LEE HARVEY OSWALD – STUD?!? (updated 28 Nov 2013)

By Hugh Murray

            I am bewildered by some of the items I have read about Oswald.  Clearly, he was married to Marina and fathered two children with her.

            Yet, when the question of the influence on David Ferrie on Oswald became an issue with the Garrison investigation of the mid-1960s, there was a subtext of homosexuality.  Was Oswald’s mentor gay?  Was Ferrie the man who urged Oswald’s mother to sign the underage teen into the Marine Corps?  Ferrie was gay.  The question was how much and in what ways did he influence Oswald?  One researcher, Al Rodgers, informed me that had Oswald had a boy with Marina, he would have named him David.

            I had read in at least one book that when Oswald was stationed in Japan at Atsugi base, he frequented a gay bar.*  In the 1980s I even published a short article in a New York gay newspaper beginning with the question, was Oswald gay.

            By the 1990s, without studying the particular topic, I had assumed that the troubles Oswald was having in his marriage with Marina were probably due to his own homosexual tendencies.  In the 90s I was researching for an article on the New Orleans Council for Peaceful Alternatives.  The group is mentioned in the Warren Commission material, and some thought the government’s version was inadequate.  One researcher even sent me an old copy of the Councilor, the publication of the White Citizens’ Council.  That paper had several photos of a march along St. Charles Ave. in New Orleans sponsored by the NOCPA.  I was asked if I could identify Oswald among those partaking.  I could not, but I did identify Tulane students Mel Jones and Ruth Ann Kloepfer, among others.  They were an attractive couple, and Ruth Ann was a real beauty.  I telephoned Ruth Ann – my first discussion with her since the 1960s - and asked about some other things too.  One of the most important, I asked about her meeting with Lee Oswald.

            In the summer of 1963 Ruth Paine, a Quakeress in Texas, had called the clerk of the tiny New Orleans Quaker group to ask if they knew anyone who spoke Russian, and who might help a Russian woman with a small child and who was expecting another.  The clerk of the NO Quakers was Ruth Kloepfer, mother of Karol and Ruth Ann, her two college-age daughters.  In September, the trio drove to the Magazine Street home of the Oswalds.

            For the first time, in the 1990s, I asked Ruth Ann about that meeting.  Anger filled her voice.  She related that while the pregnant Marina, her small child, Ruth Ann’s mother and sister were in one room, Lee was coming on to her in another.  She was furious.  She and her family had not come to visit him; they had come to help the pregnant woman in need.  And she was in the next room!  What kind of man would try to come on to someone when his wife and her mother and sister are so near?  What kind of, well she was still angry at him over three decades later.  With this conversation, I began to revise my thinking about Oswald’s sexual orientation.

            I even began to revise my thoughts about Oswald and Ferrie.  I had roomed with a white civil rights activist in New Orleans during the university year 1960-61.  Oliver told me that as a youth, he had been on the wrong path, sliding into juvenile delinquency.  He was saved as a teen when he joined the Civil Air Patrol headed by David Ferrie.  Though Oliver was by then a senior at Loyola University, and was no longer close, he still maintained contact with Ferrie.  Indeed, I recall, he looked forward to a party Ferrie was giving at his apartment in the spring of 1961.  I had never met Ferrie, was not invited, and did not attend that party.  When I next saw Oliver, I asked him about it.  He was not enthusiastic, “Oh, David was playing soldier.”  At the time, I thought nothing of it.  But that party was about the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.  David may have been doing more than “playing” soldier.

            Oliver was greatly influenced by David Ferrie.  Ferrie was clearly gay.  Yet, Oliver was straight.  He was a staunch Roman Catholic and made it very clear, in words and deeds, that he was not gay.  If straight Oliver could have been so influenced by gay Ferrie, without becoming gay, so it is surely possible that Oswald may have been influenced by Ferrie without becoming gay.

            In the summer of 2009 (I think) in the Special Collections section of the Tulane University Library, I chatted with an older librarian, Kenneth Owen.  He remarked that he had encountered Oswald in a beatnik-hippie place on Rampart St. in 1962 or 63, a place that preceded the Quorum Club.  The Quorum was raided by the police in 1963 and the names of over 30 customers were printed on page 1 of the local newspapers.  The club was raided because in was an alleged center of drugs, homosexuals, and integrationists.  I assume the club that had opened and closed prior to the Quorum must have been somewhat similar.  In the conversation between Owen and Oswald, the librarian became convinced Oswald was gay.

            In 2013 I became aware of the book, Me & Lee, by Judyth Vary Baker in which she alleges that in the summer o 1963 in New Orleans, while Oswald was married to Marina, and she was newly married to Robert Baker, she and Oswald conducted a secret affair.  Indeed, she maintains that Oswald was going to divorce Marina and she and Oswald would soon be together, probably in Mexico.  Because they were both married, theirs was a most secret affair.

            In her book, and The Secret Order by H. P. Albarelli, there is discussion of Oswald having a short affair with Silvia Duran, who worked in the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City.  On the other side, also in Albarelli’s volume, he claims that Rose Cherami accused Jack Ruby and Oswald of screwing each other.

            Michael Snyder, in his fascinating analysis of the plays and writings of Clay Shaw, writes that Gore Vidal asserted that the young Oswald in New Orleans knew Clay Shaw because the youth was hustling in the gay community.
            Was Oswald a stud?  A president killer, or a lady killer, or both.  One should also consider this paragraph from a new book.The following is part of a page from Charles E. Hurlburt’s It’s Time for the Truth: The JFK Cover-up: The Real Crime of the Century (2012), p. 115.

            “Although Oswald espoused a fondness for the Russian language and political system [while in the Marines] so openly that he was given the name ‘Oswaldskovich’ by his fellow Marines, he was assigned duties that allowed him access to ‘top secret’ areas and data.  Atsugi [US base in Japan] was not far from Tokyo, and Oswald often went into town, like most of the American servicemen, to visit the many nightclubs and meet girls.  One such club, named the Queen Bee, was too expensive for low-paid enlisted men like Oswald (one date there could exceed what Oswald was netting per month).  Nevertheless, he was seen there on several occasions in the company of one of the hostesses who, according to another Marine buddy, was questioning Oswald about his work at Atsugi.  Some researchers hypothesize that Oswald was being funded by his superiors to frequent this over-his-head establishment and feed false information to this ‘KGB spy.’  Fueling suspicion that Oswald was more than he appeared tp be was a Marine medical report showing that he was treated for a venereal disease that he contracted ‘in the line of duty, not to his own misconduct.’  His dates with the ‘KGB spy’ may be the explanation for his being treated for gonorrhea contracted ‘in the line of duty.”

            Was the US government subsidizing Oswald’s amorous encounter for his role as a spy.  Was Oswald a stud, a cold-war Chippendaler?  Was he a President killer?  Or a lady killer?  Or both?  Was he a lone nut?  Or someone who spread such cheer, that the government paid for his romances?

            I am not the expert.  I have written this short essay because I find the material so contradictory.  If others are interested, they might research further – although proving who is bedding whom is not so easy a task.  But, for the moment, viewing all these claims, it appears that Lee Harvey Oswald was some stud.

            *(My own excuses - I am poor, reside in an efficiency flat, and have had to move a number of times.  I have had to dump my libraries from time to time, painful as that has been.  I know I had read of Oswald going to a gay bar while he was stationed at Atsugi, but cannot recall in which book.  Most of my older, underlined, JFK books are gone, and about to turn 75, I do not want to re-read all those volumes.  So, here I am relying on memory.  If some complain that I am posting unfinished material on the blog, my excuse is that I feel I have to post unfinished material before I am finished.  I have a dead line!)

(A few of his marine buddies thought Oswald was gay, but they were basing their conclusion on rumor and his aloof personality.  Their assertions may have been nothing more than a manner of indicating that they did not like him.  Posner had Oswald frequenting an expensive bar where he associated with a Japanese woman while he was in Japan, and others also thought he was having an affair with a Japanese gal.  Bottom line - others, if inclined, may search further on this topic.)(The phrase lady killer does not mean a man who murders women; it means a man whom women find sexually attractive and whom they would like to bed.)

Email from Judyth Vary Baker

Subject: Re: LHO study
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2013 09:37:31 +0200

In Me & Lee I also mention that Lee told me he fell in love with a Japanese girl and that she was beaten when she tried to refuse any more prositution (high class style, she was an expensive girl at the Queen bee). Lee told me he thought he would return for her, but time slipped away.

I am sorry you are in impoverished circumstances. I,too, have often suffered. Even though you write the word 'claim' instead of 'assert' regarding my relationship with Lee Oswald, nevertheless, I'd like to send you the second volume of David Ferrie (there will be two, I had so much to say and to provide evidence for). It will be a year from now and hope you will be well and stay well.

Judyth

My reply:

Hey Judyth,

   I was trying to use synonyms for allege, claim, and so forth.  Until I wrote this piece, I did not realize how many encounters Oswald may have had, or tried to have.  The sentences in the Snyder work imply that he was hustling quite a lot as a teen, yet I am most skeptical of that claim.  But as you have discovered, proving or disproving sexual hook ups is extremely difficult.  I just wanted to place on the net what seems to be a growing list of claims about his sexual activities, and surely one that does not fit the lone nut image of Oswald.

   I normally do not complain about my lot.  I made my choices, and have paid for them.  I have not had a teaching post in the US since 1969, so I have no office or place to keep books, or access to a univ. library, etc. [except when I visit New Orleans].   But I suspect you have had to pay a price too.

   Also I am now old.  One reason I place reviews on amazon rather than submit them to journals is that I want to be alive when my review is posted/published.  For academic journals, even if they accept, it may take 2 years.

   My memory is still good.  I met the librarian at Tulane on one of my annual summer week in NO.  It may have been 09 or 2010 or so.  I was less interested in getting the year right than describing what he said.  The basic point of what he said is there.

   Hope your session in NO goes well.

    Take care,--------Hugh 

I should have added in my letter that I am poor but not impoverished.  I have no luxuries, like an automobile.  But I have enough for most of my needs.  I fume when I feel my writing is limited because I lack access.  But I enjoy all the basics, heat, good food, vitamins, etc.  And I do get to travel.  This article would have been stronger had I access to some of the pieces I have written previously, like the newspaper article from the 1980s.  I simply do not have copies of most of my own writing, much less than the ability to retain the volumes by others.  I do not have the room.

The point of this article, unfinished, incomplete, as it is, is this, --- the image of Oswald as a lone nut may have to be revised.  ----   Hugh Murray