Mr. LIEBELER. As I understand it now, there were this marine, Lee
Oswald, and Carlos, and Vance Blalock and yourself. Is that right?
Mr. GERACI. Yes, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER. Was there anybody else there?
Mr. GERACI. Well, while we were talking, this man came up. He was in
a big truck, some big truck. I never looked at it closely. He came up
and stopped, and the man rushed in, and he was wearing--well, he was
wearing one of these--like a cap like you see them wearing over in
England. I don't know what kind it is, but anyway it is the kind that
truckdrivers wear, I guess, and he looked kind of Spanish. Maybe he
was a Cuban exile. He was kind of fat, and he came in and showed Carlos
this broken radio that he had, so Carlos left and he started fixing the
radio and left us to talk to ourselves, Lee and me and my friend. Well,
he is the only other person I know that came in. I don't know if he
knew what was going on.
Mr. LIEBELER. Now tell us the conversation that you and Lee and Vance
and Carlos had, the best you can recall it.
Mr. GERACI. Well, Carlos and me and Vance were kind of talking among
ourselves, and he came in and said, "Excuse me," and, you know, he
acted a little nervous and things like that. He asked, "Is this the
Cuban headquarters, Cuban exile headquarters?" And, "Are you a Cuban
exile?" You know, the way I acted when I first went in there. Just
asked him a few questions, was he a Cuban exile, and Carlos said yes.
He asked him some questions like was he connected with the Cosa Nostra,
La Cosi Nostra.
Mr. LIEBELER. Who asked that?
Mr. GERACI. Oswald; he asked that.
Mr. LIEBELER. Of Carlos?
Mr. GERACI. Yes; and Carlos said no, he wasn't. Oswald then asked where
was his headquarters--in Miami? And Carlos said yes; and he said--let's
see--and then Oswald asked, said something like, "It is kind of
exciting meeting someone"--I don't know if he said exciting--but he
expressed something like that. He said, you know, he expressed wonder
or something like that at meeting somebody who was a real Cuban exile,
you know, someone who is really trying to do something to help free
Cuba and all that. He didn't really say much. In the papers they said
he tried to join and all that. That must have been later, because this
was----
Mr. LIEBELER. He didn't do that when you were there?
Mr. GERACI. No. This was his first visit. As far as I can make out, it
must have been, and he asked a few questions like that. Carlos just
answered real simply and all that, he didn't go into any big speeches,
you know, with them, like he did for me and Vance, just answered his
questions simply. Then when the man came in with the broken radio,
Carlos left, and that left Oswald, me, and Vance by ourselves.
Then, well, we asked--you know, we were a little interested in
guerrilla warfare ourselves and things like that, and he said, well,
he was an ex-marine, said he was in the Marines once. He said he
learned a little bit about that stuff, and he said a few things about
guerrilla warfare I remember, like he said the way to derail a train
was to wrap chain around the ties of the track and then lock it with
a padlock and the train would derail. He said the thing he liked best
of all was learning how to blow up the Huey P. Long Bridge. He said
you put explosive at each end on the banks and blow it up, and that
leaves the one column standing. And he said how to make a homemade
gun and how to make gunpowder, homemade gunpowder. He just went into
those real simply. He didn't really, you know, tell us how to do it or
anything, just said like if you want to make a homemade gun, you know,
do something like--you know, the thing you pull back [demonstrating]
and it goes forward, like on one of the pinball machines. He just said
something like that. He didn't really go into detail or anything. We
didn't ask him. And by this time Carlos came back from the other guy,
and came back, and he was listening, and, well, that is about all.
Oh, there was one important thing. Oswald said something like that he
had a military manual from when he was in the Marines, and he said he
would give it to me, and I said, "That is all right. You don't have
to. You can give it to Carlos." He said, "Well, OK, he will give it to
Carlos next time he comes."
And after that--well, everybody left. That is as far as I can make out.