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TESTIMONY OF KERRY WENDELL THORNLEY beginning at 11H82...
The testimony of Kerry Wendell Thornley was taken at 9:40 a.m., on May
18, 1964, at 200 Maryland Avenue NE., Washington, D.C., by Messrs. John Ely and Albert E.
Jenner, Jr., assistant counsel of the President's Commission.
Mr. JENNER. Mr. Thornley, in the deposition you are about to give, do
you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Mr. THORNLEY. I do.
Mr. JENNER. You are Kerry Wendell Thornley, spelled K-e-r-r-y
W-e-n-d-e-l-1 T-h-o-r-n-l-e-y?
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Mr. THORNLEY. That is correct, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Mr. Thornley, where do you reside now?
Mr. THORNLEY. At 4201 South 31st Street in Arlington, Va.
Mr. JENNER. Did you at one time reside at 1824 Dauphine Street in New
Orleans?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. What is your present occupation?
Mr. THORNLEY. I am a doorman at the building where I reside,
Shirlington House.
Mr. JENNER. Doorman.
Mr. THORNLEY. At the building where I reside.
Mr. JENNER. What is the name of that building?
Mr. THORNLEY. Shirlington House. I also work on the switchboard there
three nights a week.
Mr. JENNER. I see. By the way, Mr. Thornley, you received, did you not,
a letter from Mr. Rankin, the general counsel of the Commission in which he enclosed----
Mr. THORNLEY. Confirming this appointment----
Mr. JENNER. Copies of the legislation, Senate Joint Resolution No. 137,
authorizing the creation of the Commission and President Johnson's Order 11130, bringing
the Commission into existence and fixing its powers and duties and responsibilities?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. And also a copy of the rules and regulations of the
Commission for the taking of depositions?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. I take it you understand the basic obligation placed upon
the Commission is to investigate the facts and circumstances surrounding and bearing upon
the assassination of President Kennedy, and events collateral thereto.
In the course of doing that the Commission and its staff, and I, Albert
E. Jenner, Jr., a member of the Commission legal staff, have been interviewing and taking
the testimony of various persons who, among other things, came in contact with a man named
Lee Harvey Oswald. We understand that you had some contact with him, fortuitous or
otherwise as it might be. Are we correct in that?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Would you tell us the--may I ask you this first. Were you
born and reared in this country?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Are you married or unmarried?
Mr. THORNLEY. Unmarried.
Mr. JENNER. Unmarried you said?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. What is your age?
Mr. THORNLEY. I am 26.
Mr. JENNER. When was your birthday?
Mr. THORNLEY. April 17, this last month.
Mr. JENNER. April 17 of this last month? I am poor in mathematics, what
year was your birth?
Mr. THORNLEY. 1938.
Mr. JENNER. When did you first become acquainted with him?
Mr. THORNLEY. I was--it was around Easter of 1959, either shortly
before or shortly after.
Mr. JENNER. Let's see. He was in the Marines at that time?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. I take it you also were?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. How long had you been in the Marines?
Mr. THORNLEY. At that time I had been in the Marines over half a year.
I had been in the Reserve for many years. I had been on active duty for over half a year.
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Mr. JENNER. You were then 21 years of age?
Mr. THORNLEY. About; yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Tell me about what your occupation and activity had been up
to the time you enlisted in the Marines.
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, the year before I was a student at the University
of Southern California, and before that I was a student at California High School in
Whittier, Calif.
Mr. JENNER. I take it then that you are a native Californian?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Did you receive your degree?
Mr. THORNLEY. No. I was--I completed my freshman year and then I went
on active duty to serve my 2-year obligation in the Marine Reserve.
Mr. JENNER. You did not return to college after you were mustered out
of the Marines?
Mr. THORNLEY. No, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Was your discharge honorable?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Where were you based when you first met Lee Harvey Oswald?
Mr. THORNLEY. At a subsidiary of E1 Toro Marine Base, referred to as
LTA, Santa Ana, Calif., or just outside of Santa Ana.
Mr. JENNER. What was your rank at that time?
Mr. THORNLEY. At that time I was acting corporal.
Mr. JENNER. What was your assignment then?
Mr. THORNLEY. I was an aviation electronics operator. I was working in
an aircraft control center reading radarscopes and keeping track of ingoing and outgoing
flights.
Mr. JENNER. What was Lee Harvey Oswald's assignment and activity
service-wise at that period?
Mr. THORNLEY. At that time his assignments and activities were primary
janitorial. He was--he had lost his clearance previously, and if I remember, he was
assigned to make the coffee, mow the lawn, swab down decks, and things of this nature.
Mr. JENNER. What were the circumstances as you learned of them, or knew
of them at the time, as to how or why he lost his clearance as you put it.
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, I asked somebody, and I was told, and I don't
remember who told me, it was a general rumor, general scuttlebutt at the time, that he had
poured beer over a staff NCO's head in an enlisted club in Japan, and had been put in the
brig for that, and having been put in the brig would automatically lose his clearance to
work in the electronics control center.
Mr. JENNER. I was going to ask you what losing clearance meant. You
have indicated that--or would you state it more specifically.
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, that meant in a practical sense, that meant that he
was not permitted to enter certain areas wherein the equipment, in this case equipment,
was kept; that we would not want other unauthorized persons to have knowledge of. And on
occasion information, I imagine, would also come to the man who was cleared, in the
process of his work, that he would be expected to keep to himself.
Mr. JENNER. I assume you had clearance?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir; I was, I think, cleared for confidential at the
time.
Mr. JENNER. Cleared for confidential. I was about to ask you what level
of clearance was involved.
Mr. THORNLEY. I believe it was just confidential to work there at E1
Toro on that particular equipment.
Mr. JENNER. That is the clearance about which you speak when you talk
about Oswald having lost it?
Mr. THORNLEY. Oswald, I believe, had a higher clearance. This is also
just based upon rumor. I believe he at one time worked in the security files, it is the S
& C files, somewhere either at LTA or at E1 Toro.
Mr. JENNER. Did you ever work in the security files?
Mr. THORNLEY. No, sir.
Mr. JENNER. And that was a level of clearance
Mr. THORNLEY. Probably a secret clearance would be required.
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Mr. JENNER. It was at least higher than the clearance about which you
first spoke?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. The clearance that you had in mind of which you first spoke
was the clearance to operate radar detection devices?
Mr. THORNLEY. Right.
Mr. JENNER. And your knowledge of his loss of clearance was by hearsay
or rumor. As I understand it the circumstances took place off base one day?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; this was on base as I understand it. It was in an
enlisted club or staff sergeant's club, something of that nature.
Mr. JENNER. He had gotten into difficulty with a staff sergeant and had
poured beer on the person of a staff sergeant and gotten into some kind of an altercation?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. As a result of that he was court-martialed and had been
subjected to the loss of clearance?
Mr. THORNLEY, That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. Was that clearance of his restored?
Mr. THORNLEY. I doubt it very much, because 3 months afterwards, after
I had left the outfit--I know it wasn't restored while I was in the outfit.
Mr. JENNER. When did you leave the outfit?
Mr. THORNLEY. I left in June and went overseas.
Mr. JENNER. Up to that time his clearance had not been restored?
Mr. THORNLEY. Definitely not. And shortly thereafter he got out of the
service.
Mr. JENNER. So that as far as you have any personal knowledge Oswald
never operated any radar equipment while he was at El Toro, did you say?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; E1 Toro, LTA. As far as my personal knowledge goes,
he didn't.
Mr. JENNER. Would you state the circumstances under which you became
acquainted--let me put it this way first. What was the extent of your acquaintance with
Lee Harvey Oswald, and here at the moment I am directing myself only to whether you were
friends, were you merely on the base together? Indicate the level of friendship first or
acquaintanceship.
Mr. THORNLEY. I would say we were close acquaintances in the sense that
we weren't friends in that we didn't pull liberty together or seek each other out, yet
when we were thrown together in an assignment or something, moving equipment, something of
that nature, we spoke and when we were on the base and happened to be in the same area and
were not required to be working, we would sometimes sit down and discuss things. That
would be my statement there.
Mr. JENNER. So there was a degree of affinity in the sense that you
were friendly in performing your military tasks together whenever you were thrown together
in that respect. You felt friendly toward each other. You were never off base with him on
liberty?
Mr. THORNLEY. No, sir.
Mr. JENNER. There were times when you were at liberty on the base, I
assume, and you and he fraternized?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Now, did you live in the same quarters?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, not actually. We lived in quonset huts there, and
he lived in a different hut than I did. We did live in the same general area, however.
Mr. JENNER. This acquaintance arose in the spring of 1959, is that
correct?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Can you fix the time a little more definitely than merely
the spring?
Mr. THORNLEY. I really can't, sir. I have been racking my brain on that
one since November, and I can't fix the time. I do remember having taken some time off
that year around Easter and going on a trip with some civilian friends of mine, who were
out of school for Easter vacation, and I know I was in the outfit that Oswald was in at
that time, and I know that either shortly
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before that trip or shortly afterwards, I can remember from the books I was reading at the
time and things like that, that I met him.
Mr. JENNER. Do you associate the books you were reading at that time
with anything Oswald may have been reading?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes. Oswald was not reading but did advise me to read
George Orwell's "1984" which I read at that time.
Mr. JENNER. Was he on the base when you came there?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, I was on the base in a different outfit before I
came into MACS 9, the outfit I was in.
Mr. JENNER. Marine Air Control Squadron.
Mr. THORNLEY. I was in MACS 4 which was right next door to MACS 9 or
was at that time, on the base.
Mr. JENNER. Were you aware of his presence when you were in the other
MACS?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; not until I came into his outfit. And only sometime
after I came into that outfit did I become aware of his presence.
Mr. JENNER. Were you--I will withdraw that. Was Oswald as far as you
knew on the base before you came over to his unit?
Mr. THORNLEY. I would assume so, but I wouldn't know for sure. I know
he was recently back from Japan as were most of the men in Marine Control Squadron 9 when
I came into it. How long he had been back I don't know. I certainly didn't know at that
time. And thinking on what knowledge of him I have gained since then, I still couldn't
say.
Mr. JENNER. Well, in any event you first became acquainted with or
aware of his presence around Easter time in 1959?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. And you were transferred from that base when?
Mr. THORNLEY. June.
Mr. JENNER. In June. So likely it was that you knew him in April, May,
and in June until you were transferred out?
Mr. THORNLEY. Right.
Mr. JENNER. When in June were you transferred out?
Mr. THORNLEY. Once again the exact date would be available in my
military record, but offhand----
Mr. JENNER. Give it to me as best you recall it, forepart, latter part,
middle?
Mr. THORNLEY. Let's see, it was toward the latter part. In fact, I can
give you pretty close to the exact date. It was around June 25, because we arrived in
Japan on July 4 and it took 11 days to get over there. It took us some time to get
debarked or to get embarked, rather.
Mr. JENNER. All right. I take it from the remark you have made in your
reflecting on this matter that you were--you devoted yourself to some fairly considerable
extent to reading?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. And in what fields?
Mr. THORNLEY. Completely omniverous. Anything that I would happen to
get a hold of I would read. At that time I was reading, well, at Oswald's advice I read
"1984." At someone else's advice I was reading a book called
"Humanism," by Corliss Lamont, as I remember, and I was reading either "The
Brothers Karamazov" or the "Idiot" by Dostoievsky, I forget which, at that
time.
Mr. JENNER. But your reading had some reasonable amount of organization
or direction?
Mr. THORNLEY. None whatsoever; no, sir. It never has.
Mr. JENNER. I see. You weren't engaged in any organized reading at that
time, were you?
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
Mr. JENNER. But there were areas which did draw your attention by and
large?
Mr. THORNLEY. Definitely; yes.
Mr. JENNER. What were those areas?
Mr. THORNLEY. Philosophy, politics, religion.
Mr. JENNER. Did you find that Oswald had reasonably similar interests?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; I would say.
Mr. JENNER. In his reading?
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Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; I would say particularly in politics and philosophy.
Mr. JENNER. Was it those mutual interests that brought about your
acquaintance with him or some other fashion?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir; it was those interests. My first memory of him
is that one afternoon he was sitting on a bucket out in front of a hut, an inverted
bucket, with some other Marines. They were discussing religion. I entered the discussion.
It was known already in the outfit that I was an atheist. Immediately somebody pointed out
to me that Oswald was also an atheist.
Mr. JENNER. Did they point that out to you in his presence?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. What reaction did he have to that?
Mr. THORNLEY. He said, "What do you think of communism?" and
I said----
Mr. JENNER. He didn't say anything about having been pointed out as
being an atheist?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; he wasn't offended at this at all. He was--it was
done in a friendly manner, anyway, and he just said to me--the first thing he said to me
was with his little grin; he looked at me and he said, "What do you think of
communism?" And I replied I didn't think too much of communism, in a favorable sense,
and he said, "Well, I think the best religion is communism." And I got the
impression at the time that he said this in order to shock. He was playing to the
galleries, I felt.
Mr. JENNER. The boys who were sitting around?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Engaged in scuttlebutt?
Mr. THORNLEY. Right. He was smirking as he said this and he said it
very gently. He didn't seem to be a glass-eyed fanatic by any means.
Mr. JENNER. Did you have occasion to discuss the same subject
thereafter?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. From time to time?
Mr. THORNLEY. From time to time.
Mr. JENNER. Was it reasonably frequent?
Mr. THORNLEY. I would say about a half dozen times in that time period.
Mr. JENNER. In those subsequent discussions were some of them private
in the sense you were not gathered around with others?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, I don't recall us ever having a private serious
discussion. A couple of times we were working together. There would be others around, not
on a constant basis anyway, but coming and going, and as I recall a couple of times we
were thrown together. Working together, we weren't having a serious discussion; we were
joking.
Mr. JENNER. Did you have occasion in those additional half dozen
instances of discussions with him, the viewpoint you have just expressed, that is, that
his initial raising of the issue was more by way of provoking or shocking those about him
rather than any utterances on his part of sincerity in a belief that communism was itself
a religion?
Mr. THORNLEY. It became obvious to me after a while, in talking to him,
that definitely he thought that communism was the best--that the Marxist morality was the
most rational morality to follow that he knew of. And that communism was the best system
in the world.
I still certainly wouldn't--wouldn't have predicted, for example, his
defection to the Soviet Union, because once again he seemed idle in his admiration for
communism. He didn't seem to be an activist.
Mr. JENNER. Would you explain what you mean by idle in his admiration
of the communistic system?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, it seemed to be theoretical. It seemed strictly a
dispassionate appraisal--I did know at the time that he was learning the Russian language.
I knew he was subscribing to Pravda or a Russian newspaper of some kind from Moscow. All
of this I took as a sign of his interest in the subject, and not as a sign of any active
commitment to the Communist ends.
Mr. JENNER. You felt there was no devotion there. That it was somewhat
of an intellectual interest, a curiosity. But I don't want to put words in your mouth, so
tell me.
Mr. THORNLEY. I wouldn't put it quite that weakly. While I didn't feel
there
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was any rabid devotion there, I wouldn't call it a complete idle curiosity either. I would
call it a definite interest.
Mr. JENNER. A definite interest.
Mr. THORNLEY. But not a fanatical devotion.
Mr. JENNER. You said you knew at that time that he was studying
Russian. How did you become aware of that?
Mr. THORNLEY. Probably by hearsay once again. I do remember one time
hearing the comment made by one man in the outfit that there was some other man in the
outfit who was taking a Russian newspaper and who was a Communist and when I said,
"Well, who is that?" he said, "Oswald," and I said, "Oh,
well." That is probably where I learned it.
Mr. JENNER. How did you learn that he was a subscriber to Pravda and
the other Russian publications you have mentioned?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, I don't think--it was either Pravda or some other
Russian publication.
Mr. JENNER. I see.
Mr. THORNLEY. The way I learned that was a story that I believe Bud
Simco, a friend of mine in the same outfit, in the outfit at the same time, told me that
one time a lieutenant, and I forget which lieutenant it was (I do remember at the time I
did know who he was talking about) found out that Oswald, by--he happened to be in the
mailroom or something, and saw a paper with Oswald's address on it.
Mr. JENNER. That is the officer happened to be in the mailroom?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; and that it was written he noticed this paper was
written in Russian and at the time got very excited, attempted to draw this to the
attention of Oswald's section chief, the commanding officer, and, of course, there was
nothing these people could do about it, and at the time the story was related to me, I
remember I thought it was rather humorous that this young, either second or first
lieutenant should get so excited because Oswald happened to be subscribing to a Russian
newspaper.
Mr. JENNER. Was this lieutenant's name Delprado?
Mr. THORNLEY. I will bet it was. That is very familiar. I think so.
Mr. JENNER. Have you ever subscribed to a Russian language newspaper or
other publications?
Mr. THORNLEY. Other Russian publications?
Mr. JENNER. Yes, sir.
Mr. THORNLEY. No, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Have you ever subscribed to a publication that was printed
in the Russian language?
Mr. THORNLEY. No, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Have you ever been a subscriber to any literature by way of
news media or otherwise, published by any organization reputed to be communistic or pink
or that sort of thing ? I don't want to get it too broad.
Mr. THORNLEY. Only I. F. Stone's newsletter and that certainly----
Mr. JENNER. Whose?
Mr. THORNLEY. I. F. Stone's newsletter and I wouldn't say----
Mr. JENNER. Tell me about that.
Mr. THORNLEY. He is a Washington reporter who is a rather extreme
leftist, but certainly within the bounds of what is accepted in this country as
non-subversive.
Mr. JENNER. Describe yourself in that respect. Where are you, a
middle-of-the-roader?
Mr. THORNLEY. I would say I am an extreme rightist. I call myself a
libertarian, which is that I believe in the complete sovereignty of the individual, or at
least as much individual liberty as is practical under any given system.
Mr. JENNER. You don't have to be an extreme rightist to believe in the
sovereignty of the individual.
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, it is getting that way in this country today. At
least most people who listen to me talk call me a rightist. I wouldn't say so either. I
think the political spectrum was fine for France at the time of the revolution. I don't
think it applies to the United States of America today in any respect
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whatsoever. I don't think you can call a man an extreme leftist, rightist, or
middle-of-the-roader and have him classified that simply.
Mr. JENNER. Do you have any brothers and sisters?
Mr. THORNLEY. I have two brothers.
Mr. JENNER. What do they do?
Mr. THORNLEY. They go to, one of them goes to junior college, I
believe, and the other one goes to high school. They are in Whittier, Calif.
Mr. JENNER. Are your folks alive?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. What does your father do?
Mr. THORNLEY. He is a photoengraver.
Mr. JENNER. Let's get back to Oswald. Describe this individual to me.
First describe him physically.
Mr. THORNLEY. Physically, I would say he was slightly below average
height. Had, as I recall, gray or blue eyes. Always had or almost always had a petulant
expression on his face. Pursed-up lip expression, either a frown or a smile, depending on
the circumstances. Was of average build, and his hair was brown, and tending to, like
mine, tending to bald a little on each side.
Mr. JENNER. Above the temple. What would you say he weighed?
Mr. THORNLEY. I would say he weighed about 140 pounds, maybe 130.
Mr. JENNER. How tall was he?
Mr. THORNLEY. I would say he was about five-five maybe. I don't know.
Mr. JENNER. How tall are you?
Mr. THORNLEY. I am five-ten.
Mr. JENNER. Was he shorter than you?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. What habits did he have with respect to his person--was he
neat, clean?
Mr. THORNLEY. Extremely sloppy.
Mr. JENNER. Extremely sloppy?
Mr. THORNLEY. He was. This I think might not have been true of him in
civilian life.
Mr. JENNER. You don't know one way or the other?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; but I do have reason to believe that it wasn't true
of him in civilian life because it fitted into a general personality pattern of his: to do
whatever was not wanted of him, a recalcitrant trend in his personality.
Mr. JENNER. You think it was deliberate?
Mr. THORNLEY. I think it tended to be deliberate: yes. It was a gesture
of rebellion on his part.
Mr. JENNER. Did you ever discuss that matter with him, as dress.
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
Mr. JENNER. The attitude of rebellion?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; because this attitude of rebellion was a fairly
common thing in the service.
Mr. JENNER. On the part of others as well as Oswald?
Mr. THORNLEY. As well as Oswald. Oswald did carry it to--was the most
extreme example I can think of stateside. However, overseas, in the outfit he had been in
before, as I discovered later, this was quite common.
Mr. JENNER. How much later?
Mr. THORNLEY. Three months--well, immediately, as soon as I left, as
soon as I got overseas. I walked in to the barracks on the Fourth of July over there and
saw beer bottles spread all over, and some character sitting in the back of the barracks
with a broken beer bottle cutting his arm, for what reason I don't remember. They found
beer cans in a trash can in MACS 9 and there was a drastic investigation; so there is an
indication of a difference between stateside and overseas. Oswald was typical, very
typical of the outfit he had just left overseas.
Mr. JENNER. So that it is your impression. you would say, I gather,
that as of that particular time when you first knew him that he was still carrying some of
his experience personal attentionwise from what he had experienced overseas?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
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Mr. JENNER. And he was still following the habits he had acquired
overseas?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Did you think it went beyond that, this unkemptness or this
sloppiness?
Mr. THORNLEY. It did go beyond that, because he seemed to be a person
who would go out of his way to get into trouble, get some officer or staff sergeant mad at
him. He would make wise remarks. He had a general bitter attitude toward the Corps. He
used to pull his hat down over his eyes so he wouldn't have to look at anything around him
and go walking around very Beetle Bailey style.
Mr. JENNER. What is Beetle Bailey?
Mr. THORNLEY. Beetle Bailey is a comic strip character who walks around
with his hat over his eyes very much as Oswald did.
Mr. JENNER. You want to keep in mind, Mr. Thornley, I am an old man and
there are things I don't pick up or get hep to.
Mr. THORNLEY. This is nothing recent. This is a comic strip that has
been around quite a few years now.
Mr. JENNER. You go on and tell us about his personality.
Mr. THORNLEY. All right.
Mr. JENNER. Including any physical characteristics or habits.
Mr. THORNLEY. I think I have covered all physical characteristics. His
shoes were always unshined. As I mentioned, he walked around with the bill of his cap down
over his eyes and you got the impression that he was doing this so he wouldn't have to
look at anything around him.
Mr. JENNER. And he was doing that so that he would not be assigned
additional work or----
Mr. THORNLEY. No; he was just doing that--this was just an attempt, I
think, on his part, to blot out the military so he wouldn't have to look at it; he
wouldn't have to think about it. In fact, I think he made a comment to that effect at one
time; that when he had his bill of his cap over his eyes so he would see as little as
possible, because he didn't like what he had to look at.
He had, as I remember, he had a sense of humor, and I can only think of
a couple of examples of it. I have only been able to think of a couple of examples of it
over the past few months, but I have a strong general impression in my mind that there
were more examples that I just don't remember.
Mr. JENNER. Well, you draw on your recollection as best you can and you
just keep telling us now in your own words and I will try to not interrupt you too much.
Mr. THORNLEY. All right. One example was, that I remember--of course,
it was well known in the outfit that, or popularly believed that Oswald had Communist
sympathies----
Mr. JENNER. You didn't share that view?
Mr. THORNLEY. Not as much as some did, and while this was popularly
believed, I mention this as kind of a framework for the significance of Oswald's comment:
Master Sergeant Spar, our section chief, jumped up on the fender one day and said,
"All right, everybody gather around," and Oswald said in a very thick Russian
accent, "Ah ha, collective farm lecture," in a very delighted tone.
This brought him laughs at the time, and he had gotten me to read
"1984," as I mentioned earlier, and this was one of his favorites--
Mr. JENNER. Tell me what "1984" was.
Mr. THORNLEY. This was a book about--it is a projection into the
future, supposed to take place in 1984 in England under a complete police state. It is, I
would say, an anti-utopian novel, by George Orwell, a criticism of English socialism and
what it might lead to, based upon Orwell's experiences with communism and nazism, his
observations about a society in which a mythical leader called Big Brother dominates
everybody's life. Where there are television cameras on every individual at all times
watching his every act, where sex is practically outlawed, where the world is perpetually
at war, three big police states constantly at war with one another, and where thought
police keep every, all of the citizens in line. Oswald would often compare the Marine
Corps with the system of government outlined in "1984."
I remember one day we were loading equipment----
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Mr. JENNER. By way of protest against the Marine Corps?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; humorously, satirically. One day we were unloading,
moving a radarscope off the truck and it slipped, and he said, "Be careful with Big
Brother's equipment."
It was things like this. He did a lot of that.
I remember one day he---I was walking along with my hands in my pocket,
which is something you don't do in the service if you are--certainly if you are in an
infantry outfit you don't dare. Things were a little lax in our outfit, so we could get
away with it once in a while, so I happened to be walking along with my hands in my
pockets and suddenly I heard a voice: "Hey, Smith, Winston," and rattle off a
serial number, "get your hands out of your pockets," which was a direct quote
from the book "1984."
These are the only examples of Oswald's, that particular aspect of
Oswald's character that I recall.
Mr. JENNER. I am stimulated to ask you this question by something you
just said. Did he have a good memory?
Mr. THORNLEY. I think he must have had a good memory; yes. If he wanted
to remember something, he could. I think he also had good ability to blot out unpleasant
thoughts in his mind.
Mr. JENNER. What about his powers of assimilation of what he read, and
his powers of critique?
Mr. THORNLEY. I certainly think he understood much more than many
people in the press have seemed to feel. I don't think he was a man who was grasping onto
his particular beliefs because he didn't understand them. I don't think he was just trying
to know something over his head, by any means. I think he understood what he was talking
about.
Sometimes I think there were gaps in his knowledge. I think there were
many things he didn't know, and this came from a haphazard education.
Mr. JENNER. You became acquainted with the fact that he had had a
somewhat haphazard education?
Mr. THORNLEY. It was obvious. I didn't become acquainted with it
specifically until recently in the news. But----
Mr. JENNER. You had that impression at the time?
Mr. THORNLEY. I had that impression; yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. How did that impression arise? Because of the lack of
analysis or real critique on his part of that which he was reading? Inability to
assimilate the thrust of a work?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; I wouldn't say that. I would say he could analyze
what he read very well, but it was a very subjective impression, and the idea I got was
that there were a lot of things he didn't know, and just a lot of facts that he wasn't
familiar with. I guess sometimes, probably in discussions, I would run into something. I
would mention something and he would say, "What is that?"
I know we did have a couple of very hot arguments and I am sure we were
throwing facts at one another, and he was certainly able to belt them out when he wanted
to, facts that suited his purpose in arguing.
Mr. JENNER. What was your impression of his--the extent of his formal
education and the extent of any private education of his; that is,
reading--self-education.
Mr. THORNLEY. Self-education. I was certainly surprised that--when I
read in the papers that he had not graduated, I think they said he had not graduated from
high school.
Mr. JENNER. That is correct.
Mr. THORNLEY. I thought he had graduated from high school. I assumed
that. I would say that his self-education certainly must have been--perhaps, in fact, he
took USAFI courses, U.S. Armed Forces Institute courses, or something along that line,
because he was one who gave the impression of having some education, certainly.
Mr. JENNER. Do you have an impression of his intellect?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; I think he was--
Mr. JENNER. I am speaking in the abstract.
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Mr. THORNLEY. I think he was extremely intelligent, with what
information he had at hand he could always do very well and in an argument he was quick.
He was quick to answer, and it was not a matter of just grabbing at something. It was a
matter of coming back with a fairly precise answer to your question or to your objection
to his argument.
Mr. JENNER. I take it then it was your impression--I will change my
question because I don't want to ask a leading question here.
What was your impression as to whether his learning, in the sense we
are talking about now, was superficial or was he able to master that which he read, and
engage in personal self-critique of that which he read, discover its weaknesses, and
apprehend its major thrust?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, I would say as I have said before, he certainly
understood what he read. How much he had read, I don't know, but I do know that when he
got on a subject in which he was interested, he showed a grasp of it. This is true with
the book "1984," for example. It is true with Marxism.
Mr. JENNER. Now that interests me also. You mentioned that before; that
is, his espousal of or interest in Marxism as such. What was his ability, if he had any,
and I am talking now idealistically only, to compare Marxism, communism, democracy?
Mr. THORNLEY. I understand. I think----
Mr. JENNER. And did he understand the distinctions?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, I think he understood the distinctions as well as
most reasonably educated people do. I think he certainly had a Marxist bias in how--where
he drew the lines.
For example, he could look upon the Soviet system today as a democracy
by, of course, giving a completely different definition to the word "democracy"
than I, for example. He would give----
Mr. JENNER. Can you remember some discussions or incidents that explain
that? Would he use objectivism?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, I remember one in particular that always reminded
me of his general outlook.
One day we got into an argument and I thought I was really going to pin
him to the wall, I thought I was going to win this argument.
Mr. JENNER. On what subject?
Mr. THORNLEY. On Marxism. On the theory of history.
Mr. JENNER. Reconstruct the argument for me.
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, all right. Let me add this.
When I was in my freshman year in college, in my English class. I
believe it was, perhaps it was a history class we had been required to read, it was a
history workshop, we had been required to read the Communist manifesto which presents an
outline of the theory of the Marx-Engels outlook on past and future history. The
dialectical outlook. Oswald was also familiar with this outlook. As to what it
constituted-we both agreed. Oswald had argued previously that communism was a rational
approach to life, a scientific approach to life, Marxism.
Mr. JENNER. This was in argumentation with you?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Mr. THORNLEY. With me. I challenged him to show me any shred of
evidence to support the idea that history took place in the manner described by Engels and
Marx (this was not just an arbitrary system looted as many suspect, from Hegel) and he,
after some attempt to give me a satisfactory answer, which he was unable to do, became
aware of that and he admitted that there was no justification, logically, for the
Communist theory of history or the Marxist theory of history, but that Marxism was still,
in his opinion, the best system for other reasons that there was
Mr. JENNER. Best as against what?
Mr. THORNLEY. As against, well primarily as against religions. He
did--that first comment of his always sticks in my mind, about communism being the best
religion. He did think of communism as, not as a religion in the strict sense but as an
overwhelming cultural outlook that, once applied to a country, would make it much better
off than, say the Roman Catholic Church cultural outlook
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or the Hindu cultural outlook or the Islamic cultural outlook, and he felt that, as I say,
to get back to this argument, he felt that there were enough other things about communism
that justified it that one could accept the theory of history on faith.
Mr. JENNER. What other things?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, for one thing; the idea that he felt--as did
Marx--that under capitalism workers are exploited, that in some way they are robbed of
their full reward for their work by means of entrepreneurs' profits, and he felt that
Marxism took his money but instead of taking it away from the worker spent it on the
worker.
He felt that under a Soviet--under the present Soviet system, for
example, that the money was spent for the benefit of the people rather than going to the
individual who happened to be running the enterprise, and he thought this was a juster
situation.
Mr. JENNER. Did you raise with him the price the individual had to pay
for the material accommodation accorded the worker under the Communist system; for the
substance or money, of which you speak, being returned to the worker? The price paid in
terms of individual liberty as against the capitalistic or democratic system?
Mr. THORNLEY. You couldn't say this to him. Because he would say:
"How do you know? How do you know what is going on there."
Mr. JENNER. First; did you raise it with him?
Mr. THORNLEY. I raised it with him.
Mr. JENNER. You being a libertarian as you say?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, at that time I was--my ideas have changed since
that time. At that time I was much to the left in my political thinking once again; well,
I would say about in the same position that Mr. Stone who I spoke of earlier is now. I was
on the "left-hand" side of the acceptable political spectrum in this country,
and so, therefore, these issues, the issues I would now raise with him had I again the
chance to speak to him, would be much different than the issues I raised with him at that
time. I did not raise that issue particularly, I did not push it.
Mr. JENNER. Was there much, if any, discussion at the time on the issue
of individual liberty?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; very little, because I wasn't too concerned about it
at the time and neither was he. We were both concerned about what was the best for the
greatest number of people. I don't think that concept was clear to either one of us.
Mr. JENNER. But, even having in mind the status of your political
thinking at that moment, your political thinking did not square with his?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; I was opposed to the great trust that he put in, much
greater than I suspected at that time, of course, trust that he put in the Soviet
Government in the world today I felt they were misguided idealists. He felt they weren't
misguided.
Mr. JENNER. Give us as best you can recall his comments and views with
respect to capitalism of the variety then existing, or as he understood existed in this
Nation.
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, I wouldn't say that we--I can't recall us having
gone into any detail about anything so relevant to anything as capitalism in this Nation
at the time.
Mr. JENNER. These discussions were broader. They were more abstract?
Mr. THORNLEY. Usually, yes. Whenever we got specific we usually
discussed the Marine Corps.
Mr. JENNER. I see. You did not discuss the United States of America as
such?
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
Mr. JENNER. And the Soviet Union as such, and compared the two
countries?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, as I say, you couldn't do this with Oswald because
whenever you tried to make any statement about the Soviet Union he would challenge it on
the grounds that we were probably propagandized in this country and we had no knowledge of
what was going on over there.
Mr. JENNER. Did he purport to know what was going on over there?
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
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Mr. JENNER. Did he show any interest in what was going on over there?
Mr. THORNLEY. He definitely showed interest.
Mr. JENNER. Give us some examples and tell us.
Mr. THORNLEY. I would say he took an agnostical approach to this. It
seemed that he didn't know whether to believe what he read in his Russian newspaper, not
that he used those exact words, or what he heard in this country. He took the attitude
that "Well, they may be right and we may be right but I suspect they are right."
This, of course, once again, I always got the impression in any of these discussions that
part of his slight bias toward the Communist way of life was an act of rebellion against
the present circumstances.
Mr. JENNER. Do you think that bias, if any, was a mild bias?
Mr. THORNLEY. I thought so at the time.
Mr. JENNER. Did you have any impression at anytime that he was
interested from an objective standpoint; that he might like to experience by way of
personal investigation what was going on in Russia?
Mr. THORNLEY. It never dawned on me. It was the farthest thing from my
mind. Although I certainly will say this: When he did go to Russia it seemed to me as a
much more likely alternative for Oswald than say joining the Communist Party in the United
States.
Mr. JENNER. Excuse me.
Mr. THORNLEY. It seemed to fit his personality.
Mr. JENNER. Would you read that? I lost the thought of it. (The
reporter read the answer.)
Mr. JENNER. Would you elaborate, please?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, Oswald was not militant. At the time it didn't seem
to me he was at all militant. That he was at all a fighter, the kind of person who would
glory in thinking of himself as marching along in a great crusade of some kind. He would
be the kind of person who would take a quiet, as quiet as possible, for him personally,
approach to something. For example, going to the Soviet Union would be a way he could
experience what he thought were the benefits of communism without committing himself to
storming the Bastille, so to speak.
Mr. JENNER. Is it a fair statement that, in seeking to interpret or
enlarge upon what you say, that you did not have the impression of him as being a person
who thought in terms of seeking to implant in this country, for example, by force or
violence or other leadership, communism or Marxism so as materially to affect or change
the government here?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; I don't think he felt he had to do that. I think he
felt that that would inevitably happen some day and he was just getting into the swing of
things by doing things his way. I don't think he felt that he could do much to promote the
Communist cause or hinder it.
Mr. JENNER. Did he ever lead you to believe or did you have the
impression that he had any thought or desire or inclination to implant communism here or
elsewhere.
Mr. THORNLEY. No; not any more than merely to with the argument. He
certainly would have liked to have converted me or any other person who was willing to
discuss it with him. He would have liked to have persuaded them that his ideas were
correct. If he had done so, I have no idea what he would have done then. I don't think he
did either.
Mr. JENNER. What about his relationships, camaraderie with others on
base?
Mr. THORNLEY. Almost nil.
Mr. JENNER. Almost nil.
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, he got along----
Mr. JENNER. Enlarge on that please.
Mr. THORNLEY. He got along with very few people.
Mr. JENNER. Why was that, in your opinion?
Mr. THORNLEY. He was extremely unpredictable. He and I stopped speaking
before I finally left the outfit. This will give you an example of----
Mr. JENNER. How did that arise?
Mr. THORNLEY. It was a Saturday morning. We had been called out to
march in a parade for a man or some men--I believe they were staff NCO's--who were
retiring from the Marine Corps. This was a common occurrence.
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Every now and then we had to give up our Saturday morning liberty to go march in one of
these parades and everybody, of course, having just gotten up, and having to stand out, to
look forward to a morning of standing out in the hot sun and marching around, was
irritable. So, we were involved at the moment in a "hurry-up and wait routine"
which is common in large organizations like the military. We were waiting at the moment,
in the parking lot by the parade ground, sitting. Oswald and I happened to be sitting next
to each other on a log that was used to bank cars, in the parking lot. I had just finished
"1984" a couple of days earlier, and I had not yet discussed it with Oswald, and
I was--he said something and I said something; I don't recall what it was--I was
definitely thinking of "1984" at the time and I was using terms from
"1984." Oswald didn't seem to be particularly amused by what I was saying, and
he was--he seemed to be kind of lost in his own thoughts, and so I stopped making any
comments at all to him for awhile. Then he turned to me and said something about the
stupidity of the parade, of the whole circumstance right at the moment, how angry it made
him, and I said, I believe my words were, "Well, comes the revolution you will change
all that."
At which time he looked at me like a betrayed Caesar and screamed,
screamed definitely, "Not you, too, Thornley." And I remember his voice cracked
as he said this. He was definitely disturbed at what I had said and I didn't really think
I had said that much. He put his hands in his pockets and pulled his hat down over his
eyes and walked away and went over and sat down someplace else alone, and I thought, well,
you know, forget about it, and I never said anything to him again and he never said
anything to me again.
Mr. JENNER. You mean you never spoke to each other from that time on?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; and shortly thereafter I left the outfit for
overseas. I don't recall that we were ever in a situation where we would have spoken, but
I know we never spoke after that. And this happened with many people, this reaction of
Oswald's, and therefore he had few friends. He never seemed to have any one friend for a
long length of time, one acquaintance. He seemed to guard against developing real close
friendships.
Mr. JENNER. Did you ever--excuse me, you recall being interviewed by an
agent of the FBI?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. This was in New Orleans on Monday the 25th of---
Mr. THORNLEY. This was on an afternoon. Does he have the time down?
Mr. JENNER. 25th of November.
Mr. THORNLEY. That was Secret Service, wasn't it? Let's see, the 22d,
23d, 24th.
Mr. JENNER. This was Special Agent Merwin Alderson and Special Agent
Richard Farrell. It was the Monday following the assassination.
Mr. THORNLEY. What I believe happened is--I believe they arrived in
Arnaud's Restaurant where I was working at the time about midnight Sunday night so it
would actually be Monday, yes, sir, that they talked to me. I gathered at the time these
gentlemen were from the Secret Service, but those are the gentlemen.
Mr. JENNER. Did you say to them in connection with this sudden
termination of the relationship between yourself and Oswald "that you had made this
comment to Oswald, that he was a Communist and that things would be different when the
revolution came"?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; I didn't tell them he was a Communist; no. But
Oswald, certainly that was his reason for his anger. There was an implied accusation of
communism in my saying, "Comes the revolution you will change all that."
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mr. THORNLEY. You see, he wasn't understanding the comments I was
making in relation to "1984" at all, our traditional meeting ground here. He was
interpreting them in light of his alleged communism, and that is why he became angry. But
no; I didn't say to him, "You are a Communist" ever.
Mr. JENNER. It is your explanation.
Mr. THORNLEY. This was not my opinion.
Mr. JENNER. You are saying that he interpreted your comment to be that
you accused him of being a Communist, and then he made the remark, "Not you,
too."
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Mr. THORNLEY. I am sure he interpreted that that way but I certainly
didn't think he was a Communist and I certainly didn't tell him so.
Mr. JENNER. To what did you attribute this inability of his to maintain
reasonably cordial or at least military-service family relations with his fellow marines?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, at the time I just thought--well, the man is a
nut--at the very moment it happened, I dismissed it without thinking about it.
Mr. JENNER. See if you can articulate a little more, when you say
"a nut," a lot of people will interpret the expression "a nut"
differently.
Mr. THORNLEY. I understand that. I was just trying to give you my first
impression first: that he was some kind of a nut, and I stopped thinking about it.
Mr. JENNER. You mean a nut in the sense of an extremist, not an
organized thinker?
Mr. THORNLEY. I didn't think about that enough to classify it. I just
thought, "something is wrong with him, maybe something is bugging him today, maybe he
is crazy, I don't know what," but I just wasn't at that moment--it wasn't that
important to me, I didn't feel much better than he did that morning, I am sure, so I just
shrugged it off.
Later, I did reflect on it, and that, combined with his general habits
in relation to his superiors, and to the other men in the outfit, caused me to decide that
he had a definite tendency toward irrationality at times, an emotional instability. Once
again right away, I didn't know exactly what was the cause of this. A couple of years
later I had good reason to think about it some more, at which time I noticed.
Mr. JENNER. Now when please ? Before the assassination?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, while working on my book, "The Idle
Warriors."
Mr. JENNER. About when was this?
Mr. THORNLEY. From the time he went to the Soviet Union until February
of 1962.
Mr. JENNER. You learned that he had gone to the Soviet Union?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; I was stationed at his former outfit, Marine Air
Control Squadron 1, at the time he went to the Soviet Union.
Mr. JENNER. Where were you then stationed?
Mr. THORNLEY. That is where I was at the time.
Mr. JENNER. What country?
Mr. THORNLEY. At Atsugi, Japan.
Mr. JENNER. I see. And you learned about it through what source?
Mr. THORNLEY. The Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper in the Far
East. It was on page 3, I believe, a little article about Lee Harvey Oswald having
appeared in the American Embassy in Moscow, having plopped down his passport and requested
Soviet citizenship. My first reaction was, "Good Lord, what is going on here?"
And afterward, I, of course it began to occur to me, his interest in communism, and I
started kicking myself, thinking, well, you know, just for so misjudging a person. I
just--
Mr. JENNER. Misjudging? What respect, please?
Mr. THORNLEY. As far as his sincerity went. I did not ever think he was
so interested in communism to go to all the trouble to go to the Soviet Union and
certainly to jeopardize his citizenship, and so forth. This was a great surprise to me.
And right away I began to try to figure out the mechanism of his thinking.
Mr. JENNER. I see. Keep going and tell me what your rationalization and
thinking was at that time.
Mr. THORNLEY. And what caused him to do this. This gets us back to the
emotional instability and why did it occur. I do believe, to begin with, Oswald, how long
ago he had acquired the idea I don't know, but I think in his mind it was almost a
certainty that the world would end up under a totalitarian government or under
totalitarian governments.
I think he accepted Orwell's premise in this that their was no fighting
it. That sooner or later you were going to have to love Big Brother and I think this was
the central, I think this was the central thing that disturbed him and caused many of his
other reactions.
I think he wanted to be on the winning side for one thing, and,
therefore,
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the great interest in communism. I think he wanted--I think he felt he was under a
totalitarian system while in the Marine Corps, and, therefore, the extreme reactions when
someone would call him a Communist. I think he had a persecution complex, and I think he
strove to maintain it. I could not go so far as to say why. Perhaps it was necessary to
his self-esteem in some way. This was and is the general conclusion I now have as to his
general motivations, his overall motivations, insofar as he has tended to be emotionally
unstable.
Mr. JENNER. Do you think he was emotionally unstable?
Mr. THORNLEY. I think so.
Mr. JENNER. That is an opinion you gathered from your association with
him in the Marines.
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes. Primarily once again from that last experience, that
short exchange and just the complete unexpectedness of it. And then, of course, after that
was when I learned some of the other things, such as the pouring the beer over the staff
sergeant's head. These things, I don't know when I learned them, but I do definitely know
I learned them afterwards because I----
Mr. JENNER. You mean you learned of that incident after you left the
base at El Toro?
Mr. THORNLEY. I believe I learned it over in Japan, as a matter of
fact, I believe soon after I got there somebody mentioned it in some connection or
another, and that was because I remember, yes, I am sure it happened over there because I
remember, then I said, "Oh, he was in this unit? He was in here in MACS 1?" and
somebody said, "Yes." And that was another connection in my mind as far as
Oswald was concerned.
And then when the defection occurred, I therefore felt that I--I had
been thinking about writing a book on the Marine Corps. I had not decided exactly what it
was going to concern, what it was going to be about as far as plot or theme went, the
background would be the Marine Corps in Japan, because that was the first big, at that
time to me, dramatic experience of my life suitable for a book, worth telling about.
So, when the defection occurred on that same day, I thought,
"Well, this is it. I am in a perfect position to tell how this took place, why this
happened." I was not so interested in explaining Lee Harvey Oswald to myself or
anybody else, as I was in explaining that particular phenomenon of disillusionment with
the United States after serving in the Marine Corps overseas in a peacetime capacity; thus
the title: The Idle Warriors.
Since Oswald inspired the book, I did base a good deal of it as a
matter of convenience on his personality and on his ideas.
Mr. JENNER. You said you had the impression as you sat there in Japan
that here was a man whom you felt wanted to be on the winning side.
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. What impression did you have as to why? Did you, for
example, have the impression that he felt that his life had been such that he had been
deprived of the opportunity to be on a good side?
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
Mr. JENNER. That he conceived to be the leading side?
Mr. THORNLEY. No. I had a definite impression of why.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Mr. THORNLEY. I think it is a mistake that many people make, and I
think it is a mistake he shared, and that is: he looked upon, not only Marxists make this
mistake, but he looked upon history as God. He looked upon the eyes of future people as
some kind of tribunal, and he wanted to be on the winning side so that 10,000 years from
now people would look in the history books and say, "Well, this man was ahead of his
time. This man was"--he wanted to be looked back upon with honor by future
generations. It was, I think, a substitute, in his case, for traditional religion.
The eyes of the future became what to another man would be the eyes of
God, or perhaps to yet another man the eyes of his own conscience.
Mr. JENNER. So it wasn't in the prosaic sense of merely wanting to be
on the "winning side."
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
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Mr. JENNER. When things developed----
Mr. THORNLEY. No; I don't think he expected things to develop within
his lifetime. I am sure that he didn't. He just wanted to be on the winning side for all
eternity.
Mr. JENNER. You had the impression that that was in terms of
selflessness? That he thought also in terms that Lee Harvey Oswald would be associated
with this forward thinking?
Mr. THORNLEY. Right. He was concerned with his image in history and I
do think that is why he chose once again, once again why he chose the particular method he
chose and did it in the way he did. It got him in the newspapers. It did broadcast his
name out. I think he probably expected the Russians to accept him on a much higher--in a
much higher capacity than they did.
I think he expected them to, in his own dreams, to invite him to take a
position in their government, possibly as a technician, and I think he then felt that he
could go out into the world, into the Communist world and distinguish himself and work his
way up into the party, perhaps. He was definitely----
Mr. JENNER. Did it have to be the Communist world or could it be any
world that he saw projected into the future?
Mr. THORNLEY. Definitely.
Mr. JENNER. And as you put it this, in your opinion, had become a
religion with him.
Mr. THORNLEY. Much more than he himself realized even though he called
it his religion.
Mr. JENNER. Did you have the impression there was a personal
selflessness, that is a--I will put it in terms of disregard or rather this way--that as
far as his physical person was concerned, he wasn't concerned about life in the sense that
he wanted to continue to maintain life in his body?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; I think he wanted physical happiness. I think this is
why he didn't do something like just join the Communist Party. I believe he felt that was
dangerous. I think he wanted to live comfortably. But I think if it came to a choice
between the two, or to put it this way, more relevant to events that developed later, I
think if it became to his mind impossible for him to have this degree of physical comfort
that he expected or sought, I think he would then throw himself entirely on the other
thing he also wanted, which was the image in history.
I don't think that--I think he wanted both if he could have them. If he
didn't, he wanted to die with the knowledge that, or with the idea that he was somebody.
Mr. JENNER. Did you have the impression at any time that he, in turn,
embraced a realization that he was lacking in ability to accomplish the former, that is,
personal comfort and status, that is that he felt that there was a lack of ability,
capacity, training, education on his part?
Mr. THORNLEY. When I knew him, I don't think he had the vaguest thought
in that direction. I do definitely, of course, based solely upon what I have read in the
newspapers, think he came to that moment, after returning to the United States from the
Soviet Union. I think he was getting panicky.
Mr. JENNER. In our discussion you can see it is important to me to
obtain your thinking, uninfluenced to the extent you can do it by subsequent events. Of
course complete lack of influence is not possible, but I am seeking your views as to your
state of mind prior to November 22.
Mr. THORNLEY. All right. I would say that prior to November 22, I felt
that he had gradually become disillusioned with the United States for many reasons, at the
bottom was also his conviction, well, in fact, his disillusionment with the United States
in the Far East probably contributed to some extent to his conviction that the Communists
would eventually prevail, the Communist culture would eventually prevail in the world, and
I then had the feeling that he certainly--I thought he would probably stay in Russia, for
example, forever.
I didn't know what he was doing there. I realized from what I read at
that time that he was not--he did not have Russian citizenship. He was staying there as an
immigrant. I expected him probably to adjust to Russian life and that would be the last
that the Western World would ever hear of Oswald.
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Everything Oswald has ever done has surprised me.
Mr. JENNER. Please elaborate on that.
Mr. THORNLEY. When I knew him and since I knew him, when I knew him I
was surprised when he was offended at my statement about, the coming of the revolution
that Saturday morning. I was surprised when I read in the papers overseas that he had gone
to the Soviet Union. I was surprised when he came back. And I was entirely caught unaware
when it turned out that he was involved in the assassination, to such an extent that for
some time afterwards, I thought he was innocent.
Mr. JENNER. Why were you surprised when he came back and tell us before
you do that where were you and how did you find out about it.
Mr. THORNLEY. I was in New Orleans. My parents sent me an article from
the Los Angeles Times about it. The reason I was surprised at his coming back was as I
said before, I just expected that would be the last I would hear of him. I fully expected
him to adjust to Soviet life. I thought what he--at that time I thought what he probably
lacked in the Marine Corps was any sympathy for the overall purpose of the Marine Corps.
Whereas he certainly had sympathy for the overall purpose of the Soviet Government, so I
don't think he would mind the restrictions imposed on him, as he resented them in the
Marine Corps.
I did not expect him to become disillusioned, certainly, with the
Soviet Union. I am not, of course, sure that he did become disillusioned with it. It just
seemed unlike him to come back to this country when he said he would never live in either
as a capitalist or as a worker.
Mr. JENNER. When did he say that?
Mr. THORNLEY. He said that at a press conference in Moscow according to
the papers.
Mr. JENNER. This was something you read in the Stars and Stripes?
Mr. THORNLEY. I don't know whether I read this in the Stars and Stripes
or whether I read this--I certainly read it when he came back from Russia, I remember. It
was in the article from the Times my folks sent me. Said when he had left for the Soviet
Union he had said such-and-such, quote.
Mr. JENNER. You said you did not expect him to become disillusioned
with Soviet Russia. Was it your impression at any time, take the several stages, that he
had a conviction with respect to any form of political philosophy or government?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, he did definitely always before and after have a
Marxist bias. From anything that has come to me, that has never--I have never
reason--never had reason to doubt that.
Mr. JENNER. That, you think, was a conviction?
Mr. THORNLEY. I think that was an irrevocable conviction, you might
say.
Mr. JENNER. You do not think it was not merely a theoretical concept
which he used for argumentation?
Mr. THORNLEY. Let me put it this way. I think you could sit down and
argue with him for a number of years in a great marathon argument and have piles of facts
and I don't think you could have changed his mind on that unless you knew why he believed
it in the first place. I certainly don't. I don't think with any kind of formal argument
you could have shaken that conviction. And that is why I say irrevocable. It was
just--never getting back to looking at things from any other way once he had become a
Marxist, whenever that was.
Mr. JENNER. Was he able to articulate distinctions between Marxism,
communism, capitalism, democracy?
Mr. THORNLEY. At the time I knew him and argued with him he didn't
bother to articulate distinctions between Marxism and communism. At a latter time I
understand he did.
Mr. JENNER. He attempted to.
Mr. THORNLEY. At the time I knew his communism was the modern, living
vicar of Marxism, period.
Mr. JENNER. Were you in New Orleans when he was arrested for
distributing Fair Play for Cuba Committee leaflets?
Mr. THORNLEY. I arrived in New Orleans in the early part of September.
If I was in New Orleans---
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Mr. JENNER. 1963?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. This occurred in August of 1963.
Mr. THORNLEY. Then I wasn't there; no.
Mr. JENNER. Did you hear about it?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; I didn't. I didn't hear about it until after the
assassination.
Mr. JENNER. Did you ever hear any of those tapes?
Mr. THORNLEY. I heard part of one of them after the assassination, once
again.
Mr. JENNER. Did that part include his effort to distinguish between
Marxism and democracy in response to a question put to him by either Mr. Stuckey or one of
the other participants?
Mr. THORNLEY. That is exactly what he was talking about at the time. I
happened to be standing in the television station in New Orleans and he was saying, and I
just got a snatch of it, I was passing through the room or something; and he was saying,
"Well, there are many Marxist countries in the world today."
Mr. JENNER. This was by way of his answering a question as to what was
the distinction between Marxism and communism?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; he was saying there are many non-Communist Marxist
countries in the world today and he was definitely making a distinction between Marxism
and communism.
Mr. JENNER. But all he did was to cite the countries. He didn't attempt
to make the distinction.
Mr. THORNLEY. It was only a snatch of it.
Mr. JENNER. That was a fair representation of his utterances during
those two radio broadcasts and one television broadcast. You mentioned also that you had a
feeling on his part that he was laboring under a persecution complex?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. That was not necessarily based alone on the incident you
relate that occurred on that Saturday morning? Were there other incidents?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; there were many comments on his part about the walls
having ears, about--I think he felt the Marine Corps kept a pretty close watch on him
because of his "subversive" activities and for that reason in fact, I think he
sought to keep himself convinced that he was being watched and being pushed a little
harder than anyone else.
I don't think he was consciously, perhaps not consciously, aware of the
fact that he went out of his way to get into trouble. I think it was kind of necessary to
him to believe that he was being picked on. It wasn't anything extreme. I wouldn't go so
far as to call it, call him a paranoid, but a definite tendency there was in that
direction, I think.
Mr. JENNER. Would you put it in terms that he had the feeling that he
was being unjustifiably put upon?
Mr. THORNLEY. Oh, always; yes. He was, in fact, you almost got the
feeling that he was--this was happening because of his defense. I mean he was always
speaking of the injustices which had been perpetrated against him.
Mr. JENNER. Of his injustices as to him personally, different from the
treatment of others about him?
Mr. THORNLEY. To him personally; yes. Well, and it was the fact that he
had lost his clearance, and had gone out of his way to get into some degree of trouble
that went on to support this. For example, we would stand at muster in the morning, and
Sergeant Spar would call the roll and he would say "Oswald" and Oswald would
step out of the ranks and he would send him off to mow the lawn or something.
Oswald did get special treatment. As I say, he had brought it on
himself but he made the most of it, too, as far as using it as a means of getting or
attempting to get sympathy.
Mr. JENNER. Well, what was the sergeant's name?
Mr. THORNLEY. Sergeant Spar.
Mr. JENNER. Spar. In using his name, I don't wish to, I am not
suggesting
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anything personal as to Sergeant Spar, but I am going to use him as a faceless Marine
sergeant.
Mr. THORNLEY. And a very good one.
Mr. JENNER. You marines, at least some of you, I assume, as had GI's
and others, you buttered up sergeants, too, didn't you, in order to avoid being assigned
too often to disagreeable tasks?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; you didn't have to. So long as you kept in line and
obeyed orders, you didn't have to--you weren't assigned any disagreeable task in the kind
of outfit I was in because there weren't that many. When there was a disagreeable task to
be done, it was assigned to somebody who had stepped out of line and there were always
enough people who had stepped out of line and it was no problem to find them. In fact, the
problem was to find enough disagreeable tasks to go around. The only exception to this
would be overseas; a typhoon would hit sometimes and then everybody would have to go out
and we would have to all, much to our dismay, wade around at 2 o'clock in the morning and
tear down tents and so on and so forth.
Mr. JENNER. That was a thing that was common to all of you.
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. It was not a disagreeable task in the sense we are talking
about.
Mr. THORNLEY. Right; and that was never necessary to have to butter up
that I can ever think of to a superior of any kind in order to get exempted from anything.
Mr. JENNER. Well, do you think Oswald was aware that all he had to be
was more tractable to the customs and practices of the Marine Corps in which he was then
living and he would not be assigned disagreeable tasks more often than others?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, that is hard to say. I don't know whether he was
aware of that or not. I am not sure whether he permitted himself to be aware of it. Maybe
he was aware of it and maybe he couldn't help. He had compulsions to do these things.
Maybe he thought it was worth it and maybe he didn't feel that he was being treated
unjustly at all. Maybe he just wanted everybody to think he felt he was being treated
unjustly, if you follow me.
Mr. JENNER. I do.
Mr. THORNLEY. It could have been any of these things. This--I think it
would take a good psychiatrist to find out which.
Mr. JENNER. You also used the expression that he strove to maintain the
status or milieu in which he had brought himself.
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; I think this was possibly so. I think perhaps the
feeling of being persecuted was necessary to his self-esteem. This is, I understand, a
common thing, and it certainly fits in with everything else I know about him.
Mr. JENNER. Did you have that impression that you have just expressed
at the time that you were associated with him in the Marines?
Mr. THORNLEY. At the time I was associated with him, I didn't have that
impression because I was too busy wondering just what it was. I used to--I would see him
doing something stupid, maybe a wisecrack to an officer, for example, and I would say,
"Well, doesn't the idiot know that if he does that he is going to have to do
this" and yet he would resent his punishment.
Mr. JENNER. What would he do afterward?
Mr. THORNLEY. As if it had been thrust upon him for no reason
whatsoever, out of the blue.
Mr. JENNER. Did you have a feeling that he was impulsive in that
respect, in the sense that sometimes he did things?
Mr. THORNLEY. He was definitely impulsive.
Mr. JENNER. That he had no control?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, I don't know whether he had no control or whether
he would just do things without thinking. I think maybe he just let, relaxed his controls
once in a while, and why, I don't know.
Mr. JENNER Did you have the feeling he was impulsive?
Mr. THORNLEY. Oh, definitely.
Mr. JENNER. He acted on the spur of the moment?
Mr. THORNLEY. He was spontaneous, very much so. This was--I had this
impression the whole time I knew him.
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Mr. JENNER. You did have the impression and I think you have mentioned
it several times, that he had an exaggerated, either mild or otherwise, self-esteem.
Mr. THORNLEY. No; I didn't mention that that I recall. I did say that I
think maintaining the persecution complex was necessary for his self-esteem and he was
concerned very much with his image in history but I don't think in the sense of being
secure about his self-esteem; I don't think he was either conceited, for example,
egotistical, or just plain confident. I don't think--I don't have any reason to believe
that he in his own eyes, had any reason to be proud of himself beyond the average, at
most.
Mr. JENNER. I wasn't thinking of self-esteem in that sense and I didn't
gather from your remark that you were thinking of it in that sense either, but rather in
the sense of self-esteem in his own eyes, not in the sense of accomplishment or egoism.
Mr. THORNLEY. Now, I don't know. Self-esteem in one's own eyes, it
seems to me, would have to be justified by some means. Some people justify it by means of
their attraction to the opposite sex or by means of their standing in some country club. I
think Oswald justified it by means of his recalcitrance, kind of a reverse self-esteem.
By means of his unwillingness to do what he was ordered, for example.
Mr. JENNER. Did you have the feeling that he sought the esteem of
others, not necessarily his officers, but the esteem of somebody or some group or some
persons about him and in his life--
Mr. THORNLEY. I think he wanted this very much but I don't think he
knew how to go about getting it. He wanted it, and yet he certainly didn't--I think he
would have felt he was cheating himself if he had offered them anything in exchange for
it. He wanted it but he wanted it to come to him for no reason. He didn't want to have to
earn it, I got that impression. That is a very mild impression.
Mr. JENNER. We are dealing in a very delicate field here and I am
pressing you very severely.
Mr. THORNLEY. These are sometimes very gray, thin lines we have to
distinguish between.
Mr. JENNER. We are probing for motivation. Did you ever discuss with
him the matter of education?
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
Mr. JENNER. His own; or education in the abstract; or the need for
education in order to attain accomplishments; or any regard to whether his status in life,
his personal comfort, his personal peace, could be advanced by further education?
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
Mr. JENNER. Did you ever have the feeling of any discomfort on his part
or inferiority because of his limited education?
Mr. THORNLEY. No. First of all, in the Marine Corps there is a
prevalence of this kind of feeling among many of the enlisted men, and Oswald was exempt
from it.
Mr. JENNER. What do you mean "exempt from it"?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, he didn't, for example, have the usual bitterness
toward somebody who read, well, just merely because he did read.
Mr. JENNER. He may have felt superior because he did read, did you have
that feeling?
Mr. THORNLEY. Oh, yes.
Mr. JENNER. That was a definite feeling?
Mr. THORNLEY. I wouldn't say anything in my experience with him caused
me to particularly notice that he felt superior because he did read. But except, yes,
there is one time a friend of his, I don't know who it was, I haven't been able to recall
the name at present, one morning looked over at our commanding officer who was walking by,
Colonel Poindexter, an air ace in Korea----
Mr. JENNER. A what?
Mr. THORNLEY. An ace pilot in Korea, and made the comment, "There
goes a mental midgit" which drew glee from Oswald, as I remember. But aside from that
one particular incident--well, in any case, when he was dealing with military superiors he
always felt superior to them. You got that impression. But
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dealing with the other marines who maybe did have an education or did not have an
education, I didn't get any, ever get any impression one way or the other that he had a
tendency to react to this.
Mr. JENNER. As between yourself and him; your association, what was
your feeling? Did he regard himself as compatible with you and you with him?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; definitely. I didn't get any idea that he was--I
thought his education was about the same as my own which certainly isn't spectacular by
any means. I thought he might have had a year of college. I knew he had--I figured he had
graduated from high school. It never occurred to me to think any more about it. I did, as
I mentioned before, notice once in a while that he had gaps in his knowledge, but many
people do, in fact all of us do, I am sure, in some fields.
But in Oswald's case they perhaps had an unusual pattern to them or
something. that made me notice them, perhaps. Perhaps he was better read, for example, on
Marxist economics than any other school of economics, things like this. But that was the
extent of it.
Mr. JENNER. Was there in your kicking around with him in your
discussions--was there ever any discussion of your past, of his past, his life?
Mr. THORNLEY. None whatsoever. This I am almost certain of. I had no
idea, for example, that he was from Texas or where he was from. At that time I don't
recall him having a Texas accent, either. I had no idea that his father had died when he
was young. I had no idea about his family, anything along this line and I don't think I
ever discussed my past with him.
Mr. JENNER. Was any mention ever made of his attendance at or even the
name of the Albert Schweitzer College?
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
Mr. JENNER. No discussions about any plans of his or possibility of his
seeking further education of any kind or character when he was mustered out of the
Marines?
Mr. THORNLEY. None whatsoever. For one thing we were not close enough
friends to have any personal interests in each other. I looked upon him as somebody to
argue with, another atheist--therefore, without the problem of religion between us--and to
argue philosophy and politics about, and I think he looked upon me in about the same
light.
Mr. JENNER. What was your dexterity with Marine weapons?
Mr. THORNLEY. Mine?
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mr. THORNLEY. I was a sharpshooter.
Mr. JENNER. What was his?
Mr. THORNLEY. I believe well, at that time I didn't know.
Mr. JENNER. You didn't know. I want your viewpoint as of that time.
While you were based at El Toro, did the unit engage with any regularity in rifle
practice?
Mr. THORNLEY. None whatsoever. At that time, the whole time I was
there, we did not engage in rifle practice.
Mr. JENNER. As a matter of curiosity on my own part, why was that?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, in the Marine Corps you are required once a year to
go to the rifle range and qualify. I was not there an entire year. Point No. 2, this was
the Marine air wing which has much less of an emphasis on, in general, on rifle practice
because it is not going to be utilized in battle, and a much stronger emphasis, in the
case of the outfit we were in, on our particular military occupational specialty.
Mr. JENNER. Which was?
Mr. THORNLEY. 6749 Aviation Electronic Operator.
Mr. JENNER. Was this true when you reached Japan?
Mr. THORNLEY. More so. When I reached Japan, however, we did go to the
rifle range one time shortly after I got there, and qualify. I recall at that time that in
Japan we weren't even having rifle inspections. There you could put your rifle away in
your locker and forget about it, and take it out every couple of months and make sure it
hadn't corroded away, and put it back again.
Mr. JENNER. But you didn't even have rifle inspection?
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Mr. THORNLEY. Once in a while we would have one, but not with any
frequency whatsoever.
Mr. JENNER. Were you forewarned so that you could clean your rifle?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; usually you were caught unawares, which was why you
kept it clean in the locker.
Mr. JENNER. I see. What are the grades of marksmanship?
Mr. THORNLEY. Marksman, sharpshooter, and expert.
Mr. JENNER. Marksman, sharpshooter, and expert. Therefore, I gather
from that that marksman was the basic grade.
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. A grade that every marine was expected to, and had to,
attain that grade?
Mr. THORNLEY. Not had to attain, some didn't, and there was no
particular penalty involved, except maybe something a little extracurricular when you were
in boot camp. Otherwise, you didn't wear a marksman's medal is all. You didn't have any
qualification in the infantry; of course, it would be looked down upon in the case of
promotion or something like that. In the air wing it had much slighter significance than
that. Maybe if you were being considered for a meritorious promotion and you hadn't
qualified you wouldn't get it, but day to day it had no significance.
Mr. JENNER. Were the standards applied in the air wing with respect to
qualifications for these three classes as severe or as high as the standards applied, let
us say, in the Marine infantry?
Mr. THORNLEY. Exactly the same; yes.
Mr. JENNER. Exactly the same. Would you please state for me your
concept of the degree of marksmanship for (a) marksman, (b) sharpshooter, (c) expert?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, a marksman is an average shooter. A man, I think,
could pick up a rifle and with a little commonsense and a minimum knowledge of the basics
of marksmanship qualify as a marksman. When a man doesn't qualify as a marksman it is
usually either because he is nervous on the day of qualification or he is gun shy or some
outside influence confuses him; maybe he gets his windage off, something like this.
Sharpshooter is just a little above average. It ranges over about--a
pretty wide field. But it is a man who--a sharpshooter would be a man, the average man,
with a good, maybe a week of training on how to use a rifle, and some practice.
Whereas an expert is the kind of man I would hate to have on the other
side in a war. He is accurate with his rifle up to and including 500 yards in a number of
different positions. Hits the bull's-eye or close to the bull's-eye an overwhelming
percentage of the time.
Mr. JENNER. Is that the category in which we would place that to which
we refer generally as the sniper?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes. Well, any man might be assigned as a sniper, I
imagine. But an expert rifleman would perform much better.
Mr. JENNER. Maybe be a superior sniper.
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes. Definitely.
Mr. JENNER. And to attain the position of expert marksman must there be
considerable practice and use of the weapon or is it more of natural ability?
Mr. THORNLEY. Now, you enter in once again to natural ability, just as
not qualifying might be caused by a lack of natural ability of some kind. An expert
rifleman probably would have a much calmer nervous system or, you might say, a much
greater degree of control.
I would imagine training can make up for this. I know a couple of times
I just missed expert by a few points. It seemed that I couldn't make expert. It seemed to
me there was just something I didn't have in order to make expert. It was very
frustrating.
Mr. JENNER. You tried?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; it takes a great degree of control, primarily. Of
course, the other things like good eyesight and so on and so forth.
Mr. JENNER. Oh, yes.
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
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Mr. JENNER. Did you ever discuss with Oswald his degree of proficiency
in the use of the rifle?
Mr. THORNLEY. Not to the best of my knowledge.
Mr. JENNER. Did you have any impressions that you gathered in that
respect while you were with him at El Toro?
Mr. THORNLEY. None whatsoever. Had somebody asked me to guess about
Oswald, I would have said, well, he probably didn't qualify, just because that was the
type of guy he was, but that is all.
Mr. JENNER. You would never have expected him to have been a
sharpshooter, for example?
Mr. THORNLEY. It wouldn't have greatly surprised me if he was and it
wouldn't have greatly surprised me if he wasn't. This is something very difficult to look
at a man and tell, at least it is very difficult for me. I have seen some drill
instructors who could do it. But to tell whether he is going to be an expert or a
sharpshooter, marksman, I am not qualified.
Mr. JENNER. While you were stationed with him at E1 Toro, did you ever
go off base with him?
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
Mr. JENNER. Did you ever have any discussion of dates?
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
Mr. JENNER. His attitude toward women?
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
Mr. JENNER. Sex?
Mr. THORNLEY. None whatsoever.
Mr. JENNER. Was there any scuttlebutt around the camp in that regard
with respect to him..
Mr. THORNLEY. Not to the best of my knowledge.
Mr. JENNER. Sex habits, propensities?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; you stand a risk in the Marine Corps, if you are at
all quiet and tend to be introverted, of being suspected of being homosexual, but to the
best of my knowledge there were never any comments made of this nature.
Mr. JENNER. Do you recall some other readings of his in addition to
"1984"?
Mr. THORNLEY. I do recall having mentioned Dostoievsky to him and I
know he had read something and I think it was "Crime and Punishment" but I am
not sure. It was something I had not read by Dostoievsky when I had read about, I guess at
that time, about three or four books.
Mr. JENNER. It is a great book.
Mr. THORNLEY. Someday I am going to get around to it.
Mr. JENNER. Have you not read it yet? It is a really great book.
Mr. THORNLEY. No; and I don't recall him mentioning any other books
offhand. I don't--I can't think of a thing besides "1984" and some book by
Dostoievsky.
Mr. JENNER. While you were based at E1 Toro did he engage, did you
notice, in any officer baiting on his part with respect, in particular, to such matters as
foreign affairs?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; not on foreign affairs, no, but the same officer,
Lieutenant Donovan, spoke of in a foreign affairs lecture in the newspapers, I do remember
him baiting him on a couple of occasions.
Mr. JENNER. Oswald attempting to bait Lieutenant Donovan?
Mr. THORNLEY. I don't remember what it was. I know, I believe
Lieutenant Donovan was also a lieutenant which I had had a couple of run-ins with if I
remember correctly.
If not, it was Lieutenant Delprado. It was one of the two of them. Mine
were completely accidental and I went to great length to keep away from one of them
because it seemed like any time I was around him I happened to do something to irritate
him. But Oswald, I don't recall exactly what he said, but he a couple or three times went
out of his way to say something to one of these lieutenants that would cause them to be
irritated and in this you can't really say that he was exceptional. It happened many
times. In Oswald's case though, it was exceptionally----
Mr. JENNER. You mean it happened many times with respect to other
noncoms in the Marines with respect to these officers?
Mr. THORNLEY. Right; but in Oswald's case it seemed a little more
deliberate.
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Some guys would get mad and they would say something, or sometimes they would do something
by accident, and they would get themselves involved and then they would decide,
"Well, what the hell," and push it all away. Oswald it seemed didn't have to
have any reason. He just told an officer to get lost.
Mr. JENNER. He baited an officer for the pleasure of it?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; I might mention that this was one means by which he
won the admiration of others in the outfit in that the junior officers especially are
usually disliked, or were in that outfit, and this made him on such occasions as he
engaged with an officer in some kind of officer baiting, this won the respect, for at
least a few minutes, of the men--who would kind of laugh about it, and chuckle over it and
tell others about it. Perhaps this is why he did it.
Mr. JENNER. You mentioned some slovenliness on his part; what about his
quarters, his barracks; did you have occasion to observe them?
Mr. THORNLEY. I don't think I was ever in his barracks. I do recall
having been told that he had Russian books and that is all I--that is the only connection
I can make now in my mind with his quarters. I don't think I ever saw them.
Mr. JENNER. You already have given us something of his view of the U.S.
Marine Corps. Would you give us a summary of that? Give us your impression of his views
with respect to the U.S. Marine Corps.
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, definitely the Marine Corps was not what he had
expected it to be when he joined. Also he felt that the officers and the staff NCO's at
the Marine Corps were incompetent to give him orders.
Mr. JENNER. Incompetent in what sense, they were below him
intellectually?
Mr. THORNLEY. They were below him intellectually--and for various other
reasons in each case, too. Maybe this officer was ignorant, as was brought out about
foreign affairs, in Oswald's mind, knew less than Oswald did about it. I don't hold with
the stand that Oswald would study up on foreign affairs simply in order to bait the
officer. I think it just happened to be that Oswald would see that the officer was basing
his foreign affairs maybe on Time magazine when Oswald had done a little more reading and
I think he resented this Time magazine approach to foreign affairs.
Mr. JENNER. How did these discussions arise, Mr. Thornley, the
discussion of foreign affairs by officers?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, the officers, every so many weeks--this is
mentioned somewhere in this pile of papers--every so many weeks a lieutenant is appointed
to give a foreign affairs lecture or a current affairs lecture, pardon me, to the troops,
at which time he explains the world situation in a half hour. I remember having one second
lieutenant telling us about Dalai Lama or it was a first lieutenant and I forget what he
told us, but it was something completely absurd. I think at that time the Dalai Lama had
just disappeared or something, and one would get the impression, I think, that he thought
the Dalai Lama was a leader in Pakistan or something.
Mr. JENNER. That is the impression the lieutenant tried to convey?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, I think that was the impression the lieutenant had
had when he had been assigned to give this lecture. The last minute, he got down and
started going through the news magazines to get his information, got it somewhat
inaccurately, and didn't particularly care whether it was accurate or not anyway. Stood up
in front of the troops and reeled off the lecture, and, of course, most of the enlisted
men didn't know enough to criticize him either because they weren't that interested, and
that was it--with a couple of people laughing up their sleeves, and this happened later,
this didn't happen at the time I knew Oswald.
However, in such a situation Oswald would have been careful I am sure
to raise his hand and correct the lieutenant.
Mr. JENNER. I was going to get to that. During the course of these
lectures did the troops as you called them engage in discussion with the instructor?
Mr. THORNLEY. They were permitted to ask questions, to raise their
hands to ask questions. And Oswald would have probably asked a question which would have
made light of the lieutenant's ignorance.
Mr. JENNER. Put the lieutenant at a disadvantage?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Were you present at any times when you were at E1 Toro when
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the lectures occurred when, at that time Oswald raised his hand and engaged in
dissertation?
Mr. THORNLEY. I might have been but I don't recall it if I was. I
recall being present at several lectures at E1 Toro, and it just might have happened. It
was the kind of thing Oswald would do and it wouldn't even have phased me. I probably
wouldn't even have bothered to remember if it had happened. It would have been just part
of the daily routine there so I would have----
Mr. JENNER. Did you ever engage in that sort of thing?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; I never had guts enough to stand up and tell an
officer he didn't know what he was talking about. Behind his back I might tell somebody
that such-and-such officer didn't know what he was talking about, but I was never quite
that brash--in that particular respect, anyway.
Mr. JENNER. What were your impressions on Oswald being interested in
music?
Mr. THORNLEY. Not being interested in music myself particularly----
Mr. JENNER. I take it you had none; that is, any impressions as to his
interests?
Mr. THORNLEY. So, therefore, I had none; correct.
Mr. JENNER. Did you ever play chess with him?
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
Mr. JENNER. Did you ever see him playing chess with anyone else?
Mr. THORNLEY. Just now you mentioned the word "chess" as a
definite association; I think he did play chess. I can't place the person. This--there
were some other people in the outfit who played chess. There is one name I have been
trying to remember for a long time, and I think it starts with, "Win" something.
"Winter" something. I'm probably way off base there. But a tall blond corporal,
I believe, played chess and a couple of other men in the outfit played chess. At that
time, I guess at that, I knew how to play chess. I have never been particularly
interested, though, in the game so I don't--I am pretty sure I didn't play chess with him.
In fact, come to think of it I had just been cured of playing chess 8
months before that; somebody beat me in about six moves and I stopped playing for about a
year. It wasn't me.
Mr. JENNER. While at El Toro did Oswald become engaged in any physical
altercations with anybody?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; definitely not to my knowledge. Never got into any
fights or even any hot personal argument over anything, that I know of.
Mr. JENNER. What was your impression, if you had one then, as to his
disposition in that regard?
Mr. THORNLEY. I had the impression that he avoided violence.
Mr. JENNER. While you were at El Toro do you recall whether Oswald ever
went off the base on liberty?
Mr. THORNLEY. As far as I know he didn't.
Mr. JENNER. Were there any discussions on the base as to what, if
anything, Oswald did?
Mr. THORNLEY. Not in my presence.
Mr. JENNER. What, if anything, Oswald had done off the base on liberty?
Mr. THORNLEY. Not in my presence.
Mr. JENNER. Was there ever any discussion of Cuba and Castro and that
problem?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. All right; tell us all about that.
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, at that time I and Oswald were both, and a couple
of other men in the outfit, were quite sure that Castro was a great hero.
Mr. JENNER. Why?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, he was liberating Cuba from Batista and, of course,
we had heard all about Batista and what an evil man he was, which I am sure was true, and
most of us had read some of the things written by Castro, some of Castro's promises--such
as he would take no part in the government after the revolution, such things--so we had
the definite impression--I remember there was one Puerto Rican boy, myself, Oswald, a
couple of others who had quite an admiration for Castro, and thought the pro-Communist
statements he was or might be making at the time, were made simply to guarantee a little
more independence for his island because it was located so close to the United States.
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In other words, I felt at the time he was playing both ends against the
middle in order to go his own way, something like Charles de Gaulle is doing right now by
recognizing Red China. I felt it was purely statesmanship, state-craft, power politics. I
didn't feel that Castro was a dedicated Communist. Whether Oswald did or not I don't know.
He admired Castro because of the social reforms Castro was introducing. So did I at that
time.
Delgado, the Puerto Rican boy, as I recall it, was becoming worried at
that time because he was beginning to think maybe Castro was communistic. I didn't think
so. Oswald, as far as I know, didn't have anything to say on that matter. And that is
about all I can tell you.
Mr. JENNER. Well, you say that you admired Castro and you knew Oswald
admired Castro. Tell us on what you base that comment.
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, once again as I remember, there was one of these
afternoon discussions once again, and somebody was saying something, worried about Castro,
it might have been Delgado, it might have been somebody else, I don't think it was Delgado
that day because I think he was defending Castro, somebody said something against Castro,
and Oswald said that he didn't think Castro was so bad.
He thought Castro was good for Cuba, and they said why, and I took up
the argument, which was the argument I just gave you, the naive idea I had at the time
that he was playing for independence, and Oswald remained silent, shaking his head
affirmatively a couple of times, and that was it.
Mr. JENNER. Shaking his head affirmatively with respect to the comments
you were making?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; to my argument, to my justification of Castro.
Mr. JENNER. But you recall no provocative remarks that he made in that
connection?
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
Mr. JENNER. Did Oswald have a nickname?
Mr. THORNLEY. Not that I know of except Oz sometimes.
Mr. JENNER. Did you ever hear him referred to as "Ozzie
Rabbit" ?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, yes; I didn't realize that anybody else referred to
him as such but I always thought of him as such. He reminded me very much of a cartoon
character at that time. It was kind of pathetic. There was something about this little
smile of his, and his expression on his face and the shape of his head, just the general,
his general appearance established a definite association in my mind with some Warner
Bros. cartoon character, I believe Warner Bros. And I, very recently, in a discussion with
someone, describing Oswald mentioned that he reminded you of--I said: "I think there
is a character called Oswald Rabbit who appears in movie cartoons." And they shook
their head.
Now, I know where I got that particular example so I probably heard him
referred to as "Ozzie Rabbit," though I don't recall specifically.
Mr. JENNER. Did he occasionally have a nickname or a reference made to
him attendant upon his interest in the study of the Russian language or his interest in
communism or in Russia or Soviet----
Mr. THORNLEY. Only he was sometimes called the Communist and he would,
sometimes I know--as far as his study of the Russian language went he made no attempt to
hide this.
In fact, he made--would make attempts to show it off by speaking a
little Russian.
Mr. JENNER. He was proud of that, was he?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; there was someone else in the outfit who spoke
Russian, don't ask me who, they used to exchange a few comments in the morning at muster
and say hello to each other or something, and he also would make jokes in Russian, not in
Russian, but in English, in a thick Russian accent many times; this was very typical of
him.
Mr. JENNER. He resorted to that area and use of satire?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; until I had made the comment that implied he was a
Communist, I had no idea--
Mr. JENNER. That he was sensitive?
Mr. THORNLEY. That he was sensitive about it because he didn't seem to
be.
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Mr. JENNER. Did he have any visitors?
Mr. THORNLEY. Not that I recall.
Mr. JENNER. Was there any discussion at anytime about the possibility
of his going to Russia?
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
Mr. JENNER. This was a complete surprise to you when you saw it in
Stars and Stripes?
Mr. THORNLEY. Somebody would say to him, "Why don't you go and
live in Russia," in the middle of an argument.
Mr. JENNER. I didn't mean that in that sense but did he volunteer a
statement on his part about his going to Russia?
Mr. THORNLEY. Never anything; no.
Mr. JENNER. I take it it was your opinion he was not a Communist at the
time he was assigned to El Toro?
Mr. THORNLEY. That was my opinion.
Mr. JENNER. I take it you have never seen or talked with Oswald
subsequent to the time he left or you left for Japan, from El Toro?
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
Mr. JENNER. That is, my statement is correct.
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. It follows, I take it, that you were never aware that he
was in New Orleans when you were there?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; I wasn't.
Mr. JENNER. You were not aware of his comings and goings other than the
newspaper report that your folks sent you?
Mr. THORNLEY. I was aware that he had come back from the Soviet Union
and gone to Dallas, and I know I at that time did think about going to see him in Dallas
for the book, to find out just why he did go to Russia, to check it with my own theory.
Mr. JENNER. I am going to get to that in due course.
Mr. THORNLEY. But aside from knowing that he came back and went to live
in Dallas with a Russian wife and a child I had no idea of his comings or goings.
Mr. JENNER. At the time you had some notion of going to Dallas to see
him or Fort Worth, as the case might be, it was with respect to the book you have talked
about you were then in the process of writing or fulminating about?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; it was practically--well, it was finished by that
time but I was thinking about, I was definitely planning to rewrite it. I didn't know how
soon, and I thought before I did rewrite it I would go talk to him and see what he could
tell me about. There were a lot of gaps in the book, and in the book I was not able to
explain how he got from the United States to Russia and things like that. A lot of things
I wanted to check out and I thought if I could get him to cooperate with me, perhaps not
even in telling him I was writing the book, I could get the information I wanted.
Mr. JENNER. And this was the state of mind you had after you had heard
that he returned to the United States?
Mr. THORNLEY. Right.
Mr. JENNER. Which was June of 1962, when he returned?
Mr. THORNLEY. Right, and I had finished the book in February.
Mr. JENNER. Of 1963?
Mr. THORNLEY. 1962.
Mr. JENNER. 1962. You were in Mexico and Mexico City in 1963?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Cover that for us. What was the motivation, the length of
the trip?
Mr. THORNLEY. I will have to begin at the beginning on that. On April
17, my parents sent me a gift of $100 on the condition that I spend it for a bus ticket to
visit them that summer. Which I did, and I left around--well, I arrived in California on
May 5. I remember going along the border and seeing fireworks on the other side of the
border.
Mr. JENNER. What border?
Mr. THORNLEY. From Yuma to San Diego.
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Mr. JENNER. Mexican border?
Mr. THORNLEY. That is Cinco De Mayo. I arrived in California on May 5
and I stayed there until late August. Now, I think in one of these reports that I gave to
the FBI the information might be different. Since then I have checked with notebooks that
I kept of my activity, and I was on my way back to New Orleans in late August. I went by
way of Mexico City because I have taken 5 years of Spanish in school and I never had the
opportunity to live in an environment where I would have to use it, depend on it solely,
and I wanted to see how I would do. I have always wanted to visit Mexico, to see Mexico
City. I checked into the prices. I had found out I had enough money that I would be able
to go down to Mexico City and stay a short while.
So I went down there for about a week, actually it was 6 days I spent
within Mexico, from Tijuana to Mexico City, on a Mexican bus, and then when my money began
to run out from Mexico City to Matamoros or Brownsville, Tex., on a Mexican bus.
At this time, on my way up on a bus to Matamoros, it was September 2,
because I had that in my notes, I have some notes about the bus ride and, the date
September 2.
And I went from Brownsville to New Orleans by way of either Greyhound
or Continental.
Mr. JENNER. When did you arrive in New Orleans?
Mr. THORNLEY. I went directly to New Orleans, so I imagine I arrived in
New Orleans on September 3, possibly September 4.
Mr. JENNER. So that between approximately May 1, 1963, and September 4
and 5----
Mr. THORNLEY. Say May 3 to September 4.
Mr. JENNER. You were not in New Orleans?
Mr. THORNLEY. Right.
Mr. JENNER. You were returning to your home in California? You stayed
there for approximately a month or so?
Mr. THORNLEY. Longer than that.
Mr. JENNER. Longer than that. You then went to Mexico, Mexico City, and
you then returned directly to New Orleans?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. During none of that period of time did you have any contact
with or hear anything about Oswald?
Mr. THORNLEY. Definitely not.
Mr. JENNER. You at one time at least were acquainted with a lady by the
name of Sylvia Bortin?
Mr. THORNLEY. Sylvia Bortin?
Mr. JENNER. B-o-r-t-i-n.
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; this young lady, by the way----
Mr. JENNER. Where did she reside?
Mr. THORNLEY. In Whittier, Calif., or at least last summer she did, I
don't know where she resides now. This young lady, by the way, was mentioned in--her
mention in this whole matter came out of a misunderstanding on my part of a question asked
by the FBI agents.
Mr. JENNER. All right. Would you explain that, please?
Mr. THORNLEY. I don't recall what the question was--oh, yes, he had
asked me something about, I believe it was the First Unitarian Church in Los Angeles. I
had mentioned earlier at the time I was talking to Oswald, and knew Oswald, I had been
going to the First Unitarian Church in Los Angeles. This is a group of quite far to the
left people politically for the most part, and mentioned in order to explain my political
relationship with Oswald, at that moment, and he began to ask me questions about the First
Unitarian Church and I answered, and then he realized or understood or asked what Oswald's
connection with the First Unitarian Church was and I explained to him that there was none.
Miss Bortin never knew Oswald and vice versa, and these people were two different parts of
my life. There was this civilian compartment and the military compartment, and I never
intermingled them.
Mr. JENNER. This young lady married and her husband is now in Havana,
Cuba?
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Mr. THORNLEY. That is what she told me last summer; yes. He was going
to school in Cuba.
Mr. JENNER. I take it this had nothing to do with yourself and Oswald's
views with respect to Castro that you told us about.
Mr. THORNLEY. No; this happened, I think, later, in fact I am sure it
happened later. At that time Miss Bortin, she was then unmarried, did not know Robert
Uname, I believe. I met him, I believe, September a year later.
Mr. JENNER. Had you finished that?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. I take it that Oswald had no close personal friends at
least that you observed ?
Mr. THORNLEY. That is correct. And the name of his closest friends I do
not know. I do remember he had a close acquaintance that he seemed to get along with
pretty well.
Mr. JENNER. In the unit?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; but I don't recall this man's name. If it was
mentioned to me, I probably could, but----
Mr. JENNER. You were groping for it when you were interviewed. You
suggested it might be Charles
Mr. THORNLEY. I mentioned a Charles.
Mr. JENNER. Weis.
Mr. THORNLEY. Weir, but that was not the man. This was a friend of a
friend of the friend or a man who could give them that information perhaps that I
couldn't.
At this time perhaps, also, I was thinking of a possibility it might
have been Weir and since then I have remembered definitely who Weir was.
Mr. JENNER. Who was he?
Mr. THORNLEY. I don't remember whether his first name was Charles but I
remember who he was.
Mr. JENNER. He was a noncom?
Mr. THORNLEY. There was a man named Cooley. There was somebody else,
and these are my associations, but who it was who used to talk Russian in the ranks with
Oswald in the morning I don't know, but that is who it was.
Mr. JENNER. Is this particular man you now mentioned the man who
occasionally talked Russian with Oswald in the ranks, is he the man who you had in mind?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. As having been a friend of Oswald's?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; in that in the same respect that I was a friend of
Oswald's. Once, again, the exact terminology I would use would be close acquaintance.
Mr. JENNER. Yes; I would say from your description of the relationship
with Oswald that it was more an acquaintanceship than a friendship.
Mr. THORNLEY. I think it was probably the same with this person from
what I recall, to my knowledge.
Mr. JENNER. In other words, when you say friend, he wasn't a buddy of
Oswald?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; Oswald was not the type of person who had, as it has
been emphasized on all parts, I think, and it confirms my own impression, was not the type
of person who made close friends or who stuck with close friends.
Mr. JENNER. You saw no instance in which Oswald evidenced affection for
anybody, I mean in the nice sense of the word?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; none whatsoever.
Mr. JENNER. Or anybody evidenced any affection in the nice sense of the
word for him?
Mr. THORNLEY. No.
Mr. JENNER. I take it your trip to Mexico City was purely one of
general interest as you have described and had nothing to do with any interest on your
part in going to Cuba or attempting to go to Cuba?
Mr. THORNLEY. Believe me, no. I have no desire to go to Cuba unless I
am going to take a rifle and be on an invasion force or something.
Mr. JENNER. Did you hear of anybody in the Marine Corps, whose last
name was Hidell?
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Mr. THORNLEY. At the time this name was mentioned to me that was--that
person, whoever it was that Oswald used to speak to in the ranks in the morning came to my
mind. But I can't say that that was the name, and I am--of course, now, I am very leery
that that--very uncertain as to ever having heard the name Hidell, and I doubt it very
much.
Mr. JENNER. Shortly after the unfortunate occurrence of November 22,
1963, you were interviewed by Secret Service agents, were you not?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes. Now, this is what I had mentioned earlier. This was
the Monday interview, of November 25, actually it was midnight Sunday night as I recall.
It seemed to me a couple of days later before I spoke to the FBI. I believe there was a
Mr. Rice was one of the men.
Mr. JENNER. This was the evening of the 23d of November?
Mr. THORNLEY. Was it the 23d?
Mr. JENNER. It probably ran over.
Mr. THORNLEY. It must have been Saturday evening then. I had thought it
was Sunday evening.
Mr. JENNER. In any event you were then interviewed by some newspaper
reporters?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; that was quite some time afterward.
Mr. JENNER. Well, it was before November 27, 1963, was it not?
Mr. THORNLEY. It was after the 25th, I think. It was after I had
finished talking to the FBI, as I remember.
Mr. JENNER. I will mark as Thornley's Exhibit No. 1 what purports to be
a Xerox reprint of a newspaper article.
(The document referred to was marked Thornley Exhibit No. 1 for
identification.)
Mr. JENNER. Are you acquainted with that?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. What newspaper was this from?
Mr. THORNLEY. The States-Item of New Orleans.
Mr. JENNER. And that article was a result of the newspaperman's
interview with you?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Did you see it upon its publication?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. You are familiar with it?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Does it substantially accurately reflect at least portions
of, in reasonable context, the interview you had with the newspaper reporter?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; to a surprising degree for a newspaper, on the basis
of my past experience in dealings with them.
Mr. JENNER. Is there anything in that article that you regard as
reasonably seriously erroneous?
Mr. THORNLEY. Not when I read it the last time.
Mr. JENNER. Insofar as it attributes anything to you?
Mr. THORNLEY. May I reread it?
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mr. THORNLEY. I would say this is accurate in everything it attributes
to me.
Mr. JENNER. All right. I offer Thornley Exhibit No. 1 in evidence.
Now, it appears from that article and from the testimony you have given
this morning that you were stimulated, or, as you have indicated you prepared at least a
first draft of a book or pamphlet or article respecting your experiences in the Marine
Corps, and one of the central characters of which, mythical or otherwise, was a friend,
Oswald.
Mr. THORNLEY. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. And when I spoke to you by telephone the other day I
inquired of you as to whether that was still in existence and you responded that it was.
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And you were kind enough to say you would bring it with
you.
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Have you done so?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
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Mr. JENNER. May I see it, please?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir; here is the draft completed in February of
1962.
Mr. JENNER. Yes; I am interested in seeing that in its condition as of
that time.
Mr. THORNLEY. Right. That is it. There is only one addition and there
is some blank paper on top. There is one addition, and that is the short preface written
yesterday to give some idea of how much was fact and how much was fiction.
Mr. JENNER. All right--the page numbered 2?
Mr. THORNLEY. There was a table of contents once and it took two pages.
Mr. JENNER. Which I might identify in addition thereto as having the
word "Preface," at its top and your name and the date May 17, 1964, Arlington,
Va., at the bottom. That is what you prepared yesterday, is that correct?
Mr. THORNLEY. Correct.
Mr. JENNER. All of the balance, therefore, commencing with the pages
numbered 3 and running through, I assume, consecutively?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. To page 250 is the article as it was when you completed it
in February 1962?
Mr. THORNLEY. Precisely.
Mr. JENNER. I would like the opportunity of reading through this and,
of course, 200-odd pages, we don't have the time to do it as of the moment, and the
Commission would like to have it among its records. May I have the material and I will
take it in the back room. We have a Xerox, and have it duplicated? This, I appreciate, is
your personal property and it is of value. It is not something that the Commission will
place in the hands of others who may make commercial use of it.
Mr. THORNLEY. I am quite sure that it will be perfectly safe.
Mr. JENNER. All right. It is in the same condition now, that is, pages
3 through 250, as those pages were when you completed this manuscript in February 1962?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; there might have been a couple of spelling errors
corrected since then or typographical errors but that is all.
Mr. JENNER. And that article of which we now speak and which for
purposes of identification I will mark as Thornley Exhibit No. 2, and I offer Thornley
Exhibit No. 2 in evidence.
(The document referred to was marked Thornley Exhibit No. 2 for
identification.)
Mr. JENNER. Subsequently thereto, I understand from my conversation
with you, you prepared a revision of that paper.
Mr. THORNLEY. I have been working on a revision.
Mr. JENNER. And you were kind enough to say you would bring that along
with you as well. Have you done so?
Mr. THORNLEY. I have been between this draft
Mr. JENNER. When you said "this draft" you are referring to
Thornley Exhibit No. 2?
Mr. THORNLEY. Exhibit No. 2, and the draft I am now giving you--several
illegible drafts were made. This represents not the latest draft, but the latest
typewritten draft. It represents a fragment of it.
The first third, almost the first third, minus a couple of pages of a
novelette based upon this Exhibit No. 2.
Mr. JENNER. For purposes of identification the witness has now handed
me a set of letter-sized pages numbered I through 37, consecutively. Are they consecutive?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. And I take it, as against the length of the other paper,
that these pages 1 through 37, represent an incomplete novel.
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. That is it covers only a portion of the areas and times
covered by Thornley Exhibit No. 2.
Mr. THORNLEY. This ones takes a completely different approach in that
this did not take a chronological approach to the development of the character based on
Oswald, but takes a flashback approach.
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Mr. JENNER. I see.
Mr. THORNLEY. Centering around an investigation of that character after
his defection to the Soviet Union.
Mr. JENNER. For further identification of the document which I will
mark Thornley Exhibit No. 3, page 1 is entitled "Chapter 1, Gung Ho."
Page 4 is entitled "Chapter 2, Fallen Comrade."
Page 7, in the center, is entitled "Chapter 3, Hush Hush."
Page 11 is entitled "Chapter 4, Blue Marines."
Page 14, in the upper portion, is entitled "Chapter 5, Peace
Gospel."
Page 21 is entitled, at the head, "Chapter 7, The Killer."
Page 24, near the center, is entitled "Chapter 8, Captain
Kidd."
Page 27, at the bottom, "Chapter 9, Mutiny."
Page 31, "Chapter 10, John Henry."
Page 34, "Chapter 11, The Storms."
And page 37, "Chapter 12, The Chicken."
(The document referred to was marked Thornley Exhibit No. 3 for
identification.)
Mr. THORNLEY. Now, this Exhibit No. 3 is a much greater fictionalized
approach toward, well, as far as reference goes to Oswald, the character upon--the
character which is based upon Oswald in Exhibit No. 2, Johnny Shellburn, Exhibit No. 3 is
much farther from life.
Mr. JENNER. Is Johnny Shellburn assimilated to Oswald?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; much more so in Exhibit No. 2, though, than in this
one.
Mr. JENNER. That is Exhibit No. 3.
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes; since I wrote Exhibit No. 2, I have learned to write
fiction rather than a thinly disguised biography.
Mr. JENNER. In other words, Exhibit No. 2 was primarily a biography?
Mr. THORNLEY. Not in the strict sense that it portrayed a man's life in
detail, but in the sense that any reference, most of the references, as is explained in
this preface toward the end of the book----
Mr. JENNER. When you say this preface, you mean the preface to Exhibit
No. 2?
Mr. THORNLEY. That is, Johnny Shellburn toward the end of the book,
well, from before the middle of the book on, extends more and more to reflect Oswald's
character, and I definitely was thinking about Lee Harvey Oswald when I wrote this book,
Exhibit No. 2, whereas----
Mr. JENNER. In your discussion refer to them by exhibit number.
Mr. THORNLEY. I will keep my hands below the table.
Mr. JENNER. You don't have to do that. Just use the exhibit numbers.
Mr. THORNLEY. Whereas in Exhibit No. 3, I have universalized it more,
tried to get away from giving any impression that I am making a chronology of the life and
times of Lee Harvey Oswald, which is something I thought would be relevant as far as the
Commission would be concerned in reading the material.
Mr. JENNER. Would you mark Exhibit No. 3 accordingly, Mr. Reporter?
I offer in evidence Thornley Exhibit No. 3. I take it, Mr. Thornley,
that you commenced the preparation of Exhibit No. 3 subsequently to the assassination of
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. And that Exhibit No. 3 reflects a course of events and
their imprint upon you that occurred on and after November 22, 1963.
Mr. THORNLEY. No, no; Exhibit No. 3 reflects the same course of events
reflected in Exhibit No. 2. As far as the telling of the story goes and the characters
therein it takes place back in 1959. It makes a definite attempt, however, to get away
from Oswald as a specific character and to discuss the problem of disillusionment in the
peacetime military or disillusionment with values on a much more universalized range than
Exhibit No. 2.
Mr. JENNER. All right. May I make a copy of Exhibit No. 3?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Under the same circumstances and upon the same conditions
as you granted your consent to make a copy of Exhibit No. 2?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir; Exhibit No. 3 also does include some things
on--that I have acquired through the news on Oswald since the assassination because
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Oswald tends to reflect the type of person I was talking about. So to put it, to make it
as clear as possible, right now I realize I am saying Exhibit No. 3 is more like Oswald
and less like Oswald, to put it as clearly as possible.
Mr. JENNER. You are going in two directions at once.
Mr. THORNLEY. Exhibit No. 2 is more like the Oswald I knew in MACS 9,
the Oswald of my experience, whereas Exhibit No. 3 is a universalized Oswaldian-type
character based upon not only my own experience but the news that has come to me about
Oswald, about other people like Oswald, other defectors, other assassins, and so on and so
forth, since November 22.
Mr. JENNER. All right. Now, Mr. Thornley, tell me something about Kerry
Thornley. You obviously, to me, are not a doorman.
Mr. THORNLEY. Oh, yes; I am a doorman.
Mr. JENNER. You are at the moment performing that service. But that
isn't your objective in life.
Mr. THORNLEY. My objective is to write books, novels primarily, as many
as I can in the years that are given to me, and possibly upon publication of one of them
to go back to school to further my ability to write.
Mr. JENNER. Are you taking any training in that respect or have you in
recent years?
Mr. THORNLEY. Well, not formally. I have devoted myself to a lot of
exercises in writing, and I have availed myself of the help of any experts I could grab
onto, including successful novelists and former newspaper reporters and so on and so
forth, to help me solve problems in my writing and improve it, but there is really, to my
mind, my outlook on writing a novel; for example, there is not much you can learn from a
formal course in writing. I think you can learn much more from, say, the study of
linguistics or semantics; if you, are going to learn anything from a university, for
example, on writing, and this I intend to do in due time.
Mr. JENNER. We occasionally have been off the record, not often, and I
have talked with you on the telephone. Is there anything that was said between us in the
course of our telephone conversations or in any off-the-record discussions that you think
is pertinent to the Commission's assignment of investigating the assassination of
President Kennedy that I have failed to bring onto the record?
Mr. THORNLEY. No, sir; I think we have very thoroughly covered it.
Mr. JENNER. Is there anything that occurs to you that you would like to
add that you think might be pertinent to our inquiry and of help to the Commission?
Mr. THORNLEY. No; there is certainly nothing else I can think of.
Mr. JENNER. Your deposition will be written up rather promptly. We
probably will have it tomorrow, and would you be good enough to call me, say--when do you
go on duty?
Mr. THORNLEY. At 5 o'clock.
Mr. JENNER. Call me in the forenoon--I mean right after lunch--and if
it is convenient will you come in and read over your deposition and sign it?
Mr. THORNLEY. All right. May I just, to make absolutely sure, may I
take down your phone number once more?
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