The North Coast times-eagle., January 01, 1996, Page 4, Image 4

PAGE 4
OSWALD'S TALE
BY DAN ARMSTRONG
"If we obtain nothing else, we can count on gaining a
greater understanding of the dominant state of our political
existence in these decades of Cold War, for Oswald, willy-nilly,
became one of the leading actors in this tragicomedy of super­
powers who, with limited comprehension, lived in dread of each
other."
-NORMAN MAILER
("Oswalds Tale: An American Mystery")
"I will smash the CIA into a thousand pieces."
-JOHN F. KENNEDY
Why in the damned wxld would anyone want to jump
back into the morass of lies and suspicions surrounding the
assassination of John F. Kennedy? Does it really matter any
more vtfio pulled the trigger or triggers in this most awful of
American tragedies? Thirty-two years and a million hours of
research have intervened since that black day in Dallas and still
no presiding scenario has been resolved. Shouldn’t we just let
this ugly little sore in American history heal up and scar?
Shouldn't we move on to more pressing needs? Healthcare,
ecology, education? Why must we keep picking at this scab,
causing it to bleed and bleed again? Why should Norman
Mailer, arguably the most significant American journalist of the
last fifty years, invest his reputation and that of Random House
Incorporated to worry again upon this old bone?
"One stimulus to the writing of this book was an offer
from the Belarus KGB to allow a look into their files on Oswald,"
writes Mailer as he begins volume twa of his 791 page nonfiction
novel, Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery. To Assassination
nuts and conspiracy fiends alike this is reason enough to
exhume this old bone. With the collapse of the Soviet Union
in 1991 and the gradual opening up of clandestine Russia, veil
by veil, there should be considerable interest, to some, about
vtfiat the KGB might have thought about this peculiar U. S.
Marine's tentative defection to the Soviet Union. Add to this
Mailer's own invariably comprehensive reportage and unique
capacity for psychological investigation, and much like his
exploration of convicted killer Gary Gilmore in the Pulitzer Prize
winning Executioner's Song, we have a fascinating and involving
piece of writing for just about anyone who likes a good vtfio-
done-it.
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"\Ne are," wrote Mailer, "in effect, studying an object (to
use the KGB's word for a person under scrutiny) as he tumbles
through the prisms of a kaleidoscope. It is as if by such means
we hope to penetrate the psychology of Lee Harvey Oswald." It
is Mailer's intent to paint a psychological portrait of Oswald. A
portrait so real and dynamic he hopes that it, in conjunction with
the details of the incident itself, will help us decide whether
Oswald was in fact a lone assassin as determined by the much
maligned Warren Commission in 1964. Or if he was part of a
"probable" conspiracy, as reported by the House Select Commit­
tee on Assassinations in 1979 This is an ambitious task. Even
for Mr. Mailer. Objectivity needs to be absolutely hairline in the
subtle slanting of every unanswered nuance in the creation of
his highly complex protagonist Lee Harvey Oswald.
'This book...was undertaken without a fixed conclusion
in either direction," he confesses. "Indeed, it began with a preju­
dice in favor of the conspiracy theorists. All the same, one's plan
for the work was to take Oswald on his own terms as long as
that was possible - that is, try to comprehend his deeds as aris­
ing from nothing more than himself until such a premise lost all
headway." Intriguing concept.
And through the course of the book, Mailer makes every
effort to provide objectivity, so much so that this white wliale of
Oswald feels to be as much an enigma for the author as he pro­
ceeds as he is to the reader in his progress.Over and over again
he attacks the facts fearlessly and painstakingly, particularly in
his review of the KGB reports that repeatedly question Oswald's
motives, his intelligence, his felicity with the Russian language
and his emotional stability. They, it seems, were as uncertain
of Oswald's defection as were the Americans. Incredibly, intelli­
gence agencies on both sides of the Iron Curtain viewed this 20
year old in the role of double agent.
Roughly half the book concerns itself with Oswald's life
in Russia, and it is mostly new material for the thirsty assassi­
nation buff. Upon this solid foundation the second half of the
book reconstructs the assassination drama upon a backdrop of
investigative survey. Drawing upon the Warren Report, the work
of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, Gerald
Posner's Case Closed, Priscilla McMillan's Marina and Lee, Jim
Marrs' Crossfire, Carl Oglesby's The Yankee and Cowboy War,
and other sources, Mailer presents the entire case, every loose
end, every conspiratorial supposition, every strained conjecture,
wth clarity and objectivity to the extent that there may be no
better book to introduce a new student to the subject. In total,
the picture he paints is an excellent one, but not a new one.
Thirty-plus years of investigation by scores of researchers has
brought no conclusive answer, only question after question and
serious suspicions about the dark machinations behind the deed.
And Mailer can do no better. Still he takes a swing at it.
After giving us everything, accurately and dramatically,
and basically proving (to this reader anyway) that nothing con­
clusive can be determined about Oswald's part in the shooting,
Mr. Mailer inexplicably concludes with a gaping implausibility.
Despite the fact that he has shown Oswald had questionable FBI
liaisons, had indirect contact wth mob kingpin Carios Marcello,
and that the CIA knew of Oswald's assassination attempt on
John Birch Society leader General Edwn Walker six months
prior to the assassination and did not arrest him; despite the fact
that the House Select Committee on Assassinations' extensive
investigation concluded "that the most likely family bosses of
organized crime to have participated in such a unilateral assas­
sination plan were Carios Marcello and Santos Trafficante";
despite the fact that there is no piece of evidence nor argument
more explosive or revealing than the once secreted-away by
Time/Life home-movie taken by Abraham Zapruder that all but
unequivocally proves, regardless of vtfiat Oswald might have
been doing, that at least one shot (and surely the fatal shot)
came from some location other than the School Book Deposit­
ory; despite all this, Mr. Mailer concludes, "that Lee had the
character to kill Kennedy, and that he probably did it alone."
Moreover, "the odds in favor of one's personal conclusion
(meaning Mailer's) can be no better than, let's say, 3 out of 4
that he is definitely guilty and the sole actor in the assassi­
nation." Three out of four? How about one in a thousand? This
indeed is strange. No, worse than that! In reading this statement,
one wonders if Mailer bothered to read his owi book. If Mailer's
psychological portrait proved anything, it was that Oswald did
have the makings of a megalomaniac, but that he also looked
like a perfect patsy, the perfect pawn! God, it almost seems
that Mailer, like Ruby, is screaming at us to have him take a lie-
detector test! (Personally, I don't get it. And why does it bother
me so that Mailer's last book was about the CIA?)
So v4iat exactly does this mean? To Hell wth the details
and the facts of the assassination? Damn the worries about who
shot vtfio, magic bullets, and Jack Ruby's meeting wth Santos
Trafficante in a Cuban prison cell in 1959? Forget about Mailer's
book? Forget about this being a book review?
Let's just step back and take a long look at this thing,
this assassination phenomenon, the act and the reaction and
our obsession wth it all. What does it tell about ourselves?
What does it tell about our government and the state of affairs
presently at work in our country today?
Within the story of the Kennedy assassination lies
an x-ray vision of the innermost workings of our government.
Through the course of the phenomenon -assassination, cover­
up, debate, congressional hearings, private investigation, Oliver
Stone's movie JFK (Stone's recent movie Nixon also has some
critical and very criticized observations on JFK's assassination)
— we are indirectly given a clear window into the bizarre wwld of
the intelligence community that lies behind the cardboard facade
of the White House and the Capitol Building. We are introduced
to the various gradations of informants, operatives, agents and
illicit sources that are part of the intelligence community's infor­
mation gathering network and operations. We see the jealousies,
barriers, overlapping and power struggles between agencies, the
FBI, CIA, Dallas Police Department, the Warren Commission,
even underworld criminal organizations and the KGB. We are
shown the infrastructure of the intelligence community. And it
is a sobering sight, a monster created out of the Cold War, a
war of lies, double-agents and disinformation. Also revealed is
the true nature of these last fifty years that could be accurately
labeled The Age of Deceit - an age that still marshals on. And
no event, no war, no catastrophe more exposes the icy heart of
this age than the gangland slaying of our 35th President.
In 1964 the party line was that a lone nut in Dealey
Plaza was responsible. This lie has steadily tom the heart out
of our democracy. Thirty-tw) years after the fact the central
casualty of the Warren Commission's charade has been the
public's trust. There is no trust in our government at all anymore.
Stop the man or wjman on the street. Ask them if they trust the
system that broods inside the freeway belting our nation's
capitol. So awful is the state of things that laughter is apt to be
the most common response. Followed by a sardonic 'NO!' And
then maybe a flood of vulgarities. And for good reason.Only 40%
of the people voted in the last national election. The majority
decided not to participate. And we call this a democracy? We
have a problem here!
Ten months after the assassination, in September 1964,
the findings of the Warren Commission were made public in a
26-volume report. Simply, the commission had determined that
Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin and that he was working
alone. Despite the impeccable reputation of Chief Justice Earl
Warren, chairman of the commission, the report was met wth
considerable criticism almost immediately. Still it passed silently
into the realm of recent history and was mostly forgotten by all
except a handful of individual researchers. Approximately three
years later, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, at the
suggestion of Louisiana Senator Russell Long (brother of the
late Huey, v#io was also assassinated), read the Warren Report
in its entirety.The glaring inadequacy of the commission’s work
led Garrison to his well-known and mostly ridiculed investigation
of the assassination.Though his research uncovered many loose
ends and considerable suggestion of a deep vein of treachery in
our own government, Garrison's scream fell primarily on deaf
ears and like the Warren Report dropped quietly into the past.
The question of conspiracy however would not go away.
Gallup polls taken in the early '70s showed that nearly 80% of
the country believed that Kennedy's assassination was the result
of a conspiracy. 70% felt the same about the murder of Martin
Luther King, Jr. In 1975, House Representative Henry Gonzalez
of Texas called for a Congressional review of the assassinations
of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and the
shooting of George Wallace. There was great reluctance in the
old guard to reopen these cases, but in September 1976, after
a year of feet-dragging and postponement, the House Select
Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) came into being. Two
years later, during which time several key wtnesses to the
Kennedy assassination met "accidental" deaths or committed
suicide and Gonzalez in frustration had quit the leadership of his
own committee, the HSCA quietly concluded there had, in fact,
been at least one other gunman involved in the shooting and
that this suggested a conspiracy of unknown order. Even though
this meant that at least one assassin had gotten away scot free,
the report was in no way acted on. No arrests were ever made.
No further action was taken. Hardly anyone even seemed to