Lee Harvey Oswald Started a Pro-Castro Club With One Member, Himself
He offered to help anti-Castro exiles, then handed out pro-Castro pamphlets on their turf until a fight brought the police.
Who Killed JFK? · The Wilderness of MirrorsIn 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald stood on a street corner in a strongly anti-Castro part of New Orleans, giving out pro-Cuba flyers.
The flyers supported the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, an American group that favored Cuba and its leader Fidel Castro. Oswald had recently arrived in the city and formed a local chapter of the committee. The chapter had one member, Oswald himself.
That one man chapter is the odd center of Oswald's time in the city. In a matter of weeks, he created a paper trail as a pro-Castro activist, with pamphlets, photographs, and then a police arrest.
Oswald also did the reverse. After starting the chapter, Oswald visited Carlos Bringuier, a Cuban exile who led the local branch of the Cuban Student Directorate, a group opposed to Castro. Oswald told Bringuier he was a former Marine who hated communism and wanted to help train exiles to fight Castro.
One unnamed speaker claims that both the pro-Castro branch and Bringuier's anti-Castro group received money from the Central Intelligence Agency, the American spy service, and that Bringuier's group was run by George Joannides, a former CIA officer. Those claims are unproven.
The street confrontation was photographed and ended with police action. Oswald took his pro-Castro leaflets to the anti-Castro neighborhood. One claim holds that a CIA operative appears in the background of some of those photos. Four men from the student exile group then came up to Oswald, grabbed his pamphlets, lifted him into the air, and shouted at him. Two police officers broke up the scuffle and arrested everyone involved.
The arrest put Oswald's name in the local news. William Kirk Stuckey, a reporter for local radio station WDSU, covered the fight and named Oswald and his pro-Castro chapter in his report. Some have suggested the clash was staged to get Oswald on the record, but there is no proof of that.
Questions people ask
What was the Fair Play for Cuba Committee?
It was a real American organization formed in 1960 to support fair treatment of Cuba after Fidel Castro took power. It had local chapters and hundreds of members nationwide, and it organized protests, pamphlets, and public education. Oswald's New Orleans chapter stood out because it had no other members.
Who was Carlos Bringuier?
Bringuier was a Cuban exile in New Orleans who led the local branch of the Cuban Student Directorate, a group opposed to Castro. He ran a shop and organized anti-Castro activity, and later testified about Oswald's visit and the street fight. He maintained that Oswald was trying to infiltrate his group.
What happened to Oswald after the street arrest?
Oswald was fined for disturbing the peace and soon debated Bringuier about Cuba on local radio and television. The appearances created one of the few public records of Oswald speaking about his politics. Within months, he left New Orleans for Texas and then Mexico City.