Mr. Delgado. Right. So we could go over there and become officers and lead an expedition to some of these other islands and free them too, you know, from—this was really weird, you know, but——
Mr. Liebeler. That is what you and Oswald talked about?
Mr. Delgado. Right, things like that; and how we would go to take over, to make a republic, you know, because that was another form of Batista, American-supported government, you know. And one of his main, pet peeves was that he thought that Batista was being supported by the United States, and that is why we were so against him in the beginning of Castro.
Mr. Liebeler. So against Castro?
Mr. Delgado. Right, because of the fact that we had lost so much and were about to lose so much money in Cuba, because now that our man was out. And we would talk about how we would do away with Trujillo, and things like that, but never got no farther than the speaking stage. But then when he started, you know, going along with this, he started actually making plans, he wanted to know, you know, how to get to Cuba and things like that. I was shying away from him. He kept on asking me questions like "how can a person in his category, an English person, get with a Cuban, you know, people, be part of that revolution movement?"
I told him, to begin with, you have got to be trusted—right—in any country you go to you have got to be trusted, so the best way to be trusted is to know their language, know their customs, you know; so he started applying himself to Spanish, he started studying. He bought himself a dictionary, a Spanish-American dictionary. He would come to me and we would speak in Spanish. You know, not great sentences but enough. After a while he got to talk to me, you know, in Spanish.
Mr. Liebeler. How much of a fluency did Oswald develop in Spanish?
Mr. Delgado. He didn't acquire too much. He could, speak a common Spanish, like "How are you? I am doing fine. Where are you going? Which way is this?" Common stuff, you know, everyday stuff.
As far as getting in involved political argument, say, or like debate of some sort, he couldn't hold his own.
Mr. Liebeler. He couldn't speak Spanish well enough to do something like that?