Around the same time, Oswald turned his attention to retired Major General Edwin Walker, a conservative activist whose Dallas home he had photographed over March 9-10. Oswald prepared a notebook outlining a plan to shoot Walker and studied bus schedules. On the evening of April 6 or 7, he went to Walker’s residence but changed his mind, hiding the rifle nearby. On April 10, he retrieved the weapon and fired through a window at the general at his desk, narrowly missing his head, then returned home by bus. Marina extracted a promise that he would not attempt it again; she kept his written instructions, intending to turn them over to authorities if he repeated the act.
Oswald’s life grew more difficult after Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall dismissed him April 6 for inability to do the work, and his unemployment compensation claim was denied for insufficient wage credits. Marina was pregnant again, and under Oswald’s pressure she wrote letters to the Soviet Embassy requesting visas. On April 24, Oswald told Ruth Paine he planned to look for work in New Orleans, his birthplace. Marina suggested the move, in part, to get him away from Dallas after the Walker incident. Paine helped Marina and June move into the Paine home in Irving; Oswald departed by bus.
In New Orleans, Oswald stayed with his aunt Lillian Murret and searched for employment at the Louisiana Department of Labor. He obtained a job at the William B. Reily Co., a coffee manufacturer, lubricating machinery for $1.50 an hour, but spent much of his time at the adjacent Crescent City Garage reading gun magazines with one of the owners, Adrian Alba. He was fired July 19 for inefficiency, and within days learned his undesirable Marine discharge had been affirmed on review.
Summer 1963 saw Oswald’s brief, solitary foray into political activism. As “Lee Osborne,” he ordered Fair Play for Cuba Committee circulars and tried to establish a New Orleans chapter. On August 5, he visited a store managed by Carlos Bringuier, a Castro-opposed Cuban exile, and offered to train anti-Castro guerrillas. Four days later, Bringuier spotted Oswald distributing FPCC leaflets; a scuffle led to both men’s arrest for disturbing the peace. He told police he had been in contact with the committee’s national director, “A. J. Hidell”—the same alias on his forged identification cards and weapons orders. He was the only member of the unchartered New Orleans branch. After pleading guilty and paying a $10 fine, Oswald appeared twice on local radio—first in an interview with William Stuckey, then in a debate with Bringuier. Television coverage of his street activities ended further employment prospects.
By September, Oswald’s thoughts turned to Cuba and the Soviet Union. He obtained a new American passport, applied for a Cuban tourist card at the Mexican consulate, and confided to Marina that he intended to travel through Mexico to Havana. On September 25, 1963, after cashing his last unemployment compensation check, Oswald boarded a Continental Trailways bus for Houston. That evening he telephoned Socialist Labor Party member Horace Twiford—whose name he had obtained from party headquarters—hoping to meet him before flying to Mexico. When Twiford proved unavailable, Oswald continued; the next morning he boarded another bus for Laredo, crossed into Mexico, and continued to Mexico City on a Flecha Roja bus.
Oswald checked into the Hotel del Comercio on September 26 and began a futile diplomatic effort: Mexican officials required a Cuban visa before permitting a U.S. citizen to board a plane for Cuba, and his passport was stamped invalid for travel there. At the Cuban Embassy on September 27, he presented his passport, Russian work permit, Russian-language letters, and proof of marriage to Marina, telling Senora Silvia Tirado de Duran he wished to travel to Cuba in transit to Russia. That day, or earlier, he visited the Soviet Embassy, speaking with either Pavel Yatskov or Valeriy Kostikov—both KGB consular officials—and left without a visa. When Oswald returned with passport photographs that afternoon, Duran telephoned the Soviet Embassy and learned Oswald’s Russian visa would be delayed approximately four months; Oswald grew visibly agitated, and Cuban consul Eusibio Azque refused him a visa, saying people like him were harming the Cuban Revolution. Oswald spent six nights at the Hotel del Comercio, eating inexpensive meals and apparently visiting a bullfight and museums. On October 1 he purchased bus tickets back to Dallas, departing the next morning and arriving October 3 after crossing at Nuevo Laredo.
Oswald’s job search resumed immediately. Through Mrs. Linnie Mae Randle—whose brother Buell Wesley Frazier worked at the Texas School Book Depository—Ruth Paine learned of an opening. Oswald was interviewed and hired October 16 as a temporary order filler at $1.25 an hour. He arranged to ride to Irving on weekends with Frazier, and on October 18—his twenty-fourth birthday—Marina and Ruth Paine prepared a small celebration. Two days later Marina gave birth to their second daughter, Rachel, at Parkland Hospital, while Oswald stayed in Irving with June. Visiting that evening, Marina wrote, “he was very happy at the birth of another daughter and even wept a little.”
In the following weeks, Oswald’s FBI file noted his subscriptions to left-wing publications and FPCC activities. Agents visited the Paine home twice in November to speak briefly with Ruth, and Marina recorded their license plate. On November 22, three days after Thanksgiving, Oswald asked Frazier to drive him to Irving after work, ostensibly for curtain rods. He spent the evening playing with his daughter on the lawn, watching television, and going to bed early around nine o’clock, unaware that the following morning would be his last.
Appendix XIV traced Oswald’s finances from his June 1962 arrival through November 22, 1963: receipts of $3,665.89 against expenditures of $3,501.79, leaving a cash balance of $164.10. Recorded transactions included a $10 January 1963 deposit on the Smith & Wesson revolver, $21.45 for the rifle in March, $9.00 in dues and printing for Fair Play for Cuba materials, and the $10 New Orleans fine. The Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed his estimated $100 monthly expenditure on food, clothing, and incidentals was slightly above average for a family in his income bracket in the South, reflecting his frugal habits.
Appendix XV examined Oswald’s dealings with the State Department and INS, concluding he and Marina received no different treatment from other Americans in similar circumstances. The Commission traced the October 1959 renunciation attempt at the Moscow Embassy, where Consul Richard E. Snyder delayed action to discourage hasty expatriation. Oswald never returned to complete the process, though his letters of October 31 and November 3 expressed that intent. Snyder observed that twenty months in the Soviet Union had matured Oswald, stripping away much of the “arrogance and bravado” of his initial appearance. Based on Snyder’s July 1961 recommendation, the Passport Office concluded on August 18, 1961, that Oswald had not expatriated himself under the Immigration and Nationality Act. His passport, stamped valid only for direct travel to the United States, was renewed in Moscow in May 1962.
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