Mr. DELGADO. Right at the border.
Mr. LIEBELER. Right at the border?
Mr. DELGADO. Right at the border they have an M.P. shack, right in the
customs office, but they couldn't do nothing, what money I had was gone.
Like I said, these two Negro fellows, they paid for the way back, you
know.
Mr. LIEBELER. You did have to put in for a new I.D. card; is that right?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you stay in Tijuana itself or did you stay across the
border?
Mr. DELGADO. No; we stayed in downtown Tijuana.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember where?
Mr. DELGADO. Right across the street from the jai-alai games, there are
some hotels, these houses, you know; and as far as I knew, Oswald had a
girl. I wasn't paying too much attention, you know, but it seemed to me
like he had one.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he show any interest in the jai-alai games?
Mr. DELGADO. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. You stayed over only one night; is that right?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Saturday night?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. On Sunday you drove back to the base?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did Oswald say anything about his trip down there, his
experiences, that you can remember?
Mr. DELGADO. No; it was--nothing extraordinary was said. The way of
life down there was so poor, you know. They shouldn't allow a town like
that to exist, things like that.
Mr. LIEBELER. Oswald said that?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you mention to the FBI the fact that Oswald had a
copy of Das Kapital?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. You mentioned that in your testimony previously too?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did Oswald have any other books that you can remember?
Mr. DELGADO. He had Mein Kampf, Hitler's bible, but that was
circulating throughout the battery, everybody got a hold of that one
time or another, you know, and he asked me, how did I know he was
reading Das Kapital. I said, well, the man had the book, and he said
that doesn't necessarily mean that he was reading it.
So I told him in one instance I walked into the room and he was laying
the book down, you know, as he got up to greet me, you know.
He says that still doesn't prove that he was reading it.
Well, if you are sitting, reading a book, and somebody walks into the
room, you are not going to keep on reading the book; you are going to
put it down and greet whoever it is; and then I assume he is going to
assume you have been reading the book, if it is open. It's the only
logical explanation.
They didn't want to go for that; they wanted to know did I actually see
him reading the book, which I couldn't unless I sneaked up on the guy,
you know.
Mr. LIEBELER. This is the FBI agent you are talking about?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. But you do remember that when you would walk into the
room Oswald would be sitting there with this book and it would be open?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes; and then he had this other book. I am still trying to
find out what it is. It's about a farm, and about how all the animals
take over and make the farmer work for them. It's really a weird book,
the way he was explaining it to me, and that struck me kind of funny.
But he told me that the farmer represented the imperialistic world, and
the animals were the workers, symbolizing that they are the socialist
people, you know, and that eventually it will come about that the
socialists will have the imperialists working for them, and things like
that, like these animals, these pigs took over and they were running
the whole farm and the farmer was working for them.
Mr. LIEBELER. Is that what Oswald explained to you?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you tell the FBI about this?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did they know the name of the book?
Mr. DELGADO. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. The FBI did not know the name of the book?
Mr. DELGADO. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you want to know the name of the book?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. It is called the Animal Farm. It is by George Orwell.
Mr. DELGADO. He didn't tell me. I asked him for the thing, but he
wouldn't tell me. I guess he didn't know. The Animal Farm. Did you read
it?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes.
Mr. DELGADO. Is it really like that?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes; there is only one thing that Oswald did not mention
apparently and that is that the pigs took over the farm, and then they
got to be just like the capitalists were before, they got fighting
among themselves, and there was one big pig who did just the same thing
that the capitalist had done before. Didn't Oswald tell you about that?
Mr. DELGADO. No; just that the pigs and animals had revolted and made
the farmer work for them. The Animal Farm. Is that a socialist book?
Mr. LIEBELER. No.
Mr. DELGADO. That is just the way you interpret it; right?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes; I think so. It is actually supposed to be quite an
anti-Communist book.
Mr. DELGADO. Is it really?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes. You and Oswald finally began to cool off toward each
other a little bit; is that right?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. How did that come about?
Mr. DELGADO. Well, like I said, his ideas about Castro kept on
persisting in the same way as at the beginning, when evidence was being
shown that Castro was reverting to a Communist way of government, you
know, and secret state, secret police state, and the turning point
came about when there was this one corporal Batista had in his army,
very thin, small fellow, and he had no significant job whatsoever, he
was just a corporal in the army, and because of the fact that a lady
stepped forward at the tribunal and said that this corporal was in
charge of mass murdering all these people, that Batista was supposed to
have done away with, they executed him on the pure fact of one lady's
statement with no proof whatsoever.
So I brought that to his attention and he said, "Well, in all new
governments some errors have to occur, but you can be sure that,
something like this was investigated prior to his execution but you
will never know about it because they won't publicize that hearing,"
you know.
I couldn't see that, what was happening over there then, when they
started executing these people on just mere word of mouth.
Batista executed them when he had them, a regular blood bath going on
there. But that's when I started cooling off, and he started getting
more reverent toward Castro, he started thinking higher----
Mr. LIEBELER. More highly?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes; more highly of Castro than I did, and about a month
later I was on leave, and when I came back he was gone. And it must
have been a fast processing, because I wasn't gone over 15 days; when I
come back he was already gone.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you and Oswald stay in the same hut together until he
actually got out of the Marines?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever put in for a transfer to another hut to get
away from Oswald before you went on leave?
Mr. DELGADO. I did, but it never went through. I was the hut NCO, and
all the other huts had NCO's, and if I went into another hut I would be
under another guy.
Mr. LIEBELER. And you didn't want to do that?
Mr. DELGADO. No; I had my rank.
Mr. LIEBELER. So you stayed there and remained NCO in charge of the hut?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes; but he never got into arguments with me. He liked to
talk politics with one fellow particularly, Call, and he would argue
with him, and Oswald would get to a point where he would get utterly
disgusted with the discussion and got out of the room. Whenever it got
to the point where anger was going to show, he would stop cold and walk
out and leave the conversation in the air.
Mr. LIEBELER. He never got mad at anybody?
Mr. DELGADO. Not physically mad, no.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever know him to get into a fight with anybody at
Santa Ana?
Mr. DELGADO. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. You say you did put in for a transfer to another hut; is
that right?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Was that permission granted?
Mr. DELGADO. I was waiting for it to be granted. I turned it in to the
section sergeant, and I never knew what the outcome was. I never found
out. They never notified me as to why I wanted to get transferred to
the other huts.
Mr. LIEBELER. You never did move from your hut to another hut?
Mr. DELGADO. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. You actually were discharged, from the Marines before
this question of your transfer ever came up?
Mr. DELGADO. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. When did you go into the Marines? You told us before. Let
us review that for a moment.
Mr. DELGADO. I went into the Marines November 1, 1956.