We have arrived at the point in my CT where Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) is now leaving Mexico City, around October 2, 1963.
To recap -- LHO was working for Guy Banister (and Kent Courtney) in New Orleans, and he believed that he was involved in a plot to kill Fidel Castro. LHO hoped to get a full-time job in the CIA as a result of his cooperation with these people.
LHO believed that he had failed his first mission -- to get quick passage into Cuba as an avowed FPCC officer. LHO failed to realize, however, that his handlers had planned this failure. Their goal was instead to frame LHO as a Communist, and they succeeded. They had no authority to offer LHO a job in the CIA -- but they gladly deceived LHO about this, because it served their purposes so well. Their goal was to kill JFK and blame LHO.
LHO was ignorant of any JFK Assassination plot. He had high hopes that he would get a full-time job in the CIA. His instructions were now to move directly to Dallas (where his wife Marina, who was 8.5 months pregnant, was already staying at Ruth Paine's home as an expression of Ruth's Quaker charity). LHO would lay low and await further instructions, and he moved into the Dallas YMCA.
LHO needed a job as he waited. Marina would prefer to live with her husband instead of with the local Quaker charity lady -- so she pressed Ruth to help LHO find a job. Ruth was always civic minded, and her resources included her immediate neighbors. She and Marina had coffee next door with the local housewives, and Ruth told them Lee's problem. One of the housewives, Linnie Mae Randle, the sister of Buell Wesley Frazier, said that she had heard talk about a temporary opening at the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD).
Marina was so excited -- she pressed Ruth to call the TSBD right away. Ruth did this -- and she sold LHO as an ex-Marine, family man, down on his luck with a new baby on the way. The TSBD supervisor, Roy Truly, believed Ruth, and invited LHO to submit his application the next day. LHO did so, and was hired on the spot. The date is October 18, 1963. Two days later, LHO's second daughter was born.
I realize that most CTers regard LHO's placement at the TSBD as part of a plot to kill JFK at Dealey Plaza (the site of the TSBD building). Yet I'm convinced that this TSBD job was only a bit of good luck for the JFK Kill Team. Unless Linnie Mae Randle's husband was secretly a volunteer for Ex-General Walker, then the TSBD is merely a bit of luck for Banister and Walker. In my CT, the JFK Patsy did not need to be at the TSBD building; he only needed to be *framed* in New Orleans and Mexico City, and then shot on sight anywhere in Dallas -- anywhere -- and the plot would work.
Back to my CT.
On his first day at work at the TSBD, a teenage Buell Wesley Frazier generously offered to drive LHO to and from Ruth Paine's house (30 minutes away) every weekend. What a stroke of luck for LHO. LHO was now working at the TSBD, waiting for instructions, and confident that his future looked bright as a full-time CIA agent. (He was sworn to secrecy -- but as we will see, he was not very good at it.)
LHO visited Marina at Ruth Paine's house every weekend, and made efforts to help around the house, and to make himself useful. He and Michael Paine shared a few political discussions, sometimes about Ex-General Walker, who had been active in Dallas with the arrival of UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson on October 24th.
On Tuesday, October 29th, FBI agent James Hosty called upon the neighbors of Ruth Paine to ask about the Oswalds.
On Friday, November 1st, Hosty interviewed Ruth and Marina at Ruth's home. News of this event rattled Oswald, and he ordered Marina -- if Hosty visits again, to get his car license plate number.
On Tuesday, November 5th, FBI agent Hosty returned to Ruth's home for another interview, and Marina did get his license plate number.
From Friday night, November 8th, to Monday, November 11th, LHO spent Veteran's Day Weekend at Ruth Paine's home. During that weekend he asked Ruth for permission to use her typewriter. She agreed, and LHO secretly composed a letter to the Communist Party in New York City, advising them that his visit to Mexico City was only a temporary setback, and that the "notorious FBI" was "no longer interested in him."
LHO left this letter sitting on Ruth Paine's table overnight -- and Ruth could not resist the temptation -- she read the letter, and she became furious. Ruth was very patriotic, and didn't like LHO calling the FBI "notorious". Also, she had recently suffered through two interviews from the FBI about LHO, and it was clearly a lie that the FBI was "no longer interested" in LHO. She made her own copy of the letter by hand, in order to give it to FBI agent James Hosty, just in case he called again.
So much for secrecy.
On Tuesday, November 12th, LHO mailed his letter to the Communist Party -- knowing full well that the FBI would intercept it, as they always intercepted all mail to the Communist Party. (A Communist Party official testified to the Warren Commission that LHO was never a member, and they considered LHO's letter to be nutty. LHO's letter, CE=15, is available today for anybody to read, and I attach it above.)
On this same day, LHO visited the FBI branch in Dallas, and demanded to see FBI agent James Hosty. Hosty was not there, so LHO left his angry note with the receptionist, to give to Hosty. Allegedly, the note ordered Hosty to leave LHO's family alone -- but Hosty, on orders from his boss, flushed the note down the toilet, so the public will never see it.
On Friday, November 15th, Marina told LHO not to come to Ruth Paine's house for the weekend -- the Paines needed some down time.
On Sunday, November 17th, Ruth Paine called LHO's rooming house at Marina's request, only to discover that the landlady did not know anybody there by that name. They only knew an O.H. Lee. Marina became very angry with LHO because of this.
On Thursday, November 21st, LHO broke his regular weekend routine by asking Wesley for a special ride on a Thursday, claiming he needed to get some curtain rods. Then LHO arrived at the Paine home off schedule -- and without calling first. He and Marina got along poorly that night.
On Friday, November 22nd, LHO rose at 6:30 AM, to a sleeping house. At 7:15 AM he walked to the home of Buell Wesley Frazier for a ride to work, and Linnie Mae Randle, from her kitchen window, saw LHO carrying a long paper bag. LHO and Wesley drove to work, and around 7:50 AM, LHO took his long paper bag toward the TSBD, but Wesley didn't see what LHO did with it. About 11:40 AM, workers saw LHO on the 6th floor of the TSBD. At 11:45 AM, LHO remained on the 6th floor while the other workers went to lunch and to watch the JFK motorcade with almost everybody else. At 12:30 PM, JFK was assassinated at Dealey Plaza.
(to be continued)