Oswald's Tale (72 page)

7

Out of Omens Come Events

Somewhere around the end of July, Oswald sent the following letter to FPCC headquarters in New York:

Dear Mr. Lee,

I was glad to receive your advice concerning my try at starting a New Orleans FPCC Chapter. I hope you won’t be too disapproving at my innovations, but I do think they are necessary for this area.

As per your advice, I have taken a P.O. box (no. 30061).

Against your advice, I have decided to take an office from the very beginning.

As you see from the circular, I had jumped the gun on the charter business but I don’t think it is too important; you may think the circular is too provocative, but I want it to attract attention, even if it’s the attention of the lunatic fringe. I had 2,000 of them run off . . . .

In any event, I will keep you posted, and even if the office only stays open for one month, more people will find out about the FPCC than if there had never been any office at all . . .
¹

As he told the Warren Commission, V. T. Lee was sufficiently dismayed by this letter to cease corresponding with Oswald:

MR. LEE
. . . .he had gone ahead and acted on his own without any authorization . . . when somebody writes to you and says they would like to help you, your immediate response is, “Well, wonderful. Here is a new contact in a new part of the hinterlands and, gee, I hope things work out.” And then, when somebody goes off like this, violating all the rules that you send him, it comes as quite a disappointment because you had hopes. Obviously, this man was not operating in an official capacity for the organization.
²

Oswald, however, was as yet unaware that his last letter had ruptured relations:

Dear Mr. Lee,

In regards to my efforts to start a branch of FPCC in New Orleans.

I rented an office as I planned and was promptly closed three days later for some obscure reasons by the renters, they said something about remodeling, etc; I’m sure you understand. After that I worked out of a post office box and by using street demonstrations and some circular work have sustained a great deal of interest but no new members.

Through the efforts of some Cuban-exile “gusanos,” a street demonstration was attacked and we were officially cautioned by the police. The incident robbed me of what support I had, leaving me alone.

Nevertheless, thousands of circulars were distributed and many, many pamphlets which your office supplied.

We also managed to picket the fleet when it came in and I was surprised in the number of officers who were interested on our literature.

I continue to receive through my post office box inquiries and questions which I shall endeavor to keep answering to the best of my ability.

Thank you,
Lee H. Oswald
³

McMillan:
The letter was dated August 1 and postmarked August 4 and it contains not a single true fact apart from the reference to picketing the fleet, which had occurred a month and a half before.

The uncanny thing . . . is that on Monday, August 5, the day after he mailed it, Lee started to bring [into being some of the] events he had just described.
⁴

The essence of magic is to exist in a state of consciousness where past and future seem interchangeable. Classical Hebrew, for example, has only two tenses: There is the present, and then there is another tense which barely distinguishes between past and future. To indicate a past action, it is enough to say, “I went”; yet, to speak of the future, one need only add the word “and” as in, “and I went,” and it becomes equal to “I will go.” A primitive sense of existence is suggested—one that would transgress our modern separation between the real and the imaginary. In such an ancient grammar, yesterday’s events are not seen as facts which have already occurred so much as intimations of the future, that is, omens received from a dream. In that primitive world, the events of yesterday mix in one’s memory with the portents of last night’s dream. To say, therefore, that you have done something which you have not yet done becomes the first and essential step in shaping the future. Out of omens come events. It is as if the future cannot exist without an
a priori
delineation of it. God conceives of the world, then makes it. The cabalistic sense is that in His act of conceiving the world, God has already made it. (The rest is details!)

Let us repeat one sentence from Oswald’s letter to V. T. Lee. “Through the efforts of some Cuban-exile ‘gusanos,’ a street demonstration was attacked and we were officially cautioned by the police.” That was written on August 1.

MR. BRINGUIER.
Well, the first day that I saw Lee Harvey Oswald was on August 5, 1963, but before we go any deeper in this matter about Oswald, I think that I would like to explain to you . . . my feeling at the moment.

MR. LIEBELER.
That is perfectly all right. Go ahead.

MR. BRINGUIER
. . . . you see, in August 24, 1962, my organization, the Cuban Student Directorate, carry on a shelling of Havana, and a few days later a person from the FBI contacted me here in New Orleans—his name was Warren C. deBrueys. Mr. deBrueys was talking to me in the Thompson Cafeteria. At that moment I was the only one from the Cuban Student Directorate here in the city and he was asking me about my activities . . . and when I told him that I was the only one, he didn’t believe it, and he advised me—and I quote, “We could infiltrate your organization and find out what you are doing here.” My answer to him was, “Well, you will have to infiltrate myself, because I am the only one.” . . .

After that, after my conversation with deBrueys, I was always waiting that maybe someone will come to infiltrate my organization from the FBI [so] when Oswald came to me on August 5[1963], I had inside myself the feeling, well, maybe this is from the FBI, or maybe this is a Communist, [but] I only had that [as a] feeling on August 5 because 4 days later I was convinced that Oswald was not an FBI agent but that he was a pro-Castro agent.

. . . Now that day, on August 5, I was talking in the store with one young American—the name of him is Philip Geraci—and 5 minutes later Mr. Oswald came inside the store [while] I was explaining to Geraci that . . . he was too young, that if he want to distribute literature against Castro, I would give him the literature but not admit him to the fight.

At that moment also . . . Oswald start to agree with my point of view and he show real interest in the fight against Castro. He told me that he was against Castro and that he was against communism [and] he asked me first for some English literature against Castro . . .

After that, Oswald told me that he had been in the Marine Corps and that he had been training in guerrilla warfare and that he was willing to train Cubans to fight against Castro. Even more, he told me that he was willing to go himself . . . . That was on August 5.

I turned down his offer. I told him that . . . my only duties here in New Orleans are propaganda and information and not military activities. That was my answer to him [but] before he left the store, he put his hand in the pocket and he offered me money.

MR. LIEBELER.
Oswald did?

MR. BRINGUIER.
Yes.

MR. LIEBELER.
How much did he offer you?

MR. BRINGUIER.
Well, I don’t know. As soon as he put the hand in the pocket and he told me, “Well, at least let me contribute to your group with some money,” at that moment I didn’t have the permit from the city hall here in New Orleans to collect money in the city, and I told him that I could not accept . . . he could send the money directly to the headquarters . . . and I gave him the number of the post office box . . . in Miami.
⁵

The youth, Philip Geraci, who Bringuier had decided was too young to join the active fight, offers in his testimony a closer account of the conversation with Oswald:

MR. GERACI
. . . .he came in and said, “Excuse me,” and you know, he acted a little nervous and things like that. He asked, “Is this the Cuban headquarters, Cuban exile headquarters?” . . . And Carlos said yes; . . . and then Oswald said something like, “It is kind of exciting meeting . . . somebody who is a real Cuban exile, you know, someone who is really trying to do something to help free Cuba and all that.” . . . Carlos just answered real simply [and] didn’t go into any big speeches, [then Carlos had to go] and that left Oswald, me, and Vance [my friend] by ourselves.

Then, well, we asked—you know, we were a little interested in guerrilla warfare . . . and he said, well, he was an ex-Marine . . . He said he learned a little bit about that stuff . . . I remember, like he said the way to derail a train was to wrap chain around the ties of the track and then lock it with a padlock and the train would derail. He said the thing he liked best of all was learning how to blow up the Huey P. Long Bridge. He said you put explosive at each end on the banks and blow it up, and that leaves the one column standing. And he said how to make a homemade gun and how to make gunpowder, homemade gunpowder . . . He didn’t really go into detail or anything. We didn’t ask him. And by this time, Carlos came back . . . and he was listening, and, well, that is about all.

Oh, there was one important thing. Oswald said something like that he had a military manual from when he was in the Marines, and he said he would give it to me, and I said, “That is all right. You don’t have to. You can give it to Carlos.” He said, “Well, OK, he will give it to Carlos next time he comes.”
⁶

Four days later, this scene would take on considerable significance for Carlos Bringuier:

MR. BRINGUIER
. . . . Next day, on August 6, Oswald came back to the store . . . and he left with my brother-in-law a Guidebook for Marines for me with the name “L. H. Oswald” in the top of the first page. When I came back to the store . . . . I found interest in it and I keep it, and later . . . on August 9 I was coming back to the store at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, and one friend of mine with the name of Celso Hernandez came in to me and told me that in Canal Street there was a young man carrying a sign telling “Viva Fidel” in Spanish . . . At that moment was in the store another Cuban with the name of Miguel Cruz, and we went all three . . . to Canal Street to find the guy . . . but we could not [so] I went back to the store [and then] Miguel Cruz came running and told me that the guy was another time in Canal Street and that Celso was watching him over there.

I went over [again] and I was surprised when I recognized that the guy . . . was Lee Harvey Oswald [and when] he recognized me, he was also surprised, but just for a few seconds. Immediately he smiled to me and he offered the hand to shake hands with me. I became more angry and I start to tell him that he don’t have any face to do that, with what face he was doing that? . . . He was a Castro agent . . .

That was a Friday around 3 o’clock at this moment, and many people start to gather around us to see what was going on over there. I start to explain to the people what Oswald did to me, because I wanted to move the American people against him, not to take the fight for myself as a Cuban but to move the American people to fight him, and I told them that he was a Castro agent, that he was a pro-Communist, and that he was trying to do to them exactly what he did to us in Cuba, kill them and send their children to the execution wall. Those were my phrases at the moment.

The people in the street became angry and started to shout to him, “Traitor! Communist! Go to Cuba! Kill him!” and some other phrases . . . bad phrases, bad words.
⁷

At that moment, a policeman arrived and told Bringuier to keep walking:

MR. BRINGUIER.
[The policeman said] to let Oswald distribute his literature that he was handing out—yellow leaflets of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, New Orleans Chapter—and I told to the policeman that I was a Cuban, I explained to him what Oswald did to me, and I told him . . . that I will not leave that place until Oswald left and that I will make some trouble.

The policeman left, I believe going to some place to call the headquarters, and at that moment my friend Celso took the literature from Oswald, the yellow sheets, and broke it and threw it on the air. There were a lot of yellow sheets flying. And I was more angry, and . . . I took my glasses off and I went near to him to hit him, but when he sensed my intention, he put his arm down as an X, like this here (demonstrating).

MR. LIEBELER.
He crossed his arms in front of him?

MR. BRINGUIER.
That is right, put his face and told me, “OK, Carlos, if you want to hit me, hit me.”

At that moment, that made me to reaction that he was trying to appear as a martyr if I will hit him, and I decide not to hit him, and just a few seconds later arrive two police cars, and . . . they put Oswald and my two friends in one of the police cars, and I went . . . in the other police car to the First District of Police here in New Orleans [and now] we were in the same room, one small room over there, and some of the policemen start to question Oswald if he was a communist . . . and Oswald at that moment [was] really cold blood. He was answering the questions that he would like to answer, and he was not nervous, he was not out of control, he was confident in himself at that moment over there.
⁸