"Patsy!": The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald (31 page)

The pilot, appearing panicky, nodded. They cruised down the runaway and rapidly ascended. The mechanics hurried back into the building, calling to the young woman to report another skyjacking of the type that had recently become frequent.

Once airborne, the three jet-age cowboys had a good laugh. The ruse was necessary so that word of the hijacking would be spread all over international radar. Those in Cuba assigned to monitor such airwaves would pick up on this, which ought to prove helpful once they landed, as heroes, outside of Havana.

“Well, so far, so good,” Lee smirked.

“We've only just begun,” Dick Tracy reminded him.

During the first third of the flight they ran through their operation. In three days time, each man working on his own would try to kill Castro while he dined at his favorite restaurant. Their approaches were so drastically different that it seemed impossible all three could fail when the tactics were carried out simultaneously. This would
make the situation all the more favorable for their side on ‘D Day,' a term Dick Tracy used, Lee aware the flyer knew more about the coming Big Event than he.

“Well, I trust and believe that we're going to pull this off and maybe with a little luck all three of us will live to tell our grandchildren about it,” Lee said.

“The odds are in our favor as to the first part of your statement,” Dick Tracy explained, “less so as to the second.”

“Most likely one of us will go down,” Rosselli added.

“Maybe two? Well, as I said that first day when I signed up for the marines, I'm willing to give my life for my country.”

“Let's hope it doesn't come to that,” Dick Tracy replied.

“Still, I've got to say, while all I know about Castro is what I read in the papers, and while my impression is mostly negative, I've got a feeling in my gut that says all of this crap might have been avoided.”

Dick Tracy turned to Lee briefly, studying the man who sat grinning smugly in the passenger seat. “I don't get your drift.”

“Well, I keep as close an eye as I can on everything that's happening on the international scene. So I can't help thinkin' that things didn't have to reach such a ... how would you put it ... crisis point between the U.S. and Cuba.”

Dick Tracy, checking out his flight panel once more, solemnly shook his head. “How could we have avoided it, Lee?”

“After the takeover in '59, the only thing I think Castro really cared about was his own survival. If I'm right, that means he had to be open to all offers which might benefit him. Including any overtures from the U.S.”

“You're forgetting,” Rosselli said, “Castro was a Red.”

“Right. But also an American. A Latin American, a Third World American. But an American. Don't you think he might have opened his arms to U.S. aid if we'd offered to pour money and goods in, rather than assuming a bunker mentality toward us? I mean, think about it. A lot of blood got spilled during that New Year's eve revolution, but no Americans were harmed.”

“You sound soft on communism,” Dick Tracy remarked.

“Better dead than Red,” Rosselli added.

“Well, yeah. Sure. Hey, I like American style capitalism as much as either of you guys. But that doesn't mean we can't live with a Marxist state, so long as it isn't openly hostile.”

“You're claiming then that Fidel might have been an ally?”

“I'm saying that I believe he left that route open until we started playing dirty tricks, like cigars to destroy his beard.”

“You yourself were in on some of that stuff.”

“I know, Johnny, I know. And glad to do it. My country calls, I answer! All I'm saying is—“

“—we might have tried extending an olive branch first.”

“Right, Dick Tracy. I mean, the Soviet Union likes to come in and swallow things whole. Maybe Castro would have preferred to be our ally, however uneasy, if only we gave him a chance.”

“Yet you're going down there to kill him at this moment?”

“I sure am, Johnny. Like Alfred, Lord Tennyson said about those who serve their country in the military or any other such capacity: Ours is not to reason why; ours is but to do and die.”

“Could all those months in Minsk, when you were pretending to be a true believer in communism, have turned you around?”

“No, no, no! Believe me, if there's one thing I learned over there, it's that their supposedly left wing government is as authoritarian as Batista's fascist Cuban state before the revolution, and Castro's left wing authoritarian regime now.”

“How about the U.S. of A.?” Dick Tracy wanted to know.

“We may be far from perfect but so far as I can see we've got the best of all possible governments in an imperfect world.”

“Now you're talkin', pal!”

“Still, any government is only as good as those people who are running it at any one point in time.”

“Are you referring to Kennedy?” Dick Tracy wanted to know.

“Yes. But Eisenhower, too. I mean, he may not have been out for Castro's blood, like JFK. Still, maybe he over-reacted a bit by trying to rid the world of Castro by non-violent means.”

*

They said little else during the remainder of the two hour seven minute trip. Lee wondered if he might have spoken out of turn, even as he had back during his first days as a marine when he opened up too soon to a seeming friend.

Yes, these guys were fellow members of a mission, but not my best buddies. Well, too late now to do anything about it. Just hope they took my words as intended: small talk.

Dick Tracy, clearly a skilled flier, kept their positioning at 210 degrees, straight on toward Havana. Some twenty minutes north of Cuba, Lee spotted a pair of MIGS out his window, but they roared off in the opposite direction and did not turn around at the sight of this American craft. Shortly the plane crossed over and away from The Big Blue, crossing over sandy browns of the rugged beaches, then wildly diverse greens of adjacent rolling hills, fully visible, absolutely breathtaking.

“Here we go,” Dick Tracy sighed, nosing the plane downward. All had been briefed as to the swiftly-evolving defense system on the island, posts strung out at regular intervals so that any air invasion attempt could quickly be detected. Dick Tracy circled twice, checking his controls, over toward a medium-sized compound: a dozen rusty tin buildings circling a larger, older wood-frame structure. A quarter-mile northward, a landing strip extended eastward, little more than a primitive field cut from waist deep weeds, shoulder-high cane, and an encroaching mantis-green jungle. Descending the Cessna, the pilot likewise released the wheels. Minutes later, they landed without a bump.

“We're here!” Lee shouted, excited to once again be in Cuba, which he had adored during his previous brief stay.

“Do precisely as you are told,” a firm voice commanded in thickly accented English, “or we will shoot. Do you understand?”

“Oh, shit!” Lee gasped. A squad of eight men rushed toward them, all wearing drab olive fatigues, crouched low, pointing submachine guns directly at the recently airborne intruders. Burning eyes suggested none had any hesitations as to shooting the Americans on the spot rather than assume any risk.

“We're defectors!” Johnny called out, standing still in the spot where he had leaped down seconds earlier. Dick Tracy, just then jumping down from out of his own doorway, repeated that in Spanish.

“Step away from the plane. Quickly!” One bearded Cuban, obviously the leader, barked orders while waving sharply, his other arm cradling his weapon. Never having felt this close to death before, Lee's body shook so hard he feared that he might not be able to comply, however much he wanted to. The leader then nodded for them to proceed toward the main building.

A not inconsiderable arsenal of weapons remained trained on the three as the Cubans roughly escorted them to G-2, the local office of Castro's secret police. That imposing Cuban squad leader verbally accosted and accused the men, insisting that they were CIA agents. All denied, denied, denied, pleading to be taken to Havana to where they could present their case to the authorities. The inquisitor's eyes suggested that he might possibly believe Lee and Johnny were defectors, Dick Tracy the hapless pilot they forced at gunpoint (Johnny's weapon long since seized by guards) to fly them here.

The interrogation at last over, they were held for several hours in one of the windowless tin shacks which, as the middle of the afternoon encroached, came to feel like a crude oven. As evening wore on, a guard approached, informing Dick Tracy that he was free to go but must immediately return to Florida. Not glancing at the others, he exited the building and headed back to the plane. Shortly Lee and Johnny heard the motors roar as he took off. This was precisely as they had hoped things would go. Their confederate would proceed to a hidden airstrip not far from Havana, meet them at an appointed time and place, so the three-pronged assassination attempt would proceed on schedule.

Several hours after Lee and Johnny had fallen asleep on the dirt floor, each stirred as there came a dull noise at the door. They rose without exchanging a word. This, they knew, was the pre-planned escape; one of the supposed guerillas in the squad would be a CIA plant. As the scenario dictated, the lock had been removed. Cautiously, they slipped off into the night and started on their long walk to Havana.

So far, so good!

*

Two days later, everything quickly turned to shit. Dick Tracy was the first to fail. Since he had never before come face to face with Castro, he'd been assigned the task of doing just that. As Castro sat down at one of Casalta's outdoor tables, always preferring to catch the first breeze from the sea rather than swelter inside, Dick Tracy stepped up, thrusting forward a pen and paper, humbly requesting Fidel's autograph. Though two guards stepped between their leader and this sudden interloper, patting the man down as they checked for weapons, Castro nodded magnanimously; happy to oblige! As the American set a pen and paper down on the table Castro yanked a pen from an inner jacket pocket, writing:

 

If only more U.S. citizens would come to visit all would know that we are not your enemies!

—Fidel Castro

 

This left Dick Tracy, recovering from his surprise, saying thank you to Castro, hastily picking up the autographed paper and his own pen, then departing. This pen contained a secret syringe filled with poison. The plan had been that, as Castro completed writing a message, Dick Tracy would reach to take back his pen while thumbing the lever, releasing botulin, pricking Castro's skin, and injecting poison into his system. He hadn't guessed Castro would have a pen of his own. Phase one had failed.

Lee, across the plaza, was already in position with a Browning FN High Power Bolt Action Rifle, the 1959 Safari Grade Model, SN L7168, peering through a telescopic sight, aiming at the guards. Having achieved sharpshooter rank in the marines, in the South Pacific proving to George back home that he had no compunction killing someone who needed killing, Lee had received this assignment. When Tracy bolted and ran, Lee would, employing smokeless-powder cartridges so as not to give away his hiding place, take both the guards down.

Within seconds of Dick Tracy leaving, out of the restaurant ambled Johnny Rosselli, carrying a hot plate of grilled shrimps, the dictator's favorite, which he ordered every Wednesday night. These, Rosselli had drenched in botulin as well as lemon and butter, adding the third element while easing out the door. Despite his face-to-face confrontation with Castro in mid-January, 1959, Rosselli had no fear of being recognized. His hair was now light brown instead of jet black, he wore contact lenses to change his eye color to a shade of sea-green, and he kept his head tilted to one side while setting down the platter.

There was only one problem: an old friend of Castro's, to whom the dictator recently extended a favor, had sent precisely this dish over to the dictator's offices for lunch, accompanied by a bottle of white wine. So now Castro was in the mood for something else, perhaps a rare steak. He pushed the plate over to a cabinet minister seated at his right, whispering in the waiter's ear that he wanted a different dish. Maintaining his low profile, Rosselli nodded, turned as if to step back inside Casalta, then slipped off into the crowd. Like a wisp of smoke, Johnny was gone, even as Castro's doomed associate swallowed a mouthful of the delicacy and, gagging, fell to the ground. He rolled about, his face at first crimson, then ashen, dying.

Lee was to have shot down the guards if Castro ate and died, covering Johnny's escape. Such tactical work was no longer his concern. Now, all he had to do was pull the trigger, bring down Castro, and hurry off, meeting the others at the Cessna in a pre-arranged place. Lee's finger tightened on the trigger. Even as he began to squeeze, in the slow and efficient manner mastered at Boot Camp, Castro stood up and stared straight at him as if the dictator knew precisely where Lee had hidden himself. Lee was gripped by shock and confusion: How and why had Castro glanced this way? Lee could not know that toward the end of January 1959, this was the spot from which Enrique Avirez had tried, and failed, to pull the trigger on Castro.

The dictator experienced a sense of déjà vu, fully expecting to die this time around. Perhaps that explained why he did not. Lee saw such passion, fury, desperation, and intense longing to live in the eyes of the man across the way, his finger momentarily froze. Lee blinked, then quickly regained composure, readying to shoot. In that split-second the guards had thrown Castro down on the ground and leaped on top of him, shielding his body with their own. Someone in the late-afternoon crowd spotted Lee and pointed, shouting. Dropping the rifle, Lee rose, turned, and ran for his life.

Twisting his way up and down narrow boulevards, Lee almost immediately crashed headlong into a police officer summoned to the scene. Assuming this panicky fugitive must be guilty of something, he grabbed Lee by his short hair, yanked him up, and hurried to nearest police station. Once inside Lee bleated his innocence, halting in mid-sentence until he saw Johnny Rosselli and Dick Tracy in handcuffs, these now placed on his wrists.