Mr. DELGADO. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. With Oswald during the time that you were stationed at
Santa Ana?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. You mentioned before in your testimony that you had been
interviewed prior to this time?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. By whom?
Mr. DELGADO. FBI agents.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember their names?
Mr. DELGADO. No; I don't.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember approximately when they talked to you?
Mr. DELGADO. They talked to me about five times.
Mr. LIEBELER. About five times?
Mr. DELGADO. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. Could it have been three times?
Mr. DELGADO. One is at home, twice in the battery--no, four times,
because they visited me once at home, twice at the battery, the same
fellow; then he brought another man in. Yes; four times. Two different
fellows. And one time one was a Spanish--I don't know, I guess he was a
Spanish interpreter.
Mr. LIEBELER. He spoke Spanish?
Mr. DELGADO. He spoke Castilian Spanish.
Mr. LIEBELER. Castilian Spanish?
Mr. DELGADO. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. That is a different kind of Spanish from the kind you
speak?
Mr. DELGADO. All right. He could go out here in New York City and go
down in Spanish Harlem and he would be lost. I mean it would be all
right if 90 percent of the Spanish people down there were college
graduates, they could understand him. They don't speak that type
of Spanish there, nor do they speak it in a lot of other Spanish
countries. It's like speaking the English as spoken in England, you
know. You can't expect a man from Georgia to try and understand a man
from England the way he speaks pure English.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you have difficulty in understanding this agent when
he spoke to you in Spanish?
Mr. DELGADO. No. See, I took it in high school. But he had difficulty
in interpreting my Spanish.
Mr. LIEBELER. So you think he was likely to have gotten the opinion
that you weren't very proficient in Spanish?
Mr. DELGADO. Right. But I would be willing to challenge him if he and I
go down to Spanish Harlem and see who gets across faster.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you form an impression of these FBI agents when they
talked to you? Were they----
Mr. DELGADO. The one fellow, the older one, white-haired fellow, he
was a nice guy. And the two other ones, I never seen them before, two
different fellows.
Mr. LIEBELER. How many agents talked to you altogether?
Mr. DELGADO. I don't know if this Spanish guy was an agent or not.
He never introduced himself. But there was this white-haired fellow,
and then two different men; three men altogether, not including this
Spanish guy.
Mr. LIEBELER. So there would have been four men altogether?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. You are quite sure about that?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Can you tell me approximately when these people talked to
you?
Mr. DELGADO. The first time I came in contact was, let's see, about
January was the first time I was contacted by the white-haired fellow.
Mr. LIEBELER. Was he the fellow who spoke Spanish?
Mr. DELGADO. No; he was the man from the Red Bank office, I believe
he said he was, Red Bank, N.J. And then 2 weeks later he came to the
battery to see me, about a month later he came back with this Spanish
fellow, and about another month these other two fellows came in. They
were all FBI agents though. They showed me their book.
Mr. LIEBELER. The first time that the white-haired agent talked to you
was when?
Mr. DELGADO. About January, about a month or a month and a half after
Kennedy's assassination.
Mr. LIEBELER. Could it have been in the middle of December?
Mr. DELGADO. No; I don't think it was that close. Let's see, November
22--I think it was more to the last part of December, not to the middle.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did this FBI agent talk to you about this rifle practice
that you have just told us about?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes; he did.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember what you told him?
Mr. DELGADO. Basically the same thing I told you, except he didn't ask
for it like you did, about the possibility of forging the score, and I
didn't explain to him about the NCOs in the lines and in the pits, also
keeping the score.
Mr. LIEBELER. You told the FBI that in your opinion Oswald was not a
good rifle shot; is that correct?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. And that he did not show any unusual interest in his
rifle, and in fact appeared less interested in weapons than the average
marine?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes. He was mostly a thinker, a reader. He read quite a
bit.
Mr. LIEBELER. You told us just a few minutes ago that you took third in
the pool; is that correct?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did the FBI agent ask you about that?
Mr. DELGADO. No. He asked me how I placed. I told him I placed pretty
high; that's about all.
Mr. LIEBELER. In the report that I have in front of me of an interview
that Special Agents Richard B. Murdoch and James A. Marley, Jr., took
of you on January 15, 1964, at Holmdel, N.J., which would have been at
the base--is that correct?
Mr. DELGADO. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. It appears from the record here, from the report that I
have, that the Spanish-speaking agent was Mr. Murdoch.
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. So that this would have been the time that the
Spanish-speaking man was there?
Mr. DELGADO. Right. That was the third visit I had from him.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you discuss at that time the rifle practice, do you
remember?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes; I did. I discussed the rifle practice all the time
they came up.
Mr. LIEBELER. They asked you the same questions?
Mr. DELGADO. Right; same thing over and over again.
Mr. LIEBELER. Now, the report that I have says that Oswald, like most
marines, took an interest in the pool--they call it a pool instead of a
pot, but that is the same thing?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes; pool.
Mr. LIEBELER. Oswald took an interest in the pool, which was started
for the marine getting the highest score. It says, however, "Delgado
said neither he nor Oswald came close to winning."
Mr. DELGADO. No, no; that is erroneous, because I won. He didn't win at
all.
Mr. LIEBELER. You never told these FBI agents that you yourself did not
come close to winning?
Mr. DELGADO. No; because I was--I was one of the highest ones there, I
always had an expert badge on me.
Mr. LIEBELER. You were a good rifle shot?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes; just like I got one now [indicating].
Mr. LIEBELER. That is an expert?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes. This is a sharpshooter.
Mr. LIEBELER. You have both a sharpshooter and an expert badge; is that
correct?
Mr. DELGADO. Right. One for the M-1 rifle and the other for the
carbine--rather, this is the M-14, the new one.
Mr. LIEBELER. The scores that you got on that practice would be
reflected in your military records, would they not?
Mr. DELGADO. Right; in all our--well, I think they call them 201 files
also in the Marines Corps--I can't remember what they are now, but they
are all there, especially that one particular day, because that goes
into your records. That's why they are so strict.
Mr. LIEBELER. And there is no chance in connection with that
qualification firing that you can pencil in your score?
Mr. DELGADO. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. You did not tell the FBI that in your opinion Oswald had
penciled in his qualifying score, did you? Or did you tell them that?
Mr. DELGADO. He may have done, you know; but if you got away with it
you were more than lucky.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you talk to the FBI about that possibility?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes, I told him he may have, to qualify, because there was
a lot of "Maggie's drawers" on his side. Now, he may have had some way
of knowing who was pulling, that is another thing. You don't know who
is out there in the pits, pulling it, see; and it could be a buddy of
yours or somebody you know, and they will help you out, you know, get
together, like before we all go and separate, you know, and I will say
to my buddy, "Well, look, I want to try and get on line 22, you get on
target 22, and I will try to be the first one on line"; so help each
other like that, And when they go to the pits, they have their choice
of getting on the lines, you know, so I will try to work it out with
the fellow out there. But sometimes it doesn't work out that way. You
just have to take your chances.
Mr. LIEBELER. You told us that in this particular rifle practice, or
firing, that the scores were kept by NCOs.
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Was it a common practice for the privates to make deals
like this with the noncommissioned officers in connection with a thing
like this?
Mr. DELGADO. They are making a deal with the other guys pulling the
targets. See, the guy back there is also keeping a score.
Now, your NCO, particularly your NCO, may want to push you or make you
qualify, because he doesn't want to spend another day out there on the
rifle range, see; so it's not all that strict. Like if I was line NCO
and I had five men in my section, and four of them qualified, that
means that some other day, maybe on my day off, I will have to come in
with this other fellow, so I will help him along and push each other
along.
You don't try to mess nobody up, but you can't take a man that is
shooting poorly and give him a 190 score, see; you could just give him
the bare minimum, 170 or 171, to make it look good.
Mr. LIEBELER. Just to qualify him?
Mr. DELGADO. Just to qualify him.
Mr. LIEBELER. So it is a possibility that that might have happened even
in connection with this?
Mr. DELGADO. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. You said that you came in about third in this pool?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember who the marines were that won it and took
second place?
Mr. DELGADO. No. These men were mostly transients. Like I said, I
didn't have too many close friends in the Marine Corps. I went to
school with quite a few of them that were stationed with us, but I
never got real close to any of them.
Mr. LIEBELER. This statement in this FBI report indicates that you said
that neither you nor Oswald came close to winning the pool and that
just must be a mistake; is that correct?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes, correct. I think in the first statement, too I said
that I have won too, I believe, the first one he took. I won, but he
didn't.
Mr. LIEBELER. The first report indicates that you said that Oswald was
a poor shot and didn't do well, but it doesn't say anything about how
you did. Do you remember discussing how you did with the FBI in the
first interview that you had?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes, the first one was at home. We had more time to talk,
and I was at ease there.
Mr. LIEBELER. And where would that have been?
Mr. DELGADO. The address?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes.
Mr. DELGADO. 31 Oakwood Road--30 Oakwood Road, Leonardo, N.J.
Mr. LIEBELER. You say that this incident where you had to go out and
qualify was some time in the spring of 1959?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Can you remember any closer than that?
Mr. DELGADO. No. I just knew it was the spring because that is the time
everyone goes out to fire. It's either going to be warm or it's going
to be very cold when they go out there; it's never in between. I could
have said that, but that was the day I was upset, because this guy kept
on badgering me.
Mr. LIEBELER. You are talking now about the interview when the
Spanish-speaking agent was present?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Which one of them kept badgering you?
Mr. DELGADO. The Spanish agent.
Mr. LIEBELER. What was he badgering you about?
Mr. DELGADO. He kept on sitting--he'd been talking, he'd been looking
at me, you know, and doing this [indicating], you know, and he was
sitting just about where this gentleman is now, and I'd been looking
out of the corner of my eye, because I couldn't concentrate on what he
was saying because he kept staring at me, and he was giving me a case
of jitters, you know.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you have the impression that he didn't believe you?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes. But I told him, it's all right in the textbooks,
that's fine, you know, but my theory, my way is you are not going to
get anything--I mean the majority of the stuff out of books, you have
got to apply yourself on the outside; and he may have gotten an A in
Spanish, and may write in--be able to decipher anything in Spanish
into English, which is fine, as long as he stays in the lower court,
you know, where they are going to speak high Spanish, but when you go
to mingle with the people and speak their language you know, don't go
in there with a college Spanish, because, to begin with, they are going
to tell right off, you know, well, this guy is a highfalutin fellow,
you know. They are not going to have anything to do with him.
You know, common Spanish is quite often overlooked, and that is where
we make our mistake when we go--I think when we go abroad, because we
try to speak Spanish the way El Camino Real tells you to speak Spanish,
and that is not going to do.
If you come, a fellow comes and tries to be friends with you, and he is
giving you all these thees and thous, first of all you are not going to
hit it off right. Speak like they do. If they say damn; say damn, you
know, get with them.
Mr. LIEBELER. You and this agent did not strike it off too well?
Mr. DELGADO. No, I am afraid not. We just spent hours arguing back and
forth.
Mr. LIEBELER. Off the record.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. LIEBELER. We just referred to the El Camino Real that you
mentioned, and you mentioned that that was a Spanish textbook; is that
correct?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. One in which the Castilian Spanish is taught?
Mr. DELGADO. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. Can you tell us some more about your discussions with
Oswald concerning the Castro movement or the situation in Cuba?
Mr. DELGADO. We had quite many discussions regarding Castro. At the
time I was in favor of Castro, I wholeheartedly supported him, and made
it known that I thought he was a pretty good fellow, and that was one
of the main things Oswald and I always hit off so well, we were along
the same lines of thought. Castro at the time showed all possibilities
of being a freedom-loving man, a democratic sort of person, that was
going to do away with all tyranny and finally give the Cuban people
a break. But then he turned around and started to purge, the Russian
purge, started executing all these pro-Batistas or anybody associated
with a pro-Batista, just word of mouth. I would say he is a Batista,
and right away they would grab him, give him a kangaroo court and shoot
him. He and I had discussed about that, and right and wrong way that he
should have gone about doing it.
Castro at the time, his brother Raoul was the only known Communist, and
I mentioned the fact that he was a Communist, but that although Castro
was the leader, I doubt if he would follow the Communist line of life,
you know. At the time I don't remember Che Guevra being there. He came
in after that. And we talked how we would like to go to Cuba and----
Mr. LIEBELER. You and Oswald did?
Mr. DELGADO. Right. We were going to become officers, you know,
enlisted men. We are dreaming now, right? So we were going to become
officers. So we had a head start, you see. We were getting honorable
discharges, while Morgan--there was a fellow in Cuba at the time, he
got a dishonorable discharge from the Army, and he went to Castro and
fought with Castro in the Escambres.
Mr. LIEBELER. A fellow named Morgan?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes; Henry Morgan--not Henry, but it was Morgan, though;
and at the end of the revolution he came out with the rank of major,
you know.
So we were all thinking, well, honorable discharge, and I speak Spanish
and he's got his ideas of how a government should be run, you know, the
same line as Castro did at that time.
Mr. LIEBELER. Oswald?
Mr. DELGADO. Right. So we could go over there and become officers and
lead an expedition to some of these other islands and free them too,
you know, from--this was really weird, you know, but----
Mr. LIEBELER. That is what you and Oswald talked about?
Mr. DELGADO. Right, things like that; and how we would go to take
over, to make a republic, you know, because that was another form of
Batista, American-supported government, you know. And one of his main,
pet peeves was that he thought that Batista was being supported by the
United States, and that is why we were so against him in the beginning
of Castro.
Mr. LIEBELER. So against Castro?
Mr. DELGADO. Right, because of the fact that we had lost so much and
were about to lose so much money in Cuba, because now that our man was
out. And we would talk about how we would do away with Trujillo, and
things like that, but never got no farther than the speaking stage.
But then when he started, you know, going along with this, he started
actually making plans, he wanted to know, you know, how to get to
Cuba and things like that. I was shying away from him. He kept on
asking me questions like "how can a person in his category, an English
person, get with a Cuban, you know, people, be part of that revolution
movement?"
I told him, to begin with, you have got to be trusted--right--in any
country you go to you have got to be trusted, so the best way to be
trusted is to know their language, know their customs, you know; so he
started applying himself to Spanish, he started studying. He bought
himself a dictionary, a Spanish-American dictionary. He would come to
me and we would speak in Spanish. You know, not great sentences but
enough. After a while he got to talk to me, you know, in Spanish.
Mr. LIEBELER. How much of a fluency did Oswald develop in Spanish?
Mr. DELGADO. He didn't acquire too much. He could, speak a common
Spanish, like "How are you? I am doing fine. Where are you going? Which
way is this?" Common stuff, you know, everyday stuff.
As far as getting in involved political argument, say, or like debate
of some sort, he couldn't hold his own.
Mr. LIEBELER. He couldn't speak Spanish well enough to do something
like that?
Mr. DELGADO. No. But as far as meeting the people out in public and
asking for things and telling them something.
And, let's see, what else? Oh, yes, then he kept on asking me about how
about--how he could go about helping the Castro government. I didn't
know what to tell him, so I told him the best thing that I know was to
get in touch with a Cuban Embassy, you know. But at that time that I
told him this we were on friendly terms with Cuba, you know, so this
wasn't no subversive or mal-intent, you know. I didn't know what to
answer him. I told him go see them.
After a while he told me he was in contact with them.
Mr. LIEBELER. With the Cuban Embassy?
Mr. DELGADO. Right. And I took it to be just a--one of his, you
know, lies, you know, saying he was in contact with them, until one
time I had the opportunity to go into his room, I was looking for--I
was going out for the weekend, I needed a tie, he lent me the tie,
and I seen this envelope in his footlocker, wall-locker, and it was
addressed to him, and they had an official seal on it, and as far as
I could recollect that was mail from Los Angeles, and he was telling
me there was a Cuban Consul. And just after he started receiving these
letters--you see, he would never go out, he'd stay near the post all
the time. He always had money. That's why.
Mr. LIEBELER. What did you just say?
Mr. DELGADO. He always had money, you know, he never spent it. He was
pretty tight.
So then one particular instance, I was in the train station in Santa
Ana, Calif., and Oswald comes in, on a Friday night. I usually make
it every Friday night to Los Angeles and spend the weekend. And he is
on the same platform, so we talked, and he told me he had to see some
people in Los Angeles. I didn't bother questioning him.
We rode into Los Angeles, nothing eventful happened, just small
chatter, and once we got to Los Angeles I went my way and he went his.
I came to find out later on he had come back Saturday. He didn't stay
like we did, you know, come back Sunday night, the last train.
Very seldom did he go out. At one time he went with us down to Tijuana,
Mexico.
Mr. LIEBELER. Before we get into that, tell me all that you can
remember about Oswald's contact with the Cuban Consulate.
Mr. DELGADO. Well, like I stated to these FBI men, he had one visitor;
after he started receiving letters he had one visitor. It was a man,
because I got the call from the MP guard shack, and they gave me a
call that Oswald had a visitor at the front gate. This man had to be
a civilian, otherwise they would have let him in. So I had to find
somebody to relieve Oswald, who was on guard, to go down there to visit
with this fellow, and they spent about an hour and a half, 2 hours
talking, I guess, and he came back. I don't know who the man was or
what they talked about, but he looked nonchalant about the whole thing
when he came back. He never mentioned who he was, nothing.
Mr. LIEBELER. How long did he talk to him, do you remember?
Mr. DELGADO. About an hour and a half, 2 hours.
Mr. LIEBELER. Was he supposed to be on duty that time?
Mr. DELGADO. Right. And he had the guy relieve him, calling me about
every 15 minutes, where is his, the relief, where is the relief, you
know, because he had already pulled his tour of duty and Oswald was
posted to walk 4 hours and he only walked about an hour and a half
before he received this visitor, you know, which was an odd time
to visit, because it was after 6, and it must have been close to
10 o'clock when he had that visitor, because anybody, civilian or
otherwise, could get on post up to 9 o'clock at night. After 9 o'clock,
if you are not military you can't get on that post. So it was after 9
o'clock at night that he had the visitor, it was late at night.
I don't think it could be his brother or father because I never knew
that he had one, you know; in fact the only one I knew was a sick
mother, and then later on, towards the end of our friendship there, he
was telling me he was trying to get a hardship discharge because his
mother was sick.
Mr. LIEBELER. You never asked Oswald who this fellow was that he talked
to?
Mr. DELGADO. No, no.
Mr. LIEBELER. What time did the shifts of duty run? This was a guard
duty that he was on; is that right?
Mr. DELGADO. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. How did those shifts run?
Mr. DELGADO. They ran, let's see, from 12 to 4, 4 to 8, 8 to 12, 12 to
4, 4 to 8, like that; and he was roughly on 8-to-10 shift, you know.
Must have been about 9 o'clock when the guy called.
Mr. LIEBELER. The 8-to-12 shift?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes; and I had to relieve another guard and put him on.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you connect this visit that Oswald had at that time
with the Cuban Consulate?
Mr. DELGADO. Personally; I did; because I thought it funny for him to
be receiving a caller at such a late date--time. Also, up to this time
he hardly ever received mail; in fact he very seldom received mail from
home, because I made it a policy, I used to pick up the mail for our
hut and distribute it to the guys in there, and very seldom did I see
one for him. But every so often, after he started to get in contact
with these Cuban people, he started getting little pamphlets and
newspapers, and he always got a Russian paper, and I asked him if it
was, you know, a Commie paper--they let you get away with this in the
Marine Corps in a site like this--and he said, "No, it's not Communist;
it's a White Russian. To me that was Greek, you know, White Russian,
so I guess he is not a Communist; but he was steady getting that
periodical. It was a newspaper.
Mr. LIEBELER. In the Russian language?
Mr. DELGADO. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. And he received that prior to the time he contacted the
Cuban consulate; did he not?
Mr. DELGADO. Right. And he also started receiving letters, you know,
and no books, maybe pamphlets, you know, little--like church, things we
get from church, you know, but it wasn't a church.
Mr. LIEBELER. Were they written in Spanish, any of them, do you know?
Mr. DELGADO. Not that I can recall; no.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you have any reason to believe that these things came
to Oswald from the Cuban consulate?
Mr. DELGADO. Well, I took it for granted that they did after I seen the
envelope, you know.
Mr. LIEBELER. What was on this envelope that made you think that?
Mr. DELGADO. Something like a Mexican eagle, with a big, impressive
seal, you know. They had different colors on it, red and white; almost
looked like our colors, you know. But I can't recall the seal. I
just knew it was in Latin, United, something like that. I couldn't
understand. It was Latin.
Mr. LIEBELER. You don't know for sure whether it was from the Cuban
consulate?
Mr. DELGADO. No. But he had told me prior, just before I found that
envelope in his wall locker, that he was receiving mail from them, and
one time he offered to show it to me, but I wasn't much interested
because at the time we had work to do, and I never did ask to see that
paper again, you know.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he tell you what his correspondence with the Cuban
consulate was about?
Mr. DELGADO. No; he didn't.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he ever indicate to you that it had to do with the
conversation that you had about going over to Cuba?
Mr. DELGADO. No. The only thing he told me was that right after he had
this conversation with the Cuban people was that he was going to--once
he got out of the service he was going to Switzerland, he was going to
a school, and this school in Switzerland was supposed to teach him in
2 years--in 6 months what it had taken him to learn in psychology over
here in 2 years, something like that.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he tell you the name of the school?
Mr. DELGADO. No; but he applied for it while in the service, and as far
as I knew, that's where he was going once he got discharged.
Mr. LIEBELER. This conversation that you and Oswald had about going
over in Cuba and helping Castro was just barracks talk?
Mr. DELGADO. Right.