"Patsy!": The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald (54 page)

“Once Jack is gone, he means nothing to us. Unless he ever decides to run for president. Then, of course, we'll ...”

Frank laughed sardonically. Giancana wanted to know what he found so funny. “I'll tell you, Sam. Kennedy's bitch of a wife? She'll make one gorgeous widow.”

“Yes. Jacqueline Kennedy will look beautiful in black.”

*

On November 22, 1963, at 4:20 in the afternoon (Central Time), a young female FBI agent placed a call to headquarters in D.C. When a secretary answered, she asked to speak with the director. Told that he could only be reached in an emergency, she then explained she held in her hand an information packet that had been dropped off several days earlier by Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who only a few hours before presumably shot the president. The envelope was marked “private and confidential” and “to be opened immediately in the event of my death.”

The secretary told the young woman to hold on momentarily. Less than a minute later the director's immediately recognizable voice boomed on the other end. He wanted to know if agent James Hosty happened to be in the building and was informed that Hosty had hurried to police headquarters to oversee questioning of the key suspect. The director told the young woman to get Hosty back at once. When she asked if she ought to open the envelope the director gasped and told her no. Upon return, Hosty's orders were to shred the unopened document and destroy the remains.

Hosty hurried back and was met by Shanklin, his superior, who relayed to Hosty what the secretary had told him. Shanklin wanted to know if there might be anything else that connected the FBI office to this doomed missive. In reply Hosty said that he had written a memorandum about the reception of Oswald's manuscript. Shanklin ordered Hosty to destroy that, along with any other evidence linking Oswald with this office. Hosty did as told, flushing the remants down a toilet.

*

On November 23, 1963, Lyndon Johnson arrived at the White House for his first full day in office as president. Before he could settle down to business Johnson found McGeorge Bundy, JFK's Assistant to the President for all National Security Affairs, awaiting him. Johnson sensed that Bundy appeared more fidgety than usual. Without a word, Bundy nodded, indicating that the president should follow him down a corridor.

Minutes later, the pair passed by two armed guards, through a steel doorway with 54/12 emblazoned on it. The situation room, as it was called, had been created in a cellar-like compound far beneath the White House basement, existing as an unknown cellar beneath the known one. Johnson gasped at the sight: immense wall maps, ticker tape machines, state of the art radar equipment, TV monitors, all these interconnected with brightly colored wires, abetted by a complex telephone system beyond that in his White House suite. This would be the only occasion on which he'd be invited—it felt like an order—to enter this sacrosanct place.

For the remainder of his current term and after winning re-election, LBJ's contact with 54/12 would be Bundy, abetted only by occasions on which LBJ was visited by John Alex McCone, then-director of the CIA, the person for whom this secret enclave had been built. For a wide-eyed, slack-jawed LBJ, the vast bunker recalled the Bat-cave in D.C. comics he'd read as a kid, combined with elements from the title villain's deep-in-the-earth hideaway in
Dr. No
, the first James Bond film. He and Ladybird had seen that following a high recommendation by JFK.

“We'll make this brief, Lyndon,” McCone stated in a flat, business-like tone. “I take it that you look forward to a long and happy run in the White House?”

“That's what I'm hopin' for.”

“I have no doubt that can be arranged, so long as you understand the one absolute rule now in existence.”

“I'm listening.”

“From this room, I make all decisions concerning America's involvement in international affairs. I will convey necessary information to you through McGeorge. He'll report to you daily so it won't be necessary for you to meet with us often.”

“Us?”

McCone indicated the numbers on the wall. “54/12. Lyndon, understand: the CIA and aligned organizations will operate covertly throughout the world, in the best interests of the United States. You will be informed of our activities.”

“But ... I'm the president!”

“Yes, that's true. And, Mr. President, do you know what George Clemenceau said way back in 1919?”

“'War is now too important to be left to the generals.'”

“Precisely. Today? Politics is too important to be left to the presidents. We—the 54/12 Group—learned that the hard way.”

“But what will I do ... say ...”

“As to the public, we don't care, so long as you keep any mention of us out of it. Tell them the truth or tell them lies. As to social issues, you're the boss. But when re-election time comes around again, if things in Southeast Asia are going well, tell the people you'll wrap it up in Vietnam quick as possible. If things get sticky over there, tell them that if they vote you back into office, you'll make certain American boys don't die doing the job South Vietnamese boys should be doing. If we ascertain that the war can be scaled down, it will be. You can claim it was your doing. They'll love you for it. If we see fit to escalate, you tell the public that you meant what you said when you said it, but that was then, this now. Circumstances altered. Things change. We will make such decisions.”

“In Vietnam.”

“Yes. Also, everywhere else in the world.”

“And I have no alternative but to follow your orders?”

“Sure,” McCone laughed. “You can end up like Kennedy.”

*

On November 24, at approximately ten a.m., Capt. John Will Fritz of the Dallas Police department's homicide office gave up in his attempts over the past twelve hours to wring a confession out of Lee Harvey Oswald. During this procedure he'd been joined by Hosty and another FBI agent, James Bookhout. Despite their combined talents at drawing the truth out of a suspect, Oswald refused to say anything other than that when JFK was killed he'd been taking his lunch on the first floor of the Dallas Book Depository. Other employees who had been there at that time insisted that they couldn't recall Oswald's presence.

“If that were so, why did you slip away moments later?”

“I didn't think there would be any work done that afternoon so I just left.”

“Where did you go?”

“Home. Having heard what happened to the president caused me to sweat like a pig. I showered, changed clothes, went out.”

“Where did you go?”

“To the movies.”

“Isn't that odd?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't believe that's what most people would have done.”

“Well, try and understand this: I'm not most people. I'm me. I do what I do, not what I think others would. How's that?”

“Why would you carry a pistol into the theatre?”

“Self-defense. There was a killer running around loose!”

Oswald was asked if he'd like a lawyer and he mentioned a top New York attorney. Oswald appeared in a line-up. When the police found three cartridges from Oswald's pistol near the body of a policeman named Tippit, who had been murdered shortly after the shooting of the president (it was this crime Oswald had been arrested for), as well as three bullets near the window that Oswald might have occupied, holding his rifle, as JFK drove by, he was now arraigned before Judge David Johnson for “the murder with malice of the president.” Hours earlier Lee had been accused of killing Tippet in a different area of Dallas.

Fritz, following direct orders, began to prepare Oswald for a transfer from police headquarters to county jail.

“My name is Thomas J. Keller,” a tall, rugged fellow said to Oswald just before Fritz's men moved the suspect down to the basement for his car ride from one incarceration to what was supposed to be the next. “I'm with the Secret Service. You claim not to be guilty of killing the president.”

“That is absolutely correct.”

“I'd be very anxious to talk with you to make sure that the correct story, as you believe it to have gone down, developed.”

“I'll be glad to. Just as soon as I meet with my lawyer.”

Nodding, Keller stood back and watched as the handcuffed Oswald was accompanied to the basement, where an unmarked car awaited him for the move. Once below, in the bowels of the building, Lee was stunned at what awaited him.

Flood-lights were turned on and bathed him to the point of blindness in an eerie white light of the order some movie star might experience while arriving for a premiere. Photographers snapped pictures while journalists called out for a statement.

This is it. The moment I've waited all in my life for!

“Here he comes,” someone shouted.

What was it Cagney said in some old gangster film, just before they blew him away? ‘Made it, Ma. Top of the world!'

“Mr. Oswald, did you kill President Kennedy?”

Marguerite? Are you watching TV? Just like in the movies. Top of the world ...

“Did you act alone or were you part of a conspiracy?”

What did Gloria Swanson say in
Sunset Boulevard
? ‘I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille ...'

“Mr. Oswald, please. Make a statement.”

What did a world-famous author claim to want most in a French film? To become immortal ... and then die.

“I'm a
patsy
,” Lee cried out into the camera. “A patsy!”

“He who has taken wife and child has

given hostages to fortune.”

—Henry David Thoreau, 1841

 

“Mr. Brewer? Come look at this, will you?”

John Calvin Brewer, the youthful manager of a prominent shoe store on Jefferson Street, hurried over to the twin front windows. He had, like most everyone else in Dallas, been riveted to the radio all day. During the noon hour gleeful broadcasts of the presidential motorcade kept his staff and their clients spellbound. Then, horror intruded. Shots were fired. The president, wounded in the head, had been rushed to Parkland hospital.

Some people in the store screamed. Others wept. A few fell silent, unable to digest such inconceivable information.

“What is it, Alice?”

Sirens whirred as police cars tore by, headed for the spot where Tenth intersected with Dalton. From there, a few blocks down from the shoe store, more gunfire had been heard. Rumors from people stepping in from the street had it that a policeman, apprehending a suspect, lay dying on the concrete.

“Look!”

The alert sales-person had noticed a slender young man, appearing anxious for himself rather than concerned for others, hurrying west on Jefferson. As the two police cars whizzed past, the young man, acting differently than anyone else, darted into the extended entry-way to the shoe-store, turning his face away.

“Something's not right here.”

“Mr. Brewer, what should we do?”

Some of the other horrified people in the store had come up behind them to get a look at whatever suspicious actions were taking place. Suddenly a makeshift community, they watched as this man, brow furrowed with anxiety, continued along the street, twisting and turning his way through waves of zombie-like citizens.

Brewer observed as the man approached the Texas Theatre. He did not buy a ticket, slipping in alongside other patrons.

“You're in charge, Alice, until I return.”

“Mr. Brewer, where are you going?”

“Stay calm.” With that, he left the building, following the route Oswald had taken. Moments later Brewer stood in front of the theatre, explaining to a stunned cashier in the glass booth what had occurred. Without hesitation, the girl reached for her phone and called the police. While waiting for their arrival, Brewer glanced up at the marquee. A pair of World War II action films,
Cry of Battle
and
War is Hell
!, were double-billed.

“Of course, it may turn out to be nothing, Miss.”

“Let's hope so. But you were right to let me know.”

Then one patrol car after another came tearing around the corner, screeching to a halt. More than a dozen men in blue poured out. People on the street gathered, sensing something big about to happen. The policemen quickly closed off every exit.

“Mr. Brewer? I'm patrolman McDonald. Would you be able to identify the suspect?”

“Absolutely.”

“Alright, then. Come with me.”

They proceeded down an alleyway adjacent to the theatre and approached the rear exit. As they entered, the theatre lights brightened. Detective Paul L. Bentley had rushed up into the balcony and instructed the projectionist to do this. Moviegoers couldn't grasp what might be going on.

The film continued to roll as Brewer and MacDonald stepped onstage, dwarfed by the larger than life image of Van Heflin and James MacArthur battling over Rita Moreno. For a moment, viewers couldn't tell where the show left off and reality began.

“That's him,” Brewer affirmed, indicating a man off to his left, seated a few rows down from the lobby. “He's the one.”

From all directions, uniformed and undercover policemen swarmed over Oswald. They awaited McDonald who, followed by Brewer, swiftly proceeded from the stage to this man's spot.

“Hey, fellas,” Lee said, sneering. “Will you please back off and leave me alone? At least until the film finishes up?”

*

On October 15, Lee stepped off the bus that had carried him back from Mexico City to Laredo, Texas, at the Customs Shed. There all would be subject to search before proceeding over the border. This was a notably different person than the one who had crossed southward on September 26. Quiet, sober and humbled, he hurried to a pay phone and called the home of Ruth Paine.