Did Oswald Join the ACLU?

Did Oswald join the ACLU?

A month before the assassination of John Kennedy, on October 25th, 1963, Lee Oswald allegedly attended a meeting of the ACLU that was held in Southern Methodist University.  Alongside him was the consistently “liberal” Michael Paine.  Also present at the meeting was Greg Olds who was President of the Dallas Civil Liberties Union.
One week later on November 1st, 1963, Oswald wrote a letter to Arnold Johnson - - Communist Party USA - - talking about the types of people who frequented the meeting and  stated “Could you advise me as to the general view we had on the American Civil Liberties Union and to what degree, if any, I should attempt to heighten its progressive tendencies?”  Oswald also wrote that the “Dallas branch of the A.C.L.U. is firmly in the hands of ‘liberal’ professional people” and he also made a point of identifying a “minister” and “two law professors” as having conducted the meeting.

According to CE1145 this letter was postmarked November 1st but Arnold Johnson claimed that the CPUSA did not receive this letter until November 29th a whole week after the assassination and almost a whole month after it was supposedly sent.  It would appear that Oswald’s mail was a bit temperamental - - his rifle payments were as fast as lightning but his communist correspondence took the pony express.

CE1154 (pages 170-171)
http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh22/html/WH_Vol22_0100b.htm
http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh22/html/WH_Vol22_0101a.htm

On the same day that he allegedly sent this letter to CPUSA [November 1st] he also allegedly sent a letter directly to the ACLU wanting to join the organisation and paid his $2 membership fee.  In this letter he bizarrely asks for the ACLU to “notify me as to how I may contact ACLU groups in my area.” This was after he had already attended the ACLU meeting with Michael Paine at Southern Methodist University.

CE783 (page 671)
http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/html/WH_Vol17_0349a.htm

The ACLU letter was received on November 4th.  Also contained in the ACLU letter was Lee Oswald’s Dallas P.O. Box number – 6225.  The post office box number is written in a different pen and looks like it was written at a different time to the rest of the letter.  One reason may be because Oswald didn’t open the P.O. Box at the Dallas Post Office until November 1st which is the same day that the letter is postmarked.  Oswald was at work all day at the TSBD on November 1st which was a Friday and could only have posted the letter during Post Office hours because the letter contains the P.O. Box address that he opened the same day.  In addition Oswald included the ACLU on his application as a “name of firm or corporation” that the “box is rented for use of.”

Holmes Exhibit No 1 (WCH Volume XX page 172) http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh20/html/WH_Vol20_0096b.htm

The reason all of this is a little bit suspicious is immediately after the assassination, while in custody, Lee Oswald was reported to have been asking for famous Smith Act defence attorney John Abt or a lawyer from the ACLU.

When SA James Hosty was tasked with investigating the shell game that took place on Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd of November regarding the actions of the Dallas Civil Liberties Union members who claimed to had tried to establish whether Lee Oswald was being denied his rights to an attorney Hosty was passed a letter by Mr. Gus Falk that was written by Greg Olds – President of the Dallas Civil Liberties Union.  In Olds' letter he claims that “Mr. [Louis] Nichols said Oswald had said he was an ACLU member.”  Olds goes onto say that he “called the ACLU’s New York Office Saturday night to inquire whether Mr. Oswald was a member and to determine what our policy would be in answer to any request to provide legal counsel.”

The interesting part of the letter from Olds states “Later Saturday night Mr. Reitman called again to say a thorough check of the ACLU records shows no member named Lee H. Oswald from either Dallas, Fort Worth or New Orleans.  The ACLU also found no membership under the name HIddel [sic], which Mr. Oswald used when ordering the rifle from a Chicago mail order house and when renting a Dallas post office box.”
So, a “thorough” check was made on Saturday night to see if Oswald was a member of the ACLU and Reitman told Olds that the "thorough" check was negative.
In response to Olds inquiries concerning whether Oswald was a member of the ACLU and their "thorough" checks turning up nothing the ACLU issued a statement on Sunday November 24th.  In this statement they categorically denied that Oswald was a memberor affiliated with the Union in any way:




The letter contained in Hosty's report then has Olds explaining that the following Tuesday [November 26th] "I was called  by Mr. Reitman.  In checking additions to the membership rolls received recently in New York, it was found that Mr. Oswald had indeed joined the ACLU on November 4.  This was discovered processing some 350 checks received and deposited Nov. 4 in the bank, checking the deposit for new names.  Mr. Reitman said this new information had been given to the US Justice Dept. and a second statement released to the press.



So while Oswald was alive and in desperate need of assistance he wasn't an ACLU member but then two days later, after he is killed by Ruby, it is suddenly "found" that Oswald had joined the ACLU.  The "communist" Oswald had now not only attended an ACLU meeting, but he had also joined the ACLU and to top it off the FBI also had evidence in hand that Oswald was corresponding with the Communist Party USA requesting advice on what he could do to influence the ACLU's membership and "heighten its progressive tendencies" even if we have to believe that it took 28 days to deliver the CPUSA letter.

It was an unnamed clerk who "found" the Oswald application in the ACLU office safe on November 26th.

The ghost of Oswald managed to send all left wing organisations diving for cover in 1963.  FPCC [boom].  SWP [boom].  CPUSA [boom].  ACLU [boom].  The FBI was all over these organisations like flies and cooperation was very forthcoming from a multitude of people affiliated with them.

Did Oswald join the ACLU?
Did he request the services of John Abt?
Did he correspond with the CPUSA?

All just another layer of the assassination plot and cover up that requires hours of reading, study, and research to break through.

Thanks for this, bud. 

Some related threads:

oswald aclu application

oswald late october

Lowery, Hosty and Oswald

send lawyers pt 1

send lawyers pt 2

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FWIW, I think one of those two law professors chairing the meeting was Chuck Webster - the guy who was associated with our friend, Lowery and who headed post-haste the Dallas Police HQ after the assassination and stayed all day and night. Now who would know all about Abt? A law professor, perhaps, who is allegedly a commie, but nevertheless seems to have the cosiest of relationships with the local constabulary (and no doubt, the FBI)?

But this is all getting too close to the epicenter of the hurricane that had just left the country in emotional ruin...

bump

Read under the subheading "Charles W. Webster, John Jacob Abt, and Dr. Robert John Morris" in the following essay:


http://jfkthelonegunmanmyth.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/who-was-behind-assassination-part-2.html



Also, read about the "coincidences" concerning November 1, 1963, in the following essay:


http://jfkthelonegunmanmyth.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/oswald-fred-korth-and-office-of-naval.html

Hasan Yusuf wrote:Read under the subheading "Charles W. Webster, John Jacob Abt, and Dr. Robert John Morris" in the following essay:


http://jfkthelonegunmanmyth.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/who-was-behind-assassination-part-2.html



Also, read about the "coincidences" concerning November 1, 1963, in the following essay:


http://jfkthelonegunmanmyth.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/oswald-fred-korth-and-office-of-naval.html

Thanks Hasan, yes two more that fit into this body of work.