Edward Epstein: The Critic Who Flipped

[James DiEugenio]

On the passing of Edward Epstein, and his rather odd career in the JFK field.

How does anyone get a half million advance for a book on the JFK case?

And why and how can anyone switch positions as fast as Epstein did?  These and other mysteries are noted below.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/edward-epstein-the-critic-who-flipped

[Robert Morrow]

I think I remember reading at the time, around 2013, that James Swanson got a million dollar advance for writing the lone nutter book End of Days: the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, which was timed to come out with the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination. I am sorry I cannot document this, but I think I read about it at the time. End of Days was published by Mariner Books on Nov. 12, 2013.

https://www.amazon.com/End-Days-Assassination-John-Kennedy/dp/0062083481/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= 

And I think, but cannot prove, that Gerald Posner got a substantial advance for writing his lone nutter book Case Closed.

The Lone Nutters get paid big money by the Establishment to push their misinformation/disinformation on the JFK assassination.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

New York Times bestselling author James Swanson reveals Lee Harvey Oswald's bizarre history of violence and follows John and Jacqueline Kennedy's wildly successful swing through Texas and their fateful Dallas motorcade ride. In the most riveting account ever written about the assassin's shots, Swanson takes us to the sixth-floor Texas Book Depository window to look through Oswald's rifle sights. Swanson also re-creates the last hours of the doomed assassin and the days of national mourning for the president that followed, culminating in a funeral that united the country in a tearful farewell to the fallen commander in chief.

In End of Days, Swanson combines extensive research with unparalleled storytelling to turn the events of one of the darkest days of the twentieth century into a pulse-pounding thriller that will remain the definitive popular account of the assassination for years to come.

--Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From Booklist

The author of the acclaimed Manhunt (2006), about the pursuit of the killer of Abraham Lincoln, here tackles the JFK assassination. Forget conspiracy theories about whodunit. Swanson’s focus is on the events themselves, the killing and the hunt for the gunman. Think of this as a true-crime book, not another of the millions (well, it seems like that sometimes) of books about who really shot Kennedy. Swanson takes an hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute approach, tracking killer and victim in the lead-up to the fatal shot and then tracking the killer and his pursuers in the days after the assassination, culminating with the killer’s own murder. It’s a highly detailed, highly compelling story, and it would be just as compelling if the victim didn’t happen to be JFK. Swanson is an excellent writer, and the book, which draws on many dozens of previously published works (his bibliography separates fiction and conspiracy literature from the rest of the pack), is a valuable addition to the JFK collection and to the true-crime genre as a whole. --David Pitt

 

 

[Robert Morrow]

DiEugenio

QUOTE

Finally, let us make one other note as to how plugged in Epstein was to the power elite on Legend. Billy Joe Lord was on the same ship that Oswald took to Europe in 1959 on his voyage to Russia. In fact, Lord was Oswald’s cabin mate. The pair spent about two weeks together crossing the Atlantic. For this reason Epstein wanted to interview him for the book. Lord did not want to talk to Epstein since he knew he was a critic of anyone who contested the Warren Report. Lord then related that he did meet with two of Epstein’s researchers. (FBI Report of March 15, 1977) One of them said that they may have to apply pressure to Lord. And they knew two people who could do so. One was James Allison, a local newspaper chain owner and a friend of the Bush family. The other was no less than future governor and president, George W. Bush.

UNQUOTE

Sadly, there used to be a very good article on JFKmurdersolved.com on the case of Billy Joe Lord, but the website has crashed. I wish someone could find this article.

George Herbert Walker Bush was the director of the CIA from January 30, 1976 to January 20, 1977 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush 

The Bush family was obviously helping Edward Epstein get an interview with Billy Joe Lord.

GEORGE BUSH JR. indirectly in 1976 employed Billy Joe Lord, who was Lee Harvey Oswald's roommate on the ship in 1959 when Oswald defected to the Soviet Union. Lord filed an affidavit with the FBI against Edward Jay Epstein the last person to interview de Mohrenschildt. Epstein's writers threaten Lord to go to his employer, George Bush Jr. hinting that his father was CIA Director. Epstein's good friend is Bill Clinton's personal adviser, Sidney Bluemthal. (See Astrix * for more on Billy Joe Lord).

If anyone can find the Billy Joe Lord article from www.jfkmurdersolved it would be nice. - Robert

 

[Joe Bauer]

Robert, basically off the top of your head, what were some of the general aspects of any Oswald recollections Billy Joe Lord may have shared at some point? Or did he not say anything about Oswald and his two weeks sharing a room with him on that freighter to Europe?

Edited January 29 by Joe Bauer

[Robert Morrow]

All I can say is THANK GOD FOR THE INTERNET WAYBACK MACHINE. It has bailed me out time and time again after a web site has crashed or disappeared! JFK MURDER SOLVED - Reward (archive.org) 

From the web site of JFKMurdersolved.com (which has now down, but tons of its web links and photos can be found via the Internet Wayback Machine - thank God!

Regarding the Bush family pressure on Billy Joe Lord:

QUOTE

 Hale Boggs sat on the Warren Commission, which concluded that President Kennedy was slain by a lone assassin. Later, in 1971 and '72, Boggs said that the Warren Report was false and that J. Edgar Hoover's FBI not only helped cover up the JFK murder but blackmailed Congress with massive wire-tapping and spying. He named Warren Commission staff member Arlen Specter as a major cover-up artist. Congressman Boggs' plane disappeared on a flight to Alaska in 1972. The press, the military, and the CIA publicly proclaimed the plane could not be located. Investigators later said that was a lie, that the plane had been found. On the plane were Nick Begich, a very popular Democratic Congressman, and Don Jonz, an aide to Mr. Boggs. All were killed.

+ In 1976, George H.W. Bush was appointed CIA director by president and former Warren Commission member Gerald Ford at the exact time that newly erected investigative committees were probing the possible role of the CIA into the assassination plots to kill Fidel Castro, Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy. Bush appoints his old friend from JM/Wave and the Bay of Pigs, Theodore Shackley, as his deputy director for Special Operations, the CIA's most important division. The above-mentioned investigations are heavily stonewalled by the CIA, holding back crucial documents and witnesses. Nevertheless, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concludes its investigation with a 95% probability that at least 4 shots were fired and Kennedy was killed as a result of a conspiracy, along with the recommendation to the Justice Department to follow up with a further investigation. This recommendation was never honored.

+ During the preparations of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, pressure is applied to Texan Bill Lord not to testify for the committee. Bill Lord was a fellow marine and roommate of Lee Harvey Oswald on a ship voyage to France. Lord expresses his concern in a letter to president Carter. He writes that Oswald was connected to the FBI and CIA and concludes that the CIA and the FBI are complicit in JFK's death and the coup d'etat that occurred on 11/22/1963. He also states that one of the Midland, TX politicians applying pressure to him, was Mr. George W. Bush junior . This letter to President Carter was declassified some years ago. Here's a fragment:

One of the parties which has blitzed me with telephone calls trying to persuade me to tell them what I know about Oswald, is engaged in a very costly project which allows them to locate, interview, monitor, and influence every single available person who ever knew Lee Oswald--and this, just in advance of the new governmental investigation by the house select committee on Assassinations. I finally consented, not to grant an interview, but to allow the publication's representative to explain their project to me in person. After a lunch interview with this researcher, I was told that if I had refused even to meet with him, pressure was in the offing from two Midland men: Mr. Jim Allison, publisher of the ultra-conservative Reporter-Telegram, my employer (out of necessity, and for the moment!), and Mr. George Bush, Jr.

... Shortly thereafter, my mother discovered that her telephone had been tampered with. The casing around the dialing aparatus had been pulled out about one-half inch... we cannot doubt that someone entered the house at a time when I was at work and my mother was away; she returned to the house, however, at an unaccustomed time... I have been in anguish for weeks, Mr. President, trying my best to laugh at my apprehensions and to see these events as fortuitous ones... Speaking as the man who spent more than two weeks in the same ship's cabin with Lee Oswald at the time of his 1959 "defection", and speaking as a man who has been the subject of the above.

See the original letter here (page 1) here (page 2) and here (page 3)

+ There are numerous indications and allegations that Nixon's Watergate scandal had a direct connection with the Kennedy assassination and that every time that Nixon is talking about the danger that the "Bay of Pigs thing" might be exposed because of Watergate, he was actually covertly referring to the Kennedy assassination. None of these rumours could solidify, because shortly before his resignation, Nixon replaced Spiro Agnew by Gerald Ford as his vice president, who promptly pardoned him from further prosecution. The allegations of a direct connection with Dallas are certainly not unfounded, considering the incomplete official story and the preponderance of Watergate individuals connected to the Bay of Pigs and the Kennedy assassination. When it became clear that Watergate may not be kept under the lid, Nixon fires and replaces his entire administration with the exception of George H.W. Bush, because "he will do anything for our cause".

From a radio interview with investigative journalist Jim Marrs:

J – Yes, George, and let me say this: I don't want everybody to think that just Lyndon Johnson was involved in this, or that it was just the democrats or whatever. I’m looking here at a book written by H.R Haldeman, who was ...

G – He was one of Nixon’s men!

J – Yes, one of Nixon’s boys, and here he writes , he says, if you all remember during Watergate the Nixon Tapes and all the focus over that: Nixon went to pay 2 million dollars to E. Howard Hunt, a CIA officer, who was leading and training the anti-Castro Cubans, he (Nixon) said: "Pay him the 2 million dollars! This could open up the whole Bay of Pigs thing! This could look bad for us, this could look bad for the CIA!"And in Haldeman's book, he says that it seems that in all these Nixon references to the Bay of Pigs, he was actually referring to the Kennedy assassination! More information here

+ George H.W. Bush failed to disclose his friendship with George De Mohrenschildt, a renowned oil geologist and Lee Harvey Oswald's best friend in Dallas. They knew each other since 1942, probably even longer, because in 1939 he went to work for Humble Oil, a company founded by Prescott Bush. In 1977, when De Mohrenschildt is located by investigators of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, who want to interview him, he allegedly commits suicide the following day. The last person to interview him on the day he died, is Jay Edward Epstein, a writer/historian and a known apologist for the Warren Report since day one. Epstein married a CIA agent and is the biographer of former CIA-director James Jesus Angleton, presumably in charge of Oswald's "defection" to Russia. Interestingly, Epstein is also the "consultant" that was suddenly hired by NBC in 1995, when NBC was making a program for national TV on the confession of James E. Files. The program was promptly cancelled.

UNQUOTE

 

 

[Robert Morrow]

Billy Joe Lord letter (2/2/1977) to President Jimmy Carter. Lord was a ship cabin mate of Lee Harvey Oswald in 1959

 

https://tekgnosis.typepad.com/tekgnosis/2013/12/bill-lords-letter-to-president-jimmy-carter-re-jfk-assassination-and-lee-harvey-oswald-lho-plus-geor.html

February 2, 1977

 My dear Mr. President:

 I have refrained from troubling you with the contents of

this letter as long as I possibly could. But I have finally

decided that a personal letter to you is, in the end, in your

interest and in the country’s interest.

 

I am simply transcribing notes which I set down about two

weeks ago--and which concern, and must concern, any leader of

this country.

 

I was Lee Oswald’s cabinmate on the SS MARION LYKES, which

sailed from New Orleans to France in September-October, 1959.

I have recently been the subject of surveillance, of harass-

ment, of pressure tactics, and possibly of terror tactics.

 

First, in September, when I was teaching in Japan, some-

one broke into my house, rifled my papers, but stole nothing.

I returned to the United States shortly thereafter. Back in

Texas, I was suddenly and improbably the subject of a blitz of

contacts by telephone from persons wanting to know urgently and

insistently what I knew or remembered about Oswald. No one had

asked me anything about Oswald since the time of the Warren

Commission investigation twelve years ago. The blitz of calls

came out of the blue. It was highly improbable, and, after

the break-in, I was suspicious. I stalled these people, who

represented two major national publications. During this

period of non-cooperation, I received another surprise, another

“first” for me. Two Iranian gentlemen appeared at my front door.

My mother’s house was up for sale and they were prospective

buyers. A small ad had been placed in the paper. The Iranians

strode through the house in a very cursory, almost arrogant

manner, paced off the front yard, and drove away. The sale of

the house had been discussed on the telephone among family; a

small ad had been placed. Only one other couple showed up to

look at the house. Neither I, nor my mother, who is 63, had

ever received a visit from Iranian gentlemen before.

 

One of the parties which has blitzed me with telephone calls

trying to persuade me to tell them what I know about Oswald, is

engaged in a very costly project which allows them to locate,

interview, monitor, and influence every single available person

who ever knew Lee Oswald--and this, just in advance of the new

governmental investigation by the House Select Committee on

Assassinations. I finally consented, not to grant an interview,

<page 1>

 

but to allow the publication’s representative to explain their

project to me in person. After a lunch with this researcher,

I was told that if I had refused even to meet with him, pressure

was in the offing through two Midland men: Mr. Jim Allison,

publisher of the ultra-conservative Reporter-Telegram, my em-

ployer (out of necessity, and for the moment!), and Mr. George

Bush, Jr. The researcher said he had asked an acquaintance, a

Mr. Beamis (?), chairman of the Republican Party in Virginia

and owner of “a string of hotels” in that state, for help in

persuading me to tell what I know about Oswald. After this

revelation, and when I still refused to be interviewed, the

publication’s leg-man made an effort to purchase my knowledge

about Oswald. I refused, and he left.

 

Shortly thereafter, my mother discovered that her tele-

phone had been tampered with. The casing around the dialing

apparatus had been pulled out about one-half inch. It was so

obvious as to be grotesque. But we cannot doubt that someone

entered the house at a time when I was at work and my mother

was away; she returned to the house, however, at an unaccustomed

time.

 

I have been in anguish for weeks, Mr. President, trying

my best to laugh at my apprehensions and to see these events

as fortuitous ones. Experience, common sense, and logic

persuade me otherwise. So I have been compelled to react

to all this in the form of a statement--and it may shed some

light on the reasons for the intrusions into my life:

 

Speaking as the man who spent more than two weeks in the      

same ship’s cabin with Lee Oswald at the time of his 1959

“defection”, and speaking as a man who has been the subject

of the above-described tactics of cowards, I offer the

following considerations to the American people and to

people everywhere:

 

1. It is the CIA and FBI relations with Lee Oswald which have been

    covered up since November 22, 1963.

 

2. It is the CIA and the FBI which have concealed and destroyed

   evidence of their relations with Oswald prior to November 22,

   1963.

 

3. It is the CIA which has, from the beginning, fabricated or

    distorted certain Cuba-Oswald relations, and certain Cuba-

    JFK relations, as a smokescreen and decoy to conceal the

    CIA-Oswald relationship.

 

4. I can testify, and others can testify, that the CIA did not

    conduct a real investigation of the so-called defector Oswald

    in 1959. The CIA has long been concerned about witnesses

    who can testify to this oversight on their part.

 

<page 2>

 

5. They did not conduct a real investigation because Mr. Oswald

    was a bogus defector.

 

6. The CIA is concerned lest the knowledge that Oswald was a

    fake defector in 1959, linking him to CIA, also link him

    with CIA on November 22, 1963. But there is an impressive

    body of evidence that CIA used--and abused--Oswald as late

    as November, 1963.

 

7. It is the CIA-Oswald relation and the FBI-Oswald relation

    which have necessitated the thirteen-year cover-up.

 

8. A necessary conclusion is that the CIA and FBI elements in 1963

    are suspect in the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

 

9. The assassination of John Kennedy has every appearance of

    having been our first American coup d’état.

 

 

Mr. President, as a man, a father, and a concerned citizen,

I believe that you would act energetically also, if you were in

my shoes. I believe that you should be aware of the fact that

one of your fellow-citizens does not feel that he, his wife and

three children, and his mother, are safe in Midland, Texas.

 

I conclude, Mr. President, by assuring you that I have

the most enormous respect for you and the most hope-inspiring

indications of your good will, as of your rare ability to lead

the nation. Without flattery, you are quite simply the political

light of this period in history. God be with you.

 

I apologize for the crude and, doubtless, offensive tone

of this letter.

 

                                                                                       Sincerely,

 

                                                                                <signed Bill Lord>

 

                                                                                       Bill Lord

 2403 Holloway

Midland, Texas 79701

(915) 68-44537

[Nick Bartetzko]

Thanks for posting, but this letter is of limited value. Unless there is another letter or interview that gives a physical description of Oswald, details why he believes/knows that Oswald was CIA and FBI, then it amounts only to allegations. 
I have no idea if there is a list of passengers available for that trip. But even if there is, it is still of little value imo. 

[James DiEugenio]

The importance of the letter is it indicates the kind of connections and backing that Epstein had and could use to pressure Lord to talk to him against his will.

These were real and they really bothered Lord.

If you look on page 622 of The Assassination Chronicles, it does not look like Lord consented to an interview since it is not noted in Epstein's sources section.

And Readers' Digest used their own connections to the FBI and the CIA. 

A 2 million dollar book budget was huge back then.  

Edited January 29 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

The other point I was trying to accent was: how quickly Epstein flipped.

Inquest was published in January of 1966.  And Clay Felker gave it a big blast off at his house, many celebrities there.  And it got attention in the press.  It was mostly well reviewed.

But yet, by the end of the year, Epstein has gone over and is cooperating with the likes of Richard Warren Lewis and FBI fink Larry Schiller.  He is on their record album accompanying that horrible book, The Scavengers and Critics of the Warren Report. 

Then, he does not show up as part of the Boston debate team with Salandria. But he does approach him later and they have that strange conversation which I took from John Kelin's fine book, Praise from a Future Generation. Where Epstein says to Vince that he has changed.  That debate was in November of 1966.  And then of course he goes to work on the smear job on Jim Garrison. 

In light of the record, there are two schools of thought on Epstein and the JFK case. For whatever reason, he turned in late 1966.  I mean when you are cavorting around with the lawyers for Clay Shaw, and Jack Ruby and Gordon Novel, and your end product is put out by the CIA as an example of how to counter the critics, then you have changed your ways.

The other school is that Epstein was not really ever a critic, because his first book seemed to tolerate the concept of Political Truth.  And very soon after he called critics like Mark Lane "demonologists".  He even accused Lane of sending a burglar to his house to steal a document.  (This turned out to be untrue as Lane already had it from Salandria.)

But on top of that he was, by the seventies, firmly in the Oswald did it camp.  As can be seen by the conclusion of Legend.  He even supports the forensic conclusions of the HSCA!  Which is nutty.  I mean Guinn, Canning, Baden? They have all turned out to be jokes.

For myself, I really don't know which is the answer.  If you forced me at gunpoint, I would probably vote for the latter.  On the grounds that he hid Specter's reply to him about how he convinced the rest of the Commission into the SBT. Specter told Epstein that he simply showed them the Z film in slow motion and said, "We either go with the Magic Bullet, or we start looking for a second shooter."

To my knowledge he did not reveal this until the 21st century.

 

Edited January 30 by James DiEugenio

[Robert Morrow]

3 hours ago, Nick Bartetzko said:

Thanks for posting, but this letter is of limited value. Unless there is another letter or interview that gives a physical description of Oswald, details why he believes/knows that Oswald was CIA and FBI, then it amounts only to allegations. 
I have no idea if there is a list of passengers available for that trip. But even if there is, it is still of little value imo. 

The value of the letter from Billy Lord is that someone who spent a great deal of time in close quarters (as a cabin mate on a ship) with Lee Harvey Oswald in 1959 thought he was CIA handled fake defector to Russia and was not buying the "Oswald is a commie" narrative. And, furthermore, this witness came under surveillance and intimidation in the 1970s (presumably by the government) and had has home telephone tapped years after the JFK assassination.

[Benjamin Cole]

2 hours ago, Robert Morrow said:

The value of the letter from Billy Lord is that someone who spent a great deal of time in close quarters (as a cabin mate on a ship) with Lee Harvey Oswald in 1959 thought he was CIA handled fake defector to Russia and was not buying the "Oswald is a commie" narrative. And, furthermore, this witness came under surveillance and intimidation in the 1970s (presumably by the government) and had has home telephone tapped years after the JFK assassination.

Great work RM, in resurrecting a forgotten and fascinating page in the LHO saga. 

I do ask however: Do we know why Billy Lord thought LHO was a false defector or CIA asset? (I suspect as much also, btw). 

If Lord suspected LHO as a false defector due to something Lord read after the JFKA, that is fine, and certainly a valid opinion. 

But what would be more interesting is if Lord had insights from bunking with LHO for a couple of weeks.  Did LHO reveal any details, or clues? 

 

Edited January 30 by Benjamin Cole

[Benjamin Cole]

4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

The other point I was trying to accent was: how quickly Epstein flipped.

Inquest was published in January of 1966.  And Clay Felker gave it a big blast off at his house, many celebrities there.  And it got attention in the press.  It was mostly well reviewed.

But yet, by the end of the year, Epstein has gone over and is cooperating with the likes of Richard Warren Lewis and FBI fink Larry Schiller.  He is on their record album accompanying that horrible book, The Scavengers and Critics of the Warren Report. 

Then, he does not show up as part of the Boston debate team with Salandria. But he does approach him later and they have that strange conversation which I took from Jhn Kelin's fine book, Praise from a Future Generation. Where Epstein says to Vince that he has changed.  That debate was in November of 1966.  And then of course he goes to work on the smear job on Jim Garrison. 

In light of the record, there are two schools of thought on Epstein and the JFK case. For whatever reason, he turned in late 1966.  I mean when you are cavorting around with the lawyers for Clay Shaw, and Jack Ruby and Gordon Novel, and your end product is put out by the CIA as an example of how to counter the critics, then you have changed your ways.

The other school is that Epstein was not really ever a critic, because his first book seemed to tolerate the concept of Political Truth.  And very soon after he called critics like Mark Lane "demonologists".  He even accused Lane of sending a burglar to his house to steal a document.  (This turned out to be untrue as Lane already had it from Salandria.)

But on top of that he was, by the seventies, firmly in the Oswald did it camp.  As can be seen by the conclusion of Legend.  He even supports the forensic conclusions of the HSCA!  Which is nutty.  I mean Guinn, Canning, Baden? They have all turned out to be jokes.

For myself, I really don't know which is the answer.  If you forced me at gunpoint, I would probably vote for the latter.  On the grounds that he hid Specter's reply to him about how he convinced the rest of the Commission into the SBT. Specter told Epstein that he simply showed them the Z film in slow motion and said, "We either go with the Magic Bullet, or we start looking for a second shooter."

To my knowledge he did not reveal this until the 21st century.

 

JD-

We both have had books published. I would venture to say that pre-publication advances of $2 million are unheard of, except for celebrity authors, such as Obama or Bill Clinton. Outside the the JFK crowd, no one has ever heard of Epstein. 

Epstein? A very dubious author. 

[Gerry Down]

2 hours ago, Robert Morrow said:

The value of the letter from Billy Lord is that someone who spent a great deal of time in close quarters (as a cabin mate on a ship) with Lee Harvey Oswald in 1959 thought he was CIA handled fake defector to Russia and was not buying the "Oswald is a commie" narrative. And, furthermore, this witness came under surveillance and intimidation in the 1970s (presumably by the government) and had has home telephone tapped years after the JFK assassination.

Oswald was playing the part of a tourist right from the moment he left New Orleans and crossed the border from Helsinki into USSR. Even inside the USSR he was playing the part of a tourist and had a tourist guide. It was only then he revealed to his tourist guide he was actually a communist. 

Therefore LHO would not have given any indication while on the boat to his cabin mate that he was a communist. Otherwise his cabin mate could have informed authorities that he was a communist and blocked him from making his way into Russia.

[Gerry Down]

In other words LHO was a communist and had no option but to hide this from his cabin mate lest he be blocked from getting into Russia.

[Robert Morrow]

39 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Great work RM, in resurrecting a forgotten and fascinating page in the LHO saga. 

I do ask however: Do we know why Billy Lord thought LHO was a false defector or CIA asset? (I suspect as much also, btw). 

If Lord suspected LHO as a false defector due to something Lord read after the JFKA, that is fine, and certainly a valid opinion. 

But what would be more interesting is if Lord had insights from bunking with LHO for a couple of weeks.  Did LHO reveal any details, or clues? 

 

I don't know the answers to your questions. But my *guess* is that while bunking with Oswald for a couple of weeks Oswald was not touting the benefits of Marxism or saying stuff like my whole life changed when I was handed a flier in NYC a few years ago about the innocence of the Rosenbergs. Maybe Oswald was talking about how proud he was to be a Marine and wanted to kill communists or undermine communism. Maybe Oswald was singing the praises of John Wayne. 

I guess is nothing at all about "Marxism" radiated off of Oswald and looking back years later Lord concluded there is absolutely no way Oswald was a legit Marxist defector to the USSR in 1959.

Then the Dallas FBI Agent John Fain interviewed Robert and Marguerite Oswald in 1960 neither of them had any idea about Lee Oswald's supposed turn to Marxism and communism. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95569#relPageId=139 (Start on page 139)