My friend Steve Roe just posted on Facebook pictures of his recent trip to Dallas and Lee Harvey Oswald’s home on Neely Street. It made me think that though the Oswalds didn’t live there long, the home on Neely played heavily into understanding the psyche, patsy and Paines of the JFK Assassination. Many clues lie in Oswald’s lives on Neely St. For this post, I’ll focus on one incident regarding the Oswald life on Neely: the note left for Marina after the alleged attempt on Edwin Walker’s life.
Note left by Oswald.—On December 2, 1963, Mrs. Ruth Paine
turned over to the police some of the Oswalds’ belongings,
including a Russian volume entitled “Book of Useful Advice.” In
this book was an undated note written in Russian. In translation,
the note read as follows:
1. This is the key to the mailbox which is located in the main
post office in the city on Ervay Street. This is the same street
where the drugstore, in which you always waited is located. You
will find the mailbox in the post office which is located 4
blocks from the drugstore on that street. I paid for the box
last month so don’t worry about it.
2. Send the information as to what has happened to me to the
Embassy and include newspaper clippings (should there be anything
about me in the newspapers). I believe that the Embassy will
come quickly to your assistance on learning everything.
3. I paid the house rent on the 2d so don’t worry about it.
4. Recently I also paid for water and gas.
5. The money from work will possibly be coming. The money will
be sent to our post office box. Go to the bank and cash the
check.
6. You can either throw out or give my clothing, etc. away. Do
not keep these. However, I prefer that you hold on to my
personal papers (military, civil, etc.).
7. Certain of my documents are in the small blue valise.
8. The address book can be found on my table in the study should
need same.
9. We have friends here. The Red Cross also will help you [Red
Cross in English].
10. I left you as much money as I could, $60 on the second of
the month. You and the baby [apparently] can live for another 2
months using $10 per week.
11. If I am alive and taken prisoner, the city jail is located
at the end of the bridge through which we always passed on going
to the city (right in the beginning of the city after crossing
the bridge).
Like many of you reading this, I am no expert on the JFK Assassination and am still looking for the truth. My questions about this note are many, foremost being, what documents were found in the “small blue valise” Oswald mentions. Then there’s the question of why he wanted his clothes thrown away, but to keep his military records. Why did he urge Marina to contact the Embassy and feel “the Embassy would come quickly” when she had already tried in February? Also, where and what is the name of this drugstore “where you (Marina) always waited?” Waited for what or whom? Which money from which “work” should be coming to the Post Office box? Didn’t he pick up his paychecks from his job at Jaggers-Chiles- Stovall at the time or could he have been speaking of his unemployment checks that would be mailed to him?
Do any of you have answers to these questions?
James C. Cadigan, FBI handwriting expert, testified that
this note was written by Lee Harvey Oswald.
