However, doubts exist about the accuracy of Bogard’s testimony. He, Pizzo, and Wilson differed on important details of what is supposed to have occurred when the customer was in the showroom. Whereas Bogard stated that the customer said he did not wish credit and wanted to purchase a car for cash,[C6-699] Pizzo and Wilson both indicated that the man did attempt to purchase on credit.[C6-700] According to Wilson, when the customer was told that he would be unable to purchase a car without a credit rating, substantial cash or a lengthy employment record, he stated sarcastically, “Maybe I’m going to have to go back to Russia to buy a car.”[C6-701] While it is possible that Oswald would have made such a remark, the statement is not consistent with Bogard’s story. Indeed, Bogard has made no mention that the customer ever spoke with Wilson while he was in the showroom.[C6-702] More important, on November 23, a search through the showroom’s refuse was made, but no paper bearing Oswald’s name was found.[C6-703] The paper on which Brown reportedly wrote Oswald’s name also has never been located.[C6-704]
The assistant sales manager, Mr. Pizzo, who saw Bogard’s prospect on November 9 and shortly after the assassination felt that Oswald may have been this man, later examined pictures of Oswald and expressed serious doubts that the person with Bogard was in fact Oswald. While noting a resemblance, he did not believe that Oswald’s hairline matched that of the person who had been in the showroom on November 9.[C6-705] Wilson has stated that Bogard’s customer was only about 5 feet tall.[C6-706] Several persons who knew Oswald have testified that he was unable to drive,[C6-707] although Mrs. Paine, who was giving Oswald driving lessons, stated that Oswald was showing some improvement by November.[C6-708] Moreover, Oswald’s whereabouts on November 9, as testified to by Marina Oswald and Ruth Paine, would have made it impossible for him to have visited the automobile showroom as Mr. Bogard claims.[C6-709]
Alleged association with various Mexican or Cuban individuals.—The Commission has examined Oswald’s known or alleged contacts and activities in an effort to ascertain whether or not he was involved in any conspiracy may be seen in the investigation it conducted as a result of the testimony given by Mrs. Sylvia Odio. The Commission investigated her statements in connection with its consideration of the testimony of several witnesses suggesting that Oswald may have been seen in the company of unidentified persons of Cuban or Mexican background. Mrs. Odio was born in Havana in 1937 and remained in Cuba until 1960; it appears that both of her parents are political prisoners of the Castro regime. Mrs. Odio is a member of the Cuban Revolutionary Junta (JURE), an anti-Castro organization.[C6-710] She testified that late in September 1963, three men came to her apartment in Dallas and asked her to help them prepare a letter soliciting funds for JURE activities. She claimed that the men, who exhibited personal familiarity with her imprisoned father, asked her if she were “working in the underground,” and she replied that she was not.[C6-711] She testified that two of the men appeared to be Cubans, although they also had some characteristics that she associated with Mexicans. Those two men did not state their full names, but identified themselves only by their fictitious underground “war names.” Mrs. Odio remembered the name of one of the Cubans as “Leopoldo.”[C6-712] The third man, an American, allegedly was introduced to Mrs. Odio as “Leon Oswald,” and she was told that he was very much interested in the Cuban cause.[C6-713] Mrs. Odio said that the men told her that they had just come from New Orleans and that they were then about to leave on a trip.[C6-714] Mrs. Odio testified that the next day Leopoldo called her on the telephone and told her that it was his idea to introduce the American into the underground “because he is great, he is kind of nuts.”[C6-715] Leopoldo also said that the American had been in the Marine Corps and was an excellent shot, and that the American said the Cubans “don’t have any guts * * * because President Kennedy should have been assassinated after the Bay of Pigs, and some Cubans should have done that, because he was the one that was holding the freedom of Cuba actually.”[C6-716]
Although Mrs. Odio suggested doubts that the men were in fact members of JURE,[C6-717] she was certain that the American who was introduced to her as Leon Oswald was Lee Harvey Oswald.[C6-718] Her sister, who was in the apartment at the time of the visit by the three men, and who stated that she saw them briefly in the hallway when answering the door, also believed that the American was Lee Harvey Oswald.[C6-719] By referring to the date on which she moved from her former apartment, October 1, 1963, Mrs. Odio fixed the date of the alleged visit on the Thursday or Friday immediately preceding that date, i.e., September 26 or 27. She was positive that the visit occurred prior to October 1.[C6-720]
During the course of its investigation, however, the Commission concluded that Oswald could not have been in Dallas on the evening of either September 26 or 27, 1963. It also developed considerable evidence that he was not in Dallas at any time between the beginning of September and October 3, 1963. On April 24, Oswald left Dallas for New Orleans, where he lived until his trip to Mexico City in late September and his subsequent return to Dallas. Oswald is known to have been in New Orleans as late as September 23, 1963, the date on which Mrs. Paine and Marina Oswald left New Orleans for Dallas.[C6-721] Sometime between 4 p.m. on September 24 and 1 p.m. on September 25, Oswald cashed an unemployment compensation check at a store in New Orleans;[C6-722] under normal procedures this check would not have reached Oswald’s postal box in New Orleans until at least 5 a.m. on September 25.[C6-723] The store at which he cashed the check did not open until 8 a.m.[C6-724] Therefore, it appeared that Oswald’s presence in New Orleans until sometime between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. on September 25 was quite firmly established.
Although there is no firm evidence of the means by which Oswald traveled from New Orleans to Houston, on the first leg of his Mexico City trip, the Commission noted that a Continental Trailways bus leaving New Orleans at 12:30 p.m. on September 25 would have brought Oswald to Houston at 10:50 p.m. that evening.[C6-725] His presence on this bus would be consistent with other evidence before the Commission.[C6-726] There is strong evidence that on September 26, 1963, Oswald traveled on Continental Trailways bus No. 5133 which left Houston at 2:35 a.m. for Laredo, Tex. Bus company records disclose that one ticket from Houston to Laredo was sold during the night shift on September 25-26, and that such ticket was the only one of its kind sold in the period of September 24 through September 26. The agent who sold this ticket has stated that Oswald could have been the purchaser.[C6-727] Two English passengers, Dr. and Mrs. John B. McFarland, testified that they saw Oswald riding alone on this bus shortly after they awoke at 6 a.m.[C6-728] The bus was scheduled to arrive in Laredo at 1:20 p.m. on September 26, and Mexican immigration records show that Oswald in fact crossed the border at Laredo to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. on that day.[C6-729] Evidence set out in appendix XIII establishes that Oswald did not leave Mexico until October 3, and that he arrived in Dallas the same day.
The Commission noted that the only time not strictly accounted for during the period that Mrs. Odio thought Oswald might have visited her is the span between the morning of September 25 and 2:35 a.m. on September 26. The only public means of transportation by which Oswald could have traveled from New Orleans to Dallas in time to catch his bus from Houston to Laredo, would have been the airlines. Investigation disclosed no indication that he flew between these points.[C6-730] Moreover, it did not seem probable that Oswald would speed from New Orleans, spend a short time talking to Sylvia Odio, and then travel from Dallas to Mexico City and back on the bus. Automobile travel in the time available, though perhaps possible, would have been difficult.[C6-731] The Commission noted, however, that if Oswald had reached Dallas on the evening of September 25, he could have traveled by bus to Alice, Tex., and there caught the bus which had left Houston for Laredo at 2:35 a.m. on September 26, 1963.[C6-732] Further investigation in that regard indicated, however, that no tickets were sold, during the period September 23-26, 1963 for travel from Dallas to Laredo or points beyond by the Dallas office of Continental Trailways, the only bus line on which Oswald could have made connections with the bus on which he was later seen. Furthermore, if Oswald had traveled from Dallas to Alice, he would not have reached the Houston to Laredo bus until after he was first reportedly observed on it by the McFarlands.[C6-733] Oswald had also told passengers on the bus to Laredo that he had traveled from New Orleans by bus, and made no mention of an intervening trip to Dallas.[C6-734] In addition, the Commission noted evidence that on the evening of September 25, 1963, Oswald made a telephone call to a party in Houston proposing to visit a resident of Houston that evening[C6-735] and the fact that such a call would appear to be inconsistent with Oswald’s having been in Dallas at the time. It thus appeared that the evidence was persuasive that Oswald was not in Dallas on September 25, and, therefore, that he was not in that city at the time Mrs. Odio said she saw him.
In spite of the fact that it appeared almost certain that Oswald could not have been in Dallas at the time Mrs. Odio thought he was, the Commission requested the FBI to conduct further investigation to determine the validity of Mrs. Odio’s testimony.[C6-736] The Commission considered the problems raised by that testimony as important in view of the possibility it raised that Oswald may have had companions on his trip to Mexico.[C6-737] The Commission specifically requested the FBI to attempt to locate and identify the two men who Mrs. Odio stated were with the man she thought was Oswald.[C6-738] In an effort to do that the FBI located and interviewed Manuel Ray, a leader of JURE who confirmed that Mrs. Odio’s parents were political prisoners in Cuba, but stated that he did not know anything about the alleged Oswald visit.[C6-739] The same was true of Rogelio Cisneros,[C6-740] a former anti-Castro leader from Miami who had visited Mrs. Odio in June of 1962 in connection with certain anti-Castro activities.[C6-741] Additional investigation was conducted in Dallas and in other cities in search of the visitors to Mrs. Odio’s apartment.[C6-742] Mrs. Odio herself was reinterviewed.[C6-743]
On September 16, 1964, the FBI located Loran Eugene Hall in Johnsandale, Calif.[C6-744] Hall has been identified as a participant in numerous anti-Castro activities.[C6-745] He told the FBI that in September of 1963 he was in Dallas, soliciting aid in connection with anti-Castro activities. He said he had visited Mrs. Odio. He was accompanied by Lawrence Howard, a Mexican-American from East Los Angeles and one William Seymour from Arizona. He stated that Seymour is similar in appearance to Lee Harvey Oswald; he speaks only a few words of Spanish,[C6-746] as Mrs. Odio had testified one of the men who visited her did.[C6-747] While the FBI had not yet completed its investigation into this matter at the time the report went to press, the Commission has concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was not at Mrs. Odio’s apartment in September of 1963.
The Commission has also noted the testimony of Evaristo Rodriguez, a bartender in the Habana Bar in New Orleans, to the effect that he saw Oswald in that bar in August of 1963 in the company of a Latin-appearing man.[C6-748] Rodriguez’ description of the man accompanying the person he thought to be Oswald was similar in respects to the description given by Sylvia Odio since both testified that the man may have been of either Cuban or Mexican extraction, and had a slight bald spot on the forepart of his hairline.[C6-749] Rodriguez’ identification of Oswald was uncorroborated except for the testimony of the owner of the bar, Orest Pena; according to Rodriguez, Pena was not in a position to observe the man he thought later to have been Oswald.[C6-750] Although Pena has testified that he did observe the same person as did Rodriguez, and that this person was Oswald,[C6-751] an FBI interview report indicated that a month earlier Pena had stated that he “could not at this time or at any time say whether or not the person was identical with Lee Harvey Oswald.”[C6-752] Though when testifying, Pena identified photographs of Oswald, the FBI report also recorded that Pena “stated the only reason he was able to recognize Oswald was because he had seen Oswald’s picture in the news media so often after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.”[C6-753] When present at Pena’s bar, Oswald was supposed to have been intoxicated to the extent that he became ill,[C6-754] which is inconsistent with other evidence that Oswald did not drink alcoholic beverages to excess.[C6-755]