Ephemera

[John Dolva]

http://cuban-exile.com/doc_001-025/doc0019a.html

Gaeton Fonzi -'The Last Investigation"

(foreword)

"... Who to blame?

In retrospect, the answer should have seemed obvious from the beginning. G. Robert Blakey was a 41-year-old criminal law professor and head of Cornell University's Organized Crime Institute when he was asked to take the reins of the Assassinations Committee. (His appointment followed the debacle which brought about forced resignation of his predecessor, Philadelphia's Richard Sprague.) Blakey had been with the Justice Department under Robert Kennedy, and his subsequent career was focused on Organized Crime -- that nebulous entity which somehow was achieved capitalized status over the years. He was considered one of the top Organized Crime experts in the country, was regularly called to testify as an "expert witness" in that area, and was a fixture at the numerous Organized Crime seminars held periodically by law enforcement interests. He also had personal contacts in most Federal agencies and in the Organized Crime sections of almost every major police department in the nation.

As soon as he was appointed, Blakey drew upon his contacts in that Organized Crime- fighting fraternity to select key senior counsels for the Committee. For instance, the lawyer he picked to head the Kennedy investigation task force was a bright, snappy little Texan named Gary Cornwell. As chief of the Federal Strike Force in Kansas City, Cornwell had achieved notable trial victories against key Midwest Mafia bigwigs.

Another initial move by Blakey was to hire as a special consultant to the Committee a man who carried the Mob's organizational chart in his head, a former New York cop named Ralph Salerno. For years Salerno has earned a good living lecturing, writing books and appearing on radio and television shows as the capo de tutti capi of Organized Crime experts. And there were a number of other lawyers and researchers Blakey specifically chose for their background in criminal law and Organized Crime. the Assassinations Committee was well stacked, in other words, to find an Organized Crime conspiracy in the John F. Kennedy assassination.

There is substance and there is the illusion of substance. In Washington, it is often difficult to tell the difference. Chief Counsel Blakey was an experienced Hill man. He had worked not only at Justice but also with previous Congressional committees. He knew exactly what the priorities of his job were by Washington standards, even before he stepped in. The first priority, he announced in his inaugural address to the staff, was to produce a report. The second priority was to produce a report that looked good, one that appeared to be definitive and substantial. Somewhere along the line there would be an effort at conducting a limited investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Bob Blakey is quite a literate fellow, exceptionally articulate and given to structured rationality in even his most casual conversations. Nevertheless, to give the report slickness, he brought in a top professional writer, former Life magazine editor Richard Billings, who happened to be another knowledgeable veteran of Congressional committee operations. Together, Blakey and Billings would insure that the report was expertly constructed.

Thus from the beginning, there was no doubt that, regardless of the realities of the actual investigation, the Assassinations Committee's historical legacy would appear to have substance.

And it does. An impressively hefty tome -- 686 pages thick, with 13 volumes of appendixes -- the Committee's final report appears to have a lot of substance. And yet, on close examination, it makes very few definitive statements. Used in abundance are such hedging terms as "on the basis of evidence available to it," and, "the committee believes," and, "available evidence does not preclude the possibility," and such words as "probably," "most likely," "possible," and "may have been."

The point is that the Committee report does not actually state that Organized Crime was involved in the conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. The report says this:
"The Committee believes, on the basis of evidence available to it, that the national syndicate
of Organized Crime, as a group, was not involved in the assassination of President
Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual
members may have been involved."

The cryptic, latter part of the conclusion specifically referred to two key mob bosses: Carlos Marcello of New Orleans and Santos Trafficante of Florida. (Lee Harvey Oswald's uncle, the Committee discovered, was a numbers runner for the Marcello organization; and Jack Ruby may have had some contact with Trafficante in Cuba)

However, after making the allegation in its "Summary of Findings and Recommendations," the report buries in its body the detailed conclusion that "it is unlikely" that either Marcello or Trafficante was involved in the assassination of the President.

That is an example of numerous inherent contradictions contained in the details of the report. It's the result of an attempt to leave no base untouched, no area verbally unexplored, however cursory the Committee's actual investigation. What the report does in the most quintessential way is -- to use the expression favored in Washington -- cover its ass.

One of the most ironic aspects of that is this: In doing so, the report was forced to expose indications of its own basic conflicts, as well as the shortcomings of the Committee's pseudo-investigation.

That problem came to light some time ago, when the first attempt was made to bring the various aspects of the report together. For instance, before the acoustics evidence of conspiracy was firmed up very late in December, each Committee team was frantically writing what it thought would be a portion of the final report, that part dealing with its aspect of the investigation. (There were five major teams, each originally consisting of two lawyers, three researchers and two investigator. There were also special project teams -- ballistics, autopsy, acoustics, photographic and other areas involving expert consultants -- and staff investigators stationed in New Orleans and Miami.) By December, however, the staff had been drastically depleted through firings and resignations. When it became obvious that all the portions would not be finished before the Committee's demise at the end of the month, a young lawyer name Jim Wolf was given the job of gathering from each team a summary of its findings and putting them together into what would appears to be a "draft" of a final report. That, at least, would be something for the Committee to release before it officially folded.

When that compilation was completed, it totaled more than 500 pages. Wolf strung together the summaries he got from each team and then, after a conference with Blakey, drew up the conclusion. That's when it became obvious that there were some basic problems.

One of the key conflicts was Blakey's insistence that the Committee had to come to some conclusion about Oswald's motivation. (Oswald's guilt, ruled Blakey, had already been resolved through scientific analysis of the physical evidence.) Unfortunately, one of the areas that most reflected the inadequacy of the Committee's investigation was the one dealing with Oswald himself. Like the Warren Commission, the Committee never did truly define who Oswald really was, what he really believed, the nature of his relationships with an odd assortment of people, the reasons for the strange and mysterious things he did, nor why there are no traces of his actions over certain periods of time. The Committee, because of the structure of its limited investigation plan, did very little original work in this area...."

'... "You know," Klein said with a wry smile on his face, "when I first got my copy I thought they were putting me on. I mean it was like somebody wrote the report and then somebody else came along and, without reading what the first guy had written, wrote the conclusions. You know, I was gonna go into Gary and say, 'Hey, O.K,. that's funny. Now com'on, give me the real report!'"

What bothered Klein was the fact that each team report had built an excellent argument for that team's main subject of interest -- whether it was Organized Crime, pro-Castro sympathizers, anti-Castro or right-wing militants or Russian intelligence forces. All the subjects had the motivation to be considered suspects in the Kennedy assassination conspiracy. Each team had taken pages detailed relevant evidence. "And then, "Klein pointed out, "after all these pages of evidence, all the arguments get thrown out in the conclusion that, naah, Oswald couldn't have been involved with these guys because that wasn't his motivation! Very funny. All right now, is somebody gonna tell me where the real report is?"

When the real report finally was released, that basic conflict remained. Although the largest number of pages -- and one complete 1, 169 -pages appendix volume -- was devoted to building a conspiracy case against Organized Crime, Oswald's motivation was, perversely, ascribed to his "twisted ideological view." ...''

Gaeton Fonzi comes so close. Vince Salandria did warn him.

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Edited July 5, 2014 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

"... Mr. RANKIN. Mrs. Oswald, there are a number of things about some of the material we have been over, the period we have been over, that I would like to ask you about, sort of to fill in different parts of it I hope you will bear with us in regard to that.
Were you aware of the diary that your husband had written and the book that he had typed?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Did he hire a public stenographer to help him with his book?
Mrs. OSWALD. No, he wrote his in longhand. He started it in Russia. But he had it retyped here because it had been in longhand.
Mr. RANKIN. And do you know about when he started to have it retyped here?
Mrs. OSWALD. We arrived in June. I think it was at the end of June.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know what happened to that book, or a copy of it?
Mrs. OSWALD. At the present time it is--I don't know where the police department or the FBI.
Mr. RANKIN. And what was done with the diary? Do you know that?
Mrs. OSWALD. I don't know where it is now. I know that it was taken. But where it is now, I don't know.
Mr. RANKIN. It was taken by either the FBI or the Secret Service or the police department?
Mrs. OSWALD. I don't know that, because I was not at home when all these things were taken.
Mr. RANKIN. Would you tell us about what you know about their being taken. Were you away from home and someone else was there when various things belonging to you and your husband were taken from the house?
Mrs. OSWALD. I don't know where this book was, whether it was at Mrs. Paine's or in Lee's apartment, because I did not see it there. I was not at Mrs. Paine's because I lived in a hotel at that time in Dallas.
Mr. RANKIN. What hotel was that?
Mrs. OSWALD. I don't know.
Mr. RANKIN. Was this diary kept by your husband daily, so far as you know?
Mrs. OSWALD. In Russia?
Mr. RANKIN. Well, Russia first.
Mrs. OSWALD. It seems to me that he did not continue it here, that he had completed it in Russia. Not everything, but most of the time.
Mr. RANKIN. And was it in his own handwriting?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. You have told us about an interview with the FBI, when your husband went out into the car and spent a couple of hours, in August of 1962. Do you recall whether there was an FBI interview earlier than that?
Mrs. OSWALD. No, there wasn't. At least I don't know about it. Perhaps there was such a meeting, perhaps at the time we were in Fort Worth somebody had come, when we lived with Robert. One reporter wanted to interview Lee but Lee would not give the interview, and perhaps the FBI came, too. ..."

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Edited July 5, 2014 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

Mr. JENNER - This is Pauline Virginia Bates. Mrs. Bates, I am Albert E. Jenner, Jr. I am a member of the legal staff for the Presidential Assassination Commission and have been authorized by the Commission to depose you - take your deposition, make inquiries of you with respect to the subject matter of the inquiry of the Commission.
Did you receive, oh, last week, I would think, a letter from J. Lee Rankin, general counsel for the Commission?
Mrs. BATES - Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER - And enclosed with that letter is a copy of the Executive order of President Lyndon B. Johnson on November 29, 1963, Number 11130, and a copy of the Senate Joint Resolution, Number 137, authorizing the creation of the Commission, together with a copy of the Rules of Procedure of the Commission?
Mrs. BATES - Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER - And, Mrs. Bates, you appear voluntarily at our request?
Mrs. BATES - Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER - The Commission, as you have noted from those enclosed papers, has been ordered, directed to inquire into all facts and circumstances surrounding, leading up to, and those appearing after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the President of the United States, and any contacts on your part with any of the parties.
We understand that you, during his lifetime, had some contact with Lee Harvey Oswald and I think, in fact, transcribed some manuscript notes of his?
Mrs. BATES - They weren't transcribed; they were copied.
Mr. JENNER - You copied them?
Mrs. BATES - Uh-huh.

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Mr. JENNER - Well, I meant transcribed in that sense. You transcribed them from longhand into typing?
Mrs. BATES - Well, some of them were typewritten, some of them were written in longhand pencil, some of it was written in pen.
Mr. JENNER - Oh, is that so.
Mrs. BATES - It was scraps of paper. Some of it was on just like bag paper. Some of it was just little scraps of paper - whatever he could find.
Mr. JENNER - Where do you reside now?
Mrs. BATES - In Fort Worth.
Mr. JENNER - And how long have you resided in Fort Worth?
Mrs. BATES - Ten years last November.
Mr. JENNER - What is your business, occupation, or profession?
Mrs. BATES - I'm a legal public stenographer.
Mr. JENNER - And how long have you been a legal public stenographer?
Mrs. BATES - In Fort Worth, 10 years - a little over 10 years.
Mr. JENNER - And is there a difference between being a legal public stenographer and a public stenographer?
Mrs. BATES - Well, I think so. I think I'm the only one in Fort Worth that has legal training.
Mr. JENNER - That's what I wish to bring out. You are a public stenographer and you seek to direct your talents primarily toward law work?
Mrs. BATES - Yes.
Mr. JENNER - Lawyers, court reporting, and that sort of thing?
Mrs. BATES - Uh-huh - well, I haven't done any court reporting. I have done work for court reporters - transcribe for them, and things like that.
Mr. JENNER - Are you a citizen of the United States?
Mrs. BATES - Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER - You are a native born American?
Mrs. BATES - Yes, sir - Forest Grove, Oreg.
Mr. JENNER - How long have you resided in the Fort Worth-Dallas area?
Mrs. BATES - Ten years last November.
Mr. JENNER - And you came from where?
Mrs. BATES - Oakland, Calif.
Mr. JENNER - And what was your business or occupation when you were in Oakland, Calif.?
Mrs. BATES - Legal stenographer - legal secretary.
Mr. JENNER - That has always been your - insofar as you have had a business or occupation - it's been that?
Mrs. BATES - Except during the war when I worked in the shipyards.
Mr. JENNER - Out on the coast?
Mrs. BATES - Richmond. I have also been a waitress.
Mr. JENNER - Mrs. Bates, if anything seems personal to you, it's not intended as being personal. I'm trying to set the background. And you are at liberty at any time to say to me that you think maybe I'm going too far.
Mrs. BATES - I don't have anything to hide.
Mr. JENNER - All right. I'm sure you don't.
During the time you lived in the Fort Worth-Dallas area, did you have occasion to come in contact with a person known as Lee Harvey Oswald?
Mrs. BATES - He was known to me as Lee Oswald.
Mr. JENNER - All right. With a person known as Lee Oswald? And, just so we understand each other, is the person you knew as Lee Oswald and the person I just called Lee Harvey Oswald the person that you understand to be the man who was accused of the assassination of President Kennedy?
Mr. BATES. Yes. He was one and the same person. I recognized him.
Mr. JENNER - Yes. Now, tell me the circumstances under which that acquaintanceship arose.
Mrs. BATES - He walked into my office one day, said he had gotten my name out of the telephone directory. It so happens it's the first one in the public stenographers.
Mr. JENNER - And how was he attired on that occasion?
Mrs. BATES - He had dark trousers on, a white T-shirt and a blazer-type jacket - a dark blazer-type jacket.

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Mr. JENNER - And since he had the T-shirt, he had no tie on?
Mrs. BATES - No; didn't have a shirt on.
Mr. JENNER - No shirt?
Mrs. BATES - Just a little white T-shirt - undershirt.
Mr. JENNER - Yes.
Mrs. BATES - It was in June.
Mr. JENNER - In June? What time of the day or night was it?
Mrs. BATES - It was in the morning. Let's see - I turned those records over to the FBI.
Mr. JENNER - Well, give me your best recollection.
Mrs. BATES - I think it was around 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning, on the 18th of June 1962.
Mr. JENNER - All right. What was said by him and by you?
Mrs. BATES - He asked if I could do some typing for him.
Mr. JENNER - Did he identify himself first?
Mrs. BATES - No. He just walked in. It's not uncommon for people to walk in and say, "Miss Bates, can you do some typing for me?" And I said, "Yes, I could, what was it?" And he said it was - that he was - then, he told me he was Lee Oswald. He said, "First, I want to find out what your prices are and see if I can afford it." So, I gave him my price.
Mr. JENNER - And what did you say?
Mrs. BATES - I said it was either 2 1/2 an hour or a dollar a page.
Mr. JENNER - A page being 8 1/2 by 11 - letter-size sheets?
Mrs. BATES - Yes; uh-huh. And I told him it all depended on what the work was and could I see what it was. And he said, "Yes." And he brought out this large manila envelope, legal size - oh, I think it was 10 by 14 or something - one of those large ones. And he said, "I have some notes here" -
Mr. JENNER - I have a folder here [showing to witness] - is that -
Mrs. BATES - No; it's one of those that folds over from the top.
Mr. JENNER - I appreciate that - but I'm holding this up only for size.
Mrs. BATES - Oh! Well, it's approximately that long, but it was a little wider.
Mr. JENNER - The length of this, I think [measuring with ruler - it's 15 inches.
Mrs. BATES - Well, I have some up at my office. I use them all the time to, you know, send abstracts out in.
Mr. JENNER - That's 15 by 9.
Mrs. BATES - Well, I am sure, as I remember it - of course, now, this was some time ago - it was approximately 10 by 14 or 10 by 15 - and it looks like what I use.
Mr. JENNER - And it had a flap on it?
Mrs. BATES - Uh-huh. Just a regular seal at the top. I think they are Carrollton Clasp or something like that.
He said that he had notes that he had smuggled out of Russia. And I looked up at him kinda surprised. I said, "Have you been to Russia?"
He said, "Yes, ma'am. I just got back." And that he had smuggled these notes out of Russia under his clothes, next to his skin.
Mr. JENNER - We fixed the time of this inquiry - didn't we?
Mrs. BATES - Yes; June 18. I mean, when he first came in my office.
Mr. JENNER - 1962?
Mrs. BATES - Uh-huh.
And that he wanted to have them typed by a professional typist. He said, "Some of them are typed on a little portable, some of 'em are handwritten in ink, some of 'em in pencil."
He said, "I'll have to sit right here with you and help you with 'em because some of 'em are in Russian and some of them are in English." So, we agreed that I would do it - but I hadn't seen them yet.
Mr. JENNER - You hadn't seen the notes yet?
Mrs. BATES - Huh-uh.
Mr. JENNER - Did he have a package under his arm on that occasion?
Mrs. BATES - Yes. He had it with him.
Mr. JENNER - What agreement - you mean that you agreed that you would do it? Had you reached a conclusion as to the rate?

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Mrs. BATES - Well, I immediately lowered it to $2 an hour. I was anxious to get on it.
Mr. JENNER - Why did you become anxious to get on it?
Mrs. BATES - Well, anybody that had just come back from Russia and had notes, I would like to have seen them. And he didn't look like he had - he looked like a high school kid to me when he first came in. I thought he was just a kid.
Mr. JENNER - Uh-huh.
Mrs. BATES - And I do a lot of thesis work for college and high school students. And then I started asking him some questions - "Why did you go to Russia?" - and a few things like that. Some of 'em he'd answer and some of 'em he wouldn't.
Mr. JENNER - Now, give me your best recollection of everything that was said on that occasion.
Mrs. BATES - Well, I'm trying to get it in sequence.
Mr. JENNER - Okay.
Mrs. BATES - We agreed that I would start typing the notes - and he wanted an original and one carbon. But he would take the carbon - he wanted the original and one carbon and also take the carbon with him.
Mr. JENNER - He didn't want to leave -
Mrs. BATES - I couldn't keep a copy of anything.
Mr. JENNER - Did you agree that you would do the job under those circumstances?
Mrs. BATES - That's what he wanted - and my customers are always right.
Mr. JENNER - Uh-huh.
Mrs. BATES - Then, I asked him how come he had gone to Russia. I said, "It can't be very easy. How did you arrange it? Why did you want to go?"
And he said he had just gotten - he had gotten out of the Marine Corps and had taken elementary Russian - a course in elementary Russian.
Mr. JENNER - Where?
Mrs. BATES - While he was in the Marine Corps, as I understood him. He wasn't very talkative. And whenever I did get him to talk, I had to drag it out of him. He didn't talk voluntarily.
Mr. JENNER - Uh-huh.
Mrs. BATES - And that he had wanted to travel and so he applied to the State Department for a visa. And I asked him if he was an exchange student - if he went over as an exchange student. Sometimes - I didn't know. I was kinda ignorant about things like that.
He said, "No" - that the State Department finally agreed to let him go over, but they would not be responsible for him; he was granted a visa to go over there but the State Department refused to stand behind him in case he got in trouble or anything.
So, he went. And that's all I got out of him, then, about that. And then we got busy and he opened this large package and he brought out the notes. And, as I said, they were on scraps of paper not even this big, some of them [indicating with finger], and some of them large pieces of paper, some of them were typed, some of them handwritten in ink and pencil. And he said that he had had to just do it when be could. And it was about the living conditions and the working conditions in Russia. And they were very bitter against Russia.
Mr. JENNER - His writings were bitter against working conditions?
Mrs. BATES - And living conditions. Yes.
Mr. JENNER - Did he say when he had prepared these notes?
Mrs. BATES - Just whenever he could.
Mr. JENNEL. When in Russia?
Mrs. BATES - Yeah. Oh, they were all done in Russia. And he smuggled them out of Russia. And he said that the whole time until they got over the border, they were scared to death they would be found, and, of course, they would not be allowed to leave Russia.
Mr. JENNER - Did he imply that Marina was aware that he had these notes?
Mrs. BATES - He didn't say. He just mentioned his wife once or twice in the 3 days he was up there. And, at the time -

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Mr. JENNER - Were these 3 successive days?
Mrs. BATES - Uh-huh; 18th, 19th, and 20th.
Mr. JENNER - Did he spend substantially all day with you?
Mrs. BATES - No; it was 8 hours altogether in the 3 days.
Mr. JENNER - That was 8 hours that you worked, or 8 hours that he was there?
Mrs. BATES - I worked. And - uh - I spent 8 hours typing 10 pages, single-spaced.
Mr. JENNER - Which would indicate to me, as a lawyer, that you were having some trouble interpreting these notes?
Mrs. BATES - Oh, he'd - he had to spell things out for me and - uh - it was partly in Russian. And he had to transpose it - I mean, translate it for me. And - uh - it was - uh - very difficult to read. A lot of it was scribbled.. He would scribble notes and, then, to refresh his memory on it - he said he had to do it surreptitiously [witness pronounced word phonetically surreptiously], he just had to do it when Marina would cover for him while he was doing this.
Mr. JENNER - Marina would cover for him?
Mrs. BATES - Uh-huh - muffle the tone of the typewriter and everything so people wouldn't know that ha was - what he was doing.
Mr. JENNER - And Marina was aware, then, according to what he said to you, that he was making these notes?
Mrs. BATES - Well, evidently - because he said she would cover or watch for him so that nobody would know that he was making them. Mr. JENNER - Uh-huh.
Mrs. BATES - Kind of - try to steer anybody away while he was doing this - because he could have got in trouble.
Mr. JENNER - Uh-huh.
Mrs. BATES - He didn't talk very much. He - well, there wasn't much time to talk When you're typing and trying to translate things like that. And he was very cool and -
Mr. JENNER - Cool? You mean reserved?
Mrs. BATES - Cold.
Mr. JENNER - Cold?
Mrs. BATES - Yes.
Mr. JENNER - Very matter of fact?
Mrs. BATES - Yes; and if he didn't want to answer a question - if you asked him a question, no matter how simple it was, if he didn't want to answer it, he'd just shut up.
Mr. JENNER - He'd just ignore you?
Mrs. BATES - Uh-huh.
He said he was living with his brother out in Arlington Heights. Well, I lived in Arlington Heights, and I recognized the area he lived in by the telephone number. I said, "Well, where do you live, Lee? I have lived out in that part of town."
He said, "Arlington Heights."
So - that's-that just closed the subject right there. He had nothing else to say. In other words-"Just don't say anything more."
And - uh - I didn't even know he had a mother. He never mentioned his mother. He mentioned his brother; he mentioned his wife - said she liked it over here very much, that she got very ill from the food because it was too rich.
Mr. JENNER - He said that she had become ill?
Mrs. BATES - Uh-huh. That she got the stomach ache, or something, because they hadn't had enough food in a long time.
Mr. JENNER - Your impression was that they -
Mrs. BATES - He hadn't even been here a month, I don't think, when -
Mr. JENNER - Well, he arrived June 12 - so, he was only - when he reached your place, it was on the 18th. He had just been here 6 days.
Mrs. BATES - Uh-huh.
It might help you to read that [referring to articles in local Fort Worth papers which witness brought with her].
Mr. JENNER - Well, I will in a moment. I want to get from you - what was his attitude toward Russia?
Mrs. BATES - Well, he never did talk much about it, as far as that goes. But

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these notes, it was - uh - the terrible living conditions and the terrible working conditions and - uh - he did say, "Anything you hear about vacations and those big May Day celebrations, that's all propaganda." He said, "You don't get vacations." And be said, "These May Day celebrations-yes; they have them, but you're forced to go. It's not a voluntary thing. And if you have a radio or a television and you don't listen to it, you better have a good explanation because all you hear is party politics and you've got to listen to it. You don't have coffee breaks and you go to work before dawn and you get off after dark." And the notes were very, very bitter about Russia. And he never once mentioned the word "Communist."
Mr. JENNER - Either in his notes or orally to you?
Mrs. BATES - He just said "the party."
Mr. JENNER - The Party? Those are the words he used - the expression, rather?
Mrs. BATES - Uh-huh. And he said you couldn't talk, you couldn't express anything because there was always a party person around and he'd report you.
Mr. JENNER - Uh-hub.
Mrs. BATES - He didn't talk very much. Just helped me with the translation and the notes-to read them.
Mr. JENNER - Did he say anything to you about any effort on his. part to become a citizen of Russia?
Mrs. BATES - Didn't know anything about it. Oh, another thing he said that he was very bitter about - he went over there on a 2-year visa and, of course, he married Marina. At the end of the 2 years when he wanted to leave, they wouldn't let him bring her back. They said, "You go ahead and we'll send her to you. "Well, of course," he said, "I knew I'd never see her again." So, he stayed 11 months longer until he could get her and he raised so much Cain until they finally let him.
Mr. JENNER - Raised Cain with whom?
Mrs. BATES - The Russians.
Mr. JENNER - Uh-huh.
Mrs. BATES - He wouldn't leave - his visa was out but he wouldn't leave until they let her go.
Mr. JENNER - Uh-huh. Did he express orally to you any views or opinions respecting the Government of the United States?
Mrs. BATES - Never.
Mr. JENNER - Did you gather anything with respect to his attitude toward the United States?
Mrs. BATES - No; I've thought and thought - and, of course, I've been asked questions all along. And he didn't discuss anything. If you got 10 words out of him at a time, you were doing good. He just didn't talk - except explaining those notes and, at times, he would go into detail on them. Conversations - he had actual conversations that he had had with different people over there.
Mr. JENNER - Oh, he had?
Mrs. BATES - If you could find those notes, I tell you - they were fascinating to read. "Inside Russia" - was what it was. And they were coherent and they were well written. And he had them all in sequence. I mean, they weren't just haphazard. He had them all in sequence according to city and dates and things like that.
Mr. JENNER - How was his spelling?
Mrs. BATES - Well, the English was fair.
Mr. JENNER - The spelling?
Mrs. BATES - Yeah.
Mr. JENNER - He was an accurate speller?
Mrs. BATES - Fair.
Mr. JENNER - He had misspelled words, though, occasionally?
Mrs. BATES - Oh, yeah. Mostly, I'd say, I don't know whether it was misspelled or just that he got in a hurry and left letters out. But there's very few men that are good spellers. I shouldn't say that but it's -

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Mr. JENNER - I am - when I have my secretary.
Mrs. BATES - Yeah [laughter]. College students are notoriously bad spellers.
Mr. JENNER - Particularly law students.
Mrs. BATES - Well - no - particularly psychology majors. They're terrible!
Mr. JENNER - Did you type all of his notes?
Mrs. BATES - No; not even a third of them.
Mr. JENNER - Tell me that circumstance.
Mrs. BATES - Well, on the 20th, he came up and he was - uh - quite nervous. Uh - the other 2 days, he'd sit right there at my desk and - uh - If I needed to ask him anything, why I would. But this day, he was walking up and down and looking over my shoulder and wanting to know where I was-and, finally, I finished the 10th page. He said, "Now, Pauline, you told me what your charges were." He said, "This is 8 hours you've worked and 10 pages. I have $10 and no more money. And I can't let you go on."
And that's when I asked him if I couldn't go on and type the rest of them. I told him I'd do it for nothing, or if he got the money, why he could pay me.
And he said, "No, I don't work that way. I've got $10.', And he pulled a $10 bill out of his pocket and walked out.
Mr. JENNER - Were you in possession of these notes from day to day or did he take them back with him at night?
Mrs. BATES - Oh, he took them with him. He never left anything. And he never left the office until he had picked up what I had typed - even the carbon paper.
Mr. JENNER - Even the carbon paper?
Mrs. BATES - Oh yeah. He took the carbon paper. He did tell me that - I think it was the second day - that there was a man in Fort Worth - and he's an engineer. I can't. remember. I've scratched my brain on that, too, trying to remember - I just saw the letterhead for a minute - that was interested in having these notes put into book form - manuscript form.

Mr. JENNER - Does the name George De Mohrenschildt refresh your recollection?
Mrs. BATES - No. Uh - I just got a glimpse of the letterhead, and it didn't register with me.
Mr. JENNER - But it sounded like a man who is an engineer?
Mrs. BATES - He said he was an engineer - he told me that. But there's lots of engineers in -
Mr. JENNER - Oh, yes.
Mrs. BATES - And that he was interested in helping Lee get these notes published. And he said, of course, he would have to change names and things like that. He had actual Russian names of people he talked to. And in order to protect people, he'd have to change the names. But the man was willing to - uh - wanted to go ahead. He had read all the notes. I never did read all of them. Now, this is what Lee told me.
Mr. JENNER - Lee told you that this other person -
Mrs. BATES - Uh-huh, this engineer.
Mr. JENNER - And the impression is yours that he was an engineer; had read all the notes.
Mrs. BATES - Uh-huh. Lee told me he had shown him the notes.

Mr. JENNER - Uh-huh
Mrs. BATES - Now, I don't know whether be had read them all or not. Maybe I shouldn't say. He said, "I've shown him the notes."
And the man could read and speak Russian.
Mr. JENNER - Uh-huh.
Mrs. BATES - That much he did tell me. And I just - uh - the next day when he came up was when he was real nervous and excited, sort of excited, like, I don't know. I'm afraid to say. I don't like to give impressions because they could be wrong.

Mr. JENNER - Uh-huh. I see. And your thought is that you typed about a third of his notes?
Mrs. BATES - About - from the pile. I don't know how much more there was, really, because they were all sizes - the paper was.
Mr. JENNER - And, also, he didn't permit you to look at the balance?
Mrs. BATES - No; I just saw the envelope. I typed 10 full single-spaced pages.

They are both the same, Mr. Jenner [referring to two copies of the Fort Worth Press, which Mr. Jenner was perusing].
Mr. JENNER - They are?
Mrs. BATES Uh-huh. One is the first edition and the other is the final edition.
Mr. JENNER - I see. But the text of the story is the same?
Mrs. BATES - Yes.
Mr. JENNER - Did you relate that experience of yours to anybody at the time?
Mrs. BATES - Well, after I - uh - after he left, a short time afterward, Caroline Hamilton and I are good friends. She's a reporter on the Press.
Mr. JENNER - That's the Fort Worth Press?
Mrs. BATES - Uh-huh.
And we were having lunch one day down at the corner drugstore and talking about, oh, just this, that, and the other thing, and I said, "By the way, Caroline, I did a real interesting job the other day. And the boy that I did it for is broke and out of a job, and you might be able to help him."
So, I gave her Lee's name and telephone number. That's all he gave me - was the telephone number - his brother's telephone number.
Mr. JENNER - Yes.
Mrs. BATES - And they tried to contact him but couldn't.
Mr. JENNER - Could not contact -
Mrs. BATES - Lee.

337

I just thought maybe they might be able to find him work, or something like that, because he wasn't working. He hadn't gotten a job. And he was real worried about it, because he needed one.
Mr. JENNER - Yes.
Mrs. BATES - And I just thought maybe that they might be able to help him find a job.
Mr. JENNER - And they were unable to contact him?
Mrs. BATES - They couldn't find him. They went out to his brother's home several times - oh, I think, two or three times, she said-one of the reporters did.
Mr. JENNER - And when was this?
Mrs. BATES - Oh, it was shortly after I did the work.
Mr. JENNER - I see. In the summer of 1962?
Mrs. BATES - Uh-huh; he was still out - I guess he was still out there - but there was never anybody at home when they went out there.
Mr. JENNER - Uh-huh.
Mrs. BATES - And, actually, I didn't know that Lee was the accused assassin. I didn't see any television, or anything else, the day that the President was killed. I was still under such a shock because I had just seen him go down the street in front of my building and I could have shaken hands with him - and it was a terrible shock - until Caroline called me.
Mr. JENNER - Uh-huh; that day?
Mrs. BATES - That night of the assassination. And wondered, she said - I was out at my club - and she said, "Have you sees any television or listened to any radios?" And I said, "No." She said, "Well, have you got a television there?" And I said, "Yes." She said, "Turn it on - and then call me back." So, I did. and there he was.
Mr. JENNER - And the person you saw on television - this would be the night of the assassination?
Mrs. BATES - Uh-huh.
Mr. JENNER - You recognized as being the same person who you knew as Lee Oswald -
Mrs. BATES - Lee Oswald.
Mr. JENNER - And whose notes you typed on the 18th, 19th, and 20th of June?
Mrs. BATES - 1962.
Mr. JENNER - 1962?
Mrs. BATES - Uh-huh.
Mr. JENNER - And you were firm in your recognition of that person?
Mrs. BATES - Oh, yes. There was no doubt about it. His eyes alone would- you could recognize. And when I also heard him talk, I knew that's who it was.
That's all there is (referring to newspaper that Mr. Jenner was perusing again].
Mr. JENNER - These first two pages?
Mrs. BATES - Yes.
Mr. JENIIEB. When Miss Hamilton called you, I take it she came over and talked with you?
Mrs. BATES - Not until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
Mr. JENNER - Oh, it was delayed for awhile. Let's see - Thanksgiving was the following week?

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Edited July 5, 2014 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

Who was the 'engineer'.

The engineer had Oswalds notes before the typing of them started. Is it possible that it all started just before Oswald nervously stopped the typing, a third of the way through? He took all notes and carbon copies which means there were at least two typed sets, one a carbon copy. At this point the engineer knew Oswalds crazy ideas. He stopped Oswald from going further. He used what he knew from that point on to steer Oswald into the role of the patsy by letting Oswald think he and the minutemen agreed with him. His dual role started which to him was to build a persona which would make sense in coming events in a way advantageous to him but to them was to have a thoroughly incriminated fall-guy.

Shortly Kennedy would take on Ole Miss. In a while Medgar will be shot, followed by W.alkers window frame and then JFK, and then Oswald.