Mr. POWERS. I-o-w-a-k-o-n-n-i, I think. Iwakuni--i-e-, possibly. I
think it's -i. I don't know. I'm lost, where I was. It seems to me
that Brereton was over there, too, at Iwakuni, but I don't recall if I
possibly saw him over there once or twice; it was either on a football
trip or when I was flying down to the Philippines after wrestling
season.
Mr. JENNER. Now, tell us about the trip over to Yokosuka, the life
on the boat and what he did and what you did and what things you did
together, if anything, conversations that you had, those that you
overheard, your opinion of him during that period, and reaction of the
platoon or group to Oswald.
Mr. POWERS. At this particular period of time, now, you're starting
to get into, say, the rank association that people of higher rank
associate with people of lower rank at this particular period of time,
you do see it more coming in the group relationship and this was
brought about by my becoming a corporal, and I wasn't assigned some of
the tasks that the privates, first class, and privates were assigned,
and I recall I didn't have to do anything going over, and there were
some duties assigned naturally, and with him as an individual, I can
remember that he taught me how to play chess going over, and he was
quite a proficient chess player, and, well, let's not say he was not
real proficient; he used to beat me, and it wouldn't take too much
proficiency to beat me. And he would sit and play, and we would maybe
play--usually we played 1 game a day, and sometimes we would play 4 to
8 hours, playing chess.
Mr. JENNER. Four?
Mr. POWERS. Four to eight hours playing chess. And I got to a point
where I beat him once in a while, and it would irritate him a little
bit that someone beat him, but not to a point where he would get
violent or anything of this nature, but he was real happy and pleased
when he would win.
And again looking back at this, it gives me some impressions about him.
He was real happy to win, like he was accomplishing something in his
life.
And he used to read quite a bit. I remember we got these paperbacks,
and there was some good literature in these, and he would swap books
back and forth, and he would never be reading any of the shoot-em-up
westerns or anything like that. Normally, it would be a good type of
literature; and the one that I recall was "Leaves of Grass," by Walt
Whitman. And he had it for a period of time, and I would want to read
it for myself, and as it came about, he did let me have it. I think I
still have the book.
Mr. JENNER. Do you recall the titles of any other books that he read?
Mr. POWERS. Oh, I'm not saying that he read them, but the reason that
I recall these titles is because I still have most of these paperbacks
that I kept quite a few of these, and they were the "Age of Reason,"
and "Age of Enlightenment," and whether he read these or not, I'm not
sure. But I think there is something on the "Greatest President of the
United States," and democracy, and books of that nature.
Mr. JENNER. Where did you obtain these books?
Mr. POWERS. They were given to the troops--I'll use that for a lack of
a better term--periodically throughout the voyage going over, where
they got them, I don't know. I think they probably just picked them up
and it was standard procedure, I assume.
Mr. JENNER. They were books that were distributed through the Marines?
Mr. POWERS. That's correct.
Mr. JENNER. And you could read them or not as you saw fit?
Mr. POWERS. Right.
Mr. JENNER. And your recollection is that you do recall Oswald did read
"Leaves of Grass"?
Mr. POWERS. Right. Whether he read the other books, I'm not sure, but
this leads me to the impression that he was trying to read something
that was deeper than the average paperback that you see in the drug
store or something of that nature.
Mr. JENNER. These were books which you were interested in?
Mr. POWERS. Yes; these were books which I was interested in mainly
because the image that I held at that time that I was more educated
than the other individuals and in order to maintain this image, and for
my own personal satisfaction as well, I read these books, and I think
this is--whether he read these books for his own personal satisfaction
or to create an image similar to the ones that we had--I say "we," the
people that had more education than the average marine there.
Mr. JENNER. Was he a voracious reader?
Mr. POWERS. What do you mean by the word "voracious"?
Mr. JENNER. Did he read a great deal?
Mr. POWERS. I can't truthfully say. I think everyone at that particular
time read more than they possibly did at any other period that they had
in the Marine Corps. Mainly, you are in a limited space and this was
the thing to do; it was easy to do, and you could entertain yourself
this way.
Mr. JENNER. Yes. I take it it was not your impression, then, at least
at this stage of the game, he devoted a great deal of his time to
reading as distinguished from what other Marines were doing in that
regard?
Mr. POWERS. Well, I don't know. It seems to me when we were in
Mississippi that he did read some--he was doing further reading than
other--what the normal individual was doing at that time. I can't
recall what would substantiate that in my mind; it just stuck in my
mind that he did some reading, or all during this period of time that
he was an individual that, rather than play poker or go out on liberty,
he was just as well content to stay and read a book or things of this
nature, and this may be that he was outside of the group and he did
this to----
Mr. JENNER. You mentioned poker, so I assume that you played poker on
the trip over?
Mr. POWERS. I don't play. I don't play cards.
Mr. JENNER. Well, were there poker games, however, on the way over?
Mr. POWERS. I imagine there was. There was card games to some nature,
whether it was poker or something, I don't know. To be truthful, I
don't recall.