but it sure sounds like it.”
“You’re darn right it does! You were either very brave or not very smart,” I said, followed by a grin.
His reaction was more sarcastic.
He shook his head, and said, “Some of the former, but more of the latter.”
“Is that how you got caught?”
“I admit that I was confused and that may have had something to do with what happened to me.”
“Are you saying that you didn’t know you were being set-up to take the fall?”
He put his glasses back on and started back in or his
drawing.
“No, I did not.”
“Jesus, Lee, it should have been obvious at some point.”
“Look, I was young and naive, and I thought I was doing what I had to do to end up with a job in intelligence.”
“That was a hell of a way to go about it, though.”
“Yeah, I know that now.”
I knew that Oswald was working for the FBI as a low level informant, and I had an idea that it was his dream to work for one of the agencies. All the signs pointed in that direction, why he learned Russian, the real reason he went to Russia, not so much to defect, but to learn what he could about the Russian people and to make his resume irresistible to the CIA or the ONI, or whoever he wanted to work for in that field. He wanted those things even before he met Marina and had a child, but
after that it became imperative to look for work and secure a good paying job. That made sense, but the way he went about it did not. Part of that one could attribute to his youth. He had no idea the sort of people he was getting involved with, and he had very little experience dealing with people who just might stab you in the back if it meant advancing their own careers.
“I was dying to meet him you know.”
“Dying to meet who?”
“J. Edgar Hoover.”
“Lee, the man screwed you, why would you want to meet him?”
“I admired him.”
“He was a son-of-bitch.”
“Yeah, but he was the man who built the Bureau. In my mind, that made him a hero. I wanted to work for them in the worst way, but when I went for the interview I was told that I had to have a college degree so I had to settle for a job as an
informant.”
“So, the man you were working for tried his best to blame you for killing the President of the United States. Nice guy.”
“He was just following orders.”
“I beg to differ with you, Lee. Nobody gave J. Edgar Hoover orders, not even the President of the United States!”
“I think Lyndon Baines Johnson did.”
“Are you serious?”
“What did I say?”
“This man tried to nail you to a cross and you’re still defending him after all this time. I can’t believe it!”
I was still shaking my head when I remembered that I had retrieved my old tattered bible from home for just an occasion.
“Before you say anything more, Lee, put your right hand on this bible and swear that what you are about to tell me is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.” He did what I asked him to do and even added something of his own.
“I swear to you on my mother’s grave.”
I nodded my approval. I believe he was telling me the truth. You see, it is one thing to know something you might have heard from a third party but quite different when it is explained to you by the man standing only a foot away. The hairs on my arms were standing up straight. I had chills up and down my spine. As someone who had studied this subject for twenty-five years you have to understand when you’ve hit pay dirt. This was one of those moments. I could feel it in my bones. I knew it in my heart. I could see it in his eyes. I could feel the vibration in the room. For a researcher like myself, it is the pay off. I felt like I was being rewarded for all that time I have put into trying to understand this long standing riddle. I may not be the smartest person in the world, but I know the difference between the truth and a tall tale.
For the next few moments it felt as if I was talking to a wall. Lee got up and went over to the window and just stared. Every once in a while he would grunt or say something like he was agreeing with me, but I could tell that he really wasn’t paying attention. I was just mumbling, saying things that didn’t amount to much of anything.
A moment later, he sat back down, took a deep breath and spoke into the microphone. He raised his voice a couple of decibels. I got the feeling that this is what was on his mind and now he was ready to get it off his chest.
5
“The President was killed by professionals, Timothy.
That’s what they have been trying to keep from the American people all these years. That’s what they don’t want you to know.”
“Even now, after all these years?”
“Afraid so, once the government starts lying it can’t stop.
It’s a part of the story now, and they don’t want to ever give it up.”
“It just sounds so ludicrous,” I said.
“I agree with you.”
“That’s why my generation doesn’t believe a thing the government says.”
“Right! I can see that, and just the opposite is true for those of us who are a little older,” Lee added.
Once or twice I tried asking him questions, but each time he put up his hand as a signal not to interrupt him. He wasn’t trying to be rude, I think it was more like he wanted to get it out before he forgot some of these details. He spoke non stop for the next twenty minutes, by the time he was finished the sweat was pouring down each side of his face. One of the things that I wanted to know about were the shooters, who they were and what kind of weapons they were using. I asked him these questions one by one, and he answered without hesitation.
“Sniper rifles, the kind that you can fold up and carry away in a valise. They were European made and they were all using the same ammunition, 7.62 grain, high velocity, which is deadly when it enters human flesh, even more so when it slams into a human skull, which is what the shooters were all aiming at that day.
The team consisted of three shooters, six men altogether. Each team was spread out around Dealy Plaza, using a technique well known to any military man, called triangulation of crossfire. When I asked him to elaborate, he did so with professional expertise.
“They
