The Oswald Psy-Op

Lee H. Oswald is an endlessly interesting person to study.  I've never seen anyone with such a maze of conflicts in his life story.  These discrepancies involve people who knew him, his personality, his movements, his interests, his looks and even the reams of documents that form a bewildering array of conflicts.

He is an example of a man that is built as a Legend.  Once he joined the Marines in 1956 he became a government possession and I don't think they ever let go of him until he got mixed up in the dirty deed and then started the long running, never ending, distancing.  He said he was the patsy and at least circumstantially was groomed to be one.  He just never knew when or how though he probably had an inkling towards the end.  Perhaps he envisioned for himself a method of escape.  If he did, it obviously didn't work.

I think if you dug into my past or even yours, they would find people who could give a consistent view of who you were when they knew you years ago.  With Oswald, we have conflicting witness testimony of what his character and interests were and even what he looked like.  One group knew a tall Oswald, the one with the bull neck that was the all American Boy of the 1950's.  Another group knew the misfit Oswald, the short surly kid that kept to himself and read books and studied Communism. We are told he possibly had dyslexia and learning disabilities yet he learned to speak Russian–no easy feat.  People with reading comprehension problems don't enjoy reading.  Oswald was an avid reader who maintained a library card.  It's like we are dealing with two separate people.  From here, comes forth the doppelgänger theories that populate their own weird vista.

At some hazy point the timelines start to intersect.  For example, in the fall of 1953 there are two sets of educational records for Lee Oswald.  One set has him attending school at PS44 in New York.  The other set has him attending school at Beauregard Junior High in New Orleans.  At the same time?  Either he is being impersonated at the age of 13 or else one set of the records is fabricated.  If the government's case is true, and Oswald is the loner in the killing of JFK, then why phony up documents and create this confusion?  Or maybe he was being impersonated as part of a long range project. 

What does The Establishment do if a president is elected that doesn't play ball with them?  He'll have to be guided along by stealth or put in his place.  Did they have a plan?  I think so as JFK proved to have a backbone.

Fast-forward to 1958 to Taiwan.  From his unit dairy they are on operations in Taiwan having left Atsugi, Japan.  Oswald's medical records indicate seven minor medical issues were treated in September through early October of that year (Armstrong, pp. 200-201).  They were, however, all treated at the Atsugi base.  Some have suggested that he was flown there for treatment but that seems impractical since there were medical facilities and staff on Taiwan to treat his ailments.  Would it be sensible to fly somebody back and forth just to treat hemorrhoids?  Once again, he is either being impersonated or else phony documents are being forged.  Robert Blakey, chief counsel to the HSCA was made aware of this during their investigation and chose not to dig too deeply into this morass.  I can see why.  It's another muddy rabbit trail to get bogged down in. 

Things Amp Up In New Orleans

Oswald is in various locations in the New Orleans area handing out the pro-Castro Fair Play For Cuba Committee (FPCC) pamphlets.  The most famous incident of this involves the pamphlets marked with the 544 Camp Street address.  That is the location of the Guy Banister's office.  Banister was the former head of the FBI's field office in Chicago, close friend of J. Edgar Hoover, staunch anti-communist, behind the scenes player and overall general tough guy known to pistol whip people.  Anybody sympathetic to Castro showing up at his office would probably leave with a bloody nose. 

So it's a very odd thing for Oswald, who under the official story is not supposed to be a known associate of Banister to be directing people there.  And if he doesn't know Banister then why do that?  Considering Banister's reputation that would be inviting trouble.  It appears that he and Banister were in cahoots with one another.  As researcher Bill Simpich has said, "I suggest that Banister was like a Triple A baseball manager training his player for the big leagues."  Spot on!  That analogy helps explain Oswald's oddball actions during this time.  Plus, he needed a coach and   Banister makes the perfect guide.  Unfortunately, the Big Leagues evolved into a sinister Cold War game, the secrets of which are yet to unravel.

However, some of these pamphlets didn't have a return address or a phone number printed on them.  (At the time of Oswald's arrest some of the handbills on his person featured two false sets of post office box numbers.)  So nobody was going to be able to get in contact with Oswald, the lone member of the FPCC branch in New Orleans and hook up.  It makes no sense and the only sense that can be derived from it is that Oswald is playing the role of a dongle.  That's a guy that is sent out to do some things to see how the other side is going to react or get under their skin.  It's a basic form of intelligence gathering.  Passing out literature where the USS Wasp was docked is gauging how many communist sympathizers might be onboard.

While Oswald is involved with these activities he is being closely monitored by the FBI.

It all culminates with Oswald's scrum with Cuban DRE member Carlos Bringuier and two other Cubans.  This all originates from Oswald's visit to the DRE to offer his military training services and a financial donation to this anti-Castro group.  Both offers are rebuffed.  As usual, Oswald is not invoking trust in these overtures like he failed to do while sojourning in Russia.  Later, when Carlos and his boys (Celso Hernandez and Miguel Marino Cruz) see Oswald handing out the pro-Castro literature they are incensed–what was this pro-Castro, pro-communist guy trying to do offering them help?  They exchange words and all are arrested for the scuffle that occurs.  (Some have suggested that it was a staged event, evidenced by Oswald mailing a letter to FPCC HQ in New York describing the incident, which is postmarked five days before the affair takes place.)

From this incident Oswald will be branded publicly as a communist.  This will play big after the assassination as the government builds the case against him.  What few people know at the time is that these episodes are loaded with players.  The DRE is supported by the CIA.  The Cubans Bringuier and Cruz arrested in the scuffle are FBI informants, with Hernandez affiliated with the CIA. After Oswald gets out of jail he will appear on the Carte Blanche radio program to debate issues with Bringuier and Ed Butler.  Besides Bringuier being an FBI informant, Ed Butler was the Director of Information Council of the Americas (INCA), a CIA funded propaganda organization.  Not to be undone, even the program's host, Bill Stuckey, was an FBI informant.  Players surround the whole thing.  And the public is totally oblivious to it.  Welcome to Psyop City.

The US Customs Office Comes In Play  

So who is Oswald with? Orestes Pena testified to the Church Committee that Lee Oswald was employed by Customs.  Indeed, his 1959 passport has his occupation listed as "shipping export agent" though that was the year he ended his duty in the Marines and would not long after, defect to the Soviet Union.  Hardly enough time for a 20 year old to be employed by Customs.  FBI informant Joseph Oster said that Customs Agent David Smith was Oswald's handler.  Was Oswald conducting fishing expeditions for Customs during the New Orleans Period?  It's hard to know what is true here as Oswald had a lot of cover stories and left false information in his wake.   

If he was a lone operator then he is really the odd man out.  But all of his eccentric actions to this point lead to only one thing–intelligence gathering.  He approaches the DRE to see if there are any Castro or communist sympathizers there.  Just as he did at the dock handing out pamphlets to passing sailors.  We know from released FBI docs that informants saw him regularly at many Cuban anti-Castro gatherings.  What was a communist doing at these meetings?  Sifting as always.  Being a Marxist is the cover.  He only plays one on TV after the assassination.  The Legend falls into place, piece by piece, just before the final act, the Big Event. 

The Psyop Oswald?

What we know about Lee Oswald is a mishmash of differing threads, some verifiable and some not.  A never ending but fascinating study.  There is the teenage Oswald peddling is junky bike in the trailer park in North Dakota;  the gung-ho Marine Oswald; the crazy Oswald that slashes his wrist in order to stay in the Soviet Union; the kind and thoughtful Oswald from the account of the Judyth Vary Baker; and finally, the cold calculated killer of a young and charismatic President. There are a lot of Oswald's here.  Enough to have a whole roomful of personalities. 

There are plenty of books about Lee Oswald probing the mystery of who he was.  There are the conventional lone gunman views of Vincent Bugliosi and Norman Mailer.  Both have to ignore inconvenient facts to arrive at their conclusions.  To be fair, there is a lot here to wade through and determine what is true and what is not.  On the other side, John Armstrong has Oswald the secret agent man involved in a complicated doppelgänger scheme, while alleged ex-lover Judyth Baker has her man involved with shadow warfare mixed with patriotic intent. 

In truth we really don't know him and he's buried in all of the layers of mythology created for him.  The mythology was created no doubt, by skilled hands.  But nobody can explain the motive to murder a man that the killer had nothing against.


Sources
Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Baker, Judyth, Me and Lee; Mailer, Norman, Oswald's Tale; Bugliosi, Vincent, Reclaiming History

Lee Oswald and Customs
https://www.opednews.com/articles/2/THE-JFK-CASE--THE-TWELVE-by-Bill-Simpich-120825-173.html

Book Review: Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery by Norman Mailer

“Mailer, after all, was the sort of author who could both dazzle and infuriate, often within the space of a single paragraph. He was a major talent who could not keep himself from reminding you that he was a major talent, an astute observer of his moment, who tended to operate as if that moment were entirely his.”

David L. Ulin, LA Times Staff Writer

The trouble with reading books by Norman Mailer is there is too much of Norman in them. Such a dominating character in American literary art, to read him is to sense he is trying to dominate the reader as well. To “dazzle and infuriate” as David Ulin says above. His foray into the mysterious nature and ways of Lee Oswald in his Oswald’s Tale is a prime example of that. There are some new tidbits scattered about and his foray into Russia seeking new information regarding Oswald’s time there which is informative, but Mailer is sticking to the script. The Lone Gunman is staying alone. Much of the book features Warren Commission interview transcripts and abundant sections of written work by other authors (largely, Priscilla Johnson McMillan, interviewer of Oswald in Moscow in 1959 and Marina Oswald’s biographer and also, a known CIA dabbler which is never admitted to in this book.) Occasionally, Mailer throws in tasty little morsels of his own to consider.

Mailer back in the day, was a conspiracy believer and then at some point decided the evidence did not merit that view and joined up with the Lone Nut purists where he stayed during his final days. That influence can be seen throughout the book. Mailer takes a conventional view of the life of Lee Oswald, though he seems fascinated with forays into his personal habits, idiosyncrasies and sex life. Ironic that Mailer explores Oswald’s sexual habits in detail while ignoring more celebrated topics, such as, was he an intelligence agent as his mother claimed? There are so many controversies here that Mailer never addresses as if he doesn’t want to dirty his hands with the thing.

How Mailer Deals With Controversy
Mailer resorts to the same parsing of selective evidence as Posner, Bugliosi, and a host of other Warren Report defenders do. That of course, comes as no surprise.

A case in point is how he handles Oswald’s street scuffle with DRE member Carlos Bringuier while handing out pamphlets for the pro-Castro FPCC which has Oswald arrested, provides him local media time and establishes his persona as a communist in the public’s eye.

But along the way something odd happens that lets us know there is more here than meets the eye. Because Oswald mails a letter to the FPCC headquarters in New York vaguely describing the altercation. The trouble is, it was postmarked before the scuffle took place. This one little thing casts doubt on this street tussle being a spontaneous affair and implies it was a preplanned event. In CIA parlance, Oswald was being built a Legend. A common procedure of spy-craft.

And how does our great American literary figure handle this? Mailer recruits cabalist traditions and Classical Hebrew, with notions of calling things into being so as to create one’s future. In Mailer’s words, “To say, therefore, that you have done something that you have not yet done becomes the first and essential step in shaping the future.”

Sure, sure. Mailer resorts to metaphysics while missing the obvious–that Oswald mailed the letter too early for what was apparently a contrived event. Earlier, Oswald had approached the DRE to offer his Marine experience to Carlos Bringuier to train them. He offered them a donation as well and was rebuffed on both counts. It should be pointed out here, that the all Cuban DRE was being trained and financed by the CIA. A fact that Mailer never points out to his readers. Evidently, Oswald was on a fishing expedition, doing the labor of a “dangle” for somebody or some agency.

Frankly, I am perplexed as to why he would resort to this. It’s Mailer the novelist speaking here, not Mailer the seeker of the truth. I find it hard to believe that he even has confidence in these words. It is an odd way to brush off the controversy and it just doesn’t work on many levels. For a man so brilliant to revert to this weirdness is absurd but Mailer does so with no shame at all.
I guess when the mind is made up that there can’t be a conspiracy; that Lee Oswald is only lurching from one delusion and flight of fancy to the next, with no greater cause in effect.

KGB Transcripts
While investigating Lee Oswald’s Russian period, Mailer gets access to KGB transcripts taken from bugs that were placed in Oswald and Marina’s apartment. Ample sections of these are reproduced in the book. Basically, I found them not to add much light on Oswald’s character and it all amounts to a lot of bickering between a newly married couple. It’s essentially boring.

However, one item stands out, and it’s another thing Mailer omits–and that is what language are they speaking in? While it is known that Oswald was an excellent Russian speaker, it is also known that during his time in Russia he didn’t show off that skill that much. He apparently did upon meeting Marina, who thought at first he was a local as he spoke with a Baltic accent. But when socializing with the Ziger family, they report he never spoke Russian in front of them, only in English to their father who understood English. Fearing being arrested for being a spy, which he most likely was, Oswald never wanted this skill to be known to those who were listening in on him. It would denote a swift arrest for espionage.

Conversely, his wife Marina was apparently a very good English speaker but spoke little of it when she migrated over to the United States. John Armstrong in his book, Harvey and Lee, states that he saw Marina’s handwritten notebooks in the National Archives and they were all in English. Lee wrote Marina letters in English to her while living in Russia and those are in evidence. Even mother Marguerite reveals in her Commission testimony detailed conversations she had with her daughter in law–conversations in English, without anyone to render in Russian. Yet Marina needs a translator to give her sworn testimony to the Warren Commission in 1964. What is going on here? Evidently, she was under similar pressures in America as Lee was in Russia. Which of course, would fashion her an operative as well. At any rate, both were in a Cold War contest to not reveal too much of who they are and what they know to the Big Players.

And all of this interesting stuff Mailer ignores to create his vision of Lee Oswald as Walter Mitty, with his visions of greatness, constantly encountering dead ends, seeing his destiny smothered before his eyes. The other Oswald, the one that was a shadow warrior for the Home Team, which would explain a lot of his mysterious undertakings, has no place in the narrative, Mailer’s narrative.

The Pay Off
So when the smoke clears we’ve got our lone gunman solely responsible for the act and it’s time to move along. It’s all a sad dream anyway. As I was reading this work, I kept getting the feeling that Mailer would rather have jotted this all down as a novel. After all, he considered the novel to be the apex of literary art, and art he had a gift for. He at times uses the same devices one does in fiction writing and those devices seem out of place, like when invents the metaphysical reason for Oswald’s forecast of a scuffle in a letter before the event happens to work his way out of that mess. This is what a fiction writer does–gives his character some luck out of nowhere to extract himself from a crisis. When Mailer doesn’t wish to deal with something troublesome, he ignores it. At times he seems set on exposing a deep truth and then veers off of it as if the whole scene got too hot. Towards the end he refers to Lee Oswald as a ghost; the First Ghost he says. As if there are not hundreds of other ghosts haunting the American historical landscape. Once again, a metaphor better suited in fiction.

Oswald’s Tale takes off like it’s going to be an interesting, groundbreaking book, but that never happens as it fades into the same old thing for those of us familiar with the Oswald story. There are lots of fields left to follow, as Mailer never wants to deal with any of the major controversies in the case. After all, that might muddy up the nice, clean story being presented. Even at this late stage in JFK assassination research, by hundreds of researchers, Mailer still thinks the men selected to be a part of the commission were honorable and above reproach. You can still think that so long as you ignore their histories as Mailer does. Like many of his ilk, the Warren Report stands as the final authority on what happened and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, the last official government investigation conducted in the late 1970s, which concluded in its report there was a probable conspiracy, is given no consideration at all.

Oswald’s Tale is really the same account of Lee Oswald’s life the Warren Report told us, just with better prose.