Mr. DELGADO. Watching the scopes.
Mr. LIEBELER. According to the FBI agent's notes, you and Oswald were
passing notes back and forth.
Mr. DELGADO. We worked in a room similar to this, and there would be a
big plotting board there with the aircraft in flight, and radar sets
would be back there, with the officers back there, and he and I, when
we weren't watching the scopes, we would be writing down what aircraft
were up, and we had a small lamp on our table. So when we wanted to
talk, he would hand a note to me.
Mr. LIEBELER. You were not permitted to talk during this time?
Mr. DELGADO. The enlisted men.
Mr. LIEBELER. The enlisted men?
Mr. DELGADO. Well, the enlisted men were permitted to talk, but not at
this table. The only ones permitted to talk were the controllers who
had the aircraft on their scopes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Your job was to watch one of the scopes?
Mr. DELGADO. Watch one of the scopes, and when we were relieved from
doing that, we sat on the front table and kept track of the aircraft on
the plotting board.
Mr. LIEBELER. So while you were actually watching the scope, you were
permitted to speak? You had to talk at that time?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes, to the aircraft.
Mr. LIEBELER. To keep track of the aircraft?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes. That's why they didn't want too much noise in there.
Just enough for the controller to understand the pilot and vice versa.
Mr. LIEBELER. There are two of these FBI reports here that tell me that
you told the FBI that Oswald used to go to Los Angeles every 2 weeks.
Mr. DELGADO. I used to go to Los Angeles every other week.
Mr. LIEBELER. But not Oswald?
Mr. DELGADO. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. And you are sure that you told that to the FBI?
Mr. DELGADO. Positive.
Mr. LIEBELER. You have no question about that at all?
Mr. DELGADO. No question about that at all. Otherwise I wouldn't have
made the statement that he had been with me one time. It would have
been common to see him in the train station. But it wasn't.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember Lieutenant Depadro?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. What was he?
Mr. DELGADO. He was a first lieutenant. He was from Florida.
His parents were boatbuilders. He owned--his family owned a big
boatbuilding place in Florida. I couldn't tell the agents what town. I
wouldn't remember that. I thought it was a town, I gave them----
Mr. LIEBELER. Who was he?
Mr. DELGADO. He was just a section officer. He worked as a controller,
and he was also our platoon officer.
Mr. LIEBELER. The FBI report indicates that you have told Lieutenant
Depadro that Oswald was receiving Russian language newspapers; is that
correct?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes. I mentioned that to him on the way from the guard
shack at one time, and he just brushed it off. He didn't seem to care.
Mr. LIEBELER. Who is Sergeant Lusk?
Mr. DELGADO. Our sergeant major.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember talking to the FBI agents about Sergeant
Lusk?
Mr. DELGADO. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. What did you tell them?
Mr. DELGADO. I told them that in one instance Sergeant Lusk had the
misfortune of waking us up in the morning. Nobody bothered waking us
up, and the formation had gathered, and we were all sleeping away.
Mr. LIEBELER. The men in your quonset hut?
Mr. DELGADO. Right. And I'm the one in charge of them, and about 8
o'clock in the morning I hear the door open up, and I see this guy
walking into my room. The first thing I wake up and see was the
diamond, the stripes, and he says, "I want to see you men in the old
man's office, in class A's." So I knew it was a bad step. We went up
there, and he chewed us out for sleeping. And on the way back he said,
"You're getting as bad as Oz."
But it wasn't our fault. It wasn't Oswald's fault. He slept away with
the rest of us. It was too far for the CQ. And he just didn't feel like
walking that far. So I told the agents that I was the only corporal on
restriction at the same time.
Mr. LIEBELER. They restricted your barracks for that?
Mr. DELGADO. Right. Well, it's better to be restricted than to be
court-martialed for it.
Mr. LIEBELER. It is. Do you remember discussing extradition treaties
with Oswald?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. What was that discussion?
Mr. DELGADO. Any crime perpetrated in the States, say somebody was to
do something wrong in the United States, and they wanted to get him.
We talked about countries he could go to. I said, well, not including
Cuba, which at that time would take anybody, and Russia, he could go
to Argentina, which I understand is extradition-free. But the other
countries all have treaties with the United States. They would get you
back.
Mr. LIEBELER. In that discussion what did Oswald say?
Mr. DELGADO. Nothing that I remember.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he say he would go to Argentina if he ever got in
trouble like that?
Mr. DELGADO. If he ever got in trouble; yes. But this is the period
of time we are talking about, of taking over the Dominican Republic.
And this is what I don't understand: Oswald brought out a fact about a
route to take to go to Russia, bypassing all U.S. censorship, like if
you wanted to get out without being worried about being picked up. And
he definitely said Mexico to Cuba to Russia, and whether or not I'm
bringing into the fact these two guys that defected. But that was the
same route. And he told me about the two guys, the same way these two
guys defected.
Now, I can't imagine who he meant. I thought he was referring to this
later case. But the FBI agent confused me all to heck. He told me it
was a year later that these two guys from the United States, working
for the mathematicians, something like that, defected, taking the same
route that Oswald had told me about. I remember him explaining to me,
and he had drawn out a regular little map on a scratch paper showing
just how you go about doing it.
Mr. LIEBELER. Oswald did this?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Your recollection is that he mentioned two men who also
defected to Russia at that time?
Mr. DELGADO. The same route; yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. But the FBI man said that didn't happen until a year
afterwards?
Mr. DELGADO. A year later.
Mr. LIEBELER. Have you checked up on this to find out when these men
did defect?
Mr. DELGADO. No. I took it for granted they had the scoop, you know. I
assume that I may have been interpreting these events and running the
two together. But in my estimation I don't think it was possible. I
remember him at the time mentioning two men that had defected, and we
were wondering how they got there, and he said this is how he would get
there, now.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he say these two men had gone from the United States
into Mexico into Cuba?
Mr. DELGADO. He said, "This is the route they took. This is the way I
would go about it. This is the way they apparently did it." Something
to that effect.
Mr. LIEBELER. Your recollection isn't too clear on that?
Mr. DELGADO. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. But you do recall that Oswald mentioned that if he were
going to go to Russia, that he would go to Mexico and then to Cuba?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Now, you read in the newspapers after the assassination
that Oswald went to Mexico?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes; that he was in Mexico for a while on vacation or
something like that.
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes.
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you read in the newspaper that Oswald had gone to
Mexico with the idea in mind of going on to Cuba?
Mr. DELGADO. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. You had never read that in the newspaper?
Mr. DELGADO. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. You didn't know that before now?
Mr. DELGADO. No; outside of him being in Russia, and he went to Mexico
on his own. From Texas I think he went to Mexico. And I didn't know him
to cross over into Cuba.
Mr. LIEBELER. Well, now, I am not saying that he actually went to Cuba.