Mr. STUCKEY. He seemed to be very conscious about all of his words, all
of his movements, sort of very deliberate. He was very deliberate with
his words, and struck me as being rather articulate. He was the type of
person you would say would inspire confidence. This was the incongruity
that struck me, the fact that this type of person should be with this
organization. That is the gist of the first meeting.
I asked him to meet me at the radio station that afternoon about 5
o'clock for the interview, and he agreed.
Mr. JENNER. This was to be an interview preliminary to a broadcast?
Mr. STUCKEY. Well, this was to be a recorded interview prior to the
broadcast.
Mr. JENNER. Why would you do that?
Mr. STUCKEY. To avoid the possibility of errors. It is a risky business
going on live. You know, you never know when you are going to slip up
and, particularly, with somebody as controversial as a representative
of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee you want to know what you have in
hand before you put it on.
During that day I thought quite a bit about Oswald before he arrived
at the station for the interview, and I was interested in his
articulateness and in discussing this organization, so I had decided
during the day that instead of just interviewing him for 5 minutes,
which was the length of my program, that I would just let him talk as
long as he wanted to.
Mr. JENNER. In the private interview with you?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes; but record it.
Mr. JENNER. Yes; of course.
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes. And then I thought after doing that I could take some
excerpts out for a 5-minute program, and then ask the management at the
station if they would be interested in running the whole thing in toto
as a demonstration of the line of this organization. So this was the
decision I made before the broadcast.
I drew up a lengthy list of questions, and then I met him that
afternoon about 5 o'clock at the studios of WDSU, 520 Royal Street, New
Orleans.
Mr. JENNER. That is in the French Quarter, is it not?
Mr. STUCKEY. In the French Quarter. He was dressed exactly as he is
shown in this picture.
Mr. JENNER. Garner Exhibit No. 1.
Mr. STUCKEY. Which is Exhibit No. 1, short-sleeved dress shirt with
a tie, a black looseleaf notebook under his arm. There were no
preliminary remarks particularly. We just went immediately into the
studio. It was at this point that he gave me this pamphlet.
Mr. JENNER. Stuckey Exhibit No. 1.
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Is that correct?
Mr. STUCKEY. That is correct. And we were seated--this conversation
was witnessed or listened to by an engineer in WDSU by the name of Al
Campin.
Mr. JENNER. Was that prearranged?
Mr. STUCKEY. Well, you have to have an engineer to record it.
Mr. JENNER. I see.
Mr. STUCKEY. He just happened to be there operating the equipment, but
he was, I mean he was, there, as a witness, and was greatly interested
in it, because like me he hadn't run across too many of these birds,
and we were curious to see how they thought and why.
So at that time then we began a long rambling recorded interview which
lasted 37 minutes, covered a wide range of subjects.
Naturally, a lot of the subjects had to do with Cuba. We discussed the
problem of the refugees leaving Cuba, we discussed as to whether or not
Castro was an independent ruler of an independent nation or whether he
was merely the head of a colony which was the line that I took.
Mr. JENNER. Head of a colony?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes; a Russian colony, Cuba. This was the line that I took
in this questioning.
We discussed the economic situation in Cuba, as to what had happened
to the economy since Castro took over. We discussed a few abstracts. I
asked him the definition of "democracy," which was interesting to me.
Mr. JENNER. Do you have a transcript of that interview?
Mr. STUCKEY. I do.
Mr. JENNER. Have you brought one with you?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. May I have it, please?
Mr. STUCKEY. Incidentally, I have a letter here that you may or may
not be interested in. Father Clancy is the chairman of the political
science department at Loyola University in New Orleans. I sent him this
transcript as a Catholic and as a political science man just to see
what his opinion was, and he went much stronger than I ever did after
reading that, but the last paragraph, I thought, was interesting, and I
thought you might be interested in reading the letter.
Mr. JENNER. The witness has furnished me a 13-page document on
light-weight, green-tinted paper. The first page is entitled
"Transcript of Taped Interview Between William K. Stuckey and Lee
Harvey Oswald, August 17, 1963," and the last page of which, the last
three lines of which, read:
"STUCKEY: Tonight we have been talking with Lee H. Oswald, secretary of
The Fair Play for Cuba Committee, New Orleans," et cetera. "(Standard
close.)"
I wonder if you would be good enough, Mr. Stuckey, to initial each of
these 13 pages. We will mark this as Stuckey Exhibit No. 2. I suggest
you put your initials at the bottom.
(The document was marked Stuckey Exhibit No. 2 for identification.)
Mr. JENNER. The witness has now placed his initials at the foot of each
of the 13 pages of the transcript.
When and how was this document prepared, Stuckey Exhibit No. 2?
Mr. STUCKEY. I typed it.
Mr. JENNER. You typed it as you were listening to your tape?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. You have also brought with you the actual original tape of
this interview?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. That is the radio tape?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And this 13-page document is a literal transcription or
translation of that tape?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes; there are some errors, but they are very, very small
errors, largely typographical errors.
Mr. JENNER. Prepared by you?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Would you look at the 13-page document, and if there are
any errors other than obvious typographical errors which you would like
to draw to our attention, I wish you would do it. You were going to
look through it and see if there were----
Mr. STUCKEY. I can tell you in advance there are no errors in fact,
and no deletions, with the exception of this last paragraph which I
abbreviated by saying "standard close." All that was, was I would have
been talking with Lee Harvey Oswald--"This is Bill Stuckey, Latin
Listening Post. Good night"--that is all that was, no facts at all.
Mr. JENNER. The words ("standard close") appearing on the last line of
page 13 is a shorthand way of your designating your customary signoff?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes; correct.
Mr. JENNER. All right. I offer in evidence Stuckey Exhibit No. 2.
Mr. STUCKEY. I was going to refer to this definition of "democracy"
that he gave.
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mr. STUCKEY. Are you interested in it?
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mr. STUCKEY. This is interesting to me for a number of reasons, not
just the meaning but how adept this fellow was at taking a question,
any question, and distorting it for his own purposes, saying what
he wanted to say while making you think that he was answering your
question. He was expert in dialectics.
"STUCKEY: What's your definition of democracy?"
Mr. JENNER. You are reading from Stuckey Exhibit No. 2 now?
Mr. STUCKEY. Correct.
"OSWALD: My definition--well, the definition of democracy--that's a
very good one. That's a very controversial viewpoint. You know, it used
to be very clear, but now it is not. You know, when our forefathers
drew up the Constitution they considered that democracy was creating an
atmosphere of freedom of discussion, of argument, of finding the truth;
these rights, well, the classic rights of having life, liberty, and
pursuit of happiness. In Latin America they have none of those rights,
none of them at all, and that is my definition of democracy, the right
to be in a minority and not to be suppressed; the right to see for
yourself without government restrictions such countries as Cuba, and we
are restricted from going to Cuba."
The question was, "What is your definition of democracy?", and we
discussed the passport ban as part of the definition.
Mr. JENNER. In other words, he did not respond to your question?
Mr. STUCKEY. No; except obliquely to make the point.
Mr. JENNER. Did you find that he did that--it will appear, of course,
in that transcript----
Mr. STUCKEY. Constantly throughout the interview.
Mr. JENNER. In your discussions with him he parried your questions by
not answering them.
Mr. STUCKEY. He would--his general attack would be "I am glad you
asked that question, it is very good," and then he would proceed to
talk about what he wanted to talk about, and completely ignore your
questions on occasions. So there were at least half a dozen examples of
that.
Mr. JENNER. In the transcript which you have furnished?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Did you supply a copy of that transcript to anyone else
prior to your bringing Stuckey Exhibit No. 2 today?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes; I did.
Mr. JENNER. To whom?
Mr. STUCKEY. To the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Mr. JENNER. When you were interviewed by the FBI you supplied the FBI
with a transcript?
Mr. STUCKEY. No; as a matter of fact I gave the tape to the FBI the
Monday following the interview, which would have been August 20, 1963.
I told them I thought it was very interesting, and if they would like
to have a transcript they could copy it, which they did. They made a
copy and then they gave me a copy of their transcript, and returned the
tape to me.
Mr. JENNER. But Stuckey Exhibit No. 2 is the one that you prepared?
Mr. STUCKEY. Correct.
Mr. JENNER. And not one that the FBI prepared.
Mr. STUCKEY. Correct.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
This was on Saturday afternoon. Were you scheduled to go on the air
that evening?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes; my broadcast time is 7:30. I met him about 5, about
two and a half hours in advance.
Mr. JENNER. Had you contemplated that the broadcast that evening would
be a discourse only between you and Lee Harvey Oswald?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Is that the way it developed?
Mr. STUCKEY. That is the way it developed.
Mr. JENNER. What was the nature of that broadcast? I should say to you
we have from--what is the radio station?
Mr. STUCKEY. WDSU.
Mr. JENNER. From WDSU we have obtained a copy of that tape.
Mr. STUCKEY. Now, you mean of this tape?
Mr. JENNER. No.
Mr. STUCKEY. Because I don't think they have a copy of that tape.
Mr. JENNER. No; the broadcast that evening I am talking about.
Mr. STUCKEY. Is that right? They located it?
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mr. STUCKEY. Because I tried to find a copy of that mainly to take it
off the market and never did locate it. I couldn't find it. This must
be a recent development.
Mr. JENNER. Yes; but despite that would you tell us about that
broadcast?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes.
As I said, this was a 37-minute, rambling interview between Oswald and
myself, and following the interview, first we played it back to hear
it. He was satisfied.
Mr. JENNER. That is, you played back the tape of which Exhibit No. 2 is
a transcript?
Mr. STUCKEY. Correct; Oswald was satisfied. I think he thought he had
scored quite a coup.
Then I went back over it in his presence and with the engineer's help
excerpted a couple of the remarks by Oswald in this. I forget now
what the excerpts were. It has been so long ago. I think we had his
definition of democracy because that, in particular, struck me, and we
had a couple of his comments in which he said Castro was a free and
independent leader of a free and independent state, and the rest of it,
as I recall, was largely my summarizing of the other principal points
of the 37-minute interview, and it was broadcast on schedule that night.
Mr. JENNER. You had watered it down in length to how many minutes?
Mr. STUCKEY. Five minutes.
Mr. JENNER. Five minutes?
Mr. STUCKEY. Actually 4-1/2.
Mr. JENNER. So you took the portions of your 37-minute interview,
which we now have a transcript of, which is Exhibit No. 2, and boiled
that down to 4-1/2 minutes?
Mr. STUCKEY. Correct.
Mr. JENNER. And that was a radio broadcast?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. That evening. All right. Was that your last contact with
Mr. Oswald?
Mr. STUCKEY. No; it was not.
Mr. JENNER. Following the broadcast did you have any further
conversation with him, that evening?
Mr. STUCKEY. That evening; no. The only thing that did transpire was
I told him that I was going to talk to the news director to see if
the news director was interested in running the entire 37-minute tape
later, and I told him to get in touch with me, Oswald to get in touch
with me Monday, and I would let him know what the news director said,
and that was all the conversation we had that night, and he went his
way.
I did just that the next Monday, I called the news director and
asked him if he had heard the tape, and he said no. I asked him if
he was interested in running it. I told him I thought it was pretty
interesting, and he said, for some reason, he thought that it would be
more spectacular a little bit--there would be more public interest if
we did not run this tape at all, but instead arrange a second program,
a debate panel show, with some local anti-Communists on there to refute
some of his arguments, which I did. Which I did--I arranged a debate
show for a regular radio feature that WDSU has called "Conversation
Carte Blanche." This is a 25-minute public affairs program that runs
daily. It is almost always interviews of people in the news locally or
this sort of thing.
I was in charge of arranging the panel, so I picked Mr. Edward S.
Butler.
Mr. JENNER. Tell us who he is.
Mr. STUCKEY. He is the Executive Director of the Information Council of
the Americas in New Orleans.
Mr. JENNER. What is that organization?
Mr. STUCKEY. It is an anti-Communist propaganda organization. Their
principal activity is to take tape-recorded interviews with Cuban
refugees or refugees from Iron Curtain countries, and distribute these
tapes which are naturally, it goes without saying, these tapes are
very strongly anti-Communist, and they distribute these tapes to radio
stations throughout Latin America. As I recall, they came to have over
100 stations using these tapes regularly.
Well, Mr. Butler is a friend of mine. I knew him as a columnist, and it
just seemed like----
Mr. JENNER. He was an articulate and knowledgeable man in this area to
which he directs his attention?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes; so I asked him to be one of the panelists on the
show, which he accepted, and, incidentally, I let him hear the
37-minute tape in advance; and for the other panelist I asked Mr.
Bringuier, Mr. Carlos Bringuier, that we mentioned earlier, as being
the man who led me to Oswald--I asked him to appear on the show to give
it a little Cuban flavor.
And then Oswald called me after it was arranged, and I told him we were
going to arrange the show and would he be interested, and he said,
yes, indeed, and then he said, "How many of you am I going to have to
fight?" That was his version of saying how many are on the panel.
Mr. JENNER. He said this to you?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes; in a jocular way.
Mr. JENNER. Where did this take place, on the telephone?
Mr. STUCKEY. On the telephone; yes.
This was Monday or Tuesday, the 19th or the 20th of August, whenever it
was that I had informed him of the show.
Mr. JENNER. Had he called you?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes; I gave him my office number so he called me at a
prearranged time. He was very punctual, very punctual. He was always
there on time, all those calls came on time. So I informed him about
this debate show and he agreed. He said he thought that would be
interesting.
Then the next time I see him is on the afternoon of August 21,
Wednesday. I believe this was about 5:30.
Mr. JENNER. Was this to be a preliminary session also?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes--well, no; this was to be a live program. The
Conversation Carte Blanche panel show is not to be prerecorded as the
other one was.
Mr. JENNER. I appreciate that, but I was just talking about your
meeting with him on Wednesday afternoon, the 21st, at 5:30. The program
went on at what time?
Mr. STUCKEY. At 6:05.
Mr. JENNER. I see. It was not long before the program.
Mr. STUCKEY. No.
Mr. JENNER. It was not a preliminary interview such as you had had,
which is transcribed as Stuckey Exhibit No. 2?
Mr. STUCKEY. No; there were some comments of which I will tell you
later.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Mr. STUCKEY. I would like to add this, this is very interesting,
and gave a little bit of spice to this encounter. During that day,
Wednesday, August 21, one of my news sources called me up and said, "I
hear you are going to have Oswald on Carte Blanche." I said, "Yes, that
is right." He said, "We have some information about Mr. Oswald, the
fact that he lived in Russia for 3 years."
He had omitted reference to this in the 37-minute previous interview,
and in all of our conversations.
Mr. JENNER. He had never mentioned that subject prior to that?
Mr. STUCKEY. As a matter of fact, he gives an account of his background
in here.
Mr. JENNER. In Stuckey Exhibit No. 2?
Mr. STUCKEY. Right; in which he completely omits this. Would you like
me to read it?
Mr. JENNER. Yes; you have turned to a particular page?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes; I will be reading from this. Here is my question.
"STUCKEY:"----
Mr. JENNER. Maybe we can identify the page.
Mr. STUCKEY. This will be page 11.
Mr. JENNER. Page 11 of Stuckey Exhibit No. 2.
Mr. STUCKEY. My question was:
"Mr. Oswald, I am curious about your personal background. If you could
tell something about where you came from, your education and your
career to date, it would be interesting.
"OSWALD:"--this is his reply--"I would be very happy to. I was born in
New Orleans in 1939. For a short length of time during my childhood
I lived in Texas and New York. During my junior high school days I
attended Beauregard Junior High School. I attended that school for 2
years. Then I went to Warren Eastern High School, and I attended that
school for over a year. Then my family and I moved to Texas where we
have many relatives, and I continued my schooling there. I entered
the United States Marine Corps in 1956. I spent 3 years in the United
States Marine Corps working my way up through the ranks to the position
of buck sergeant, and I served honorably having been discharged. Then
I went back to work in Texas and have recently arrived in New Orleans
with my family, with my wife and my child."
There is his answer. He omits the 3 years in Russia by saying that,
referring to the fact that, after leaving the Marine Corps he says he
went to Texas and then to New Orleans. You will note in there he lied
about his rank he achieved in the Marine Corps. Why, I don't know. As
far as I know he was just a Pfc.
Mr. JENNER. He never rose any higher.
Mr. STUCKEY. And, as I recall, he did not go to Warren Eastern High
School over a year.
Mr. JENNER. You have become aware he attended Beauregard only 1 year
rather than 2?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. That he attended Warren Eastern about 6 weeks or 2 months.
Mr. STUCKEY. That was my impression. I mention this because with this
in mind, this is why it was so interesting to me to find out on that
day, August 21, that he had lied to me, that he had, in fact, lived in
Russia for 3 years, and had just recently returned, and this individual
who called me and gave me this information gave me dates of Washington
newspaper clippings that I could check, which were stories about his
leaving for Russia, or rather his appearance in Moscow in 1959.
Mr. JENNER. Now, this information came to you between the time of your
interview transcribed as Stuckey Exhibit No. 2 and the 21st of August
when you were about to put on your debate program, the discussion
program?
Mr. STUCKEY. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. Did this come to you sufficiently in advance to enable you
to do some checking vis-a-vis newspaper or articles?
Mr. STUCKEY. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And was he unaware when he came in at 5:30 on the afternoon
of Wednesday that you had done this, had received this information and
had done some research?
Mr. STUCKEY. He was unaware of that fact. During that day Mr. Butler
called, after I had already been tipped off about his Russian
residence, Mr. Butler called and said he too had found out the same
thing, I think later; his source apparently was the House Un-American
Activities Committee or something like that.
At any rate, we thought this was very interesting and we agreed
together to produce this information on the program that night.
Mr. JENNER. You were going to face him on the program with this?
Mr. STUCKEY. Unawareness.
Mr. JENNER. You thought it might be a bombshell and be unaware to him.
Mr. STUCKEY. Exactly.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Mr. STUCKEY. And we decided it would be me who would do it as the
introducing participant.
So at about 5:30 that afternoon I arrived at the studio alone. Oswald
appeared, and in a very heavy gray flannel suit, and this is August
in New Orleans, it is extremely hot, that he appears in a very heavy
gray flannel suit, very bulky, badly cut suit, and looking very hot
and uncomfortable. He had a blue shirt on and a dark tie, and a black
looseleaf notebook.
Mr. JENNER. The same one he had had before?
Mr. STUCKEY. As far as I know. We shook hands, passed a few
pleasantries, nothing much of importance.
Mr. JENNER. Were the others present?
Mr. STUCKEY. No; they arrived a little bit later. Oswald was there
first, as usual on time, and then Mr. Butler came in with Mr.
Bringuier. Both looked as if they had pounds and pounds of literature
with them, and statistics.
Mr. JENNER. Did Bringuier and Oswald recognize each other?
Mr. STUCKEY. Oh, yes.
Mr. JENNER. And it was apparent to you they were acquainted?
Mr. STUCKEY. Oh, yes; indeed.
Mr. JENNER. And that Oswald was acquainted with Bringuier and vice
versa?
Mr. STUCKEY. Right.
Mr. JENNER. Had Oswald met Mr. Butler before?
Mr. STUCKEY. I don't know if he had or not. It was my impression that
he had not, but I think he knew who he was. Oswald asked me something
about the organization, and I told him, I said, "Well, it is just like
your organization; it is a propaganda outfit, just on the other side of
the fence," and that satisfied his curiosity.
I think he immediately kissed it off as a hopeless rightist
organization, "You can't reason with those people," that approach.
So it was a somewhat touchy exchange there between Bringuier and Oswald
in the studio. Bringuier, as well as I recall, started out with a
remark like this, saying, "You know, I thought you were a very nice
boy. You really made a good impression on me when I first met you."
Referring to Oswald's visit to Bringuier in the store when Oswald was
posing as an anti-Castro enthusiast, and Bringuier said, "I cannot
understand how you have let yourself become entangled with this group."