Letters to the Cyborgs
Page 52
Since Lee read so many books by Ian Fleming, whom he admired, it behooves us to briefly study that elusive bon vivant:
Fleming schemed, plotted, and carried out dangerous missions. From the famous Room 39 in the Admiralty building in London›s Whitehall, Fleming tossed out a myriad of off-beat ideas on how to confuse, survey, and enrage the Germans. In a 1940 trip into a crumbling France, Fleming supervised the escape from Dieppe…With Fleming flair, he spent one of his last evenings eating and drinking some of the best food in the country, and one of his last days coordinating the evacuation of King Zog of Albania. The “Fleming flair” proved to be his greatest strength in Naval Intelligence. He dined at Scott’s, White’s, The Dorchester, plotted intelligence operations, many of which were absurd, and many of which proved ingenious. Yet, Fleming understood the business side of the war.
… He did not take his assignments lightly, always gravely aware of the real human risks involved. The “Fleming flair” also proved valuable in one other aspect: writing. As assistant to Admiral Godfrey, Fleming wrote countless memos and reports… his seemingly limitless knowledge of his subjects made the usual dry missives a pleasure to read. Eventually, Fleming wrote memos to William “Wild Bill” Donovan on how to set up the OSS, forerunner to the CIA. For that bit of work, Fleming received a revolver engraved with the thanks: “For Special Services.18
The Book List: Untangling the FBI Data
For the convenience of researchers, scholars and others, the FBI book list (below) has been put in proper chronological order. The full title, where missing, is also provided. When necessary, the “author” section is expanded for clarity. The likely date of publication is offered. Check-out dates are listed first; return dates are listed last, the opposite of the FBI’s method (date of return first, check-out date last). However, the FBI only recorded return dates. Check-out dates were only estimated. Thus we can be certain only of the dates when Lee Oswald (or a friend) dropped off books.
Date
Out
Book Type
Title, Author(s)
Pub Date
# Pages
Date
Returned
05/22
Biography
Portrait of a Revolutionary: Mao Tse-Tung, Robert Payne
1961
311
06/03
06/01
Murder
Investigation
The Huey Long Murder Case, Hermann B. Deutsch
1963
180
06/15
06/01
Documentary History
The Berlin Wall, Dean & David Heller
1962
~223
06/15
06/12
Documentary History
Conflict: the History of the Korean War, 1950-53,
Robert Leckie
1962
448
06/26
06/01
Geography & Economics
Soviet Potentials: A Geographic Appraisal , George B. Cressey
1962
262
07/01
06/17
Textbook on Communism by husband-wife writing team in psychology & sociology: J. Edgar Hoover wrote recommendation.
What We Must Know About Communism: Its Beginnings, Its Growth, Its Present Status, Harry & Bonaro Overstreet
—
(The book was checked out for me: Oswald, a recent USSR resident, knew all this material. See Me & Lee for details)
1958
348
07/01
06/17
Cerebral Essays Schweitzer, Huxley, Oppenheimer, Marcel, Sartre,
This Is My Philosophy: Twenty of the World’s Outstanding Thinkers Reveal the Deepest Meanings They Have Found in Life, Eds. Whitney , James & WilliamBurnett
1958
378
07/01
06/23
Science Fiction: Hugo Award Winner
A Fall of Moondust , Arthur C. Clarke
—
(Why was this book estimated by the FBI to have been checked out by Oswald on 06/23, when it was returned four days later than Thunderball?)
1961
224
07/12
06/24
Spy
9th Bond novel
Thunderball, Ian Fleming
1962
~272
07/08
07/01
Biography by personal friend of JFK
Portrait of a President: John F. Kennedy, William Manchester
1962
~266
07/15
07/06
Quasi-historic Adventure
Hornblower and the Hotspur, C. S. Forester
1962
400
07/20
07/06
Soviet Prison Camp Life by (Nobel Prize) Anti-communist Russian
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, Alexander Solzihnitsyn
1963
160
07/20
07/10
Documentary History
Russia Under Khrushchev, Alexander Werth
1962
~342
07/24
07/10
Science Fiction:
The Hugo Winners,
Ed. Isaac Asimov
1962
318
07/24
07/15
History
The Blue Nile,
Alan Moorehead
1962
~368
07/29
07/15
Essays
Profiles in Courage,
John F. Kennedy
154
272
07/29
07/18
Spy Novels
Five Spy Novels, slected by Howard Haycraft (The Great Impersonation, E. Phillips Oppenheim /Greenmantle, John Buchan / Epitaph for a Spy, Eric Ambler / No Surrender, Martha Albrand / No Entry by Manning Coles)
1962
757
07/9
07/30
Historical Fiction
The Hittite Noel B. Gerson
1963
224
08/13
07/31
Science Fiction
Mind Partner,
ed. H. L. Gold
1962
241
08/13
07/31
History
Everyday Life in Ancient Rome, F.R. Cowell
1961
~207
08/14
07/31
Science Fiction
Nine Tomorrows,
Isaac Asimov
1959
236
08/14
08/03
Science Fiction
The Expert Dreamers,
Ed. Frederik Pohl
1962
248
08/19
08/03
Science Fiction
The Worlds of Clifford Simak,
Clifford Simak
1960
302
08/22
08/12
Science Fiction
The Treasury of Science Fiction Classics, Ed. Harold Keubler
1954
694
08/26
08/22
Spy Novel
From Russia with Love,
Ian Fleming
1957
253
09/05
08/22
Science Fiction
Portals of Tomorrow
August Derleth
1954
371
09/05
08/22
Science Fiction
The Sixth Galaxy Reader,
H.L. Gold
~1962
240
09/05
08/22
Historical Fiction
Ben Hur – A Story of Christ,
Lew Wallace
1961<
br />
510
09/23
08/22
Science Fiction
The Big Book of Science Fiction, Groff Conklin
1950
187
09/23
08/22
Historical Fiction
The Bridge Over the River Kwai, Pierre Boulle
1954
~225
09/23
09/19
Science Fiction
Ape and Essence,
Aldous Huxley
1948
207
10/03
09/19
Dystopian Novel
Brave New World,
Aldous Huxley
1932
288
10/03
09/19
Spy Novel
Goldfinger,
Ian Fleming
1959
~220
10/03
09/19
Spy Novel
Moonraker,
Ian Fleming
1955
~256
10/03
“None of the books that OSWALD read were written by leftists…”
– A. J. Weberman, Nodule 11, orig. p. 39)
Though Lee’s library books were not written by leftists, what about the newspapers to which he subscribed? Official version accounts typically avoid the idea that Lee was a fake defector who had to keep up the veneer of being a communist, though even in the USSR he never joined the communist party and was not arrested when he returned to the United States more than thirty months later. His saga as a “defector” is worth a close study.23 There is no doubt he read many Communist newspapers, and this was known to the US Postal service before Lee moved to New Orleans.
In Nodule 17, A. J. Weberman tells us:
OSWALD’S landlord on Mercedes Street, Chester Riggs, was contacted in July,1993: “I saw him weekly. He was an aloof, strange, different individual, very quiet, he read quite a bit. Not an aggressive person. He was relatively orderly. It was a low income area…I don’t know how OSWALD found out the property was for let. OSWALD had his own entrance. The postman that came there also delivered to my commercial building where I had a business and told me that OSWALD was being investigated for receiving subversive literature.”
Some of the Newspapers Read by Lee Oswald
Dallas Morning News – in the main public library, in May.
The Times-Picayune – at all libraries (buses and streetcars had free copies)
New Orleans States Item – at all libraries (buses and streetcars had free copies)
The Militant – the Socialist Workers Party newspaper, begun in the 1920s. A communist newspaper, the SWP was, however, anti-Stalin, and therefore “anti-USSR government” at the time, adhering to Trotskyite communist principles, for which its leaders had been kicked out of the communist party. SWP’s The Militant was in radical opposition to The Daily Worker. The faked “backyard photo”24 shows “Oswald” holding both The Militant and The Daily Worker in one hand: Lee subscribed to both newspapers, which were mailed to him in Dallas and later, to New Orleans. Since Lee read both newspapers regularly, he was well informed as to the interior squabbles between the two branches of communism. Lee Oswald made the distinction between being a Marxist or a Marxist-Leninist on the New Orleans WDSU radio program “Latin Listening Post,” which aired Aug. 17th after his arrest on Aug. 9th for distributing “Hands off Cuba” flyers and other materials on Canal Street in New Orleans provided fodder for interest.
“I am a Marxist,” Lee had stated in a radio program“ debate” held on “The Latin Listening Post,” in New Orleans a few days after he had been arrested for “creating a public disturbance” by passing out FPCC “Hands Off Cuba” flyers. The incident was staged to create a pro-Castro image for Lee that would make it easier for him to bring the bio-weapon into Mexico City without suspicion. Ever since May 4, 1963, Lee had the idea to be the target of a physical attack by three anti-Castro activists. He got this idea from this newspaper article, which mentions three attackers who beat up an undercover agent pretending to be a drug dealer:
Lee added that he was not a Marxist-Leninist. Asked by Carlos Bringuier, one of the three activists who had been arrested with Lee, to point out the difference between Marxist theory and Communism, Lee responded, “…Many parties, many countries are based on Marxism. Many countries such as Great Britain display very socialistic aspects or characteristics. I might point to the socialized medicine in Britain.”
Bringuier, unlike Lee, was not fined, despite his aggressive confrontation, which included striking Lee and throwing his materials to the ground, to which Lee utterly refused to respond. Bringuier’s staged confrontation provoked the arrest, which has often been described as a “brawl” or a “fight” by anti-Oswald writers, even though Lee never raised so much as a hand in his own defense.
Asked if he lived on a subsidy while in the USSR, Lee replied, “…I will answer that question directly then, as you will not rest until you get your answer. I worked in Russia. I was under the protection of the – that is to say I was not under protection of the American government, but as I was at all times considered an American citizen. I did not lose my American citizenship.” This quote is from the actual recording made by INCA (Information Council of the Americas; a pet project of Dr. Alton Ochsner) and published on vinyl (“Self-Portrait in Red”) at the time. It offers us an example of manipulation of evidence on the smallest scale, adding a pattern of consistency that suggests the omissions and misinterpretations as shown in this account were not mere accidents.
On the back cover of the INCA recording is Ochsner’s photo, with the assertion that he knew of Lee’s “defection” before the so-called debate. Of course he did! Ed Butler’s sketch of Lee on the front cover shows an ugly, angry, satanic sketch of the man I knew and loved.
The anti-Oswald website run by John McAdams offers the naïve reader the corrupted version of Oswald’s statement as published by the Warren Commission, “I was under the protection of the (American government)” was slyly altered to: “I was not under the protection of the – that is to say I was not under protection of the American government, but as I was at all times considered an American citizen. I did not lose my American citizenship.”25
Such subtle deviations from the truth occur distressingly often in the official version of Lee Oswald’s life, statements and actions. This is why readers should not be fooled by the sheer size and tone of authority of big websites and big books (such as Bugliosi’s History Reclaimed) that cleverly construct arguments using material that has been carefully chosen and edited. Below is an example of material from The Militant26 that Lee Oswald, deeply interested in racial equality, was likely to have read just before his subscription expired in September.This is the text of the speech that Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Chairman John Lewis was prevented from delivering at the March on Washington in August 1963. John Lewis became and continues to be a Democratic Party Congressman from Atlanta:
We march today for jobs and freedom, but we have nothing to be proud of. For hundreds and thousands of our brothers are not here. They have no money for their transportation, for they are receiving starvation wages – or no wages at all. In good conscience, we cannot support the administration’s civil rights bill; for it is too little, and too late. There’s not one thing in the bill that will protect our people from police brutality. This bill will not protect young children and old women from police dogs and fire hoses, for engaging in peaceful demonstrations… This bill will not protect the hundreds of people who have been arrested on trumped-up charges…The voting section of this bill will not help thousands of black citizens who want to vote … I want to know, which side is the Federal Government on? … We will not wait for the President, the Justice Department, nor Congress, but we will take matters into our own hands and create a source of power, outside of any national structure that could and would assure us a victory.’
…We cannot depend on any political party, for both the Democrats and the Republicans have betrayed the basic principles of the Declaration of Independence… Mr. Kennedy is trying to take the revolution out of the street and put it in the courts. Listen Mr. Kennedy, Listen Mr. Congressmen, Listen fellow citizens, the black masses are on the march for jobs and freedom, and we must say to the politicians that there won’t be a ‘cooling-off’ period… The time will come when we will not confine our marching to Washington…We will make the action of the past few months look petty. And I say to you , WAKE UP AMERICA!27
The Daily Worker was the official daily Communist Party mouthpiece in the United States beginning in 1924. Lee began subscribing to The Daily Worker in October, 1962, at the same time he commenced working for Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall.28
HUAC’s 1962 Hearings listed as subversive literature subscriptions to The Daily Worker (New York) and The Militant.
The fact that Lee did not renew this subscription might be explained this way: Lee and I had high hopes that the CIA would keep its promise that he would be sent to Mexico by Christmas. There he and I planned to reunite and to divorce and marry. Therefore, for the first time since his return from the USSR, Lee did not renew his subscription to The Militant. After all, he had reason to believe that he would only be able to read 25% of what he had paid for. Lee was always careful with money because he could not look as rich as he really was. As he told me, “How can I play the role of a dissatisfied American worker who longs to live in Fidel’s ‘Workers Paradise’ if I have a car and a good job?” He diligently set aside money, which would go to his wife and children in case anything happened to him, including arrangements to have anonymous funds sent to his family from his secret account after returning to Mexico. But as things turned sour, we had to include a year in hiding in the Cayman Islands to those plans.
Still, Lee had hoped, upon coming to New Orleans, that he could work in a cover job as a photographer, which would have made him much happier and still kept his income level low.