Oswald must have been thoroughly disillusioned when he left Mexico City on October 2, 1963. In spite of his former residence in the Soviet Union and his Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities he had been rebuffed by the officials of both Cuba and the Soviet Union in Mexico City. Now there appeared to be no chance to get to Cuba, where he had thought he might find his communist ideal. The U.S. Government would not permit travel there and as far as the performance of the Cubans themselves was concerned, he was “disappointed at not being able to get to Cuba, and he didn’t have any great desire to do so any more because he had run into, as he himself said—into bureaucracy and red tape.”[C7-392]
Oswald’s attempt to go to Cuba was another act which expressed his hostility toward the United States and its institutions as well as a concomitant attachment to a country in which he must have thought were embodied the political principles to which he had been committed for so long. It should be noted that his interest in Cuba seems to have increased along with the sense of frustration which must have developed as he experienced successive failures in his jobs, in his political activity, and in his personal relationships. In retrospect his attempt to go to Cuba or return to the Soviet Union may well have been Oswald’s last escape hatch, his last gambit to extricate himself from the mediocrity and defeat which plagued him throughout most of his life.
Oswald’s activities with regard to Cuba raise serious questions as to how much he might have been motivated in the assassination by a desire to aid the Castro regime, which President Kennedy so outspokenly criticized. For example, the Dallas Times Herald of November 19, 1963, prominently reported President Kennedy as having “all but invited the Cuban people today to overthrow Fidel Castro’s Communist regime and promised prompt U.S. aid if they do.”[C7-393] The Castro regime severely attacked President Kennedy in connection with the Bay of Pigs affair, the Cuban missile crisis, the ban on travel to Cuba, the economic embargo against that country, and the general policy of the United States with regard to Cuba. An examination of the Militant, to which Oswald subscribed,[C7-394] for the 3-month period prior to the assassination reflects an extremely critical attitude toward President Kennedy and his administration concerning Cuban policy in general as well as on the issues of automation and civil rights, issues which appeared to concern Oswald a great deal.[C7-395] The Militant also reflected a critical attitude toward President Kennedy’s attempts to reduce tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. It also dealt with the fear of the Castro regime that such a policy might result in its abandonment by the Soviet Union.
The October 7, 1963, issue of the Militant reported Castro as saying Cuba could not accept a situation where at the same time the United States was trying to ease world tensions it also “was increasing its efforts to ‘tighten the noose’ around Cuba.”[C7-396] Castro’s opposition to President Kennedy’s attempt to reduce world tensions was also reported in the October 1, 1963, issue of the Worker, to which Oswald also subscribed.[C7-397] In this connection it should be noted that in speaking of the Worker, Oswald told Michael Paine, apparently in all seriousness, that “you could tell what they wanted you to do * * * by reading between the lines, reading the thing and doing a little reading between the lines.”[C7-398]
The general conflict of views between the United States and Cuba was, of course, reflected in other media to such an extent that there can be no doubt that Oswald was aware generally of the critical attitude that Castro expressed about President Kennedy. Oswald was asked during the New Orleans radio debate in which he engaged on August 21, 1963, whether or not he agreed with Castro that President Kennedy was a “ruffian and a thief.” He replied that he “would not agree with that particular wording.”[C7-399] It should also be noted, however, that one witness testified that shortly before the assassination Oswald had expressed approval of President Kennedy’s active role in the area of civil rights.[C7-400]
Although Oswald could possibly have been motivated in part by his sympathy for the Castro government, it should be remembered that his wife testified that he was disappointed with his failure to get to Cuba and had lost his desire to do so because of the bureaucracy and red tape which he had encountered.[C7-401] His unhappy experience with the Cuban consul seems thus to have reduced his enthusiasm for the Castro regime and his desire to go to Cuba.
While some of Castro’s more severe criticisms of President Kennedy might have led Oswald to believe that he would be well received in Cuba after he had assassinated the American President, it does not appear that he had any plans to go there. Oswald was carrying only $13.87 at the time of his arrest, although he had left, apparently by design, $170 in a wallet in his wife’s room in Irving.[C7-402] If there was no conspiracy which would help him escape, the possibility of which has been considered in chapter VI, it is unlikely that a reasoning person would plan to attempt to travel from Dallas, Tex., to Cuba with $13.87 when considerably greater resources were available to him. The fact that Oswald left behind the funds which might have enabled him to reach Cuba suggests the absence of any plan to try to flee there and raises serious questions as to whether or not he ever expected to escape.
Possible Influence of Anti-Kennedy Sentiment in Dallas
It has been suggested that one of the motivating influences operating on Lee Oswald was the atmosphere in the city of Dallas, especially an atmosphere of extreme opposition to President Kennedy that was present in some parts of the Dallas community and which received publicity there prior to the assassination.[C7-403] Some of that feeling was expressed in the incident involving then vice-presidential candidate Johnson during the 1960 campaign, in the treatment of Ambassador Adlai Stevenson late in October of 1963 and in the extreme anti-Kennedy newspaper advertisement and handbills that appeared in Dallas at the time of the President’s visit there.[C7-404]
The Commission has found no evidence that the extreme views expressed toward President Kennedy by some rightwing groups centered in Dallas or any other general atmosphere of hate or rightwing extremism which may have existed in the city of Dallas had any connection with Oswald’s actions on November 22, 1963. There is, of course, no way to judge what the effect of the general political ferment present in that city might have been, even though Oswald was aware of it. His awareness is shown by a letter that he wrote to Arnold Johnson of the Communist Party U.S.A., which Johnson said he did not receive until after the assassination. The letter said in part: