Everyone smiled and nodded, reiterating their admiration and appreciation. This was something each would tell his kids about. Their grandchildren, too, if they lived that long.
Part of Lee burned to step in, head on over, introduce himself. Mention he’d prepared the food, hoped Mr. Wayne enjoyed it. Explain that he, Lee Oswald, worshipped the ground Wayne walked on. Yet he held back, hovering in the doorway as others took advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The problem was, the other marines knew Lee not as the super-patriot he was but as the communist sympathizer, according to Lee’s “legend,” he performed at all hours of the day. What if one said something to The Duke about Ozzie being the squadron’s Soviet Fifth Columnist? Why, Wayne might slap him around, as he had done to more than one commie in his 1952 film Big Jim McLain.
If Lee were to say, ‘Oh, how I loved Hondo!’ others might realize that what Lee offered was nothing but a created character. Everything he and George had developed could be lost.
I’m wearing only a T-shirt, whereas the men in there look natty in uniform. I don’t smell so good. So near, so far ...
“Hey, Mrs. Oswald. What’s a matter? Not man enough to go on in and say ‘hi’ to John Wayne?”
Lee turned to see Perry Sommers hulking behind him, flashing the nastiest grin he could muster. Sommers rudely brushed by, purposefully banging against the slender marine.
That’s it. The final straw. A man can take only so much!
*
Lee had hated Corregidor from the moment the marines first landed. Almost every waking hour was spent on mess duty while others set up a radar command post, spending free time swimming or sunbathing. Even George could not, from behind the scenes, do anything about that. This bored Lee worse than the routine in Atsugi, where he had been assigned to stare into Crystal Balls. That was their nickname for radarscopes, the basic equipment for men assigned to this specialty. Every radio communication from base to a flyer had to be carefully monitored. Their duty was to oversee the area stretching from the South China Sea to Korea and ascertain that things above remained normal.
If any questionable plane, perhaps a MIG flown by some Red Chinese pilot, was spotted, popping up first as a dark glitch, this followed by a loud beeping sound, Lee alerted the Tactical Air Control Center at Iwakuni. Moments later, interceptor jets would take off to head-on meet any potential threat.
All had not been easy there, however. Perry Sommers was the catalyst for friction between Lee and the others. Relentlessly, Sommers questioned Lee as to his status: “Still our ‘cherry virgin?’” In response Lee grinned, saying nothing.
Mostly, in situations involving Lee with the squad members, including those who treated him with respect, he remained mum as to his personal life. Which only piqued their interest.
On other issues, Lee proved to be the most talkative guy around. He would leap whole-hog into rap sessions on movies or music. When talk turned to politics, Lee would suddenly tear off on a tirade against the American right wing.
Most bizarre were those occasions when the marine called Oswald the Rabbit would transform himself into an imitation of an even more famous cartoon bunny. At odd, unexpected intervals, Lee would step into their work-bubble and shout, “What’s up, Doc?” Some marines began referring to him as Bugs.
Initially, Lee laughed along with them. Things took an ugly turn when Sommers, having appointed himself Lee’s nemesis, decided that “Mrs. Oswald” ought to be his new identity.
*
“We gotta get you laid,” Gator Daniels announced two days later. By ‘we’ he referred to himself and two other marines who had befriended L.H.O. These were Gordy Wilkins, an upstate New York native whose sophisticated views were obvious whenever he spoke, and Wilkins’ foil, Zack Stout, a lovable rube from the heartlands who joined the Corps less owing to patriotism than boredom. As for Gator, he had wrestled with the beasts deep in the Everglades since childhood. They were the four musketeers, Lee functioning as the innocent young D’Artagnan.
Oswald and Gator constituted the unlikeliest of odd couples. They first became chummy while crossing over from California to Hawaii aboard USS Bexar. That transport departed San Diego on August 21, 1957. Assumed by most onboard to be a moronic giant, Gator-—who had never even heard of chess—was impressed that Ozzie, the undisputed champion, would take time out from reading his latest favorite, Leaves of Grass, to teach this supposed Neanderthal how to play.
Lee’s initial fear of another betrayal proved unfounded, as he would soon discover. Not only did Gator turn out to be a true friend; he also happened to be as innately intelligent as Lee. Gator’s ignorance was due to an upbringing in which he’d barely been taught to read and write. Though Gator’s language remained modest and crude, his thoughts at last began to take shape.
“Y’know, Lee, yer right. This Marx makes some sense.”
Following a brief stay, The Bexar left Hawaii and continued on to Japan, arriving there during the first week of September. As all the men learned upon arrival at Atsugi, directly across the rice fields from the base, several night clubs beckoned to marines when they secured passes. There they could enjoy liquor, gambling, and the flesh of Asian ‘hostesses’.
“Whether you partake or not,” a lieutenant explained, “is your business. Understand this: under no circumstances should you talk with any of the girls about anything that occurs on base. Most of them are precisely what they appear to be; whores who want only your money. On the other hand, one in a hundred is a spy for the Reds. It’s impossible to tell these apart from others who hope to trade their bodies for American dollars.”
Initially, Lee let on that he was too shy to go along when his buddies headed out. Radical politics aside, Lee remained an old-fashioned moralist who didn’t approve of giving in to one’s vices. Sommers stirred the others up against Lee. If at first the term “cherry virgin” (now applying only to Lee’s ”legend,” not his secret self, thanks to Honey and other willing teachers) irked Lee, his nemesis pumped up the volume on his harassment.
“The problem with Mrs. Oswald ain’t that he’s a cherry virgin. It’s that he don’t wanna do nothin’ about it.”
Why do some men assume I’m a queer? A cherry virgin is bad enough. Until not so long ago, that’s what I was. But how does that translate into homosexual? Why would they suspect me?
I’ve been with Sara, the best-looking woman on this base. Honey, the Mob’s dream girl. A Marilyn Monroe look-alike. If only I could tell them ...
Funny, as this is what I wanted for so long. Keep a veil between me and everyone else. Now, I’d love to tell all. The real L.H.O. is not only a highly accomplished cocks-man but has bedded some of the most beautiful women in the world.
Yet that must remain secret, the legend—based on the L.H.O. I once was—accepted by all as my reality.
Oh! The irony of it all ...
*
Perhaps the ugliest moment for Lee occurred shortly before Christmas. Marguerite had sent him a Care Package filled with assorted goodies. What Lee most appreciated were the red and white holiday candies, round little suckers that tasted like candy canes. Minding his business, Lee sat on a bunk, sorting them for himself and friends. Sommers happened by and, with a ham-like fist, smashed them into bits. Lee snapped.
“You bastard. You no good freakin’ son of a bitch!”
As Sommers attempted to force Lee into a corner, Lee’s giant of a protector hurried over. “You wanna hit Ozzie,” Gator howled, coming up from behind and slugging Sommers hard on the spine, “why not start with me, you friggin‘ prick?”
Once recovered, Sommers quickly backed off, trying to make light of the whole thing. “Hey, Gator, I was just joshin’—”
“Josh with me,” Gator continued, closing in, Sommers now backed against the barracks wall. Gator shoved his huge chin forward. “Take the first shot. Go on! Then it’ll be my turn.”
“I got no gripe with you,” Sommers whined, crouching in fea
r. “You’re a regular guy.”
“Yeah? Well, so’s my pal Ozzie. You frickin’ un’erstan‘?”
“Sure, sure,” Sommers awkwardly agreed, darting away. There would be no further such incidents, not that the ribbing—now mostly behind Lee’s back—abated. At least not yet.
Meanwhile, a well-intentioned sergeant sat Lee down for a talk. He explained that Lee brought a lot of this crap down on himself by talking like a communist.
“Let me give you a bit of advice, Ozzie. There’s nothing more stupid in life than doing the same thing over and over again while always expecting different results. Remember that!”
*
The days spent by those marines serving in the Air Control Squadron operations room were tedious, exhausting, depressing, and utterly unrewarding. The base, built in 1938, occupied by Americans since 1950. The sprawling set of structures were located halfway down the island’s westward-stretching curvature, in a southeastern area known as the Kamagawa Pefecture, straddling the twin cities of Yamato and Ayase. As to radar specialists, during work-hours they found themselves confined within a tight compartment they, on arrival, nicknamed The Bubble: a glass-enclosed top-of-tower circular room. A continuous succession of seven-man-teams occupied the claustrophobia-inducing area, machinery and other technological devices taking up the lion's share of space, for five to six hour stretches. Then one group would be replaced by the next shift. Always, and without fail, the bubble must be manned.
As a member of the Coffee Mill, his outfit’s logo, Lee spent what felt like endless hours, employing an MPS-11 radar height-finding-antennae to determine what passed by. Fully dominating the enclosed area spread an immense plotting board, translucent and, in the dim light, ghostly. Here marines would mark with grease pencils the intercept route of anything above.
If a single thing always took the men's minds off such everyday miseries, this was the presence of an unknown flying object that, from time to time, appeared down there on the mile-long runway. In time they learned its name: the U2, kept in a special hangar built some distance apart from those which housed routine planes. Rumors spread about what might be the function of this large, strangely shaped, blue-black device. Descending from a flight the U2 had to be supported by jeeps on either side to keep its awkward wings from dragging. Afterwards, tractors would haul the U2 back to its private place, where a coterie of fully armed guards oversaw its exclusivity.
The jet, if that’s what this bizarre creation was, could reach altitudes of more than 90,000 ft., one Coffee Mill member insisted after charting the U2's course. Nonsense, others piped in; that's not possible. You've been watching too many science-fiction films. It's our state-of-the-art reconnaissance aircraft, another ventured, tested in secret here before flying high over Russia on spy missions.
Lee never joined in any of these discussions, acting as if he did not know any more than the others and that he could care less. Actually, nothing on the base intrigued him more. The U2 was the reason why he, and for that matter all in his unit (to cover Lee’s “legend”), had been assigned to this specific job in this particular place. The military had received word from high-ranking members of the confederacy of departments known in the postwar world as the intelligence community—the State Dept., the Defense Intelligence Agency; the FBI; the Office of Naval Intelligence; G-2; the National Security Agency; the CIA—that this assignment must be made at once and without question.
George had informed Lee as to what was coming in one of their private meetings several weeks before Lee and the other marines shipped out on August 22, 1957, disembarking at the port of Yokosuka on September 12. From there they were transported by truck to this base. For reasons the two would discuss at length upon Lee’s return, he was assigned to, from time to time, be seen in the vicinity of the U2’s hanger, even though this area was off-limits. To make Lee’s “interest” more widely known, he was to purchase a camera and stealthily snap photos of the U2.
*
When Lee agreed to accompany Gator, Gordy and Zack to the Bluebird so as to complete “the final rite of manhood” (Gordy’s words), Lee’s only friends were stunned when he, after a few drinks, ran off at the mouth about the presence on their base of this nearly-fantastical piece of flying equipment. The others made it a point to confer with Lee about this on the way back, requesting Lee not allow himself to be singled out as some sort of loose-lipped fool or, worse, a traitor.
Lee scoffed, insisting that word had long since leaked out and these hostesses knew more about it than they did.
During that first visit, Lee drank but refused to gamble. That would come in the carefully schematized narrative he now controlled while seeming to be a powerless tag-a-long.
I’m a chess-champion, the puppet-master. Just like George!
Best of all, in the minds of his buddies, Lee rose to the occasion after slipping into a narrow room with a whore. After some coaxing, Ozzie did her proper, then marched proudly into the club’s main cooridor, flashing that insane grin. Every marine present, with the exception only of Sommers, cheered him on. The men did not call him “Mrs. Oswald” ever again.
Initially, though, rumors as to Lee’s sexual preference did continue. Whenever he traveled the further distance to Tokyo for a weekend, Lee always insisted on going alone, even if his best friends were also headed there. Talk had it, initially at least, that he visited several of the male prostitutes who haunted that city of shadows. Others, now convinced of Lee’s masculinity, had another theory; he was off to visit Communist headquarters there, passing information about our latest radar-height finding antennas to the enemy and, worse still, his photos of the U2.
A third possibility trickled down to the enlisted men from a surprising source: their officers. Word leaked out that Lee had been in Tokyo frequenting a high-class (i.e., expensive, with truly beautiful women) brothel known as The Queen Bee. Most men below the rank of lieutenant never went near it less owing to restrictions than cost: more than $100 for the night, hardly affordable for men whose pay ranged between $70 (Buck Private) to $90 (Sgt.) a month. Yet according to several officers able to afford a visit, one PFC had been in attendance on Friday and Saturday during a single weekend. Where did the money come from?
Some marines did not believe Ozzie could get near, much less handle, the most attractive prostitute: The Dragon Lady, her nickname hailing from the seductive Asian villainess in the popular comic strip Terry and the Pirates. It was rumored that even the most tight-lipped of johns spilled all to this dark beauty while in her elegant boudoir. Everyone gasped with disbelief when, one day, the Dragon Lady traveled down from Tokyo to Atsugi to spend a weekend with L.H.O. Majestic, at least an inch taller than the runty marine, the spectacular beauty proudly marched around the base, gripping Lee’s arm as if he were ... Sinatra. Lee showed her ‘the sights’.
I need a favor. Come on down to the base so I can show you off. When you do, act like I’m ... I don’t know ... have you read the James Bond novels? 007; Yes? Great! I’ll act nonchalant and you as if you can’t keep your hands off of me. In return I will provide those pictures of the U2’s interior ...
Yet whenever one among them marched over to headquarters and requested to file a report, nothing ever came of it. As for Lee, he continued his tirades. Gator shocked everyone when he, finally growing uncomfortable with Lee, admitted during a late-night poker game that Lee had actually suggested defecting.
*
On October 18, 1957, his eighteenth birthday, Lee strolled from the wooden two-story barracks in which the 117 man MACS-1 unit was quartered, this located on the easternmost perimeter of the Atsugi base near the main entrance, to the compound’s far side. None of the others had ever gone over there, though Lee visited the ‘compound within the compound,’ as some referred to the two-dozen nondescript buildings, on a daily basis. Officially referred to as “The Joint Technical Advisory Group” (most marines did not have a clue what that meant), this secretive area housed the CIA’s headquarters in
Japan.
Here was where Ozzie arrived each morning to pick up his encoded messages containing the latest orders from George. These pertained to his weekend passes, Lee enjoying prostitutes on The Company’s tab (the CIA, not his assigned company) while passing disinformation George knew would confuse Soviets once Lee’s false ‘facts’ were added to the KGB’s mix on the U2.
“Hi, Lee,” the pretty brunette known only as Sara brightly said. “No message today. But you’re to call George. The cable-connection is set up and all ready to go.”
This surprised Lee if only because it had never occurred before during the two months he’d served at Atsugi. As Lee and George had carefully planned, Lee earlier arrived at the Naval Air Technology Training Center in Jacksonville, Florida in late March, 1957. There he was promoted to Private First Class, soon cleared to handle documents marked Confidential and/or Classified. This to the dismay of Allen Felde, a squad member who had been with Lee since San Diego and was fed-up with Lee’s rants.
“I don’t get it,” Felde openly stated, sometimes in front of Lee. “If they’d clear this Red bastard, they’d clear anyone.”
As for Ozzie, he in response simply lowered his head slightly and drew his mouth into that twisted half-grin ...
It’s working. My “legend” is established. Word will spread, and in due time, the Commies will contact me ... and believe all I tell them about our secrets ... my disinformation ...
“Did he say what it’s about?” Sara shook her head while raising her eyebrows and gritting her teeth, the brunette’s manner of communicating ‘I don’t have a clue!’ She escorted Lee into a small, tidy office, the only adornments a pair of old photographs, one of Pres. Eisenhower in his WWII dress uniform, the other that famous shot of marines raising the flag atop Mt. Surabachi during the battle of Iwo Jima. Sara handed Lee a tattered Life to read, then left, providing total privacy.
Patsy! : The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald Page 17
