An Oswald Witness

(From "The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: How the CIA Set Up Oswald" by Mark Lane, Hustler, October 1978)

Recently, a former Marine who had served with Oswald in Santa Ana, California, after Oswald had returned from Atsugi, began to talk about his discussions with him. His name is David Bucknell…

Bucknell told me that one day he and Oswald went to a tavern near the base to drink a few beers. Two women approached them. Later that day Oswald told Bucknell the incident with the women reminded him of a experience he had had at Atsugi. Oswald had been alone in a bar when an attractive Japanese woman approached him, he told Bucknell. She asked him some questions about his work on the base. That work was, of course, with the supersecret U-2 program. Oswald,predictably, reported that conversation to his superior officer, who then arranged for a meeting on the base between Oswald and a man dressed in civilian clothes.

The man, a “security” or “security-intelligence” operator, explained to Oswald that he could do his country a great service. Oswald was told that the woman was a KGB contact and that he would be given false information to pass on to her. Oswald agreed, and while still a teenager in the Marine Corps he became an intelligence operative. His liaison with the woman continued; he was given money to spend at the Queen Bee, and apparently encouraged by American intelligence to enter into a sexual relationship with the woman

. ……..

Regarding Oswald’s tour of duty in Japan, Bucknell can only report what Oswald recounted to him. However, he was involved directly with Oswald in an intelligence effort when they both were at MACS-9. In1959 Oswald, Bucknell and others were ordered to report to the Criminal Investigation (CID) at the base. There a civilian began an effort aimed at recruiting those present for an intelligence operation against “Communists” in Cuba. Oswald was selected to make several additional trips to CID. Later he told Bucknell that the civilian who served as his contact or control at Atsugi had taken over the same job at Santa Ana. Still later, Oswald confided to Bucknell that he, Oswald was to be discharged from the Marine Corps very soon and that he would surface in the Soviet Union. Oswald told Bucknell that he was being sent there on assignment by American intelligence and that he would return to the United States in 1961 as a hero.