Authors: John Newman
From one of the most dramatic moments of Oswald's FBI and CIA files in the summer of 1963 comes information that refers to the time Oswald was in Minsk, and is suggestive of his continuing interest in Cuba and Castro. The 1963 event was an important propaganda event, a live radio debate featuring Oswald and Cubans, staged by a CIA-backed exile group, the Cuban Student Directorate (DRE). The part of the debate that concerns us now is a segment" in which Oswald comments on Cuban matters during his Russian sojourn, including his views in 1960:
STUCKEY: What particular event in your life made you decide that the Fair Play for Cuba Committee had the correct answers about Cuban-United States relations?
OSWALD: Well, of course, I have only begun to notice Cuba since the Cuban revolution, that is true of everyone, I think. I became acquainted with it about the same time as everybody else, in 1960. In the beginning of 1960. I always felt that the Cubans were being pushed into the Soviet bloc by American policy [emphasis added].
Oswald's marine associates and his family in Texas knew the truth about the origin of Oswald's ideas. He had noticed Cuba before his early days in Minsk in the beginning of 1960. His "notice" started when he was stationed in Japan and might have included contact with Cuban officials at his following assignment at El Toro, California. When he applied for travel to the Soviet Union in the summer of 1959, Oswald listed several countries he wanted to travel to, including the Soviet Union. The country he listed first was Cuba.14
When he defected to the Soviet Union in October 1959, and again, when he returned to the United States in June 1962, his predefection interest in going to Cuba was discussed in newspaper articles. The November 1, 1959, Washington Post article entitled "Ex-Marine Asks Soviet Citizenship" was placed in Oswald's CIA security file, OS-351-164.'S Early 1960 was when FBI special agent Fain's interview. of Marguerite took place, during which she told of Oswald's early (pre-defection) interest in going to Cuba. On May 25, 1960, the FBI transmitted Fain's report of that interview over to the CIA. Oswald's murder foreclosed any chance of knowing for sure why he would have neglected to mention in the debate his interest in Cuba during his last year in the marines.
Also significant is the fact that early 1960 was the time when the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) was created-a pro-Castro organization destined to be destroyed by its association with Oswald. The April 6, 1960, New York Times carried a full-page ad announcing the formation of the FPCC, an ad paid for by Castro.16 Until its demise on December 31, 1963, the FPCC was a pawn in a power struggle between the Communist Party USA and the Socialist Workers Party, both of which were considered by the FBI as subversive." With headquarters at 1799 Broadway in New York City, by November 20, 1960, the FPCC claimed 5,000 members.18 The CIA's Security Office then launched-under the orders of James McCord-a counterintelligence operation in the United States against the FPCC without the FBI's permission. That is a subject to which we will return later.
Oswald's Cuban Question Mark
"We had quite many [sic] discussions regarding Castro," said a marine who had befriended Oswald at Atsugi, Japan, and returned with him to El Toro, California. In his 1964 testimony to the Warren Commission, Nelson Delgado explained that it was their views on Cuba that had solidified their friendship in the first place. Delgado explained,
At the time I was in favor of Castro, I wholeheartedly supported him, and made it known that I thought he was a pretty good fellow, and that was one of the main things [reasons why] Oswald and I hit it off so well, we were along the same lines of thought. Castro at the time showed all possibilities of being a freedomloving man, a democratic sort of person that was going to do away with all tyranny and finally give the Cuban people a break.19
Delgado was referring to the period just after Castro had seized power in Cuba, a time when Castro's plans for a communist Cuba were not widely known or understood. Even so, the idea of two marine privates discussing the Cuban revolution in these terms is, at the very least, unusual. Angleton's deputy, Ray Rocca, felt that Delgado's assertions were "of germinal significance to any review of the background of Lee Harvey Oswald's feeling toward and relations with Castro's Cuba." Delgado, in Rocca's view, "was probably the closest peer group member to Oswald during his specialist training period at El Toro Marine Corps Base December 1958 to September 1959.' 121
The Warren Commission Report noted that "Oswald told Delgado that he was in touch with Cuban diplomatic officials in this country, which Delgado at first took to be `one of his lies, but later believed.' "21 The question is this: Did the commission believe Delgado? The report leaves us without an answer to this essential question. Something Delgado said during his testimony about Oswald's plans gave Warren Commission lawyer Wesley Liebeler quite a surprise. This is what happened:
DELGADO: ... And we talked [about] how we would like to go to Cuba and-
MR. LIEBELER: You and Oswald did?
MR. DELGADO: Right. We were going to beome officers, you know, enlisted men. We are dreaming now, right? So we were going to become officers. So we had a head start, you see. We were getting honorable discharges.... So we were all thinking, well, honorable discharge, and I speak Spanish and he's [Oswald] got his ideas of how a government should be run, you know, the same line as Castro did at that time.
MR. LIEBELER: Oswald?
MR. DELGADO: Right. So we could go over there and become officers and lead an expedition to some of these other islands and free them too, you know, from-this was really weird, you know, but-
MR. LIEBELER: That is what you and Oswald talked about?
MR. DELGADO: Right, things like that; and how we would go to take over, to make a republic.... And we would talk about how we would do away with Trujillo, and things like that, but never got no farther than the speaking stage.22
Generalissimo Rafael B. Trujillo was commander-in-chief of the Dominican Republic Armed Forces, and dictator of that tiny Caribbean country for more than thirty years when he was finally assassinated in May 1961. Latin American nations were pressing the U.S. to take action against Trujillo, whose harsh dictatorial methods were unpopular but whose obedience to Washington had long since assured his survival. At the time Oswald and Delgado discussed Trujillo, Washington could count on the unpopular dictator not to follow Castro's lead.23
There came a time, however, when things began to progress beyond the "speaking stage," things that put distance between Delgado and Oswald. Delgado recounted that part of the story for the Warren Commission in these words:
But then when he started, you know, going along with this, he started actually making plans, he wanted to know, you know, how to get to Cuba and things like that. I was shying away from him. He kept asking me questions like "how can a person in his category, an English [speaking] person, get with a Cuban, you know, people, be part of that revolution movement?"24
Oswald's dream of joining Castro's forces with his fellow marine Nelson Delgado was never realized. However, another ex-marine, Gerry Patrick Hemming, did manage to get into Castro's army, a story we will shortly turn to.
By far the most provocative detail in Delgado's recollection concerned Oswald's contact with Cuban diplomats.
MR. DELGADO: Oh, yes, then he kept on asking me about how abouthow he could go helping the Castro government. I didn't know what to tell him, so I told him the best thing that I know was to get in touch with a Cuban Embassy, you know. But at that time that I told him this we were on friendly terms with Cuba, you know, so this wasn't no subversive or malintent [sic], you know. I didn't know what to answer him. I told him go see them.
MR. LIEBELER: With the Cuban Embassy?
MR. DELGADO: Right. And I took it to be just a-one of his, you know, lies, you know, saying he was in contact with them, until one time I had the opportunity to go into his room, I was looking for-I was going over for the weekend, I needed a tie, he lent me the tie, and I seen this envelope in his footlocker, and as far as I could recollect that was mail from Los Angeles, and he was telling me there was a Cuban Consul. And just after he started receiving these letters-you see, he would never go out, he'd stay near the post all the time. He always had money. That's why.25
"Delgado's testimony has the cast of credibility," Ray Rocca wrote in his 1975 report.26 Whether or not Rocca is right, it is difficult to believe that the Warren Commission accidentally overlooked this or forgot to follow it up. This failure casts suspicion on the integrity of the commission's work.
Just how glaring their failure was can be seen from Liebeler's amazement as he took Delgado's testimony. When Delgado mentioned Oswald's comment about the Cuban Consul, this is what took place:
MR. LIEBELER: What did you just say?
MR. DELGADO: He always had money, you know, he never spent it. He was pretty tight. So then one particular instance, I was in the train station in Santa Ana, California, and Oswald comes in, on a Friday night. I usually make it every Friday night to Los Angeles and spend the weekend. And he is on the same platform, so we talked, and he told me he had to see some people in Los Angeles. I didn't bother questioning him. We rode into Los Angeles, nothing eventful happened, just small chatter, and once we got to Los Angeles I went my way and he went his. I came to find out later on he had come back Saturday. He didn't stay like we did, you know, come back Sunday night, the last train. Very seldom did he go out. At one time he went with us to Tijuana, Mexico.27
Liebeler knew better than to let Delgado wander before finishing his account of Oswald's Cuban contacts. So Liebeler interrupted Delgado and the following exchange occurred:
MR. LIEBELER: Before we get into that, tell me all you can remember about Oswald's contact with the Cuban Consulate.
MR. DELGADO: Well, like I stated to these FBI men, he had one visitor; after he started receiving letters he had one visitor. It was a man, because I got the call from the MP guard shack, and they gave me a call that Oswald had a visitor at the front gate. This man had to be a civilian, otherwise they would have let him in. So I had to find somebody to relieve Oswald, who was on guard, to go down there to visit with this fellow, and they spent about an hour and a half, two hours talking, I guess, and he came back. I don't know who the man was or what they talked about, but he looked nonchalant about the whole thing when he came back. He never mentioned who he was, nothing."
Liebeler asked Delgado if he connected the stranger's visit with the Cuban Consulate and Delgado replied that he had because of the lateness of the visit-around nine P.M., and also because Oswald hardly ever received mail. Mail to Oswald, Delgado recalled, began "after he started to get in contact with these Cuban people."
"Actually," wrote the CIA's Ray Rocca in his 1975 report, "Delgado's testimony says a lot more of possible operational significance than is reflected by the language of the [Warren] report, and its implications do not appear to have been run down or developed by investigation [emphasis his]." Rocca explained the importance of the man at the gate at El Toro in this way:
... It is of basic importance to focus attention on the male visitor who contacted Oswald at El Toro Camp and talked with him for between one and a half to two hours. The event was unique in Delgado's recollections, and actually there is nothing like it-on the record-in everything else we know about Oswald's activity before or after his return to the United States. The record reflects no identification of the El Toro contact. Delgado's presumption is that he was from the Cuban Consulate in Los Angeles. Assuming that, the questions are: Who was it, and was there reporting from Los Angeles to Washington and Havana that could, in effect, represent the opening of a Cuban file on Oswald?'
In the decades since, the mysterious visitor has never been identified. Did the CIA know of anyone else who visited the Cuban Consulate in Los Angeles in 1959? Indeed they did, but his story is as murky and intriguing as Oswald's. If, as Ray Rocca put it, Cuba was an early "question mark" for Oswald, the same can be said of another ex-marine who did manage to get into Castro's army. His name was Gerry Patrick Hemming.
Hemming's Cuban Question Mark
One ex-marine who did manage to get into Castro's army was Gerry Patrick Hemming. That his marine service is less well known than Oswald's may be a reflection of the fact that Hemming was not investigated for the murder of President Kennedy. The shadowy nature of Hemming's marine past may also be the result of his association with the CIA. Hemming's CIA files tell us that he, like Oswald, became interested in Cuba during his service in the marines. A 1963 Hemming letter contains the following description of his marine service and interest in Cuba:
While attending the U.S. Navy Academy Prep School, I became interested in the Cuban situation and upon graduation I decided to separate from the service and travel to Cuba. I received my Honorable Discharge at the U.S. Naval Academy in October, 1958. Total service time was 41h years (active).'
CIA files show that Hemming's background was remarkably similar to Oswald's. His security file, OS-429-229, appears to have been generated after Oswald's OS-351-164. It is possible that these two numbers reflect the November 1959 and October 1960 time frames, respectively, for Oswald's defection and Hemming's debriefing by the CIA in Los Angeles."
On the other hand, what if Hemming's OS number was created at the time of an earlier, February 1959 CIA debriefing in Costa Rica? This might indicate an earlier date for Oswald's OS file number. It is possible, though less likely, that both numbers go as far back as early 1959. A 1977 document in Hemming's CIA Office of Security file has this revealing observation:
[The] Hemming file reflects that he served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 19 April 1954 to 17 October 1958. (The 201 File concerning Hemming reflects that he served in Japan with a U.S. Marine Air Wing.) He then returned to the Los Angeles area for discharge and then left for Cuba circa 18 February 1959 and joined Castro's forces.32