What do we make of Oswald's letter to the FPCC on April 18, 1963?

[Lance Payette]

While on one of my factoid-busting expeditions – this one about LHO’s conversation with FBI agent John Quigley while in the New Orleans jail, which CTers have managed to twist into a conspiracy factoid – I encountered an actual fact that is kind of mysterious.

On or about April 18, 1963, while LHO still lived in Dallas, he wrote to the national headquarters of the FPCC as follows:

I do not like to ask for something for nothing but I am unemployed. Since I am unemployed, I stood yesterday for the first time in my life with a placard around my neck, passing out Fair Play for Cuba pamphlets, etc. I only had 15 or so. In 40 minutes they were all gone. I was cursed as well as praised by some. My homemade placard said, “Hands OFF CUBA! VIVA Fidel!” I now ask for 40 or (50) more of the fine, basic pamphlets.

You can see the letter here: https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh20/html/WH_Vol20_0266a.htm.

The letter was Exhibit 1 to the Warren Commission testimony of FPCC director Vincent T. Lee. You will note that the letter is undated, but the figure 50 is circled and there is a handwritten note “Sent 4/19/63,” presumably meaning 50 copies of the pamphlet were sent. (Vincent T. Lee indicated to the WC that he was out of the office on speaking engagements on April 19.) Also note that the letter has LHO’s Dallas P.O. Box as the return address at the top.

Oddly, the letter was not one of the handwriting exemplars examined by the HSCA handwriting panel. Bill Simpich, who seems to me extremely haphazard about documenting his mind-numbing “facts,” says the letter was postmarked April 18 and refers to an FBI memorandum to this effect. However, he never cites his source so you can actually verify these statements. Pretty diligent searching by me failed to establish that the FPCC ever provided an envelope for this letter or to locate the FBI memorandum that Simpich references. If you know where they are, let me know.

Nevertheless, I am satisfied the letter was indeed sent by LHO to the FPCC sometime around April 18. On 9/10/63, Dallas FBI agent James Hosty wrote an Internal Security memorandum about LHO that stated, “On April 21, 1963 Dallas confidential informant T-2 advised that LEE H. OSWALD of Dallas, Texas, was in contact with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in Now York City at which time he advised that he passed out pamphlets for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. According to T-2, OSWALD had a plackard [sic] around his neck reading, ‘Hands Off Cuba Viva Fidel.’” WC Exhibit 829, https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/pdf/WH17_CE_829.pdf.

Hosty testified at the WC that his memo meant that the New York office of the FBI had been informed on April 21 but that the information had not come to the attention of the Dallas office via T-2 until June. (According to page 90 of the Church Committee report, the information was not reported to Dallas until June 27, so Hosty was correct - https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/sites-default-files-94755-v.pdf.)

The FBI did have informants in the FPCC office in New York and we can assume that one of them (assumed by many to be FPCC insider Victor Vincente) saw the April 18 letter and told the FBI’s New York office on April 21. In any event, the Hosty memo is clearly referring to the April 18 letter. Hence, we must conclude that LHO actually sent this letter around April 18 while living in Dallas.

The ”basic pamphlet” LHO was requesting was “The Crime Against Cuba,” a 40-page pamphlet published in June 1961 as Number 14 in Corliss Lamont’s “Basic Pamphlet Series,” https://www.corliss-lamont.org/pamphlets/. It is reproduced as WC Exhibit 3120, https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh26/pdf/WH26_CE_3120.pdf. Fifty copies would have been a pretty sizable package.

What else was LHO up to in April? April 6 was his last day at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall. On April 10, he took a shot at General Walker. On April 12, he applied for unemployment benefits. On April 17, he decided to move to New Orleans. On April 24, Ruth Paine drove him to the bus station.

It thus would appear that LHO wrote the April 18 letter barely a week after shooting at Walker and just about the time he decided to move. He seemingly would have received the 50 pamphlets sent by the FPCC by April 24 and taken them to New Orleans. (Marina told the WC and Garrison’s grand jury that she had seen no FPCC materials and that there had been no FPCC activity before the move to New Orleans.)

On May 26, LHO wrote to the FPCC requesting membership and floating the idea of opening an office in New Orleans. This letter was Exhibit 2 to Vincent T. Lee’s WC testimony, https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh20/pdf/WH20_LeeVincent_Ex_2.pdf. Consistent with the April 18 letter, the May 26 letter stated, “In the past I have received from you pamplets [sic] ect. [sic], both bought by me and given to me by you.”

On June 16, LHO distributed FPCC literature at the Dumaine Street wharf where the USS Wasp was docked. See WC Exhibit 1412, https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh22/pdf/WH22_CE_1412.pdf. He was handing out an FPCC publication, “The Truth About Cuba is in Cuba!”, and his “Hands Off Cuba” flyer referring to the “New Orleans Charter Member Branch” of the FPCC with no location specified (as ordered from Jones Printing Company on May 29 and picked up on June 4).

In the later incident on Canal Street on August 9, Oswald’s description of himself and his FPCC’s activities to FBI agent Quigley the next day was a comical pastiche of lies (he had met and married Marina in Ft. Worth!), but he did say that he had with him several copies of the Corliss Lamont pamphlet that he used for reference; he also showed Quigley his “Hands Off Cuba” flyer (with Hidell’s name and the P. O. Box 30016 address), as well as membership applications to his New Orleans FPCC chapter. (The Camp Street address was stamped on page 39 of the Lamont pamphlet.)

He told Quigley he had been wearing a placard similar to the one he had described way back in the April 18 letter. WC Exhibit 826, https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/pdf/WH17_CE_826.pdf. The placard is described by witnesses in the “Fair Play for Cuba Committee” section beginning on page 392 of the De Brueys report of December 8, 1963, WC Document 6, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10407#relPageId=451&tab=toc, which also includes everything anyone could want to know about Oswald’s ordering of the “Hands Off Cuba” flyer and his distribution of FPCC literature).

What does the April 18 letter tell us? Isn’t it kind of mysterious?

Scarcely a week after taking a shot at Walker, Oswald is contemplating demonstrating on behalf of the FPCC and being “cursed” for doing so. He says nothing about moving to New Orleans. He describes an incident that surely never occurred but that bears an uncanny resemblance to what would occur on Canal Street in New Orleans on August 9, nearly four months later – right down to the placard around his neck. (Had the incident been real, Marina surely would have known – but she told the WC and the Garrison grand jury that there had been no FPCC materials or activity in Dallas.)

According to the WR (page 413), “Marina Oswald testified that her husband engaged in Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities ‘primarily for purposes of self-advertising. He wanted to be arrested. I think he wanted to get into the newspapers, so that he would be known.’ According to Marina Oswald, he thought that would help him when he got to Cuba.”

Isn’t this surely the truth – i.e., Oswald was simply building his resume as a friend of Cuba to pave his way there? Doesn’t the April 18 letter, written before his move to New Orleans and almost two months before he would engage in any FPCC activities there, strongly suggest that his pro-Castro sympathies and hopes for entering Cuba were genuine and that there was nothing “faux” about his FPCC activities as some CTers suggest?

To add to the mystery, on August 1, after the USS Wasp incident but more than a week before the Canal Street incident, LHO wrote to the FPCC and described “picketing the fleet” but also described a “street demonstration” that was “attacked” through the efforts of “Cuban-exial [sic] ‘gusanos’” where “we were officially cautioned by police,” although “thousands of circulars were disturbed [sic].” This letter was Exhibit 5 to Vincent T. Lee’s WC testimony, https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh20/html/WH_Vol20_0272b.htm. {Gusano means worm and was a derogatory term applied to Cubans who fled after the Castro revolution.)

CTers suggest the August 1 letter shows that the confrontation on August 9 was staged. I would tend to agree, if by this we mean “anticipated by LHO on August 1 and then provoked by him,” since his “faux DRE supporter” contacts with Bringuier were on August 5-6 and the Canal Street scuffle and arrest were on August 9. Bringuier’s store at 107 Decatur was just a few minutes from the intersection of Canal and Barrone Streets where the confrontation occurred. The August 1 letter certainly suggests that Oswald was planning an incident for publicity purposes, and this is consistent with Marina’s WC testimony.

To me, it all adds up to the LN narrative of LHO building a Castro-supporter resume to pave his way to Cuba. I cannot make sense of it as LHO being a faux Castro supporter, FBI informant or anything of the kind. The FPCC was no small operation. By late 1960, it had 7,000 members, 27 chapters and 40 student councils. Both the CIA and FBI took a strong interest in the FPCC, with the FBI successfully infiltrating it at national and local levels. https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKfairplay.htm. It’s difficult for me to see what LHO as a faux Castro supporter would have added to the equation. I don’t want to make this any longer than it is, but if you read what Oswald told NOPD Lt. Francis Martello and FBI agent John Quigley about his FPCC relationships and activities, it is such an absurd web of lies that you really can’t fit it into a CT narrative either; why would he request to see an FBI agent and then BS him the entire time?

(Here is what Joan Mellen said in a 2006 lecture: "At the First District police station, where Oswald was taken after he was arrested for a disturbance when he was handing out his pro-Castro leaflets, he requested of Lieutenant Francis Martello of the New Orleans police that Martello call the FBI field office. “Call the FBI,” Oswald ordered Martello imperiously. “Tell them you have Lee Oswald in custody.” Oswald asked that Special Agent Warren de Brueys come down to see him. Obviously, Oswald was someone the New Orleans field office of the FBI knew well. The Agent on duty that night, John Quigley, then asked a young clerk named William Walter, the person who took Martello’s call, to check all the files, locked and unlocked, for what they had on Oswald. On one file jacket, in the locked filing cabinet of the Special Agent in Charge, where security files were kept, were two names, Lee Oswald and Warren de Brueys." https://lawanddisorder.org/2006/01/joan-mellen-lecture/. When I read THAT, I abandoned my factoid-busting expedition. When you're up against people THAT crazy, what's the use? It's just an endless game of Whack-A-Mole.)
 

[Charles Collins]

While on one of my factoid-busting expeditions – this one about LHO’s conversation with FBI agent John Quigley while in the New Orleans jail, which CTers have managed to twist into a conspiracy factoid – I encountered an actual fact that is kind of mysterious.

On or about April 18, 1963, while LHO still lived in Dallas, he wrote to the national headquarters of the FPCC as follows:

I do not like to ask for something for nothing but I am unemployed. Since I am unemployed, I stood yesterday for the first time in my life with a placard around my neck, passing out Fair Play for Cuba pamphlets, etc. I only had 15 or so. In 40 minutes they were all gone. I was cursed as well as praised by some. My homemade placard said, “Hands OFF CUBA! VIVA Fidel!” I now ask for 40 or (50) more of the fine, basic pamphlets.

You can see the letter here: https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh20/html/WH_Vol20_0266a.htm.

The letter was Exhibit 1 to the Warren Commission testimony of FPCC director Vincent T. Lee. You will note that the letter is undated, but the figure 50 is circled and there is a handwritten note “Sent 4/19/63,” presumably meaning 50 copies of the pamphlet were sent. (Vincent T. Lee indicated to the WC that he was out of the office on speaking engagements on April 19.) Also note that the letter has LHO’s Dallas P.O. Box as the return address at the top.

Oddly, the letter was not one of the handwriting exemplars examined by the HSCA handwriting panel. Bill Simpich, who seems to me extremely haphazard about documenting his mind-numbing “facts,” says the letter was postmarked April 18 and refers to an FBI memorandum to this effect. However, he never cites his source so you can actually verify these statements. Pretty diligent searching by me failed to establish that the FPCC ever provided an envelope for this letter or to locate the FBI memorandum that Simpich references. If you know where they are, let me know.

Nevertheless, I am satisfied the letter was indeed sent by LHO to the FPCC sometime around April 18. On 9/10/63, Dallas FBI agent James Hosty wrote an Internal Security memorandum about LHO that stated, “On April 21, 1963 Dallas confidential informant T-2 advised that LEE H. OSWALD of Dallas, Texas, was in contact with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in Now York City at which time he advised that he passed out pamphlets for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. According to T-2, OSWALD had a plackard [sic] around his neck reading, ‘Hands Off Cuba Viva Fidel.’” WC Exhibit 829, https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/pdf/WH17_CE_829.pdf.

Hosty testified at the WC that his memo meant that the New York office of the FBI had been informed on April 21 but that the information had not come to the attention of the Dallas office via T-2 until June. (According to page 90 of the Church Committee report, the information was not reported to Dallas until June 27, so Hosty was correct - https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/sites-default-files-94755-v.pdf.)

The FBI did have informants in the FPCC office in New York and we can assume that one of them (assumed by many to be FPCC insider Victor Vincente) saw the April 18 letter and told the FBI’s New York office on April 21. In any event, the Hosty memo is clearly referring to the April 18 letter. Hence, we must conclude that LHO actually sent this letter around April 18 while living in Dallas.

The ”basic pamphlet” LHO was requesting was “The Crime Against Cuba,” a 40-page pamphlet published in June 1961 as Number 14 in Corliss Lamont’s “Basic Pamphlet Series,” https://www.corliss-lamont.org/pamphlets/. It is reproduced as WC Exhibit 3120, https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh26/pdf/WH26_CE_3120.pdf. Fifty copies would have been a pretty sizable package.

What else was LHO up to in April? April 6 was his last day at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall. On April 10, he took a shot at General Walker. On April 12, he applied for unemployment benefits. On April 17, he decided to move to New Orleans. On April 24, Ruth Paine drove him to the bus station.

It thus would appear that LHO wrote the April 18 letter barely a week after shooting at Walker and just about the time he decided to move. He seemingly would have received the 50 pamphlets sent by the FPCC by April 24 and taken them to New Orleans. (Marina told the WC and Garrison’s grand jury that she had seen no FPCC materials and that there had been no FPCC activity before the move to New Orleans.)

On May 26, LHO wrote to the FPCC requesting membership and floating the idea of opening an office in New Orleans. This letter was Exhibit 2 to Vincent T. Lee’s WC testimony, https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh20/pdf/WH20_LeeVincent_Ex_2.pdf. Consistent with the April 18 letter, the May 26 letter stated, “In the past I have received from you pamplets [sic] ect. [sic], both bought by me and given to me by you.”

On June 16, LHO distributed FPCC literature at the Dumaine Street wharf where the USS Wasp was docked. See WC Exhibit 1412, https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh22/pdf/WH22_CE_1412.pdf. He was handing out an FPCC publication, “The Truth About Cuba is in Cuba!”, and his “Hands Off Cuba” flyer referring to the “New Orleans Charter Member Branch” of the FPCC with no location specified (as ordered from Jones Printing Company on May 29 and picked up on June 4).

In the later incident on Canal Street on August 9, Oswald’s description of himself and his FPCC’s activities to FBI agent Quigley the next day was a comical pastiche of lies (he had met and married Marina in Ft. Worth!), but he did say that he had with him several copies of the Corliss Lamont pamphlet that he used for reference; he also showed Quigley his “Hands Off Cuba” flyer (with Hidell’s name and the P. O. Box 30016 address), as well as membership applications to his New Orleans FPCC chapter. (The Camp Street address was stamped on page 39 of the Lamont pamphlet.)

He told Quigley he had been wearing a placard similar to the one he had described way back in the April 18 letter. WC Exhibit 826, https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/pdf/WH17_CE_826.pdf. The placard is described by witnesses in the “Fair Play for Cuba Committee” section beginning on page 392 of the De Brueys report of December 8, 1963, WC Document 6, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10407#relPageId=451&tab=toc, which also includes everything anyone could want to know about Oswald’s ordering of the “Hands Off Cuba” flyer and his distribution of FPCC literature).

What does the April 18 letter tell us? Isn’t it kind of mysterious?

Scarcely a week after taking a shot at Walker, Oswald is contemplating demonstrating on behalf of the FPCC and being “cursed” for doing so. He says nothing about moving to New Orleans. He describes an incident that surely never occurred but that bears an uncanny resemblance to what would occur on Canal Street in New Orleans on August 9, nearly four months later – right down to the placard around his neck. (Had the incident been real, Marina surely would have known – but she told the WC and the Garrison grand jury that there had been no FPCC materials or activity in Dallas.)

According to the WR (page 413), “Marina Oswald testified that her husband engaged in Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities ‘primarily for purposes of self-advertising. He wanted to be arrested. I think he wanted to get into the newspapers, so that he would be known.’ According to Marina Oswald, he thought that would help him when he got to Cuba.”

Isn’t this surely the truth – i.e., Oswald was simply building his resume as a friend of Cuba to pave his way there? Doesn’t the April 18 letter, written before his move to New Orleans and almost two months before he would engage in any FPCC activities there, strongly suggest that his pro-Castro sympathies and hopes for entering Cuba were genuine and that there was nothing “faux” about his FPCC activities as some CTers suggest?

To add to the mystery, on August 1, after the USS Wasp incident but more than a week before the Canal Street incident, LHO wrote to the FPCC and described “picketing the fleet” but also described a “street demonstration” that was “attacked” through the efforts of “Cuban-exial [sic] ‘gusanos’” where “we were “officially cautioned by police,” although “thousands of circulars were disturbed [sic].” This letter was Exhibit 5 to Vincent T. Lee’s WC testimony, https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh20/html/WH_Vol20_0272b.htm. {Gusano means worm and was a derogatory term applied to Cubans who fled after the Castro revolution.)

CTers suggest the August 1 letter shows that the confrontation on August 9 was staged. I would tend to agree, if by this we mean “anticipated by LHO on August 1 and then provoked by him,” since his “faux DRE supporter” contacts with Bringuier were on August 5-6 and the Canal Street scuffle and arrest were on August 9. Bringuier’s store at 107 Decatur was just a few minutes from the intersection of Canal and Barrone Streets where the confrontation occurred. The August 1 letter certainly suggests that Oswald was planning an incident for publicity purposes, and this is consistent with Marina’s WC testimony.

To me, it all adds up to the LN narrative of LHO building a Castro-supporter resume to pave his way to Cuba. I cannot make sense of it as LHO being a faux Castro supporter, FBI informant or anything of the kind. The FPCC was no small operation. By late 1960, it had 7,000 members, 27 chapters and 40 student councils. Both the CIA and FBI took a strong interest in the FPCC, with the FBI successfully infiltrating it at national and local levels. https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKfairplay.htm. It’s difficult for me to see what LHO as a faux Castro supporter would have added to the equation. I don’t want to make this any longer than it is, but if you read what Oswald told NOPD Lt. Francis Martello and FBI agent John Quigley about his FPCC relationships and activities, it is such an absurd web of lies that you really can’t fit it into a CT narrative either; why would he request to see an FBI agent and then BS him the entire time?

(Here is what Joan Mellen said in a 2006 lecture: "At the First District police station, where Oswald was taken after he was arrested for a disturbance when he was handing out his pro-Castro leaflets, he requested of Lieutenant Francis Martello of the New Orleans police that Martello call the FBI field office. “Call the FBI,” Oswald ordered Martello imperiously. “Tell them you have Lee Oswald in custody.” Oswald asked that Special Agent Warren de Brueys come down to see him. Obviously, Oswald was someone the New Orleans field office of the FBI knew well. The Agent on duty that night, John Quigley, then asked a young clerk named William Walter, the person who took Martello’s call, to check all the files, locked and unlocked, for what they had on Oswald. On one file jacket, in the locked filing cabinet of the Special Agent in Charge, where security files were kept, were two names, Lee Oswald and Warren de Brueys." https://lawanddisorder.org/2006/01/joan-mellen-lecture/. When I read THAT, I abandoned my factoid-busting expedition. When you're up against people THAT crazy, what's the use? It's just an endless game of Whack-A-Mole.)

Marina told the WC and Garrison’s grand jury that she had seen no FPCC materials and that there had been no FPCC activity before the move to New Orleans.

I don’t believe that Marina was aware of LHO’s activities surrounding his planning of the Walker shooting until after it happened. If I remember correctly, she thought he was attending an evening typing class although he had dropped out of that class earlier. The point is that just because Marina wasn’t aware of any of LHO’s FPCC activities in Dallas, doesn’t mean that they didn’t really happen. I don’t imagine it would have been difficult for LHO to have picked up some FPCC pamphlets mailed to him at the post office, made a placard, and distributed the pamphlets in 40-minutes without taking anything home or Marina even knowing anything about it.

[Lance Payette]

Marina told the WC and Garrison’s grand jury that she had seen no FPCC materials and that there had been no FPCC activity before the move to New Orleans.

I don’t believe that Marina was aware of LHO’s activities surrounding his planning of the Walker shooting until after it happened. If I remember correctly, she thought he was attending an evening typing class although he had dropped out of that class earlier. The point is that just because Marina wasn’t aware of any of LHO’s FPCC activities in Dallas, doesn’t mean that they didn’t really happen. I don’t imagine it would have been difficult for LHO to have picked up some FPCC pamphlets mailed to him at the post office, made a placard, and distributed the pamphlets in 40-minutes without taking anything home or Marina even knowing anything about it.

Your point isn't critical to anything I said, but there is no evidence of LHO contacting the FPCC for materials or talking about the FPCC before April 18. He would have been very busy that April - getting fired, planning and executing the Walker attempt, agitating on behalf of the FPCC, and moving to New Orleans! You may be right, but I tend to think both the April 18 and August 1 letters were just self-promotion, describing events that never happened. It's surprising (to me, anyway) how little attention the April 18 letter gets - it's hardly ever mentioned, yet I think it's quite significant.

[Lance Payette]

Well, I'm having fun with my own little pseudo-research while I recuperate from Achilles surgery, even if others would prefer to mentally masturbate over stuff that seems rather dull to moi ...

Dave Perry is a respected JFKA researcher and, as far as I know, an LN advocate (he appeared on Fred Litwin's podcast, so that's a clue!). Nevertheless, I found at his site, https://dperry1943.com/, a discussion of LHO and the FPCC that is deeply puzzling to me. The relevant pages - I know, I know, this is, like, sooo totally boring, dude - are https://dperry1943.com/oswaldmole.html and https://dperry1943.com/fivedocuments.html.

I confess, I cannot follow the logic here. See if you can do better.

Perry says, "I believe it likely the CIA was using an unwitting Lee Harvey Oswald for two purposes. 1] To smoke out a mole who penetrated CIA operations. 2] To discredit the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC)." (Please, ignore #1 - you'll only encourage Tom, and we're trying to keep things on track here.)

Bear in mind, we know LHO was interested in the FPCC at least by April 18, 1963, while he still lived in Dallas. His FPCC activities in New Orleans were largely complete before the end of August (he handed out FPCC literature in front of the Trade Mart on August 16).

Here is Perry's chain of logic:

"On September 13, 1963 the FBI’s S.J. Papich wrote indicating that John Tilton of the CIA 'Is also giving some thought of planting deceptive information which might embarrass the (Fair Play for Cuba) Committee in areas where it does have some support.'"

"Giving some thought" on September 13 - what does that have to do with LHO? In areas where the FPCC had "some support" - that scarcely describes New Orleans, where lonesome LHO was the FPCC. (S. J. Papich was the FBI's liaison to the CIA. He wasn't some local Dallas or New Orleans agent. See https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKpapich.htm.)

"The records show both the CIA and FBI were following Oswald’s movements. While Oswald was living in New Orleans (April 24, 1963 to September 25, 1963) he was a one man FPCC representative. He passed out FFCC leaflets, appeared on a radio show, and got into a scuffle with anti-Castro Cubans. He took several opportunities to write the FPCC’s Vincent Lee detailing his exploits."

OK, but what does that have to do with the CIA "using" LHO? What is the connection? If anything, isn't it more likely that LHO making a fool of himself gave someone the idea a month later of using LHO clones to embarrass the FPCC in areas where it actually was popular?

"Since he intended to return to the Soviet Union he may have been creating a pro-Castro persona to use when he entered the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City. He would go there seeking an in-transit visa to Cuba and on to Russia. Is it possible that the CIA would use Oswald’s actions in New Orleans and Mexico City to serve as the FPCC embarrassment Tilton was considering?"

Well, yes, that's exactly why I (and Marina!) think LHO engaged in his high-profile FPCC activities. But, again, what does this have to do with the CIA supposedly "using" LHO? Maybe I'm just fussy, but this seems a very curious use of the term "using."