GREAT DEEDS IV: CONFESSION

There is an important piece to the puzzle of who was involved in the assassination of JFK that is missing: an interview with Lee Harvey Oswald. The police did interrogate him but he more than likely just lied and denied any involvement in the killing of JFK and the slain police officer J.D. Tippit. The reporters were left out despite their concerted efforts to be granted the biggest interview of the day.

On Sunday, November 24, 1963, Oswald was to be transferred from a Dallas Police holding cell to the county jail sometime in the morning. There were death threats made, but not considered serious. Security was high and normal precautions were in place. Reporters were staked out at both the police and county jails hoping to get something like a confession out of him. Unfortunately for the reporters and the world at large, Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby in the police basement leading to the waiting transfer car.

As he lay there dying from an assassins bullet, one wonders if he was surprised in any way by this turn of events. Did he say to himself that he got what he deserved? Or did he curse the assassin that shot him? Did he think of his family and what they will now have to face or did he merely think on his own mortality and place in history? One can only speculate. He would soon die of his wounds attended by the same physician and at the same hospital as Kennedy.

At the time of the shooting of Oswald, the body of the slain President was lying in repose in the White House. That afternoon his body was transported by caisson to the Rotunda of the Capitol to lie in state. The world mourned the death of the President while cheering the death of Oswald. Jack Ruby was considered at the time to be a hero for his deed. But he would later die in prison of cancer and did not give a true reason for killing Oswald. President Kennedy, Officer Tippit and Lee Oswald were all buried on Monday in separate ceremonies.

What if a jail cell interview took place before he died and Oswald was unafraid to tell the truth. In this scenario it is his chance to tell the world that he did it: It’s me, it’s me; I’m the one who killed him!

Lee Harvey Oswald boldly proclaims that he shot and killed President Kennedy. When asked why he did the deed, he responds in a series of one line answers: “I did it for Cuba; I did it for Castro. I didn’t want the S.O.B. to get re-elected. Robert Kennedy deserved to die too. I would’ve killed him too if I hadn’t got caught. Of course I was working with the Mob, they were behind it. I don’t know anything about that other stuff (Soviet involvement). Yeah, I was in contact with the Cuban Secret Service, what of it? Everyone thought I was a mouse who couldn’t kill the President, but I was a lion! Yeah, I hated the man in the worst way and I wanted him dead in a worser way. He was evil personified to me. Write it. Yeah, me and my Cuban friends all wanted him dead and dead he is. I’d kill you too because you like that prick Kennedy. That’s all I got to say now; I’ll say more later.” (Oswald takes a break)

Oswald continues: “Me and the Mob, we did it; they were there to see it. No one will ever know for sure for the Mob would bury anyone who speaks. Me and all of my Mob friends we wanted him dead in the worst way. Jack slugged me so that I wouldn’t speak. Jack was my contact with the Mob and he told me what would happen to me if I got caught. He pulled the trigger on me for it. I still hate that S.O.B. Kennedy and I would do it again. They got me in a cage here, see. I ain’t going no where. You can tell this to the world but they ain’t going to believe you. No one believes that I killed Kennedy, but I did. I’m proud of what I did and I’d do it again. I aimed and I fired, I killed the bastard. I didn’t miss, he moved and then I killed him, shot him dead in the head. I should have got away; I would have got away if not for that prick cop. There was no other shooter, it was only me. They knew I could do it and I did it. They were there watching and I knew it. I put on a show for them and they ran with the crowd. They was tough, but I was tougher. No one was tougher than me, I killed him, they only wanted to. Yeah, I want you to publish this. Giancana was behind it, he was the one with the muscle. Kennedy burned him bad and he wanted to take revenge on him.” Oswald concludes the interview. Then he decides to have a final word: “Yeah, I pulled the trigger, but they did it, they wanted him dead.”

If we go with an assumption that this confession actually took place, is there any credibility to Oswald’s story? In a real life confession before death, Kennedy’s former mistress admitted that she was The Mafia’s White House connection. A gravely ill Judith Exner gave the confession to People Weekly, February 29, 1988. Her explanation for coming forth at the time was that she was terminally ill with cancer and wanted to put her life in order so that she could die peacefully.

Twelve years earlier she had confessed to being Kennedy’s mistress but lied about the President knowing of her connection with gangsters. She said that she lied at the time to protect herself: “If I’d told the truth, I’d have been killed.”

Judith Exner’s confession is an important link in the chain of events leading up to the assassination. She made the claim that for 18 months in 1960 and 1961 she served as Kennedy’s link with the Mob. She said that Jack knew everything about her friendship with Sam Giancana, the head of the Chicago Mafia, because she was seeing him for Jack. She was a courier between Kennedy and Giancana delivering envelopes with assumed messages and money. She also arranged about ten meetings between them. She speculated that the envelopes and meetings were first about help in getting elected and then plans to assassinate Castro (Operation Mongoose). It is believed that Giancana did in fact help Kennedy get elected. The CIA did try to work with the Mafia as they had a beef with Castro for closing their casinos in Cuba.

She goes into great detail chronicling what took place to prove that what she was confessing is true. She previously had lied because she believed that she would be killed: “Look what happened to Jack and to Sam, who was murdered in his house while under police surveillance.” On June 19, 1975, Giancana was shot seven times, first in the back of the head, while in his kitchen. He was killed before he could testify before a Senate committee about the CIA’s attempts to assassinate Castro.

If all of her testimony is true, then Giancana and the Mob had cause to seek revenge on the President. As Kennedy was seeking re-election, the timing would also send a message. If the Mob played a role in the assassination, then Oswald’s claim of being a patsy rings true. He killed Kennedy but he was just a puppet on a string when he pulled the trigger. Many have questioned how someone like Oswald could pull off killing the President. The answer is that he had strong forces working with him to guarantee the outcome. By saying that he was just a patsy is not a claim of innocence, it instead says that he was a cog in a killing machine.

Most people view Oswald as a simpleton or a Scaramouch (a stock character in a play who is a cowardly braggart,easily beaten or frightened). In reality he was intelligent and well read. He struggled to work labor jobs as he probably felt that it was beneath him. He had something to prove to himself and others. This is what drove him to seek out intrigue.

What is known about Oswald’s past also indicates that he had the motivation and determination to assassinate the President of the United States. He was trained as a sniper in the Marines achieving the rank of sharpshooter/marksman. His first attempt at assassination failed and he likely learned from the experience, not failing with his next target, the President. His first target was retired Major General Edwin Walker who was an outspoken anti-Communist and was anti-Castro. Oswald was a self proclaimed Marxist who was even espousing his beliefs while in the military. Oswald fired through a window as Walker sat at his desk in his home. The bullet struck a not visible window frame, changed trajectory and missed its mark by inches.

Oswald’s wife Marina later testified that Lee told her that he did it because he hated him. He had left her a note informing her of what to do if he was caught. He did plan a get-away that included using forged documents. These would be found in his wallet when he was caught for the JFK assassination. Clearly, he had an escape plan for this one as well.

Prior to the attempted assassination of Walker, Oswald had defected to the Soviet Union. Oswald’s defection was well known and even made the front page of some newspapers at the time. He went there to be a spy and to live the socialist dream that he had read about. But the idealism and the reality were not the same. The KGB interviewed him and then rejected him as a spy, deeming his usefulness and military intelligence as unfavorable. They set him up with a job in a factory in Minsk while monitoring his movements. Minsk just happened to be the place that Cuba sent future spies to be trained by the KGB. It was here that Oswald made friends with future Cuban agents. This probably sowed the seeds of his support of Communist Cuba.

It was in Minsk that he met and married a Russian woman, Marina Prusakov (Nicholaevna) after a brief courtship. Her uncle was MVD Colonial Ilya Prusakov (MVD: Russian Interior Ministry Security Service). Marina and her uncle were likely KGB agents. This connection gives rise to a believed KGB involvement in the assassination. While suspicious, there is no proof that Marina or her uncle were acting under KGB orders. More than likely the KGB used them to keep tabs on Oswald.

Is there any basis for a belief in Soviet Involvement in the assassination? It was reported in 2006 that an Italian parliamentary commission concluded that the Soviet Union was behind the 1981 shooting of Pope John Paul II. The reason given was that the pope was considered a threat to the Soviet bloc because of his support for the Solidarity labor movement in his native Poland. The supposed connection was the Bulgarian secret service working for Soviet military intelligence. However, there was insufficient evidence to convict the Bulgarians in the plot. The pontiff was shot by Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turk, who initially blamed the Soviets. In 1991, then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev denied there was KGB complicity. (AP, March 3, 2006, Victor L. Simpson)

As in the JFK assassination, there is no proof of KGB involvement or directives. If anything, it was probably more on the line of: We want him dead, pass the word on. There were likely no drawn up documents attesting to it and if there were they were long ago destroyed.

Oswald became disillusioned with life in the Soviet Union and returned to America with his family. Upon arrival he expected to be interviewed by reporters and was downcast when they did not show up. He was clearly someone who craved the spotlight. I believe that his being marginalized only fueled his desire to do something to gain attention for himself and his beliefs. At this point he was on the radar of many organizations including the FBI and the CIA.

It was in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that Oswald fomented the plan to shoot Walker and ordered a pistol and Italian rifle. He used a Dallas post-office addressed to A. Hidell (name he used on his forged papers). When Marina remarked to Lee that Hidell rhymed with Fidel Oswald got agitated. He attempted the assassination on April 10, 1963 and soon after left for New Orleans to flee any possible heat. This was a childhood home for him that also had a contingent of Cuban exiles. After contacting the Fair Play for Cuba Committee to open a New Orleans branch and being denied, he opened an office against their objection. He was the lone member of the branch and stood outside on the street corner handing out leaflets for recruitment. The leaflets were titled: VIVA FIDEL and HANDS OFF CUBA! He also tried to infiltrate a Cuban anti-Communist group to spy on them but it ended in a fight over the leaflets. It appears that he did these things to impress his contacts in the Cuban secret service.

In late September, 1963, Oswald traveled to Mexico City with the intention of obtaining visas to travel to Russia. He contacted the Cuban and Soviet consulates to obtain permission, but was denied. These would have used in an escape plan. If there was a Cuban-Soviet plot, this is when the seeds would have been sown with Oswald to prove his loyalty to Castro, Cuba and Communism. It has been reported that he was in contact with Cuban agents. He even boasted at the time that he was going to kill Kennedy.

He returned to his family that was living in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. He got a job to work in Dallas at the Texas School Book Depository through the efforts of a friend of his wife. He rented a room under the name of O. H. Lee in Dallas to avoid contact with the FBI who had contacted his family about his whereabouts. He would be driven to work by a co-worker on Monday and returned on Friday to be with his family. Oswald would spend his time in Dallas as he did in his other locations, trying to making connections and promoting himself.

On Thursday, November 21, 1963, he changed his routine and returned to Irving. The next day Friday, he came back to Dallas carrying a long object wrapped in brown paper. When asked, he would reply that they were a bundle of window shades. That day he would use his rifle to assassinate President Kennedy by shooting him from the sixth floor of the TSBD building. He also brought a bag that had his pistol that he would use to kill a police officer.

After the kill shot, Oswald left the rifle and hurried down to escape. He was confronted by police who had rushed to the source of the shots. As he worked in the building he was able to leave. During his escape he was confronted by patrolman J. D. Tippit, who stopped Oswald as he matched the profile. He first talked to Oswald through a window of the patrol car. When he got out of the car, Oswald shot him three times in the chest with his pistol. Oswald then stood over the fallen cop and put a bullet in his head. He then fled to a movie theater and when confronted drew his pistol but was subdued before he could kill again. He suffered facial injuries in the scuffle. He would later deny any involvement in the murders. Was he acting as a criminal by claiming innocence or was he afraid of retribution?

Oswald's plan of escape was undoubtedly with the help of his mob contact Jack Ruby. He had kept quiet about his role in the plot and lied when confronted. He probably believed that this would save him from being silenced by the mob. But it is also very likely that the mob had planned to kill him no matter if he managed to escape. Oswald was probably very surprised when Ruby killed him.

This is not the actions of someone who acted solely in the heat of the moment, but someone who viewed himself as a soldier. The famous picture of Oswald holding his rifle with his pistol on the side reinforces this view. The photo is one of a young revolutionary, a compatriot of Fidel Castro and his Revolution. The assassination was done by Oswald in this context as a trained soldier on the side of communism and not the U.S. I see Lee Oswald as a man who needed to act on his beliefs and who was using the tactics that both sides of the Cold War were using. Assassination was in the rule book, albeit black, and Oswald acted on this page in the book.

Everything he did from the time of his training in the military to switching sides, the defection to the Soviet Union, his efforts to spy and the contacts that he made were not the acts of an irrational mind. What he was doing was experimenting with what was possible and learning from the mistakes that he made. He was a loose-cannon acting on his own but that does not mean that he wasn’t focused. What this means is that he would have been viewed as someone who could be used as a patsy and discarded as he had no direct ties to any organization.

One of the possible reasons that the Warren Commission concluded that he was a lone gunman was because in many ways, Oswald acted on an opportunity. He was in the right place at the right time. The newspapers had given the route of the motorcade in advance and Oswald had the time to plot the assassination. He also had time to co-ordinate with his contacts so all were prepared. Without proof that he was in contact with anyone the only safe conclusion to make was that he acted on his own. But all of the circumstantial evidence points to a greater conspiracy to assassinate the much maligned president. This conclusion was made later.

Like Abraham Lincoln’s assassin before him, Oswald probably believed that those that hated the President would view him as a hero, the one that did what they all wanted done. The assassin John Wilkes Booth was a well known actor at the time who craved the spotlight. He got the nation’s attention when he killed Lincoln. He believed that he would be seen as a hero for the assassination of the “tyrant” President. Booth saw himself as a patriot of the South and the assassination had a political motive. He did not act alone and his co-conspirators were also caught. Oswald was a Marxist (Communist) who hated the capitalistic system and acted as a patriot of the Revolution. He believed that Kennedy was going to invade Cuba to overthrow Castro. He killed the tyrant Kennedy and gained the notoriety that he craved.

The best possible way to view Oswald was that he was a foot soldier in the Cold War that sought to be something more. The Cold War was a beating drum but Oswald moved to the beat of his own drum. He chose to side with the Communists at first hoping to see a revolution in the U.S. After seeing the Soviet system and being rejected by them, he turned his attention to Cuba and Castro’s revolution. As he matured in his understanding he saw that the revolution was not going to spread beyond Cuba’s shores in part because of President Kennedy’ actions. He then grew fearful that Kennedy was going to force a regime change in Cuba. This is when he saw the need to eliminate Kennedy from the playing field.

As a foot soldier in assassination conspiracy, he would only answer to those above him. He would have been largely unaware of any direct orders from higher brass. He believed that Castro wanted Kennedy dead but he would not have any direct access to this. Through his many contacts in secret organizations he knew how hated the President truly was and how they all wanted to see him dead. To be the one to kill the hated president was Oswald’s shot at history, to prove to his colleagues and the world that he was a greater man than how he was perceived.

Oswald was killed for what he did know and where it could lead. There was also a justifiable fear that if the Johnson Administration pursued a Soviet/Cuban role in the killing of the President of the U.S. that it could spark an all-out nuclear war. It was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand that was the spark that ignited the conflagration of WWI. I believe that Johnson pursued the right course of action by not accusing Khrushchev, Castro or Communism for the assassination even though he probably believed in their involvement. Also, it could not be proved then as now; anything else is just conjecture. Johnson acted in a responsible way by letting the fact of Oswald’s guilt be the defining answer to who killed the President. This was not done as a cover-up for the government or for himself, but in a desire to not let Oswald’s actions lead to nuclear war.

In the end, the picture that emerges with Lee Oswald is that he was an extremist who acted on his beliefs by doing an extreme act. This acting on of extreme beliefs is being witnessed in today’s headlines with extremists like the Islamic State (also known as: ISIL, ISIS). The brutal be-headings of the American journalists James Foley and Steven Joel Sotloff can be seen as the terrorist version of wartime political decapitation. They are sending a message that they are at war and that they will go after our leaders someday just as America is targeting their leaders. The point of studying and knowing history is that history often repeats and to be prepared for when it happens.