Reclaiming History Read online

  “I’m not going to let Marina say anything to anybody, and that’s final,” Marguerite says, her voice rising to a shout. Odum tries to get around Mrs. Oswald by addressing Marina’s interpreter, only to be repeatedly interrupted by the shrill woman. Odum decides he might have better luck with Robert.

  “Come on out here for a minute,” Odum says, as he pulls Robert into the next room.

  “You seem to be a sensible guy. All we want is a yes or no from Marina herself, not from your mother. Could you help us?” Robert agrees to try, although he doesn’t think his sister-in-law should answer any more questions without the assistance of counsel. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to speak for her.

  “I’ll find out just what she wants to do,” Robert says. The two men walk back into the room and Robert holds out his hand to stifle his mother before she can get started again.

  “Now, wait a minute,” he says, “let me handle this.” He explains quietly to Marina through the interpreter what Odum wants. Marina’s answer is short and simple, “Nyet.”

  Odum is disappointed, but Robert assures him that Marina will very probably cooperate fully once things settle down a little. Odum gives him a card with his telephone number and asks Robert to call him when Marina feels like answering some questions.1092

  Back at the Homicide and Robbery Bureau, Captain Fritz focuses his questions to Oswald once again on the time of the assassination.

  “Did you eat lunch with anyone yesterday?” he asks.

  “I ate with two colored boys I worked with,” Oswald says.

  “What are their names?” Fritz asks.

  “One of them is called Junior,” Oswald says, “and the other one is a short fellow. I don’t remember his name, but I would recognize him on sight.”*

  “What did you have for lunch?” Fritz asks.

  “I had a cheese sandwich and an apple,” Oswald answers, “which I got at Mrs. Paine’s house before I left.”1093

  Captain Fritz changes the subject and begins probing Oswald’s relationship with the Paines. He asks Oswald to explain again the living arrangements he has for his wife, Marina.

  “Mrs. Paine doesn’t receive any pay for keeping my wife and children there. What she gets in return is that she’s interested in the Russian language and having Marina around helps her with it.”

  “What do you know about Mr. Paine?” Fritz asks.

  “I don’t know Mr. Paine very well,” Oswald says. “He usually comes by the house on Wednesday or Friday. He has his own car. Mrs. Paine has two.”

  “Do you keep any of your belongings at the Paine residence?” Fritz asks.

  “I’ve got some things in her garage that I brought back with me from New Orleans in September,” Oswald says.

  “Like what?” Fritz inquires.

  “Well, let’s see,” Oswald says, “two sea bags, a couple of suitcases, and a few boxes of kitchen articles—dishes and such.”

  “That it?”

  “I’ve got some clothes there too,” Oswald adds.

  “What about a rifle?” Fritz asks.

  “I didn’t store a rifle there,” Oswald says, very perturbed. “I’ve already told you, I don’t own a rifle.”1094

  Fritz switches gears.

  “Lee, do you have any other friends or relatives living nearby?”

  “My brother Robert lives in Fort Worth,” Oswald replies.

  “Anyone else? Any other friends?” Fritz asks.

  “The Paines are close friends of mine,” Oswald answers.1095

  “Anyone ever visit you at your apartment on North Beckley?” Fritz asks.

  “No,” Oswald says.1096

  “Have you ever ordered guns through the mail?” Fritz asks.

  “I’ve never ordered guns,” Oswald sighs, tiring of the game, “and I don’t have any receipts for any guns.”

  “What about a rifle?”

  “I don’t own a rifle,” Oswald snaps, “nor have I ever possessed a rifle. How many times do I have to tell you that?”1097

  Captain Fritz doesn’t answer him.

  “Are you a member of the Communist Party?” Fritz asks instead.

  “No,” Oswald says. “I never joined and have never had a card.”

  “What about the American Civil Liberties Union?” Fritz asks.

  Oswald smiles at the thought that Fritz would ask about the Communist Party and the ACLU in the same breath.

  “Yes,” he says, “I’m a member of the ACLU. I pay five dollars a year in dues. Does that make me a Communist?”1098

  Oswald snickers under his breath.

  “Lee, if you never ordered a gun or purchased a gun like you say,” Fritz says calmly, “then where did you get the pistol you had in your possession at the time of your arrest?”

  “Oh, I bought that about seven months ago,” Oswald says, avoiding the obvious contradiction.

  “Where?” Fritz asks.

  “I’m not going to answer any more questions about the pistol or any guns until I’ve talked to a lawyer,” Oswald fires back.1099

  “Lee, have you ever been questioned before?” Fritz continues to ask questions of the young suspect, but for the moment, less probing questions.

  “Yeah, I’ve been questioned a number of times by the FBI in Fort Worth after returning from the Soviet Union,” Oswald says, glaring at the FBI men present in the room.

  “They used all the usual interrogation techniques—the hard and soft approach, the buddy system—all their standard operating procedures. Oh, I’m very familiar with all types of questioning. And I’ve got no intention of answering any questions concerning any shooting. I know I don’t have to answer your questions, and I’m not going to answer any questions until I’ve been given counsel. Frankly, the FBI has overstepped their bounds!”

  “What do you mean by that?” Captain Fritz asks.

  “When the FBI talked to my wife, they were abusive and impolite,” Oswald says angrily.

  “They frightened her with their intimidation. I consider their activities to be obnoxious.”1100 Oswald tells Captain Fritz that he’s trying to reach the New York attorney named “Abt,” but so far has been unsuccessful. “If I can’t get him, then I may get the American Civil Liberties Union to get me an attorney.” Captain Fritz advises Oswald that arrangements will be made so he can call Mr. Abt again.1101

  “Where did you live in New Orleans?” Fritz asks.

  “I lived at 4907 Magazine Street,” Oswald says.

  “Where did you work?”

  “The William Riley Company,” Oswald answers.

  “Were you ever in trouble in New Orleans?” Fritz asks.

  “Yes,” Oswald replies. “I was arrested for disturbing the peace and paid a ten-dollar fine.”

  “How’d that happen?” Fritz asks.

  “I was demonstrating on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee,” Oswald explains, “and I got into a fight with some anti-Castro Cuban refugees who didn’t particularly agree with me. Even though they started the fight, they were released and I was fined.”1102 Oswald shakes his head in disbelief. Like his mother, he plays the martyr well.

  “What do you think of President Kennedy?” Fritz asks.

  “I have no views on the president,” Oswald replies. “My wife and I like the president’s family. They’re interesting people. Of course, I have my own views on the president’s national policy. And I have a right to express my views but because of the charges, I don’t think I should comment further.”

  “Anything about him bother you?” Fritz presses.

  Oswald knows where Fritz is going with the question.

  “I am not a malcontent,” Oswald snaps, almost annoyed that the cops must think he’s that stupid. “Nothing irritated me about the president.”1103

  “Lee,” Captain Fritz asks in his grandfatherly tone, “will you submit to a polygraph examination?”

  “Not without the advice of counsel,” Oswald replies. “I refused to take one for the FBI in 1962, and
I certainly don’t intend to take one for the Dallas police.”1104

  Captain Fritz reaches into his desk and pulls out one of the two Selective Service cards Oswald had in his wallet at the time of his arrest.1105 The card is made out in the name of Alek James Hidell, and includes a signature in that name, but bears a photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald. Even a cursory examination reveals the card to be a crude forgery.* Fritz shows the card to Oswald.

  “Did you sign this card, ‘Alex J. Hidell’?” Fritz asks.

  “I don’t have to answer that,” Oswald says.

  “This is your card, right?” Fritz asks.

  “I carried it, yes,” Oswald replies.

  “Why did you carry it?” FBI agent James Bookhout asks.

  Oswald is silent.

  “What was the purpose of this card?” Fritz asks. “What did you use it for?”

  “I don’t have any comment to make on that,” Oswald says stoically.1106

  Captain Fritz pulls another item out of his desk drawer—an address book filled with Russian names and addresses—and asks who the people are whose names are in the book.

  “Those are just the names of Russian immigrants living here in Dallas who I’ve visited since my return from the Soviet Union,” Oswald says, half-amused.1107

  The homicide chief looks up at the surrounding faces of law enforcement and lets them know that they can question the subject if they’d like. Secret Service inspector Thomas Kelley rises to the challenge.

  “Mr. Oswald, did you view the parade yesterday?” he asks.

  “No, I didn’t,” Oswald says.

  “Did you shoot the president?”

  “No, I did not,” Oswald claims.

  “Did you shoot the governor?” Kelley asks.

  “No, I didn’t know that the governor had been shot,” Oswald says.1108

  “Okay,” Captain Fritz says, “that’s it for now. Take him back to his cell.”

  As Detectives Sims, Boyd, and Hall escort Oswald from the room, Dallas Secret Service agent-in-charge Forrest Sorrels can’t help but think that Oswald’s defiant manner and obvious lying during this session is perhaps an attempt on his part to provoke Fritz into doing or saying something he shouldn’t.1109 Whatever Oswald had up his sleeve, it didn’t work. None of Oswald’s sass or lying bothered Fritz. As Dallas postal inspector Harry Holmes would later observe about a subsequent interview by Fritz of Oswald, “It was like water off a duck’s back. He was too old a hand to be taken in by something like that.”1110

  11:27 a.m.

  As detectives whisk him past newsmen in the crowded third-floor corridor, Oswald leans toward a microphone pointed in his direction. “I would like to contact Mr. Abt, A-B-T,” Oswald says, spelling the name. “Mr. Abt in New York to defend me.”

  Detectives push Oswald through the doorway leading to the jail elevators.* The mob of reporters begins to pass the word, “Oswald wants a New York attorney named Abt to defend him.” It’s the first indication they’ve heard about whom Oswald wants to handle his case.1111

  11:45 a.m.

  Shortly after Oswald is taken back to his fifth-floor jail cell, the assistant police chief, Captain Glen D. King, is stopped by reporters as he makes his way through the third floor.

  “Captain, could you detail the information you gave us a little while ago about the search for additional suspects?”

  King tells a television audience about the search earlier that morning conducted by representatives of his office and the DA’s office of the man (Joe Molina) who worked with Oswald at the Book Depository Building, and that the man was presently being interrogated by his office.

  “Do you regard this man as a suspect in this case at this moment?” a reporter asks.

  “All we regard him as right now is a person to interrogate,” King says. “Certainly there’s not an adequate amount of information on him to indicate he is a suspect…”

  “Does this indicate that Oswald has said something that would lead you to believe other people were associated with him in this alleged—?”

  “Not necessarily, no,” King answers.

  “What’s the name of the man involved?” someone asks.

  “I don’t want to identify him, no,” King says, “because there’s not an adequate amount of evidence of any involvement on his part to warrant identification of him.”†

  “Could we ask you, sir,” a reporter says, “what do you know about the report that the FBI knew that Oswald was [a] priority one?”

  “I know nothing about that,” King says dryly.

  “Did you give special consideration to the persons on your subversive list before the president came to town, know where they were, what they were doing?”

  “Yes,” King says.

  “Then if the FBI had known about him ahead of time and had informed your office, you would have checked up on Oswald as well?”

  “I’d rather not speculate on what might have happened if something else had happened,” King tells him.

  “We’ve been given information earlier today that the FBI did know he was here and had interviewed him during the last couple or three weeks,” a reporter says.

  “On this I have no answer,” King replies.1112

  12:00 noon

  Marina, Marguerite, and Robert Oswald arrive at police headquarters for their scheduled meeting with Lee. After being escorted to the third-floor Forgery Bureau office, they are informed there will be a slight delay because they have picked up another suspect (Molina).

  “Oh, Marina,” Marguerite says to her daughter-in-law, “they think another man might have shot Kennedy.”1113 Whether Marina could understand these words is not clear, but in any event, she had somehow convinced herself that maybe it was a mistake after all—that Lee may be under suspicion because he has been to Russia and that this horrible nightmare will all be over and they can go back to their ordinary lives.1114

  A female officer from the Juvenile Bureau comes in and takes the two women to another room so that Marina can nurse the infant Rachel in privacy.1115 Meanwhile, Secret Service agent Mike Howard approaches Robert.

  “We’re interested in everything we can possibly find out about your brother,” Howard says. “Would you mind answering a few questions?”

  “I’ll do my best to answer anything I can,” Robert replies.

  Agent Howard wanted to know whether Robert thought that Lee had shot at Governor Connally because of the dishonorable discharge* the Marine Corps had handed Lee following his defection to the Soviet Union.

  “I don’t think that was the motive,” Robert says, explaining that he never heard Lee express any kind of resentment toward Connally and knew for a fact that Lee had received a letter notifying him that Fred Korth had succeeded Connally as secretary of the navy and would be the one to rule on Oswald’s efforts to have his discharge changed to honorable.

  As the conversation drifts toward the quirky relationship between Marguerite and Lee, Agent Howard tells Robert that the kind of personal details about the Oswald family that he’s providing will be of interest to Mrs. Kennedy. Robert takes the agent’s comments to mean that Mrs. Kennedy herself had requested the information and Agent Howard will be delivering Robert’s responses to her in person. Robert felt that he should express his family’s sympathy to her.

  “I would like to take this opportunity to express to Mrs. Kennedy, through you,” Robert begins, and then his voice suddenly cracks. He stops and hangs his head.

  “That’s all right,” the agent says, “I know what you are trying to say.”1116

  Under earlier instructions from Captain Fritz, Detectives Sims, Boyd, Hall, and Dhority pull up at Oswald’s rooming house on North Beckley to make absolutely sure that nothing was missed in yesterday’s search, but Oswald’s room has little to tell them. The detectives find a paperclip and a rubber band, which they confiscate, but nothing else. In fact, as Earlene Roberts points out, not only did the police clear all of Oswald’s things out the day before, but they
made off with a pillow case, two towels, and some washcloths belonging to the landlord. In less than thirty minutes, they’re headed back to City Hall.1117

  12:10 p.m.

  When Chief Curry learns that reporters have been bombarding his assistant Glen King with questions about the FBI’s possible prior knowledge of Oswald, he knows he’d better get out there and make a statement to the press—the retraction he had earlier promised Dallas FBI agent-in-charge Gordon Shanklin that he would make.

  “There has been information that has gone out,” Curry tells reporters at a press conference, with a live television audience looking in, “and I want to correct anything that might have been misinterpreted or misunderstood. And that is regarding information that the FBI might have had about this man.”

  Curry looks hesitant, his eyes shifting quickly from the microphones in front of him to the floor at his feet. He chooses his words very carefully as he picks his way through the political minefield he knows is enveloping his department.

  “Last night someone told me, I don’t even know who it was,* that the FBI did know this man was in the city and interviewed him. I wish to say this. Of my knowledge, I do not know this to be a fact, and I don’t want anybody to get the wrong impression that I am accusing the FBI of not cooperating or of withholding information because they are under no obligation to us, but have always cooperated with us 100 percent.”

  The conference quickly moves on to other topics. Asked whether Oswald was asked to take a lie detector test, Curry says that it was offered to him but he refused to take it.

  “Chief Curry, what are your plans now in dealing with Oswald himself?” a reporter asks. “Will he be interrogated here further or will he be transferred to the county jail to await presentment to the grand jury?”

  “He will go to the county jail,” Curry replies. “I don’t know just when. But I am thinking probably sometime today…It is more convenient here to have him near us where we can talk to him when we need to, but we will probably transfer him soon.”1118

  After returning to his office, Curry calls Captain Fritz and asks if he will be ready to transfer Oswald by 4:00 p.m. Fritz says he doesn’t think he will be finished questioning Oswald by then.1119