*
On November 23, 1963, Lyndon Johnson arrived at the White House for his first full day in office as president. Before he could settle down to business Johnson found McGeorge Bundy, JFK’s Assistant to the President for all National Security Affairs, awaiting him. Johnson sensed that Bundy appeared more fidgety than usual. Without a word, Bundy nodded, indicating that the president should follow him down a corridor.
Minutes later, the pair passed by two armed guards, through a steel doorway with 54/12 emblazoned on it. The situation room, as it was called, had been created in a cellar-like compound far beneath the White House basement, existing as an unknown cellar beneath the known one. Johnson gasped at the sight: immense wall maps, ticker tape machines, state of the art radar equipment, TV monitors, all these interconnected with brightly colored wires, abetted by a complex telephone system beyond that in his White House suite. This would be the only occasion on which he’d be invited—it felt like an order—to enter this sacrosanct place.
For the remainder of his current term and after winning re-election, LBJ’s contact with 54/12 would be Bundy, abetted only by occasions on which LBJ was visited by John Alex McCone, then-director of the CIA, the person for whom this secret enclave had been built. For a wide-eyed, slack-jawed LBJ, the vast bunker recalled the Bat-cave in D.C. comics he'd read as a kid, combined with elements from the title villain's deep-in-the-earth hideaway in Dr. No, the first James Bond film. He and Ladybird had seen that following a high recommendation by JFK.
“We’ll make this brief, Lyndon,” McCone stated in a flat, business-like tone. “I take it that you look forward to a long and happy run in the White House?”
“That’s what I’m hopin’ for.”
“I have no doubt that can be arranged, so long as you understand the one absolute rule now in existence.”
“I’m listening.”
“From this room, I make all decisions concerning America’s involvement in international affairs. I will convey necessary information to you through McGeorge. He’ll report to you daily so it won’t be necessary for you to meet with us often.”
“Us?”
McCone indicated the numbers on the wall. “54/12. Lyndon, understand: the CIA and aligned organizations will operate covertly throughout the world, in the best interests of the United States. You will be informed of our activities.”
“But ... I’m the president!”
“Yes, that’s true. And, Mr. President, do you know what George Clemenceau said way back in 1919?”
“’War is now too important to be left to the generals.’”
“Precisely. Today? Politics is too important to be left to the presidents. We—the 54/12 Group—learned that the hard way.”
“But what will I do ... say ...”
“As to the public, we don’t care, so long as you keep any mention of us out of it. Tell them the truth or tell them lies. As to social issues, you’re the boss. But when re-election time comes around again, if things in Southeast Asia are going well, tell the people you’ll wrap it up in Vietnam quick as possible. If things get sticky over there, tell them that if they vote you back into office, you’ll make certain American boys don’t die doing the job South Vietnamese boys should be doing. If we ascertain that the war can be scaled down, it will be. You can claim it was your doing. They’ll love you for it. If we see fit to escalate, you tell the public that you meant what you said when you said it, but that was then, this now. Circumstances altered. Things change. We will make such decisions.”
“In Vietnam.”
“Yes. Also, everywhere else in the world.”
“And I have no alternative but to follow your orders?”
“Sure,” McCone laughed. “You can end up like Kennedy.”
*
On November 24, at approximately ten a.m., Capt. John Will Fritz of the Dallas Police department’s homicide office gave up in his attempts over the past twelve hours to wring a confession out of Lee Harvey Oswald. During this procedure he’d been joined by Hosty and another FBI agent, James Bookhout. Despite their combined talents at drawing the truth out of a suspect, Oswald refused to say anything other than that when JFK was killed he’d been taking his lunch on the first floor of the Dallas Book Depository. Other employees who had been there at that time insisted that they couldn’t recall Oswald’s presence.
“If that were so, why did you slip away moments later?”
“I didn’t think there would be any work done that afternoon so I just left.”
“Where did you go?”
“Home. Having heard what happened to the president caused me to sweat like a pig. I showered, changed clothes, went out.”
“Where did you go?”
“To the movies.”
“Isn’t that odd?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t believe that’s what most people would have done.”
“Well, try and understand this: I’m not most people. I’m me. I do what I do, not what I think others would. How’s that?”
“Why would you carry a pistol into the theatre?”
“Self-defense. There was a killer running around loose!”
Oswald was asked if he’d like a lawyer and he mentioned a top New York attorney. Oswald appeared in a line-up. When the police found three cartridges from Oswald’s pistol near the body of a policeman named Tippit, who had been murdered shortly after the shooting of the president (it was this crime Oswald had been arrested for), as well as three bullets near the window that Oswald might have occupied, holding his rifle, as JFK drove by, he was now arraigned before Judge David Johnson for “the murder with malice of the president.” Hours earlier Lee had been accused of killing Tippet in a different area of Dallas.
Fritz, following direct orders, began to prepare Oswald for a transfer from police headquarters to county jail.
“My name is Thomas J. Keller,” a tall, rugged fellow said to Oswald just before Fritz’s men moved the suspect down to the basement for his car ride from one incarceration to what was supposed to be the next. “I’m with the Secret Service. You claim not to be guilty of killing the president.”
“That is absolutely correct.”
“I’d be very anxious to talk with you to make sure that the correct story, as you believe it to have gone down, developed.”
“I’ll be glad to. Just as soon as I meet with my lawyer.”
Nodding, Keller stood back and watched as the handcuffed Oswald was accompanied to the basement, where an unmarked car awaited him for the move. Once below, in the bowels of the building, Lee was stunned at what awaited him.
Flood-lights were turned on and bathed him to the point of blindness in an eerie white light of the order some movie star might experience while arriving for a premiere. Photographers snapped pictures while journalists called out for a statement.
This is it. The moment I’ve waited all in my life for!
“Here he comes,” someone shouted.
What was it Cagney said in some old gangster film, just before they blew him away? ‘Made it, Ma. Top of the world!’
“Mr. Oswald, did you kill President Kennedy?”
Marguerite? Are you watching TV? Just like in the movies. Top of the world ...
“Did you act alone or were you part of a conspiracy?”
What did Gloria Swanson say in Sunset Boulevard? ‘I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille ...’
“Mr. Oswald, please. Make a statement.”
What did a world-famous author claim to want most in a French film? To become immortal ... and then die.
“I’m a patsy,” Lee cried out into the camera. “A patsy!”
CHAPTER TWENTY:
THE LAST PICTURE SHOW
“He who has taken wife and child has
given hostages to fortune.”
—Henry David Thoreau, 1841
“Mr. Brewer? Come look at this, will you?”
John Calvin Brewer, the youthful manager of a prominen
t shoe store on Jefferson Street, hurried over to the twin front windows. He had, like most everyone else in Dallas, been riveted to the radio all day. During the noon hour gleeful broadcasts of the presidential motorcade kept his staff and their clients spellbound. Then, horror intruded. Shots were fired. The president, wounded in the head, had been rushed to Parkland hospital.
Some people in the store screamed. Others wept. A few fell silent, unable to digest such inconceivable information.
“What is it, Alice?”
Sirens whirred as police cars tore by, headed for the spot where Tenth intersected with Dalton. From there, a few blocks down from the shoe store, more gunfire had been heard. Rumors from people stepping in from the street had it that a policeman, apprehending a suspect, lay dying on the concrete.
“Look!”
The alert sales-person had noticed a slender young man, appearing anxious for himself rather than concerned for others, hurrying west on Jefferson. As the two police cars whizzed past, the young man, acting differently than anyone else, darted into the extended entry-way to the shoe-store, turning his face away.
“Something’s not right here.”
“Mr. Brewer, what should we do?”
Some of the other horrified people in the store had come up behind them to get a look at whatever suspicious actions were taking place. Suddenly a makeshift community, they watched as this man, brow furrowed with anxiety, continued along the street, twisting and turning his way through waves of zombie-like citizens.
Brewer observed as the man approached the Texas Theatre. He did not buy a ticket, slipping in alongside other patrons.
“You’re in charge, Alice, until I return.”
“Mr. Brewer, where are you going?”
“Stay calm.” With that, he left the building, following the route Oswald had taken. Moments later Brewer stood in front of the theatre, explaining to a stunned cashier in the glass booth what had occurred. Without hesitation, the girl reached for her phone and called the police. While waiting for their arrival, Brewer glanced up at the marquee. A pair of World War II action films, Cry of Battle and War is Hell!, were double-billed.
“Of course, it may turn out to be nothing, Miss.”
“Let’s hope so. But you were right to let me know.”
Then one patrol car after another came tearing around the corner, screeching to a halt. More than a dozen men in blue poured out. People on the street gathered, sensing something big about to happen. The policemen quickly closed off every exit.
“Mr. Brewer? I’m patrolman McDonald. Would you be able to identify the suspect?”
“Absolutely.”
“Alright, then. Come with me.”
They proceeded down an alleyway adjacent to the theatre and approached the rear exit. As they entered, the theatre lights brightened. Detective Paul L. Bentley had rushed up into the balcony and instructed the projectionist to do this. Moviegoers couldn’t grasp what might be going on.
The film continued to roll as Brewer and MacDonald stepped onstage, dwarfed by the larger than life image of Van Heflin and James MacArthur battling over Rita Moreno. For a moment, viewers couldn’t tell where the show left off and reality began.
“That’s him,” Brewer affirmed, indicating a man off to his left, seated a few rows down from the lobby. “He’s the one.”
From all directions, uniformed and undercover policemen swarmed over Oswald. They awaited McDonald who, followed by Brewer, swiftly proceeded from the stage to this man’s spot.
“Hey, fellas,” Lee said, sneering. “Will you please back off and leave me alone? At least until the film finishes up?”
*
On October 15, Lee stepped off the bus that had carried him back from Mexico City to Laredo, Texas, at the Customs Shed. There all would be subject to search before proceeding over the border. This was a notably different person than the one who had crossed southward on September 26. Quiet, sober and humbled, he hurried to a pay phone and called the home of Ruth Paine.
“Marina doesn’t want to speak with you, Lee.”
“Ruth, this is important. Everything will be different—”
“How many times have you told the poor girl that?”
“This time, I mean it. Forever.”
A long silence. Then: “I’ll check with her. That’s all I can do.” Lee thanked Ruth profusely and waited. Five minutes later, she came back. “I tried. Marina can‘t take any more.”
“Tell her Lee said ‘everything will be the way she wants it. Not the way I think she wants it. I’m a changed man.’”
Yet when he arrived in Dallas, Lee did not immediately make the trip to Irving. Though he would have been welcome to stay overnight at the Paines’ house, Lee checked in to a YMCA. The following morning he searched for an apartment, locating a room at a house on North Marsalis, in Oak Cliff. That afternoon he lined up at the Texas Employment Commission in hopes of scoring a job. Lee applied for a position as a typesetter, failing to mention his dyslexia, which might well have disqualified him.
Then he stepped alongside the highway, stuck out a thumb, and hitched up to Irving. When he appeared at the screen door Marina happened to be passing by. Lee’s presence, so unexpected, this coupled with her even then thinking about him, caused Marina to gasp. Ruth and her estranged husband Michael, hearing voices, approached, saw them together, then made some flimsy excuse to go out for an evening drive. Marina hesitantly let Lee in.
“First, I want to see June.”
“Later. She’s sleeping.”
“Alright, then. Let’s you and I have it out.”
“We said it all in New Orleans.”
“Everything’s different now. This is ‘the new Lee.’”
“Oh? What happened to Jesus Christ, off to save the world?”
“Never again. I have only one mission, now and forever.”
“And what, may I ask, is that?”
“To be the best husband I can to you. The best father to baby June. And our child yet to be born.”
“From the Second Coming, then, to Norman Normal?”
“Marina, I think that deep down that’s what I’ve always wanted most. Now, I truly believe I can have it.”
Lee then proceeded to explain. He had left her believing he’d found his great purpose in life and traveled to Mexico City, despite Marina’s objections, to achieve his mission. While there, and on the bus trip back, he came to understand that all he’d ever believed to be frivolous turned out to be what really mattered. Conversely, all Lee had held important? Utterly worthless.
“Make me believe you. Lee, I so want to.”
*
“United States leaders should think that if they are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders,” Castro said, “they themselves will not be safe.” Lee gasped at the words, spoken over a worldwide radio connection from Havana. When asked what might be his response, Castro growled: any such attempts would be “answered in kind.” Still in New Orleans, already convinced he must personally do something to diffuse the heightening tension in the world, Lee took this as Castro’s direct threat to JFK.
Not the CIA, who had for years employed operatives like Lee himself to try and debilitate, then murder Castro. Kennedy!
I must get down there at once. Somehow reach Fidel. Explain that Kennedy and the Company are now entirely at odds.
Me! I’ll help Kennedy and Castro set the past aside.
Castro’s ultimatum hadn’t received a direct response from the White House, JFK not wishing to dignify it. Nonetheless, JFK had Bobby and Gen. Maxwell Taylor call together a committee of a special group within the National Security Council. They convened at the Department of State on September 12, at 2:30 P.M., to initiate future positions on Cuba and the Company.
“We must reach a conclusion and do so today,” Bobby began.
Were the CIA to attempt even once more to take Castro’s life, there existed “a strong likelihood that Castro would retaliate in some way.” Most likel
y this would constitute only a “low level” response. Still, it would be unwise to assume that something considerably bigger couldn’t possibly occur.
“So what do we do?” Taylor asked. “I for one don’t believe that we can simply sit back and let events take their course.”
“Most certainly not,” Bobby answered. “Here’s one thought. Some time ago in Florida, I met an extremely dedicated agent. He was with the CIA at the time, but appears, from our sources, to have experienced an alteration of position not unlike the one we here today are mutually expressing.”
“Might he make the connection with Castro for us?”
“Possibly. Though we can’t sneak him into Cuba without arousing suspicions. The man would have to, if this were to work, proceed to Mexico, there to legally enter Cuba.”
“At every turn, the CIA would create resistance.”
“Yes. While, I’d guess, trying to convince this agent that they are doing all they could to help him.”
“Do you believe such an approach could succeed?”
“I believe the odds are against it. Formidably! Also, that we have absolutely nothing to lose in trying.”
“Except, possibly, the agent’s life.”
*
On September 25 Lee had boarded a Continental Trailways bus at Nuevo Laredo, crossing over into Mexico. He happened to be seated next to a surgeon from England, John Bryan McFarland. That man innocently asked Oswald why he was heading south.
“Actually, to try and arrange travel to Cuba.”
“Oh,” McFarland responded. “Why go there?”
“To see Castro,” Oswald said, flashing his signature sneer.
Lee disembarked at the main Mexico City bus terminal at ten a.m., September 27. He walked to the nearby Hotel Comercial, a dump at which he could pick up a room for slightly more than a dollar a day. After washing and shaving, he hurried over to the Cuban Embassy. There Lee explained his desire to visit Cuba (if not his specific plan) to a hostess. She arranged a meeting with the consul, Silvia Tirado de Duran. Lee presented that surprised official with a brochure of newspaper clippings about his heady involvement with Fair Play, introducing himself as one of those “righteous” and “enlightened” U.S. citizens.
Patsy! : The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald Page 41
