From jmcadams Sun Jun 23 15:02:17 PDT 1996
Article: 1214 of alt.conspiracy.jfk.moderated
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk.moderated
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From: jgrant@hq.walldata.com (Grant, Joel)
Subject: Oswald's Depository Job
Status: RO
Message-ID: <1996Jun17.113035.1100.292493@msmail.walldata.com>
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Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 18:34:12 GMT
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The good residents of Huntsville, Texas, to this day may be unaware that,
prior to November 22, 1963, their town was a hotbed of conspiratorial
activity. 

Huntsville, about two hundred miles south of Dallas, must have been one of
the conspirators' many targets since the chain of circumstances which led
to Lee Harvey Oswald being present at the Texas School Book Depository
when John Kennedy was assassinated begins in Huntsville. 

The first link in the chain was the decision, in September, 1963 by 18
year-old Buell Wesley Frazier, one of Huntsville's citizens, to move to
the Dallas area to look for a job:
	
	Well, I went to see, first I come up there and started
	looking for a job and couldn't find one myself so I went
	to one of these employment agencies and through that a lady
	called up one morning, I was fixing to go out and look for
	one, I was looking for myself in the meantime when they
	were, too, and so she called up and gave me a tip to it
	if I was interested in a job like that I could go over there
	and see about that and for the time being I wasn't 
	working and needed some money and so I did and I went over
	there and saw Mr. Truly, and he gave me an interview, and
	then he hired me the same day I went over there. (2H212)

The employment agency (Massey) was in Irving, Texas where Frazier was
staying with his sister, Linnie Mae Randle, her husband Bill, and their
three children, Diana, Patricia, and Caroline Sue.  The Mr. Truly
mentioned by Wes Frazier was Roy Truly, Superin tendent of the Texas
School Book Depository (TSBD) at 411 South Elm Street in Dallas.  Wes
Frazier hired on as an order filler. 

On October 14, 1963, about a month after Frazier started at the TSBD, his
sister Linnie Mae was having coffee and chatting at the home of one of her
neighbors, Ms. Dorothy Roberts.  Also present was another Randle neighbor,
Ms. Ruth Hyde Paine.  With Pain e was a young Russian-born woman, Marina
Oswald.  Marina and her daughter were living with Ruth and her two
children while Marina's husband, Lee Harvey Oswald, stayed in a rooming
house in Dallas.  This was the first time Randle had met Marina. (2H246)

The conversation turned to the fact that Marina, who was obviously
pregnant (she was to give birth to her second child less than a week
later) was married to a young man who was looking for a job.  The women
discussed various possibilities.  Applying for positions at the Manor
Bakeries and Texas Gypsum were discarded because those jobs required a
driver's license, and Marina's husband could not drive. (2H247)

Ms. Randle mentioned that her brother Wes had recently started to work in
Dallas, about fifteen miles away, at the TSBD.  It was the busy season and
perhaps this outfit might need another man.  She wasn't sure; it was only
a possibility. 

Ruth Paine asked Linnie Randle if she, Linnie, would call the TSBD and
find out if anything was available.  Randle demurred, saying she did not
know anyone over there.  If Ruth was interested, she would have to find
out for herself. (2H247)

Because Marina spoke only a few words of English she asked Ruth to call
the TSBD and find out if they might have a job for Lee Oswald.  (Ruth and
her husband Michael were separated and, apparently, Ms. Paine welcomed
Marina's company and the opportunity to converse in Russian, Paine having
had a long-standing interested in Russia and its language.)

When Ruth and Marina got back to Ruth's house, Marina urged Ruth to call
the TSBD and find out if they might have anything for Lee: 

	...I looked up the number in the book, and dialed it,
	was told I would need to speak to Mr. Truly, 
	who was at the warehouse.  The phone was taken to Mr. 
	Truly,  and I talked with him and said ... I know
	of a young man whose wife was staying in my house, 
	the wife was expecting a child, they already had a little 
	girl and he had been out of work for a while and was very 
	interested in getting any employment and his name, and 
	was there a possibility of an opening there, and Mr. 
	Truly said he didn't know whether he had an opening, 
	that the young  man should apply himself in person.  (3H34)


Roy Truly later recalled the conversation with Ms. Paine:

	She said, "I have a fine young man living here with his
	wife and baby, and his wife is expecting a baby - another
	baby, in a few days, and he needs work desperately." ...
	And I told Mrs. Paine that - to send him down, and I would
	talk to him - that I didn't have anything in mind for him
	of a permanent nature, but if he was suited, we could
	possibly use him for a brief time.  (3H213)

Later that night, Lee, who was staying at a rooming house in Dallas,
called Marina at the Paines'.  Marina asked her friend to explain
to Lee, in English, about the TSBD, and that he should go down the
next day, October 15, and talk with Mr. Truly.  (3H34-35)

Lee made a favorable impression upon Roy Truly and got the job:

	He seemed quiet and well mannered. ... [he filled out an
	application]  And he told me - I asked him about 
	experience that he had had, or where he had worked, and 
	he said he had just served his term in the Marine Corps
	and had received an honorable discharge, and he listed
	some things of an office nature that he had learned
	to do in the Marines.

	I questioned him about any past activities.  I asked him
	if he had ever had any trouble with the police, and he
	said no.  So thinking that he was just out of the Marines,
	I didn't check any further back.  I didn't have anything
	of a permanent nature in mind for him.  He looked like
	a nice young fellow to me - he was quiet and well mannered.
	He used the word "sir", you know, which a lot of them
	don't do at this time.

	So I told him if he would come to work on the morning
	of the 16th, it was the beginning of a new pay period.
 	(3H214-214)

Young Lee helped himself by lying about his past, during the interview
with Truly and on the job application. 

He told Truly that he had never been in any trouble with the police.  This
was a lie; he had been arrested and had spent the night in a New Orleans
jail only three months before he interviewed for the TSBD job. 

On his application he said he had completed the 11th grade.  In fact, 10th
was the highest grade he ever reached.  To the application question "Where
did you last work?" he wrote "U.S.M.C.(three year)" and as for the "Reason
for leaving last job" he wrote "Honourable discharge."  Both are lies.

He had worked several jobs since he left the Marines.  In 1959, shortly
after leaving the Marines, he defected to the Soviet Union.  As a result
of this defection and anti-American statements he was alleged to have made
to personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Oswald's discharge was
downgraded to undesirable. 

Oswald also wrote that he had lived in Dallas "continuously."  This was
also a lie.  (application found at 17H410, CE496)

But many of us fudge a little when we construct a resume or apply for a
job.  Why should Lee Oswald be any different?  And it's not like Lee was
just sitting around waiting for his wife to come across a lead.  For
example, Lee had registered with the Texa s Employment Commission and they
were working on his behalf. 

On October 9 they had led him to interview for a clerk-trainee job but
Oswald had not been hired.  And on the very morning he reported to the
TSBD for his first day, October 16, the Employment Commission was trying
to notify him of a job as a cargo handle r for Trans Texas airlines, at a
pay of $310 a month.  (10H132)

But it was Roy Truly who hired Lee as a temp.  The chain which began in
Huntsville, when Wesley Frazier decided to move in with his sister in
Irving has led all the way to Roy Truly.  Mr. Truly's decision to hire Lee
was an important link; other decisions he made proved to be important as
well. 

As Truly said, he did not hire Lee as a permanent employee.  Lee was only
there as a temp, for the balance of the busy season.  But Truly decided to
have some of the TSBD employees lay down new plywood on the sixth floor. 
Thanks to the use of five of his permanent employees on this project, Lee
was able to stick around. 

The TSBD also had a warehouse on 1917 Houston Street, away from the route
taken by the President's limousine on November 22, 1963.  Truly had placed
a temporary worker in that warehouse; he could have put Oswald there, but
he did not.  Truly laid a tempor ary employee off on November 15, one week
before the assassination.  It could have been Oswald.  But Oswald stayed. 
Truly was questioned by arch-spy Allen Dulles about the circumstances of
Oswald's employment: 

Mr. Dulles.  Do you recall, Mr. Truly, whether you hired any personnel for
work in this particular building, in the School Depository, after the 15th
of October and before the 22nd of November? 

Mr. Truly.  No, sir; I don't recall hiring anyone else other than Oswald
for that building the same day that I hired Oswald.  I believe, if I am
not mistaken, I hired another boy for a temporary job, and put him in the
other warehouse at 1917 North Houston. 

Mr. Dulles.  At a different warehouse?

Mr. Truly.  At a different warehouse.  He was laid off on November 15th, I
believe - November 15th or something like that. 

Mr. Dulles.  What I was getting at is whether an accomplice could have
gotten in in that way.  That is why I was asking the question. 

Mr. Truly.  No, sir; I don't recall.  Actually, the end of our fall rush -
if it hadn't existed a week or 2 weeks longer, or if we had not been using
some of our regular boys putting down this plywood, we would not have had
any need for Lee Oswald at that time, which is a tragic thing for me to
think about.  (3H237)

The chain actually leads past the TSBD since Lee, hired as an order filler
and, of course, on a temporary basis was still looking for something more
permanent and more interesting. 

As late as November 8, (23H480) according to Lee's wife, he was trying to
get a job with "some photographic concern" (23H411).  He didn't succeed. 
One wonders how history would have been different if Lee Harvey Oswald had
gotten this job and left the TSBD? 

In a previous article I pointed out that the decision to route the
motorcade down Elm Street, directly in front of the TSBD, was made only a
week before the President was shot to death as he drove by Oswald's place
of temporary employment.  How different would history have been if any of
the events in the long chain of circumstances that combined to place
Oswald in the TSBD on November 22 had not happened? 

What if Frazier had not left Huntsville for the big city?  What if Linnie
Randle or Marina and Ruth had not been at Dorothy Roberts' house on
October 14?  What if Roy Truly had not been at work when Ruth Paine
called, or if he had not been able to or desi rous of hiring Oswald?  What
if Oswald had gotten one of the other jobs he applied for?  What if Truly
had laid off Oswald on November 15; had placed him at the Houston Street
location; or decided not to have a new floor up on six? 

Would John F. Kennedy have survived his visit to Dallas?

We can never know.  But if we are to be honest and objective in our
assessment of the JFK assassination and the circumstances which led up to
it, we must admit that the conspirators who began plotting in the summer
of 1963 (or before) to use Oswald as a gunman or a patsy either had
exceptionally long and quite invisible tentacles or they were the luckiest
plotters in history. 

Or else the assassination was a tragic crime of opportunity, committed by
yet another in a long line of individuals who have tried or succeeded in
killing an American President. 

You be the judge.

Joel Grant