In appraising the import of Oswald’s rental of post office boxes, it is significant that he was not secretive about their use. All three boxes were rented by Oswald using his true name.[C6-604] His application for box No. 2915 showed his home address as that of Alexandra De Mohrenschildt (Taylor), whose husband had agreed to allow Oswald to use his address.[C6-605] His application for the New Orleans box listed his address as 657 French Street; his aunt, Lillian Murret, lived at 757 French Street.[C6-606] On the application for box No. 6225, Oswald gave an incorrect street number, though he did show Beckley Avenue, where he was then living.[C6-607] He furnished the box numbers to his brother, to an employer, to Texas and New Orleans unemployment commissions, and to others.[C6-608] Based on all the facts disclosed by its investigation, the Commission has attached no conspiratorial significance to Oswald’s rental of post office boxes.
Oswald’s use of aliases is also well established. In chapter IV, the evidence relating to his repeated use of the name “A. J. Hidell,” and close variants thereof, is set forth.[C6-609] Because Oswald’s use of this pseudonym became known quickly after the assassination, investigations were conducted with regard to persons using the name Hidell or names similar to it. Subversive files, public carrier records, telegraph company records, banking and other commercial records, and other matters investigated and persons interviewed have been examined with regard to Oswald’s true name and his known alias.[C6-610] No evidence has been produced that Oswald ever used the name Hidell as a means of making undercover contact with any person. Indeed, though Oswald did prepare a counterfeit selective service card and other identification using this name, he commonly used “Hidell” to represent persons other than himself, such as the president of his nonexistent Fair Play for Cuba Committee chapter, the doctor whose name appeared on his counterfeit international certificate of vaccination, and as references on his job applications.[C6-611]
Alwyn Cole, questioned document expert for the Treasury Department, testified that the false identification found on Oswald upon his arrest could have been produced by employing elementary techniques used in a photographic printing plant.[C6-612] (See app. X, [pp. 571-578].) Though to perform the necessary procedures would have been difficult without the use of expensive photographic equipment, such equipment and the needed film and photographic paper were available to Oswald when he was employed from October 1962 through early April 1963 at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, a commercial advertising photography firm in Dallas.[C6-613] While so employed, Oswald is known to have become familiar with the mechanics of photographic enlargements, contraction, and image distortion that would have been necessary to produce his false identification, and to have used the facilities of his employer for some personal work.[C6-614] Cole testified that the cards in Oswald’s wallet did not exhibit a great deal of skill, pointing out various errors that had been committed.[C6-615] Oswald’s supervisor at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall has stated that Oswald seemed unable to perform photographic work with precision, which was one of the main reasons for which he was ultimately discharged.[C6-616] The retouched negatives used to make Oswald’s counterfeit certificate of service identification were found among Oswald’s personal effects after his arrest, as was a rubber stamping kit apparently employed to produce his spurious international certificate of vaccination.[C6-617] There is strong evidence, therefore, that Oswald himself made the various pieces of counterfeit identification which he carried, and there is no reason to believe that he received assistance from any person in establishing his alias.
Oswald also used incorrect names other than Hidell, but these too appear unconnected with any form of conspiracy. Oswald’s last name appears as “Lee” in three places in connection with his trip to Mexico City, discussed above. His tourist card was typed by the Mexican consulate in New Orleans, “Lee, Harvey Oswald.”[C6-618] However, the comma seems to have been a clerical error, since Oswald signed both the application and the card itself, “Lee H. Oswald.” Moreover, Oswald seems originally to have also printed his name, evenly spaced, as “Lee H Oswald,” but, noting that the form instructed him to “Print full name. No initials,” printed the remainder of his middle name after the “H.” The clerk who typed the card thus saw a space after “Lee,” followed by “Harvey Oswald” crowded together, and probably assumed that “Lee” was the applicant’s last name. (See Commission Exhibit 2481, [p. 300].) The clerk who prepared Oswald’s bus reservation for his return trip wrote “H. O. Lee.” He stated that he did not remember the occasion, although he was sure from the handwriting and from other facts that he had dealt with Oswald. He surmised that he probably made out the reservation directly from the tourist card, since Oswald spoke no Spanish, and, seeing the comma, wrote the name “H. O. Lee.”[C6-619] Oswald himself signed the register at the hotel in Mexico City as “Lee, Harvey Oswald,”[C6-620] but since the error is identical to that on the tourist card and since he revealed the remainder of his name, “Harvey Oswald,” it is possible that Oswald inserted the comma to conform to the tourist card, or that the earlier mistake suggested a new pseudonym to Oswald which he decided to continue.
In any event, Oswald used his correct name in making reservations for the trip to Mexico City, in introducing himself to passengers on the bus, and in his dealings with the Cuban and Soviet Embassies.[C6-621] When registering at the Beckley Avenue house in mid-October, Oswald perpetuated the pseudonym by giving his name as “O. H. Lee,”[C6-622] though he had given his correct name to the owner of the previous roominghouse where he had rented a room after his return from Mexico City.[C6-623] Investigations of the Commission have been conducted with regard to persons using the name “Lee,” and no evidence has been found that Oswald used this alias for the purpose of making any type of secret contacts.
Oswald is also known to have used the surname “Osborne” in ordering Fair Play for Cuba Committee handbills in May 1963.[C6-624] He also used the false name D. F. Drittal as a certifying witness on the mail-order coupon with which he purchased his Smith & Wesson revolver.[C6-625] He used the name Lt. J. Evans as a reference on an employment application in New Orleans.[C6-626]
Oswald’s repeated use of false names is probably not to be disassociated from his antisocial and criminal inclinations. No doubt he purchased his weapons under the name of Hidell in attempt to prevent their ownership from being traced. Oswald’s creation of false names and ficititious personalities is treated in the discussion of possible motives set forth in chapter VII. Whatever its significance in that respect may be, the Commission has found no indication that Oswald’s use of aliases was linked with any conspiracy with others.
Ownership of a second rifle.—The Commission has investigated a report that, during the first 2 weeks of November 1963, Oswald had a telescopic sight mounted and sighted on a rifle at a sporting goods store in Irving, Tex. The main evidence that Oswald had such work performed for him is an undated repair tag bearing the name “Oswald” from the Irving Sports Shop in Irving, Tex. On November 25, 1963, Dial D. Ryder, an employee of the Irving Sports Shop, presented this tag to agents of the FBI, claiming that the tag was in his handwriting. The undated tag indicated that three holes had been drilled in an unspecified type of rifle and a telescopic sight had been mounted on the rifle and boresighted.[C6-627]
As discussed in chapter IV, the telescopic sight on the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was already mounted when shipped to Oswald, and both Ryder and his employer, Charles W. Greener, feel certain that they never did any work on this rifle.[C6-628] If the repair tag actually represented a transaction involving Lee Harvey Oswald, therefore, it would mean that Oswald owned another rifle. Although this would not alter the evidence which establishes Oswald’s ownership of the rifle used to assassinate President Kennedy, the possession of a second rifle warranted investigation because it would indicate that a possibly important part of Oswald’s life had not been uncovered.
Since all of Oswald’s known transactions in connection with firearms after his return to the United States were undertaken under an assumed name,[C6-629] it seems unlikely that if he did have repairs made at the sports shop he would have used his real name. Investigation has revealed that the authenticity of the repair tag bearing Oswald’s name is indeed subject to grave doubts. Ryder testified that he found the repair tag while cleaning his workbench on November 23, 1963.[C6-630] However, Ryder spoke with Greener repeatedly during the period between November 22-28 and, sometime prior to November 25, he discussed with him the possibility that Oswald had been in the store. Neither he nor Greener could remember that he had been. But despite these conversations with Greener, it is significant that Ryder never called the repair tag to his employer’s attention. Greener did not learn about the tag until November 28, when he was called by TV reporters after the story had appeared in the Dallas Times-Herald.[C6-631] The peculiarity of Ryder’s silence is compounded by the fact that, when speaking to the FBI on November 25, Ryder fixed the period during which the tag had been issued as November 1-14, 1963, yet, from his later testimony, it appears that he did so on the basis that it must have occurred when Greener was on vacation since Greener did not remember the transaction.[C6-632] Moreover, the FBI had been directed to the Irving Sports Shop by anonymous telephone calls received by its Dallas office and by a local television station. The anonymous male who telephoned the Bureau attributed his information to an unidentified sack boy at a specified supermarket in Irving, but investigation has failed to verify this source.[C6-633]