Mr. LIEBELER. You didn't go through any of these magazines that Oswald
had looked at after the assassination and prior to the time that the
FBI and the Secret Service had removed them from your office, is that
correct?
Mr. ALBA. None other than my most current issues that I had recently
received in the mail, such as the National Rifle magazine or "Guns and
Ammo" edition----
Mr. LIEBELER. Those magazines wouldn't have been at Lee Oswald's
disposal because they would have come in after the time he had been
there?
Mr. ALBA. That is correct.
Mr. LIEBELER. Can you tell whether or not the magazines that Oswald
read, or borrowed and read and returned, were still there in the garage
at the time of the assassination, or at the time the FBI came and took
the magazines from you?
Mr. ALBA. Lee Oswald borrowed the magazines and requested permission to
take one or two off at a time, and kept them anywhere from 3 days to a
week, and would make the point of letting me know that he was returning
them. And then a few days later he would ask that he borrow another
magazine or two magazines. I would say that there were anywhere from
three to five definite occasions I do remember of Lee Oswald asking to
take this and that magazine and letting me know that he returned the
magazines.
Mr. LIEBELER. So as far as you know there was nobody else that would
have removed them from your office, and they would have stayed there
after Oswald brought them back?
Mr. ALBA. Some of them do disappear from time to time.
Mr. LIEBELER. And you have no way of knowing whether all the ones
that Oswald looked at were in your office when the FBI and the Secret
Service came and picked them up?
Mr. ALBA. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. When was the last time you saw Oswald?
Mr. ALBA. The last time I saw Lee Oswald was when he told me that he
was leaving for Michoud. He had put in an application at Michoud, where
he was going to make the big money, in this town here. He mentioned
that prior or about 3 weeks prior to leaving.
When he did leave, he came in the office and he says, "Well--" this
was approximately 10 o'clock in the morning, he said, "Well, I will be
seeing you." I said, "Where are you headed?" He said, "Out there, where
the gold is." I said, "Where is that?" He said, "I told you I was going
out to Michoud, and that I had an application out there." He said,
"Well, I have heard from them, and I have just wound up things next
door at the coffee company, and I am on my way out there now." That
again, was approximately--I may stand to be corrected on my timing--but
that was approximately some weeks before the assassination.
Mr. LIEBELER. What is this "Michoud" that he mentioned to you? How do
you spell it?
Mr. ALBA. That's the national air space program, the rockets, out in
Gentilly. That's NASA.
Mr. LIEBELER. What kind of an operation do they have there? Is it a
manufacturing operation?
Mr. ALBA. It is the rocket, the Atlas rocket, I believe.
Mr. LIEBELER. They construct them there, is that correct?
Mr. ALBA. That is correct.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he tell you what kind of work he was going to do for
the organization?
Mr. ALBA. No; he didn't.
Mr. LIEBELER. You mentioned "Michoud," and is that the name of a city
here?
Mr. ALBA. Michoud, that's this particular section of Gentilly, Gentilly
section, where the plant is located.
Mr. LIEBELER. Is that part of New Orleans proper?
Mr. ALBA. It is part of New Orleans, part of Orleans Parish.
Mr. LIEBELER. Part of New Orleans itself?
Mr. ALBA. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did Oswald tell you what kind of work he was doing for
Reily Co.?
Mr. ALBA. I don't think he ever did, but it was--it was obvious that he
was in the electrical end of the maintenance end of the factory at W.
B. Reily Coffee.
Mr. LIEBELER. What did he say? Or why do you say it was obvious?
Mr. ALBA. He was just like the others there in the maintenance and
the electrical end, and they would wear the electrician's belt with a
bandoleer, screwdriver, pliers, and friction tape, et cetera.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he wear that?
Mr. ALBA. Yes, he did.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever discuss this fellow Oswald with anybody at
the Reily Co.?
Mr. ALBA. Not prior to the assassination, no.
Mr. LIEBELER. Have you discussed it with people at the Reily Co. after
the assassination?
Mr. ALBA. Yes, I have. People were coming up to me at that time and
asking me about what had happened to my friend Lee Oswald that used to
hang around the office all the time, as an opening to discuss what had
taken place in Dallas.
Mr. LIEBELER. Can you remember the name of the people at the coffee
company that you discussed Oswald with?
Mr. ALBA. The people in general that would come in the office during
the day, as Lee Oswald himself would do.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did the people that did come in that way indicate they
also had known Oswald while he worked at the coffee company?
Mr. ALBA. I hadn't realized anyone that knew Lee Oswald, or that that
was the man who worked with them prior to the assassination, but after
the assassination, which might be expected, it seems that anyone you
would talk to knew who he was and had seen him, and so forth.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember any particular people who did, in fact,
seem to know him, or that you think did know him that you talked to
about him?
Mr. ALBA. None in particular, no.
Mr. LIEBELER. What was the general substance of these conversations?
Mr. ALBA. Half kidding and half general conversations about, "Isn't it
something, what happened?" And that it happened to be someone that was
right here at work "With us at Reily, and that you knew from over here,
next door."
Several people, employees at Reily, would tell me that employees at
Reily had told them after the assassination, of course, that Lee Oswald
spent as much time "Over at Alba's Garage as he did over here in the
plant."
Mr. LIEBELER. Did that seem to be the case to you prior to the
assassination?
Mr. ALBA. Yes and no; if that is any kind of an answer. Lee Oswald was
sent for and called from the office on several occasions. Lee Oswald
would come to the office, put a nickel in the coke machine and start
paging through magazines and just lost track of time. Lee Oswald was
not talkative unless he was more or less pursuing the conversation
himself. In fact, if that makes any sense to you----
Mr. LIEBELER. So it seems to you then that he spent more time in your
place than he should have been spending, is that correct?
Mr. ALBA. That is correct, but certainly not more time at my place
than at Reily Coffee, as some might have tried to indicate to me in a
conversation. But I am sure that it was intended only as a phrase of
kidding.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever hear of complaints from the coffee company
that Oswald wasn't on the job over there?
Mr. ALBA. None other than from the men themselves that were working
with Lee Oswald.
Mr. LIEBELER. You heard these complaints after the assassination, is
that correct, didn't you?
Mr. ALBA. That is correct.
Mr. LIEBELER. You said that he was called from your garage to go back
to the coffee company from time to time?
Mr. ALBA. There were anywhere from two to four different occasions that
I can remember that someone would come in there and tell him, "Now,
Lee Oswald, they are looking for you over there. If you keep this up,
you are going to get canned." And Oswald would say, "I'm coming. I'm
coming."
Mr. LIEBELER. And then he would go back to the coffee company?
Mr. ALBA. He would.
Mr. LIEBELER. How did this fellow impress you?
Mr. ALBA. He certainly didn't impress me as anyone capable or anyone
burdened with a charge of assassinating the President of the United
States, let alone any individual, for that matter. Our conversations
were purely the gun magazines, the firearms themselves, and little of
anything else. Lee Oswald wasn't very talkative, not to be repeating
myself, unless, of course, he was pretty much leading the conversation
or doing the talking himself, on the same conversation level all the
time--about the firearms.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he strike you as being peculiar in any way?
Mr. ALBA. Yes; he did. He was quiet.
Mr. LIEBELER. He was quiet?
Mr. ALBA. He was quiet. You could ask Lee Oswald two or three
questions, and if Lee Oswald wasn't apparently interested in the course
of the conversation, he would just remain paging through the book and
look up and say, "Did you say something to me?" I hesitate putting the
conversation back to Lee Oswald pursuing it first, but all you had to
do was mention guns and gun magazines and Lee Oswald was very free with
the conversation.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he seem to have an interest in firearms that was
abnormal or extremely great, or anything like that?
Mr. ALBA. None.
Mr. LIEBELER. Other than the fact that he was quiet, was there anything
about him that struck you as being odd or peculiar?
Mr. ALBA. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. You didn't suspect he was a violent kind of person, or
anything like that, the time that you knew him, did you?
Mr. ALBA. I would answer that indeed not. I had never gotten the
impression from Lee Oswald that he was capable of any plot or
assassination, or what have you, of that nature.
Mr. LIEBELER. And were you surprised when you heard he had been
arrested in connection with the assassination?
Mr. ALBA. I was very much surprised.
Mr. LIEBELER. After you heard he had been charged with the
assassination, did it seem to you then that he could have been capable
of such a thing? Or did you hold to your former opinion?
Mr. ALBA. I think I held to my former opinion. Things I have seen on
television, of course, and read in the newspapers, and so forth, has
laid out some suggestive pattern that Lee Oswald was a subversive, et
cetera, toward the country, and maybe even the President, or something;
but prior to that assassination he gave me no indication at anytime
that he was burdened with such a charge, or that he was concerned or
involved with anything of that nature. He had never at anytime spoken
against the President or the country. He had never at anytime, prior to
the assassination, of course, mentioned communism to me, or anything
suggestive or leading to it, or otherwise.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember whether he mentioned the President at
all, one way or another?
Mr. ALBA. I think I might answer that with a definite answer--I can't
remember anytime that Lee Oswald had ever mentioned the President, the
country, foreign countries, et cetera.
Mr. LIEBELER. Is it customary, or the usual sort of thing for people in
this area to discuss politics, or discuss the President? People that
come into your garage or----
Mr. ALBA. Well, the usual trend of conversation in the garage, other
than the garage business or the personal customers' cars or neighbors
that walk in the garage that want change for the coke machine, et
cetera, would be either politics--I would say mostly politics more than
anything else.
Mr. LIEBELER. What was the attitude of most of the men toward President
Kennedy? Was he well liked down here, or was he not highly thought of?
Mr. ALBA. He was very highly thought of for his convictions, for his
stand on his convictions, but he wasn't too well thought of for his
stand on the integration program to the South.
Mr. LIEBELER. Was it common for the people to complain about that sort
of thing?
Mr. ALBA. That is correct.
Mr. LIEBELER. And you never heard Oswald discuss that?
Mr. ALBA. Not once.
Mr. LIEBELER. Was he ever present when the subject was discussed by
others, as far as you can recall?
Mr. ALBA. I really wouldn't know, or be able to comment whether he was
or not. It's very possible that he was, and maybe on several occasions,
but not to my recollection.
Mr. LIEBELER. He never responded in any way?
Mr. ALBA. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. I am going to show you some pictures that have been
marked in other proceedings, five different pictures marked "Commission
Exhibits 451, and 453 through 456," and ask you if you recognize the
person or persons depicted in these pictures?
(Photographs shown to the witness.)
Mr. ALBA. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. I show you another picture marked "Pizzo Exhibit 453-A,"
and ask you if you recognize any of the people on that picture?