Return to New Orleans and Joining the Marine Corps

After his return to New Orleans Oswald was teased at school because of the northern accent which he had acquired. He concluded that school had nothing to offer him. His mother exercised little control over him and thought he could decide for himself whether to go on in school. Neighbors and others who knew him at that time recall an introverted boy who read a great deal. He took walks and visited museums, and sometimes rode a rented bicycle in the park on Saturday mornings. Mrs. Murret believes that he talked at length with a girl on the telephone, but no one remembers that he had any dates. A friend, Edward Voebel, testified that “he was more bashful about girls than anything else.”

Several witnesses testified that Lee Oswald was not aggressive. He was, however, involved in some fights. Once a group of white boys beat him up for sitting in the Negro section of a bus, which he apparently did simply out of ignorance. Another time, he fought with two brothers who claimed that he had picked on the younger of them, 3 years Oswald’s junior. Two days later, “some big guy, probably from a high school—he looked like a tremendous football player” accosted Oswald on the way home from school and punched him in the mouth, making his lip bleed and loosening a tooth. Voebel took Oswald back to the school to attend to his wounds, and their “mild friendship” stemmed from that incident. Voebel also recalled that Oswald once outlined a plan to cut the glass in the window of a store on Rampart Street and steal a pistol, but he was not sure then that Oswald meant to carry out the plan, and in fact they never did. Voebel said that Oswald “wouldn’t start any fights, but if you wanted to start one with him, he was going to make sure that he ended it, or you were going to really have one, because he wasn’t going to take anything from anybody.” In a space for the names of “close friends” on the ninth grade personal history record, Oswald first wrote “Edward Vogel,” an obvious misspelling of Voebel’s name, and “Arthor Abear,” most likely Arthur Hebert, a classmate who has said that he did not know Oswald well. Oswald erased those names, however, and indicated that he had no close friends.

It has been suggested that this misspelling of names, apparently on a phonetic basis, was caused by a reading-spelling disability from which Oswald appeared to suffer. Other evidence of the existence of such a disability is provided by the many other misspellings that appear in Oswald’s writings, portions of which are quoted below.

Sometime during this period, and under circumstances to be discussed more fully below, Oswald started to read Communist literature, which he obtained from the public library. One of his fellow employees, Palmer McBride, stated that Oswald said he would like to kill President Eisenhower because he was exploiting the working class. Oswald praised Khrushchev and suggested that he and McBride join the Communist Party “to take advantage of their social functions.” Oswald also became interested in the New Orleans Amateur Astronomy Association, an organization of high school students. The association’s then president, William E. Wulf, testified that he remembered an occasion when Oswald

* * * started expounding the Communist doctrine and saying that he was highly interested in communism, that communism was the only way of life for the worker, et cetera, and then came out with a statement that he was looking for a Communist cell in town to join but he couldn’t find any. He was a little dismayed at this, and he said that he couldn’t find any that would show any interest in him as a Communist, and subsequently, after this conversation, my father came in and we were kind of arguing back and forth about the situation, and my father came in the room, heard what we were arguing on communism, and that this boy was loud-mouthed, boisterous, and my father asked him to leave the house and politely put him out of the house, and that is the last I have seen or spoken with Oswald.

Despite this apparent interest in communism, Oswald tried to join the Marines when he was 16 years old. This was 1 year before his actual enlistment and just a little over 2½ years after he left New York. He wrote a note in his mother’s name to school authorities in New Orleans saying that he was leaving school because he and his mother were moving to San Diego. In fact, he had quit school in an attempt to obtain his mother’s assistance to join the Marines. While he apparently was able to induce his mother to make a false statement about his age he was nevertheless unable to convince the proper authorities that he was really 17 years old. There is evidence that Oswald was greatly influenced in his decision to join the Marines by the fact that his brother Robert had done so approximately 3 years before. Robert Oswald had given his Marine Corps manual to his brother Lee, who studied it during the year following his unsuccessful attempt to enlist until “He knew it by heart.” According to Marguerite Oswald, “Lee lived for the time that he would become 17 years old to join the Marines—that whole year.” In John Pic’s view, Oswald was motivated to join the Marines in large part by a desire “to get from out and under * * * the yoke of oppression from my mother.”

Oswald’s inability or lack of desire to enter into meaningful relationships with other people continued during this period in New Orleans (1954-56). It probably contributed greatly to the general dissatisfaction which he exhibited with his environment, a dissatisfaction which seemed to find expression at this particular point in his intense desire to join the Marines and get away from his surroundings and his mother. His study of Communist literature, which might appear to be inconsistent with his desire to join the Marines, could have been another manifestation of Oswald’s rejection of his environment.

His difficulty in relating to other people and his general dissatisfaction with the world around him continued while he was in the Marine Corps. Kerry Thornley, a marine associate, who, shortly after Oswald’s defection, wrote an as yet unpublished novel based in considerable part on Oswald’s life, testified that “definitely the Marine Corps was not what he had expected it to be when he joined.” He said that Oswald “seemed to guard against developing real close friendships.” Daniel Powers, another marine who was stationed with Oswald for part of his marine career, testified that Oswald seemed “always [to be] striving for a relationship, but whenever he did * * * his general personality would alienate the group against him.” Other marines also testified that Oswald had few friends and kept very much to himself.

While there is nothing in Oswald’s military records to indicate that he was mentally unstable or otherwise psychologically unfit for duty in the Marine Corps, he did not adjust well to conditions which he found in that service. He did not rise above the rank of private first class, even though he had passed a qualifying examination for the rank of corporal. His Marine career was not helped by his attitude that he was a man of great ability and intelligence and that many of his superiors in the Marine Corps were not sufficiently competent to give him orders. While Oswald did not seem to object to authority in the abstract, he did think that he should be the one to exercise it. John E. Donovan, one of his former officers, testified that Oswald thought “that authority, particularly the Marine Corps, ought to be able to recognize talent such as his own, without a given magic college degree, and put them in positions of prominence.”

Oswald manifested this feeling about authority by baiting his officers. He led them into discussions of foreign affairs about which they often knew less than he did, since he had apparently devoted considerable time to a study of such matters. When the officers were unable to discuss foreign affairs satisfactorily with him, Oswald regarded them as unfit to exercise command over him. Nelson Delgado, one of Oswald’s fellow Marines, testified that Oswald tried to “cut up anybody that was high ranking” in those arguments “and make himself come out top dog.” Oswald probably engaged his superiors in arguments on a subject that he had studied in an attempt to attract attention to himself and to support his exaggerated idea of his own abilities.

Thornley also testified that he thought that Oswald’s extreme personal sloppiness in the Marine Corps “fitted into a general personality pattern of his: to do whatever was not wanted of him, a recalcitrant trend in his personality.” Oswald “seemed to be a person who would go out of his way to get into trouble” and then used the “special treatment” he received as an example of the way in which he was being picked on and “as a means of getting or attempting to get sympathy.” In Thornley’s view, Oswald labored under a persecution complex which he strove to maintain and “felt the Marine Corps kept a pretty close watch on him because of his ‘subversive’ activities.” Thornley added: “I think it was kind of necessary to him to believe that he was being picked on. It wasn’t anything extreme. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it, call him a paranoid, but a definite tendency there was in that direction, I think.”

Powers considered Oswald to be meek and easily led, an “individual that you would brainwash, and quite easy * * * [but] I think once he believed in something * * * he stood in his beliefs.” Powers also testified that Oswald was reserved and seemed to be “somewhat the frail, little puppy in the litter.” He had the nickname “Ozzie Rabbit.”

Oswald read a good deal, said Powers, but “he would never be reading any of the shoot-em-up westerns or anything like that. Normally, it would be a good type of literature; and the one that I recall was ‘Leaves of Grass,’ by Walt Whitman.” According to Powers, Oswald said: “‘All the Marine Corps did was to teach you to kill’ and after you got out of the Marines you might be good gangsters.” Powers believed that when Oswald arrived in Japan he acquired a girlfriend, “finally attaining a male status or image in his own eyes.” That apparently caused Oswald to become more self-confident, aggressive and even somewhat pugnacious, although Powers “wouldn’t say that this guy is a troublemaker.” Powers said “now he was Oswald the man rather than Oswald the rabbit.” Oswald once told Powers that he didn’t care if he returned to the United States at all.

While in Japan, Oswald’s new found apparent self confidence and pugnaciousness led to an incident in which he spilled a drink on one of his sergeants and abusively challenged him to fight. At the court-martial hearing which followed, Oswald admitted that he had been rather drunk when the incident occurred. He testified that he had felt the sergeant had a grudge against him and that he had unsuccessfully sought a transfer from the sergeant’s unit. He said that he had simply wanted to discuss the question with the sergeant and the drink had been spilled accidentally. The hearing officer agreed with the latter claim but found Oswald guilty of wrongfully using provoking words and sentenced him to 28 days, canceling the suspension of a 20-day sentence that Oswald had received in an earlier court-martial for possessing an unauthorized pistol with which he had accidentally shot himself.

At his own request, Oswald was transferred from active duty to the Marine Corps Reserve under honorable conditions in September of 1959, 3 months prior to his regularly scheduled separation date, ostensibly to care for his mother who had been injured in an accident at her work. He was undesirably discharged from the Marine Corps Reserve, to which he had been assigned on inactive status following his transfer from active duty, after it was learned that he had defected to the Soviet Union. In an attempt to have this discharge reversed, Oswald wrote to then Secretary of the Navy Connally on January 30, 1962, stating that he would “employ all means to right this gross mistake or injustice.”

Governor Connally had just resigned to run for Governor of Texas, so he advised Oswald that he had forwarded the letter to his successor. It is thus clear that Oswald knew that Governor Connally was never directly concerned with his discharge and he must have known that President Kennedy had had nothing to do with it. In that connection, it does not appear that Oswald ever expressed any dissatisfaction of any kind with either the President or Governor Connally. Marina Oswald testified that she “had never heard anything bad about Kennedy from Lee. And he never had anything against him.” Mrs. Oswald said that her husband did not say anything about Governor Connally after his return to the United States. She testified: “But while we were in Russia he spoke well of him. * * * Lee said that when he would return to the United States he would vote for him [for Governor].” Oswald must have already learned that the Governor could not help him with his discharge because he was no longer Secretary of the Navy, at the time he made that remark.

Even though Oswald apparently did not express any hostility against the President or Governor Connally, he continued to be concerned about his undesirable discharge. It is clear that he thought he had been unjustly treated. Probably his complaint was due to the fact that his discharge was not related to anything he had done while on active duty and also because he had not received any notice of the original discharge proceedings, since his whereabouts were not known. He continued his efforts to reverse the discharge by petitioning the Navy Discharge Review Board, which finally declined to modify the discharge and so advised him in a letter dated July 25, 1963.

Governor Connally’s connection with the discharge, although indirect, caused the Commission to consider whether he might have been Oswald’s real target. In that connection, it should be noted that Marina Oswald testified on September 6, 1964, that she thought her husband “was shooting at Connally rather than President Kennedy.” In support of her conclusion Mrs. Oswald noted her husband’s undesirable discharge and that she could not think of any reason why Oswald would want to kill President Kennedy. It should be noted, however, that at the time Oswald fired the shots at the Presidential limousine the Governor occupied the seat in front of the President, and it would have been almost impossible for Oswald to have hit the Governor without hitting the President first. Oswald could have shot the Governor as the car approached the Depository or as it was making the turn onto Elm Street. Once it had started down Elm Street toward the Triple Underpass, however, the President almost completely blocked Oswald’s view of the Governor prior to the time the first shot struck the President. Furthermore, Oswald would have had other and more favorable opportunities to strike at the Governor than on this occasion when, as a member of the President’s party, he had more protection than usual. It would appear, therefore, that to the extent Oswald’s undesirable discharge affected his motivation, it was more in terms of a general hostility against the government and its representatives rather than a grudge against any particular person.