testified that he saw Oswald leave with his baggage in the early evening. “It was kind of daylight. You could see.”1397 It is therefore likely that if Oswald left New Orleans by bus, he spent the night in the bus station to save money.
Oswald’s thirty-three-dollar weekly unemployment check arrived at the main post office in New Orleans sometime between 6:15 and 6:40 on the evening of September 24, well after the post office substation (Lafayette Square) where Oswald had a box had closed to the public, which occurred at 5:45 p.m.1398 The FBI determined that the earliest possible time Oswald could have obtained this check from his post office box was “subsequent to 5:00 AM on September 25, 1963.”1399 And we know that sometime after 8:00 on Wednesday morning, September 25, he cashed his thirty-three-dollar check at the Winn-Dixie Store near his apartment—somewhat oddly, since it was quite a distance back to his old neighborhood and he had cashed checks nearer to the post office before.1400 He couldn’t have been eager to be spotted in the old neighborhood either—that same day his landlord discovered that the apartment was empty and there was no sign of Oswald, who still owed a couple of weeks’ rent.1401
It has never been conclusively established precisely when Oswald left New Orleans, what route he took from New Orleans to the Mexican border, or even what mode of transportation he took out of New Orleans. All of this will be discussed in considerable depth in the Sylvia Odio part of the conspiracy section of this book. What follows is only one of several reasonable scenarios: that Oswald left New Orleans on Wednesday, September 25, probably on Continental Trailways. One Trailways bus, 5121, departed New Orleans at 12:20 p.m. and arrived in Houston at 10:50 p.m.1402 Sometime—many believe that evening while Oswald was in Houston—he called Horace Twiford, a Houston member of the Socialist Labor Party who had received Oswald’s name from the party’s headquarters in New York in July and had sent Oswald the Labor Day issue of the party’s publication, the Weekly People.
Twiford’s wife, Estelle, told Lee that her husband, a merchant seaman, was working aboard the SS Del Monte and would not be home for several days. Oswald told her he was a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and would have liked to talk with Horace that evening for a few hours before flying to Mexico. Mrs. Twiford took Lee’s name, noted the information about the FPCC, and promised Lee she would tell her husband he had called.1403
If Oswald had been in Houston when he called the Twiford residence, he would have had some time to wait there for his connecting bus, Continental Trailways bus number 5133, which left Houston for Laredo, Texas, via Corpus Christi at 2:35 a.m., that is, the next day, September 26. The passengers on that bus, including Oswald, changed to bus number 304 at Corpus Christi at 8:15 in the morning, and that bus arrived in Laredo about 1:20 in the afternoon of the same day.1404 We do know Oswald was on the bus that started from Houston, because at some time after six in the morning, with the coming of daylight, a couple of British tourists who would be traveling with Oswald and others all the way to Mexico City, Dr. John B. McFarland and his wife Meryl, who were on their way to Yucatan to study Indian culture, noticed him.1405
Oswald crossed the border from Laredo to the Mexican city on the other side, Nuevo Laredo, between 1:30 and 2:00 that afternoon, September 26.1406 This was the end of the line for the Continental Trailways bus, and many of their passengers, including Oswald and the McFarlands, boarded bus number 516 of the Flecha Roja (Red Arrow) Bus Line at Nuevo Laredo for the trip to Mexico City, leaving Nuevo Laredo at around 2:15 p.m. on September 26, 1963. The ticket cost Oswald $5.71 (71.40 pesos).1407
That is one story of how Lee Oswald made his way from New Orleans to the Mexican border. But is it the correct one? There is another account that places him not in Houston on Wednesday evening, September 25, 1963, on his way to Mexico, but in Dallas the following evening, Thursday, 244 miles away. Sylvia Odio, a beautiful young Cuban refugee living in the Crestwood Apartments in Dallas, was just getting dressed to go to a friend’s house for the evening—her sister Annie had come over to babysit her four young children—when she was reportedly visited at her door by two Latin men and a third man, an American whom Odio later identified as Oswald. Odio thought the visit came no earlier than 9:00 p.m., Thursday, September 26,1408 but by then Oswald had already been on a bus bound for Mexico for hours, a fact supported by a number of witnesses and documents. Some have suggested that Odio was confusing Thursday night with Wedn
esday night, or the American was not Oswald. If it was Oswald, it could only have been if he had been driven on Wednesday all the way from New Orleans to Odio’s apartment in Dallas (which, at 503 miles, would have been around an eight-hour trip in a car traveling a little over 60 mph). From there, Oswald would have had to be driven south about 244 miles to catch the bus in Houston that left for Laredo in the early morning hours (2:35 a.m.) on Thursday, September 26.1409 The entire issue, with its considerable implications on the issue of conspiracy, is discussed, as indicated earlier, in depth in the Odio section of the conspiracy part of this book. It is not surprising that this matter has been one of the very most controversial pieces of Lee Harvey Oswald’s story. The Warren Commission decided a little too hastily that Oswald was not one of the three men who visited Sylvia Odio.1410 Years later, the HSCA was more receptive to the notion of conspiracy, and did not discount the possibility that he was.1411 Neither settled the Odio controversy, which continues to this day.
At the first rest stop after the Flecha Roja bus left the border at Nuevo Laredo on its 750-mile trip to Mexico City, Meryl McFarland, who had been aware of Oswald sitting behind her since early that morning, decided to speak to him. She asked him if he wanted some coffee, and he replied, with typical Oswaldian graciousness, that he preferred to drink his coffee alone. Eventually, however, in spite of his rudeness, they did converse. Meryl had heard him chatting with his seatmate, an elderly gentleman who spoke with a slight northern British accent—Yorkshire, perhaps. She gathered from bits of their conversation that they had not been acquainted since chance threw them together on the crowded, dusty bus.
The McFarlands were surprised when Oswald told them of his plan to travel—illegally—to Cuba, where he hoped to meet Fidel Castro in Havana. The couple, from Liverpool, had been in the United States for a year at that time. John had been working as a research fellow at the University Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, but they had found time to travel a good deal, and they were well aware that Castro was anathema to most Americans. Meryl was surprised that Oswald would so openly advertise his admiration for the Cuban premier. He also told them that he was the secretary of a chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans, and that he had started his trip to Mexico City from New Orleans. By the end of the conversation the McFarlands decided that it was better not to have too much to do with him. Meryl definitely didn’t like his attitude. Though it wasn’t the way he dressed—the McFarlands recall Oswald wearing casual slacks, a light pullover, and a zippered jacket—in Meryl’s diary she described him as a “weedy, ratty little man.”1412
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