Mr. Jenner. Why was that, in your opinion?
Mr. Thornley. He was extremely unpredictable. He and I stopped speaking before I finally left the outfit. This will give you an example of——
Mr. Jenner. How did that arise?
Mr. Thornley. It was a Saturday morning. We had been called out to march in a parade for a man or some men—I believe they were staff NCO's—who were retiring from the Marine Corps. This was a common occurrence. Every now and then we had to give up our Saturday morning liberty to go march in one of these parades and everybody, of course, having just gotten up, and having to stand out, to look forward to a morning of standing out in the hot sun and marching around, was irritable. So, we were involved at the moment in a "hurry-up and wait routine" which is common in large organizations like the military. We were waiting at the moment, in the parking lot by the parade ground, sitting. Oswald and I happened to be sitting next to each other on a log that was used to bank cars, in the parking lot. I had just finished "1984" a couple of days earlier, and I had not yet discussed it with Oswald, and I was—he said something and I said something; I don't recall what it was—I was definitely thinking of "1984" at the time and I was using terms from "1984." Oswald didn't seem to be particularly amused by what I was saying, and he was—he seemed to be kind of lost in his own thoughts, and so I stopped making any comments at all to him for awhile. Then he turned to me and said something about the stupidity of the parade, of the whole circumstance right at the moment, how angry it made him, and I said, I believe my words were, "Well, comes the revolution you will change all that."
At which time he looked at me like a betrayed Caesar and screamed, screamed definitely, "Not you, too, Thornley." And I remember his voice cracked as he said this. He was definitely disturbed at what I had said and I didn't really think I had said that much. He put his hands in his pockets and pulled his hat down over his eyes and walked away and went over and sat down someplace else alone, and I thought, well, you know, forget about it, and I never said anything to him again and he never said anything to me again.
Mr. Jenner. You mean you never spoke to each other from that time on?
Mr. Thornley. No; and shortly thereafter I left the outfit for overseas. I don't recall that we were ever in a situation where we would have spoken, but I know we never spoke after that. And this happened with many people, this reaction of Oswald's, and therefore he had few friends. He never seemed to have any one friend for a long length of time, one acquaintance. He seemed to guard against developing real close friendships.
Mr. Jenner. Did you ever—excuse me, you recall being interviewed by an agent of the FBI?
Mr. Thornley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Jenner. This was in New Orleans on Monday the 25th of——