"Patsy!": The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald (17 page)

JFK married a debutante, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, who had recently delivered him a daughter, the newspapers were full of this event owing to the attractive movie-star quality of each parent. Other than that, all Lee knew was that Kennedy had gone after the Democratic party's vice-presidential nomination, in hopes of running with Adlai Stevenson in the upcoming election. On August 17, 1956, this distinct honor had been denied him.

"A temporary set-back," George chuckled. "Believe me. This guy is going all the way to the White House.”

"Seriously? But if his own party wouldn't let him—“

"Jack's father, Joseph, has a saying: 'When the going gets tough, the tough get going.'"

"I've heard that. And this book—"

"Ghost-written by a coterie of Ivy League brain-trust intellectuals who view JFK as their Great White Hope. Adlai losing to Ike again they considered a foregone conclusion. Kennedy's clique figures after another four years, the Dems will be ready to accept their boy with open arms. Meanwhile, Jack's at work building his coming campaign machine with a team of experts. Step by step, they're creating a myth around the man: macho in combat, intelligent in repose, gorgeous to look at, particularly when accompanied by his wife. She, by the way, is part of that master-plan, though I doubt the lady realizes it yet. She will! Jack's a womanizer, she his elegant cover-wife."

"If the Kennedys are so powerful, why was that necessary?"

"Now, you're being naive. The Kennedys, understand, are nouveaux riche. Their Irish working-class origins, along with their Catholicity, will cause dumb bigots to pause. The final thing Jack needs for the Total Image is a sense of belonging to an American aristocracy. That can only be achieved by marriage into such a circle. Jackie adds the necessary touch of class."

"But if Kennedy didn't really write this, why bother—”

"
Profiles in Courage
will provide the cornerstone of the emergent Kennedy legend. My outfit is eventually going to have to deal with that as well as him, the person.”

"As one of your operatives, I will, too."

"Now you got it. However remote he may seem at the moment, Lee, believe me: in time, John Fitzgerald Kennedy will become the most important person in your life."

*

Lee first met George on November 22, 1957, six years to the day (and for that matter hour) previous to the assassination in Dallas of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Still quartered at the San Diego base if already in the process of readying himself for his transfer, Lee received a phone call while in the PX. He was alone there other than a girl on duty behind the counter.

"This is Lee Oswald. Who's this?"

"George."

For a moment the name didn't register. Lee ran through all the Georges he had ever encountered. Then, it hit him.
George!
The person that the FBI agent had told him about.

"Oh, yes. George. Of course! Hello."

"Lee, I'd like to meet with you to talk a bit.”

"I'd be delighted." Lee was careful not to say too much while in hearing distance of the girl. However unlikely, she could be a Soviet spy. Lee knew that such things
happened. After all, he'd watched each and every episode of
I Led Three Lives
.

"Jot down this address,” George said. ”Meet me tonight—"

"I'll have to see about a pass."

"Already arranged. Waiting for you at H.Q."

Lee yanked a napkin from a nearby container, then picked up a pencil stub lying on the counter. "Okay, ready."

Just as I guessed,
the waitress mused.
That marine's a queer. Heading off now to meet the man he arranged with for a late-night tryst. As always I can spot faggots a mile away!

*

As no direct bus line yet existed between the San Diego Marine Corps base and San Ysidro Port of Entry at the city's southernmost tip, Lee, in civvies, had to change three times. At the main bus depot he disembarked and hopped aboard the San Diego Trolley, which delivered him to the post. There, the guards awaited those wishing to cross over from the United States to Mexico's Northern-most city, Tijuana. Lee presented his identification to an uninformed Mexican who signaled him on.

That was easy!

Lee joined the gathered mass, sweating as he always did when forced to be part of a crowd. Among those also trickling into the foot walk from one country to the other was a mixed batch of Anglos and Latinos. Once in downtown Tijuana, Lee hailed a cab to drive him over to Rosarito Beach, a separate nearby community known for its red-hot row of clubs and bars.

Eventually they pulled up to the address. Lee recognized the name "Villa's Hideaway" above the door from George's call. Inside, the lighting proved dim but colorful, the walls crowded with Mexican kitsch including paintings of the country's own film and music-biz celebrities, Pedro Armanderiz, decked out in a Pancho Villa costume he'd worn in films on the folk-hero, prominent among them.

Lee pushed his way past low-hanging papier-mache renderings of blue bulls and bone-white models of the
human skeleton, past scattered customers at the bar and tables, all the way to the back end. In an adjoining small
room, set back in the furthest corner, sat an American in a beige suit with nondescript tie.

'George?' Lee mouthed the name without emitting a sound. A nod let him know that here was his coordinate. Lee stepped up to the table where the American signaled for him to sit.

"Hello," Lee now ventured to softly say.

"Lee Harvey Oswald, I presume?" George inquired, extending a hand for shaking. Lee responded in kind. "Everything you told the FBI man, I already know. I'd like to learn more about you. Any further details, please share with me now."

After a pretty Latina served Lee a beer, he rambled on. He could now accurately fire a rifle, if need be, in the line of service. Following his embarrassing moment on the range with that snarling sergeant, Lee practiced alone whenever he could until he became accurate enough to win the prized Sharpshooter distinction. Now, he rated as a
marine
; a man!

Lee had begun, in addition to leaving communist reading matter on his bunk, to openly spout phrases concerning "the disparagement of the common worker under a corrupt capitalist system" and the "obvious American imperialism taking place in the Third World." Most marines stepped away; a few threatened his life. On more than one occasion Lee was beaten by unknown assailants. All of this finally paid off: he had been invited to attend a meeting of San Diego's secretive communist cell.

Though people in attendance had only referred to each other by nicknames, leaving Lee unable to share with George their identities, he had taken close note of their appearances. Lee could relate these in detail to George if that might be of any value. Lee had arrived here to help his country, in any way he could, by creating an alternative Lee Oswald: a pinko facade that covered his real patriotism completely. When Lee finished, he knew from George's eyes that the CIA man had been impressed.

*

Three weeks later, an hour and twelve minutes after picking Lee up at the camp's entrance, George turned onto the well-traveled highway, abandoning it for a primitive
road, clearly a forgotten relic of the 1930s. More surprising still, they later turned onto a rough dirt pathway from back in frontier days.

"My guess is that you'll finish the book by the time you arrive at your destination."

"Which means I'll be traveling for several hours?"

"Longer than that. You'll arrive tomorrow morning."

"Am I flying?" George nodded affirmatively. "Is there some secret CIA airport out here in the middle of nowhere?"

George glanced over, smiled, then returned his eyes to the path. "Assume whatever you like, Lee. No, there is no airport. I think you'd have to go a long way to even find some old deserted prospector's shack in this stretch of desert."

"It's like, if there's an edge to the world where people might drop off and disappear into a void, this is it."

"You got that one right." With that, George pulled over onto a long, flat stretch. In the moonlight, a few misshapen cacti located on the far side of a cleared-out square stretched toward the cream-colored moon, like the ghosts of some ancient Spaniards. Lee knew enough to step out without being told.

George, maneuvering around to the sedan's head lights, motioned for Lee to join him. A bit nervous, Lee did. "Lee, have you ever heard the term 'twinning'?"

Lee mulled that over. "I don't believe so."

"While we're waiting, let me explain. Twinning is the most extreme form of plastic surgery. ‘Plastics', as medical people refer to it. Designed to restore a person's face to a normal appearance in the event a birth defect or accident.”

"Sure."

"Well, twinning takes that premise a giant leap further. Eight plastic surgeons in the world, tops, are accomplished enough to perform this technique, though the concept is simple to explain. ‘Twinning' means the making-over of one person's face in the precise likeness of another's."

"Wow. But how does this have anything to do with me?"

"In terms of the services you have volunteered for—and, Lee, let me remind you again, they are essential to the well-being of the U.S.—the Company requires that you have a double."

Lee took that in, stunned. "Someone who looks just like me? God, I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

George laughed. "Be that as it may, this is a necessity. Now, I must tell you too that you do not have to go through with it. If you wish, you may drop out of the program now.”

Lee pulled himself up as straight and tall as he could. "I volunteered, didn't I?" George nodded. "I'm committed. Fully!”

"Glad to hear that," George sighed, relaxing. More than Lee could guess. Despite George's magnanimous offer of a moment ago, the CIA operative's orders were to, if Lee expressed hesitation, draw his .45 automatic from its shoulder holster right beneath George's jacket and execute Lee Harvey Oswald at once.

"I am interested to know, though: Why do I need one?"

"It has to do with your eventual planned defection to Moscow that I mentioned last time we met. At times, you might be needed back in the states. Whenever that occurs, your double will secretively enter the Soviet Union, assuming your place until you are able to return.”

"Incredible," Lee responded, grinning with anticipation.

*

"So," George said in Villa's Hideaway in the late-evening of November 22, the first of three meetings there. "Now I know the life and times of Lee Harvey Oswald."

"If you want a dedicated American willing to go down in history as a traitor if need be, so long as he serves his country and serves it well, that's me."

One of the best at what he did, George had thoroughly researched Lee Harvey Oswald before this first meeting. Reports from sources as far-flung as Bethlehem in Louisiana to the Youth House in New York provided telling hints as to the personality of this over-anxious volunteer. George's job had been to take such jagged pieces and fit them into a revealing jigsaw puzzle.

One of the comments from Dr. Renatus Hartogs had far more meaning to the CIA agent than the good doctor likely intended. Lee "dislikes intensely talking about himself and his feelings." That ranked high among those traits any experienced CIA agent hoped to find in an inexperienced would-be operative. To Frank Sturgis, it was imperative that a potential operative be not only able to keep his mouth shut but be strongly inclined to privacy. Always there would be enemy agents feigning friendship to get a still-green operative to open up and spill his guts.

The word "feelings" struck George as the most important; stoicism was essential. The lack of such a trait made a man vulnerable, in particular to the beautiful women invariably recruited by the KGB to open up a naive man, he blurting out everything he knew once she tapped into his emotions.

Adding to this were the observations of a Youth House social worker, Evelyn Strickman, who had tagged Lee as "a rather pleasant" young man with an "appealing quality" despite his being "emotionally starved" and, as a result, an "affectionless youngster." The lady had not only reasserted Dr. Hartogs's statement about Lee's relationship to his own emotions, going a giant step further, implying he might actually be incapable of feelings. That, at least in the proper context, Lee could come off as "pleasant" and "appealing" was important if he were going to win over members of the KGB in an intricate plan that Sturgis and Company head-honcho Allen Dulles were developing.

Despite all these dark aspects, Lee had struck George from day one as naively innocent. An intriguing aspect of the mix!

One element troubled him, though: the fact that while attending school in the New York area, Lee flatly refused to salute the U.S. flag. This had provided incentive for several brutes to beat him in the playground during recess though that did not deter Lee from his decision.

"You tell me you are a patriot," George had asked Lee point blank, "and yet ..." He quoted the report verbatim.

"Show me the stars and stripes whenever you like," Lee responded. "I'll jump up and salute. See, that was at the time when my master-plan first began to take shape. I had to plant the thought in others' minds as early as I could that I was turning anti-American. At school, jobs, even the marines; always I had to do something to make people suspect I'm a Commie."

"So that they would contact you, then you'd contact us?"

Lee grinned, nodded, and told his inquisitor all about his experiences in Beauregard Junior High after Marguerite made the decision to abandon New York as a bad idea and return them both to New Orleans. For once, Lee actually found a friend. Fellow teenager Edward Voebel shared Lee's interest in aviation. They joined the Civil Air Patrol, a boy's club. Lee made sure his fellow fifteen-year-old saw copies of
The Communist Manifesto
whenever Ed visited. If Voebel were in the future questioned by any government official, he would verify that Lee harbored Red leanings way back then. Another friend, Palmer E. McBride, like Lee appreciated classical music, the only kind Lee listened to other than Sinatra. After Lee shared copies of the
Socialist Call
, a
magazine Lee subscribed to, McBride's father said that Lee could never come to their house again. That was alright; Lee was establishing a false front which, as such incidents accumulated, would eventually bring party members around to meet him.