At the end of many of these sections Oswald attached some of the letters and other documents he’d collected. The handwritten sheets appear in the Commission’s published exhibits.
This material is more revealing than the Commission realized. The section on his military service was probably intended to show that he was qualified to serve as a revolutionary soldier. There would otherwise seem to have been little point in giving so many details. The other material seems designed to demonstrate that he was versatile and well-qualified to serve the revolution in other capacities—as a political organizer or translator, for example.
Under the heading “Marxist,” he wrote that he had attended “numerous Marxist reading circles and groups” at the factory where he worked in Minsk, “some of which were compulsory and others which were not,” and indicated that he had learned still more about the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin from Russian newspapers and TV, adding that “such articles are given very good coverage daily in the USSR.” That last statement indicates that he wrote this résumé with the Cuban officials in mind and not the Russians, who would certainly have known about such articles.
In a brief section entitled “Russian” he said that he was “totally proficient in speaking conversational Russian” and appended the letter Peter Gregory had given him back in June 1962. Knowing that there were Russian technicians and advisers in Cuba, Oswald may have thought his knowledge of the language would be useful. Throughout, the document presents not only what he had done, but something of what he thought he was capable of doing. For instance, in phrasing similar to that of an ordinary job résumé, he wrote, “I am experienced in street agitation having done it in New Orleans.…”
But probably the most telling part of the résumé came under the heading “Photographer.” It reveals a corner of Oswald’s fantasy life that had first surfaced in 1961, when he told Marina he would have loved the dangerous life of a spy. When he worked at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, he struck up an acquaintance with a co-worker, Dennis Hyman Ofstein, who taught him how to use some of the photographic equipment. After they had become friendlier, Oswald asked him if he knew what the term “microdot” meant. He then explained to Ofstein that microdots were highly reduced photographs used to transmit secret information—and indeed they are, as any reader of spy novels knows. Very likely, Oswald was hoping Ofstein could teach him how to reduce a photograph to that size. But Ofstein had never heard the term, and the equipment at the plant wasn’t capable of producing any such photographs. The word “microdot” also appears in a notebook of Oswald’s next to the name Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall. In his résumé, Oswald wrote down the dates he had worked for them and that he was familiar with “blowups, miniaturization, etc.”
Overall, this document suggests that Oswald didn’t consider himself a miserable failure who, as the Warren Report put it, saw Cuba as “his last escape hatch, his last gambit to extricate himself from the mediocrity and defeat which plagued him throughout most of his life.” Instead, these credentials indicate that he saw himself as an experienced political operative who was qualified to work for the Cuban revolution as a soldier, lecturer, organizer, agitator, translator, or spy. His ambition was evidently much the same as it had been in 1959. As Kerry Thornley had guessed, he expected to be welcomed aboard, and he would then go out and distinguish himself in the Communist world and work his way up—after twenty years, he might even get to be prime minister. For someone who couldn’t hold a job in the United States, he had some extraordinary ambitions.
During the first six months of 1963 there had been little, if any, American sabotage activities against Cuba—the results were not considered worth the effort. But in June 1963 the Special Group of the National Security Council decided, with the president’s approval, to step up covert operations inside Cuba.
Sabotage missions were carried out by Cuban exiles led by paramilitary specialists under contract to the CIA. Operating out of Florida, they ran boats to Cuba that dropped off agents and supplies. As in many other such underground operations, the chief purpose was to sabotage the economy and promote disaffection with the government among the people. But some of the raiders had ideas about more direct action. As far as they and their American advisers were concerned, there was a war going on. The CIA’s deputy director of intelligence during that period, Ray Cline, later told a journalist, “I’m almost positive that there was no serious CIA-controlled effort to assassinate anybody, but I think the intention of some infiltration teams was to do it.” And one of the Cuban raiders said, “The papers now want to say there were plots. Well, I can tell you there were plots. I took a lot of weapons to Cuba. Some of them were very special weapons for special purposes. They were powerful rifles with sophisticated scopes—Springfields with bolt actions, rifles only used by snipers.… Everyone in the underground was plotting to kill Castro, and the CIA was helping the underground.” Occasionally some of the infiltrators and their supporters inside Cuba were captured and shot.
On August 18 anti-Castro commandoes shelled and machine-gunned a Cuban factory. On the 21st, the day of Oswald’s radio debate, the Times-Picayune reported that the Cuban government had charged that the raid was planned, organized, and supplied by the CIA. Ten days later a front-page story headlined “Policy Changed on Cuba Attacks” quoted a Washington Post report that the new U.S. policy was to “neither encourage nor discourage” such raids, if they were militarily feasible and not carried out simply for publicity purposes. This change was seen as “an encouragement to activist exiles.”
In early September the CIA renewed its contact with one of its informants, a high-level Cuban official codenamed AM/LASH. Although the CIA was primarily interested in keeping AM/LASH in place for intelligence purposes, AM/LASH now proposed that he engineer a coup involving, as a first step, Castro’s assassination. The case officers who talked with him in Brazil cabled headquarters on September 7 saying that AM/LASH was interested in attempting an “inside job” against Castro and was awaiting a U.S. plan of action.
Even while covert activities continued, however, the White House was considering an attempt to establish communications with the Cuban government. Beginning in September, an adviser to the American delegation to the United Nations, William Attwood, had a series of informal talks with the Cuban ambassador to the U.N. to try to open negotiations leading to an accommodation between the two countries. When Attwood individually informed Robert Kennedy and McGeorge Bundy of his effort, each agreed it was worth pursuing.
Thus, American policy was proceeding along two distinct and contradictory roads. Attwood had advised the White House of his diplomatic efforts, but the CIA officials involved with AM/LASH didn’t inform the White House of theirs. Richard Helms testified that he didn’t believe it was necessary,
… given this Cuban of his standing and all the history … of trying to find someone inside Cuba who might head a government and have a group to replace Castro … this was so central to the whole theme of everything we had been trying to do, that I [found] it totally unnecessary to ask Robert Kennedy at that point [whether] we should go ahead with this.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Oswald was pursuing his own covert activities, evidently determined to play a role in the international chess game.
On September 5 two planes dropped bombs on Santa Clara, Cuba. Late in the evening of September 7 Premier Castro gave an impromptu, three-hour interview to Associated Press reporter Daniel Harker during a reception at the Brazilian Embassy in Havana. Two days later the Times-Picayune reported:
CASTRO BLASTS RAIDS ON CUBA
Says U.S. Leaders Imperiled by Aid to Rebels
Havana (AP)—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 US-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 terrorist plans to
eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not be safe.”
Castro went on to accuse the United States of “double-crossing” policies and called President Kennedy a “cheap and crooked politician.” A similar story appeared in the States Item.
What were these terrorist plans Castro referred to? Although it’s possible that Cuban intelligence had learned of the AM/LASH operation, Castro implied that the plot was connected to the recent raids carried out by Cuban exiles. As the Church committee noted, talk of assassinating Castro was common among the more militant exile groups. It was “part of the ambience of that time” for militant exiles to say that the best way to get their country back was to shoot Fidel. The committee report says, “Castro’s September 7 statement could have been referring to information he received relating to such assassination plots hatched by exile leaders. In addition there were paramilitary raids on Cuba by exile leaders shortly before Castro’s interview.” In any case, Raymond Rocca, a CIA official who had been assigned to work with the Warren Commission, wrote in 1975, “There can be no question from the facts surrounding the Castro appearance, which had not been expected, and his agreement to the interview, that this event represented a more-than-ordinary attempt to get a message on the record in the United States.”
Castro was mistaken to assume, as a matter of course, that President Kennedy had ordered or had specific knowledge of any of these attempts. They grew out of the crisis atmosphere that prevailed, when it seemed to many people that Castro had to be removed by any means necessary. So far as anyone knows, the president never saw Castro’s intended message. But among the potential readers was Lee Harvey Oswald, a disturbed young radical who had been following the local papers looking for a way to help Cuba. With his taste for violence and his subjective interpretations of everything he read, Castro’s warning may indeed have seemed like the king’s outcry against Becket quoted earlier by Senator Charles Mathias: “Who will rid me of this man?” The irony is that the CIA plots may have evolved in the same manner.
During September Oswald eagerly awaited Ruth Paine’s arrival. After Marina and June went to stay at Ruth’s home in Irving, he would be free to go to Mexico City to apply for a Cuban visa. He informed his wife that he would also visit the Soviet Embassy in Mexico and try to speed up her return to the Soviet Union. He assured her that if everything worked out he would arrange for her to join him in Cuba or for him to visit her in Russia. When Ruth arrived he led her to believe that he was going to Houston or Philadelphia to look for work, and cautioned Marina not to tell her anything about his actual destination.
The women left for Texas on September 23. Oswald was seen hurrying out of his apartment, suitcases in hand, the following afternoon. After a gap of two nights and a day, he was spotted in south Texas on a Trailways bus headed for the Mexican border. During the intervening period, Oswald was reportedly in Dallas. His appearance there provides the first indication that Oswald had read Castro’s warning and that he was responding to it with his own idea of political action, much as he had to other news reports about Cuba that summer.
11 … The Troubling Testimony of Sylvia Odio—“A Matter of Some Importance to the Commission”
DURING 1963 Sylvia Odio, an attractive, 26-year-old Cuban exile, was a leader of the anti-Castro movement in Dallas. Mrs. Odio had a personal reason for wanting to see Fidel overthrown. She came from a wealthy Cuban family that had supported Castro before the revolution but later turned against him. Since 1961, her parents had been imprisoned in Cuba, her father at the prison on the Isle of Pines.
At about nine o’clock on the evening of September 25, 1963, the doorbell rang at Sylvia Odio’s apartment in Dallas. Her sister Annie answered, then went to call Sylvia to the door. Standing under the outside light were three strangers. Keeping the chain latch on, Sylvia took a good look at them. Two were Latin Americans in T-shirts who looked tired and scruffy. One was taller and had an unusual bald spot on one side of his hairline. The other one—she thought he looked Mexican—was shorter, heavier, and “very hairy.” The third man standing between them was an Anglo-American who vaguely needed a shave.
One of the Latins asked, “Are you Sarita Odio?”
She told him she was not. “That is my sister [who is] studying at the University of Dallas. I am Sylvia.”
Then he asked, “Is she the oldest?”
“No, I am the oldest.”
And he said, “It is you we are looking for.”
He told her they were members of the Cuban Revolutionary Junta (JURE), the anti-Castro organization Sylvia Odio belonged to. Suspicious, she asked their names. She later recalled, “One of them said his name was Leopoldo. He said that was his war name. In all this underground, everybody has a war name. This was done for safety in Cuba. So when everybody came to exile, everyone was known by their war names.” It was Leopoldo, the taller one, who did most of the talking. The other Latin gave his war name as something like “Angelo.”
After she refused to let them in, Leopoldo told her, “We are friends of your father.” He gave her “almost incredible details” about her father’s past, which she believed only someone who knew him, or was very well-informed, would have known. Mrs. Odio later testified, “after they mentioned my father they started talking about the American. He [the Latin American] said, ‘You are working in the underground.’ And I said, ‘No, I am sorry to say I am not working in the underground.’ And he said, ‘We wanted you to meet this American. His name is Leon Oswald.’ He repeated it twice.… And they introduced him as an American who was very much interested in the Cuban cause.”
The American attempted a few words in Spanish, “trying to be cute.” She asked him if he had ever been to Cuba and he said he hadn’t, but that he was interested in her movement. Afterward he stood silently, watching and listening—as Odio would put it, “sort of looking at me to see what my reaction was, like somebody who is evaluating the situation.”
One of the Latin Americans took out a letter written in Spanish that requested money for her organization to buy arms to overthrow Castro. He asked if she would translate the letter into English for him and “send a whole lot of them” to American businessmen. Mrs. Odio refused. (She had been shown a similar petition by a Dallas leader of JURE, and had turned him down too.) She asked who had sent them, and Leopoldo told her that they had “just come from New Orleans,” where they were trying to get their movement organized, and that they were doing this on their own. He apologized for the late hour, saying they were leaving on a trip that night or the next evening.
The entire conversation lasted about fifteen minutes. Sylvia told them she had to go and, still suspicious, she added that she was going to write to her father about their visit. As they were leaving, Leopoldo asked, “Is he still in the Isle of Pines?” Then they drove away in a red car, with Leopoldo at the wheel.
The next day Leopoldo telephoned her after she got home from work. It was a conversation Odio wouldn’t be likely to forget. From what he said, it was clear he continued to believe she had contacts with the anti-Castro underground. Leopoldo asked her what she had thought of the American. When she replied, “I didn’t think anything,” he said, “Well, you know, he’s a Marine, an ex-Marine, and an expert marksman. He would be a tremendous asset to anyone, except that you never know how to take him.… You know, our idea is to introduce him to the underground in Cuba, because he is great, he is kind of nuts.” He said, “He could go either way. He could do anything—like getting underground in Cuba, like killing Castro.”
Then, while Mrs. Odio listened uneasily, he raised the possibility of another assassination. “The American says we Cubans don’t have any guts. He says we should have shot President Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs, because he is the one that was holding the freedom of Cuba actually. He says we should do something like that.” He added that “Leon” had told him, “It is so easy to do it.” He told her again that he and his friends were going on a trip, and that he wanted to talk to her again o
n their return. Their conversation ended, and she never heard from any of them again.
Alarmed, Odio had suspected at once “some sort of scheme or plot,” though she didn’t know what. There had been something too calculating about Leopoldo’s approach: “When I had no reaction to the American, he thought that he would mention that the man was loco … and would be the kind of man that could do anything like getting underground in Cuba, like killing Castro. He repeated several times that he was an expert shotman. And he said, ‘We probably won’t have anything to do with him. He is kind of loco.’” He was feeling her out. Then, “When he mentioned the fact that we should have killed President Kennedy … he was trying to play it safe. If I liked him, then he would go along with me, but if I didn’t like him, he was kind of retreating to see what my reaction was. It was cleverly done.”
A few days later Odio wrote to her father describing her visitors. (His eventual response would be a warning to stay away from these men, because he didn’t know them.) She almost succeeded in putting the incident out of her mind. On November 22 she was at work when word came that the president had been shot. Immediately she remembered what Leopoldo had said about the exiles taking revenge against Kennedy. After her boss sent everyone home, Sylvia fainted on her way to the parking lot and was taken to a hospital by ambulance.
In another part of town, Annie Odio had watched the Kennedy motorcade pass by on its way to the Book Depository around noon. An hour or so later, when she saw Oswald’s picture on television, her first thought was, “My God, I know this guy and I don’t know from where.… Where have I seen this guy?” After learning of her sister’s collapse, Annie Odio visited her at the hospital and mentioned the feeling that she had seen Oswald before. Sylvia, who started to cry, reminded her of the three men who came to her apartment. There was a TV set in the room, and Oswald’s picture came on. Sylvia later described their reaction: “Annie and I looked at one another and sort of gasped. She said, ‘Do you recognize him?’ She said, ‘It is the same guy, isn’t it?’ I said, ‘Yes, but do not say anything.’”
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