TESTIMONY OF KERRY WENDELL THORNLEY (continued 2)

Mr. Jenner. That is the impression the lieutenant tried to convey?

Mr. Thornley. Well, I think that was the impression the lieutenant had had when he had been assigned to give this lecture. The last minute, he got down and started going through the news magazines to get his information, got it somewhat inaccurately, and didn't particularly care whether it was accurate or not anyway. Stood up in front of the troops and reeled off the lecture, and, of course, most of the enlisted men didn't know enough to criticize him either because they weren't that interested, and that was it—with a couple of people laughing up their sleeves, and this happened later, this didn't happen at the time I knew Oswald.

However, in such a situation Oswald would have been careful I am sure to raise his hand and correct the lieutenant.

Mr. Jenner. I was going to get to that. During the course of these lectures did the troops as you called them engage in discussion with the instructor?

Mr. Thornley. They were permitted to ask questions, to raise their hands to ask questions. And Oswald would have probably asked a question which would have made light of the lieutenant's ignorance.

Mr. Jenner. Put the lieutenant at a disadvantage?

Mr. Thornley. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Were you present at any times when you were at El Toro when the lectures occurred when, at that time Oswald raised his hand and engaged in dissertation?

Mr. Thornley. I might have been but I don't recall it if I was. I recall being present at several lectures at El Toro, and it just might have happened. It was the kind of thing Oswald would do and it wouldn't even have phased me. I probably wouldn't even have bothered to remember if it had happened. It would have been just part of the daily routine there so I would have——

Mr. Jenner. Did you ever engage in that sort of thing?

Mr. Thornley. No; I never had guts enough to stand up and tell an officer he didn't know what he was talking about. Behind his back I might tell somebody that such-and-such officer didn't know what he was talking about, but I was never quite that brash—in that particular respect, anyway.

Mr. Jenner. What were your impressions on Oswald being interested in music?

Mr. Thornley. Not being interested in music myself particularly——

Mr. Jenner. I take it you had none; that is, any impressions as to his interests?

Mr. Thornley. No, therefore, I had none; correct.

Mr. Jenner. Did you ever play chess with him?

Mr. Thornley. No.

Mr. Jenner. Did you ever see him playing chess with anyone else?

Mr. Thornley. Just now you mentioned the word "chess" as a definite association; I think he did play chess. I can't place the person. This—there were some other people in the outfit who played chess. There is one name I have been trying to remember for a long time, and I think it starts with "Win" something. "Winter" something. I'm probably way off base there. But a tall blond corporal, I believe, played chess and a couple of other men in the outfit played chess. At that time, I guess at that, I knew how to play chess. I have never been particularly interested, though, in the game so I don't—I am pretty sure I didn't play chess with him.

In fact, come to think of it I had just been cured of playing chess 3 months before that; somebody beat me in about six moves and I stopped playing for about a year. It wasn't me.

Mr. Jenner. While at El Toro did Oswald become engaged in any physical altercations with anybody?

Mr. Thornley. No; definitely not to my knowledge. Never got into any fights or even any hot personal argument over anything, that I know of.

Mr. Jenner. What was your impression, if you had one then, as to his disposition in that regard?

Mr. Thornley. I had the impression that he avoided violence.

Mr. Jenner. While you were at El Toro do you recall whether Oswald ever went off the base on liberty?

Mr. Thornley. As far as I know he didn't.

Mr. Jenner. Were there any discussions on the base as to what, if anything, Oswald did?

Mr. Thornley. Not in my presence.

Mr. Jenner. What, if anything, Oswald had done off the base on liberty?

Mr. Thornley. Not in my presence.

Mr. Jenner. Was there ever any discussion of Cuba and Castro and that problem?

Mr. Thornley. Yes, sir.

Mr. Jenner. All right; tell us all about that.

Mr. Thornley. Well, at that time I and Oswald were both, and a couple of other men in the outfit, were quite sure that Castro was a great hero.

Mr. Jenner. Why?

Mr. Thornley. Well, he was liberating Cuba from Batista and, of course, we had heard all about Batista and what an evil man he was, which I am sure was true, and most of us had read some of the things written by Castro, some of Castro's promises—such as he would take no part in the government after the revolution, such things—so we had the definite impression—I remember there was one Puerto Rican boy, myself, Oswald, a couple of others who had quite an admiration for Castro, and thought the pro-Communist statements he was or might be making at the time, were made simply to guarantee a little more independence for his island because it was located so close to the United States.

In other words, I felt at the time he was playing both ends against the middle in order to go his own way, something like Charles de Gaulle is doing right now by recognizing Red China. I felt it was purely statesmanship, statecraft, power politics. I didn't feel that Castro was a dedicated Communist. Whether Oswald did or not I don't know. He admired Castro because of the social reforms Castro was introducing. So did I at that time.

Delgado, the Puerto Rican boy, as I recall it, was becoming worried at that time because he was beginning to think maybe Castro was communistic. I didn't think so. Oswald, as far as I know, didn't have anything to say on that matter. And that is about all I can tell you.

Mr. Jenner. Well, you say that you admired Castro and you knew Oswald admired Castro. Tell us on what you base that comment.

Mr. Thornley. Well, once again as I remember, there was one of these afternoon discussions once again, and somebody was saying something, worried about Castro, it might have been Delgado, it might have been somebody else, I don't think it was Delgado that day because I think he was defending Castro, somebody said something against Castro, and Oswald said that he didn't think Castro was so bad.

He thought Castro was good for Cuba, and they said why, and I took up the argument, which was the argument I just gave you, the naive idea I had at the time that he was playing for independence, and Oswald remained silent, shaking his head affirmatively a couple of times, and that was it.

Mr. Jenner. Shaking his head affirmatively with respect to the comments you were making?

Mr. Thornley. Yes; to my argument, to my justification of Castro.

Mr. Jenner. But you recall no provocative remarks that he made in that connection?

Mr. Thornley. No.

Mr. Jenner. Did Oswald have a nickname?

Mr. Thornley. Not that I know of except Oz sometimes.

Mr. Jenner. Did you ever hear him referred to as "Ozzie Rabbit"?

Mr. Thornley. Well, yes; I didn't realize that anybody else referred to him as such but I always thought of him as such. He reminded me very much of a cartoon character at that time. It was kind of pathetic. There was something about this little smile of his, and his expression on his face and the shape of his head, just the general, his general appearance established a definite association in my mind with some Warner Bros. cartoon character, I believe Warner Bros. And I, very recently, in a discussion with someone, describing Oswald mentioned that he reminded you of—I said: "I think there is a character called Oswald Rabbit who appears in movie cartoons." And they shook their head.

Now, I know where I got that particular example so I probably heard him referred to as "Ozzie Rabbit," though I don't recall specifically.

Mr. Jenner. Did he occasionally have a nickname or a reference made to him attendant upon his interest in the study of the Russian language or his interest in communism or in Russia or Soviet——

Mr. Thornley. Only he was sometimes called the Communist and he would, sometimes I know—as far as his study of the Russian language went he made no attempt to hide this.

In fact, he made—would make attempts to show it off by speaking a little Russian.

Mr. Jenner. He was proud of that, was he?

Mr. Thornley. Yes; there was someone else in the outfit who spoke Russian, don't ask me who, they used to exchange a few comments in the morning at muster and say hello to each other or something, and he also would make jokes in Russian, not in Russian, but in English, in a thick Russian accent many times; this was very typical of him.

Mr. Jenner. He resorted to that area and use of satire?

Mr. Thornley. Yes; until I had made the comment that implied he was a Communist, I had no idea——

Mr. Jenner. That he was sensitive?

Mr. Thornley. That he was sensitive about it because he didn't seem to be.

Mr. Jenner. Did he have any visitors?

Mr. Thornley. Not that I recall.

Mr. Jenner. Was there any discussion at anytime about the possibility of his going to Russia?

Mr. Thornley. No.

Mr. Jenner. This was a complete surprise to you when you saw it in Stars and Stripes?

Mr. Thornley. Somebody would say to him, "Why don't you go and live in Russia," in the middle of an argument.

Mr. Jenner. I didn't mean that in that sense but did he volunteer a statement on his part about his going to Russia?

Mr. Thornley. Never anything; no.

Mr. Jenner. I take it it was your opinion he was not a Communist at the time he was assigned to El Toro?

Mr. Thornley. That was my opinion.

Mr. Jenner. I take it you have never seen or talked with Oswald subsequent to the time he left or you left for Japan, from El Toro?

Mr. Thornley. No.

Mr. Jenner. That is, my statement is correct.

Mr. Thornley. Yes, sir.

Mr. Jenner. It follows, I take it, that you were never aware that he was in New Orleans when you were there?

Mr. Thornley. No; I wasn't.

Mr. Jenner. You were not aware of his comings and goings other than the newspaper report that your folks sent you?

Mr. Thornley. I was aware that he had come back from the Soviet Union and gone to Dallas, and I know I at that time did think about going to see him in Dallas for the book, to find out just why he did go to Russia, to check it with my own theory.

Mr. Jenner. I am going to get to that in due course.

Mr. Thornley. But aside from knowing that he came back and went to live in Dallas with a Russian wife and a child I had no idea of his comings or goings.

Mr. Jenner. At the time you had some notion of going to Dallas to see him or Fort Worth, as the case might be, it was with respect to the book you have talked about you were then in the process of writing or fulminating about?

Mr. Thornley. Yes; it was practically—well, it was finished by that time but I was thinking about, I was definitely planning to rewrite it. I didn't know how soon, and I thought before I did rewrite it I would go talk to him and see what he could tell me about. There were a lot of gaps in the book, and in the book I was not able to explain how he got from the United States to Russia and things like that. A lot of things I wanted to check out and I thought if I could get him to cooperate with me, perhaps not even in telling him I was writing the book, I could get the information I wanted.

Mr. Jenner. And this was the state of mind you had after you had heard that he returned to the United States?

Mr. Thornley. Right.

Mr. Jenner. Which was June of 1962, when he returned?

Mr. Thornley. Right, and I had finished the book in February.

Mr. Jenner. Of 1963?

Mr. Thornley. 1962.

Mr. Jenner. 1962. You were in Mexico and Mexico City in 1963?

Mr. Thornley. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Cover that for us. What was the motivation, the length of the trip?

Mr. Thornley. I will have to begin at the beginning on that. On April 17, my parents sent me a gift of $100 on the condition that I spend it for a bus ticket to visit them that summer. Which I did, and I left around—well, I arrived in California on May 5. I remember going along the border and seeing fireworks on the other side of the border.

Mr. Jenner. What border?

Mr. Thornley. From Yuma to San Diego.

Mr. Jenner. Mexican border?

Mr. Thornley. That is Cinco De Mayo. I arrived in California on May 5 and I stayed there until late August. Now, I think in one of these reports that I gave to the FBI the information might be different. Since then I have checked with notebooks that I kept of my activity, and I was on my way back to New Orleans in late August. I went by way of Mexico City because I have taken 5 years of Spanish in school and I never had the opportunity to live in an environment where I would have to use it, depend on it solely, and I wanted to see how I would do. I have always wanted to visit Mexico, to see Mexico City. I checked into the prices. I had found out I had enough money that I would be able to go down to Mexico City and stay a short while.

So I went down there for about a week, actually it was 6 days I spent within Mexico, from Tijuana to Mexico City, on a Mexican bus, and then when my money began to run out from Mexico City to Matamoros or Brownsville, Tex., on a Mexican bus.

At this time, on my way up on a bus to Matamoros, it was September 2, because I had that in my notes, I have some notes about the bus ride and the date September 2.

And I went from Brownsville to New Orleans by way of either Greyhound or Continental.

Mr. Jenner. When did you arrive in New Orleans?

Mr. Thornley. I went directly to New Orleans, so I imagine I arrived in New Orleans on September 3, possibly September 4.

Mr. Jenner. So that between approximately May 1, 1963, and September 4 and 5——

Mr. Thornley. Say May 3 to September 4.

Mr. Jenner. You were not in New Orleans?

Mr. Thornley. Right.

Mr. Jenner. You were returning to your home in California? You stayed there for approximately a month or so?

Mr. Thornley. Longer than that.

Mr. Jenner. Longer than that. You then went to Mexico, Mexico City, and you then returned directly to New Orleans?

Mr. Thornley. Yes, sir.

Mr. Jenner. During none of that period of time did you have any contact with or hear anything about Oswald?

Mr. Thornley. Definitely not.

Mr. Jenner. You at one time at least were acquainted with a lady by the name of Sylvia Bortin?

Mr. Thornley. Sylvia Bortin?

Mr. Jenner. B-o-r-t-i-n.

Mr. Thornley. Yes; this young lady, by the way——

Mr. Jenner. Where did she reside?

Mr. Thornley. In Whittier, Calif., or at least last summer she did, I don't know where she resides now. This young lady, by the way, was mentioned in—her mention in this whole matter came out of a misunderstanding on my part of a question asked by the FBI agents.

Mr. Jenner. All right. Would you explain that, please?

Mr. Thornley. I don't recall what the question was—oh, yes, he had asked me something about, I believe it was the First Unitarian Church in Los Angeles. I had mentioned earlier at the time I was talking to Oswald, and knew Oswald, I had been going to the First Unitarian Church in Los Angeles. This is a group of quite far to the left people politically for the most part, and mentioned in order to explain my political relationship with Oswald, at that moment, and he began to ask me questions about the First Unitarian Church and I answered, and then he realized or understood or asked what Oswald's connection with the First Unitarian Church was and I explained to him that there was none. Miss Bortin never knew Oswald and vice versa, and these people were two different parts of my life. There was this civilian compartment and the military compartment, and I never intermingled them.

Mr. Jenner. This young lady married and her husband is now in Havana, Cuba?

Mr. Thornley. That is what she told me last summer; yes. He was going to school in Cuba.

Mr. Jenner. I take it this had nothing to do with yourself and Oswald's views with respect to Castro that you told us about.

Mr. Thornley. No; this happened, I think, later, in fact I am sure it happened later. At that time Miss Bortin, she was then unmarried, did not know Robert Uname, I believe. I met him, I believe, September a year later.

Mr. Jenner. Had you finished that?

Mr. Thornley. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. I take it that Oswald had no close personal friends at least that you observed?

Mr. Thornley. That is correct. And the name of his closest friends I do not know. I do remember he had a close acquaintance that he seemed to get along with pretty well.

Mr. Jenner. In the unit?

Mr. Thornley. Yes; but I don't recall this man's name. If it was mentioned to me, I probably could, but——

Mr. Jenner. You were groping for it when you were interviewed. You suggested it might be Charles——

Mr. Thornley. I mentioned a Charles.

Mr. Jenner. Weis.

Mr. Thornley. Weir, but that was not the man. This was a friend of a friend of the friend or a man who could give them that information perhaps that I couldn't.

At this time perhaps, also, I was thinking of a possibility it might have been Weir and since then I have remembered definitely who Weir was.

Mr. Jenner. Who was he?

Mr. Thornley. I don't remember whether his first name was Charles but I remember who he was.

Mr. Jenner. He was a noncom?

Mr. Thornley. There was a man named Cooley. There was somebody else, and these are my associations, but who it was who used to talk Russian in the ranks with Oswald in the morning I don't know, but that is who it was.

Mr. Jenner. Is this particular man you now mentioned the man who occasionally talked Russian with Oswald in the ranks, is he the man who you had in mind?

Mr. Thornley. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. As having been a friend of Oswald's?

Mr. Thornley. Yes; in that in the same respect that I was a friend of Oswald's. Once, again, the exact terminology I would use would be close acquaintance.

Mr. Jenner. Yes; I would say from your description of the relationship with Oswald that it was more an acquaintanceship than a friendship.

Mr. Thornley. I think it was probably the same with this person from what I recall, to my knowledge.

Mr. Jenner. In other words, when you say friend, he wasn't a buddy of Oswald?

Mr. Thornley. No; Oswald was not the type of person who had, as it has been emphasized on all parts, I think, and it confirms my own impression, was not the type of person who made close friends or who stuck with close friends.

Mr. Jenner. You saw no instance in which Oswald evidenced affection for anybody, I mean in the nice sense of the word?

Mr. Thornley. No; none whatsoever.

Mr. Jenner. Or anybody evidenced any affection in the nice sense of the word for him?

Mr. Thornley. No.

Mr. Jenner. I take it your trip to Mexico City was purely one of general interest as you have described and had nothing to do with any interest on your part in going to Cuba or attempting to go to Cuba?

Mr. Thornley. Believe me, no. I have no desire to go to Cuba unless I am going to take a rifle and be on an invasion force or something.

Mr. Jenner. Did you hear of anybody in the Marine Corps, whose last name was Hidell?

Mr. Thornley. At the time this name was mentioned to me that was—that person, whoever it was that Oswald used to speak to in the ranks in the morning came to my mind. But I can't say that that was the name, and I am—of course, now, I am very leery that that—very uncertain as to ever having heard the name Hidell, and I doubt it very much.

Mr. Jenner. Shortly after the unfortunate occurrence of November 22, 1963, you were interviewed by Secret Service agents, were you not?

Mr. Thornley. Yes. Now, this is what I had mentioned earlier. This was the Monday interview, of November 25, actually it was midnight Sunday night as I recall. It seemed to me a couple of days later before I spoke to the FBI. I believe there was a Mr. Rice—was one of the men.

Mr. Jenner. This was the evening of the 23d of November?

Mr. Thornley. Was it the 23d?

Mr. Jenner. It probably ran over.

Mr. Thornley. It must have been Saturday evening then. I had thought it was Sunday evening.

Mr. Jenner. In any event you were then interviewed by some newspaper reporters?

Mr. Thornley. Yes; that was quite some time afterward.

Mr. Jenner. Well, it was before November 27, 1963, was it not?

Mr. Thornley. It was after the 25th, I think. It was after I had finished talking to the FBI, as I remember.

Mr. Jenner. I will mark as Thornley's Exhibit No. 1 what purports to be a Xerox reprint of a newspaper article.

(The document referred to was marked Thornley Exhibit No. 1 for identification.)

Mr. Jenner. Are you acquainted with that?

Mr. Thornley. Yes, sir.

Mr. Jenner. What newspaper was this from?

Mr. Thornley. The States-Item of New Orleans.

Mr. Jenner. And that article was a result of the newspaperman's interview with you?

Mr. Thornley. Yes, sir.

Mr. Jenner. Did you see it upon its publication?

Mr. Thornley. Yes, sir.

Mr. Jenner. You are familiar with it?

Mr. Thornley. Yes, sir.

Mr. Jenner. Does it substantially accurately reflect at least portions of, in reasonable context, the interview you had with the newspaper reporter?

Mr. Thornley. Yes; to a surprising degree for a newspaper, on the basis of my past experience in dealings with them.

Mr. Jenner. Is there anything in that article that you regard as reasonably seriously erroneous?

Mr. Thornley. Not when I read it the last time.

Mr. Jenner. Insofar as it attributes anything to you?

Mr. Thornley. May I reread it?

Mr. Jenner. Yes.

Mr. Thornley. I would say this is accurate in everything it attributes to me.

Mr. Jenner. All right. I offer Thornley Exhibit No. 1 in evidence.

Now, it appears from that article and from the testimony you have given this morning that you were stimulated, or, as you have indicated you prepared at least a first draft of a book or pamphlet or article respecting your experiences in the Marine Corps, and one of the central characters of which, mythical or otherwise, was a friend, Oswald.

Mr. Thornley. That is correct.

Mr. Jenner. And when I spoke to you by telephone the other day I inquired of you as to whether that was still in existence and you responded that it was.

Mr. Thornley. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. And you were kind enough to say you would bring it with you.

Mr. Thornley. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Have you done so?

Mr. Thornley. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. May I see it, please?

Mr. Thornley. Yes, sir; here is the draft completed in February of 1962.

Mr. Jenner. Yes; I am interested in seeing that in its condition as of that time.

Mr. Thornley. Right. That is it. There is only one addition and there is some blank paper on top. There is one addition, and that is the short preface written yesterday to give some idea of how much was fact and how much was fiction.

Mr. Jenner. All right—the page numbered 2?

Mr. Thornley. There was a table of contents once and it took two pages.

Mr. Jenner. Which I might identify in addition thereto as having the word "Preface," at its top and your name and the date May 17, 1964, Arlington, Va., at the bottom. That is what you prepared yesterday, is that correct?

Mr. Thornley. Correct.

Mr. Jenner. All of the balance, therefore, commencing with the pages numbered 3 and running through, I assume, consecutively?

Mr. Thornley. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. To page 250 is the article as it was when you completed it in February 1962?

Mr. Thornley. Precisely.

Mr. Jenner. I would like the opportunity of reading through this and, of course, 200-odd pages, we don't have the time to do it as of the moment, and the Commission would like to have it among its records. May I have the material and I will take it in the back room. We have a Xerox, and have it duplicated? This, I appreciate, is your personal property and it is of value. It is not something that the Commission will place in the hands of others who may make commercial use of it.

Mr. Thornley. I am quite sure that it will be perfectly safe.

Mr. Jenner. All right. It is in the same condition now, that is, pages 3 through 250, as those pages were when you completed this manuscript in February 1962?

Mr. Thornley. Yes; there might have been a couple of spelling errors corrected since then or typographical errors but that is all.

Mr. Jenner. And that article of which we now speak and which for purposes of identification I will mark as Thornley Exhibit No. 2, and I offer Thornley Exhibit No. 2 in evidence.

(The document referred to was marked Thornley Exhibit No. 2 for identification.)

Mr. Jenner. Subsequently thereto, I understand from my conversation with you, you prepared a revision of that paper.

Mr. Thornley. I have been working on a revision.

Mr. Jenner. And you were kind enough to say you would bring that along with you as well. Have you done so?

Mr. Thornley. I have been between this draft——

Mr. Jenner. When you said "this draft" you are referring to Thornley Exhibit No. 2?

Mr. Thornley. Exhibit No. 2, and the draft I am now giving you—several illegible drafts were made. This represents not the latest draft, but the latest typewritten draft. It represents a fragment of it.

The first third, almost the first third, minus a couple of pages of a novelette based upon this Exhibit No. 2.

Mr. Jenner. For purposes of identification the witness has now handed me a set of letter-sized pages numbered 1 through 37, consecutively.

Are they consecutive?

Mr. Thornley. Yes, sir.

Mr. Jenner. And I take it, as against the length of the other paper, that these pages 1 through 37, represent an incomplete novel.

Mr. Thornley. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. That is it covers only a portion of the areas and times covered by Thornley Exhibit No. 2.

Mr. Thornley. This ones takes a completely different approach in that this did not take a chronological approach to the development of the character based on Oswald, but takes a flashback approach.

Mr. Jenner. I see.

Mr. Thornley. Centering around an investigation of that character after his defection to the Soviet Union.

Mr. Jenner. For further identification of the document which I will mark Thornley Exhibit No. 3, page 1 is entitled "Chapter 1, Gung Ho."

Page 4 is entitled "Chapter 2, Fallen Comrade."

Page 7, in the center, is entitled "Chapter 3, Hush Hush."

Page 11 is entitled "Chapter 4, Blue Marines."

Page 14, in the upper portion, is entitled "Chapter 5, Peace Gospel."

Page 21 is entitled, at the head, "Chapter 7, The Killer."

Page 24, near the center, is entitled "Chapter 8, Captain Kidd."

Page 27, at the bottom, "Chapter 9, Mutiny."

Page 31, "Chapter 10, John Henry."

Page 34, "Chapter 11, The Storms."

And page 37, "Chapter 12, The Chicken."

(The document referred to was marked Thornley Exhibit No. 3 for identification.)

Mr. Thornley. Now, this Exhibit No. 3 is a much greater fictionalized approach toward, well, as far as reference goes to Oswald, the character upon—the character which is based upon Oswald in Exhibit No. 2, Johnny Shellburn, Exhibit No. 3 is much farther from life.

Mr. Jenner. Is Johnny Shellburn assimilated to Oswald?

Mr. Thornley. Yes; much more so in Exhibit No. 2, though, than in this one.

Mr. Jenner. That is Exhibit No. 3.

Mr. Thornley. Yes; since I wrote Exhibit No. 2, I have learned to write fiction rather than a thinly disguised biography.

Mr. Jenner. In other words, Exhibit No. 2 was primarily a biography?

Mr. Thornley. Not in the strict sense that it portrayed a man's life in detail, but in the sense that any reference, most of the references, as is explained in this preface toward the end of the book——

Mr. Jenner. When you say this preface, you mean the preface to Exhibit No. 2?

Mr. Thornley. That is, Johnny Shellburn toward the end of the book, well, from before the middle of the book on, extends more and more to reflect Oswald's character, and I definitely was thinking about Lee Harvey Oswald when I wrote this book, Exhibit No. 2, whereas——

Mr. Jenner. In your discussion refer to them by exhibit number.

Mr. Thornley. I will keep my hands below the table.

Mr. Jenner. You don't have to do that. Just use the exhibit numbers.

Mr. Thornley. Whereas in Exhibit No. 3, I have universalized it more, tried to get away from giving any impression that I am making a chronology of the life and times of Lee Harvey Oswald, which is something I thought would be relevant as far as the Commission would be concerned in reading the material.

Mr. Jenner. Would you mark Exhibit No. 3 accordingly, Mr. Reporter?

I offer in evidence Thornley Exhibit No. 3. I take it, Mr. Thornley, that you commenced the preparation of Exhibit No. 3 subsequently to the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Mr. Thornley. Yes, sir.

Mr. Jenner. And that Exhibit No. 3 reflects a course of events and their imprint upon you that occurred on and after November 22, 1963.

Mr. Thornley. No, no; Exhibit No. 3 reflects the same course of events reflected in Exhibit No. 2. As far as the telling of the story goes and the characters therein it takes place back in 1959. It makes a definite attempt, however, to get away from Oswald as a specific character and to discuss the problem of disillusionment in the peacetime military or disillusionment with values on a much more universalized range than Exhibit No. 2.

Mr. Jenner. All right. May I make a copy of Exhibit No. 3?

Mr. Thornley. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Under the same circumstances and upon the same conditions as you granted your consent to make a copy of Exhibit No. 2?

Mr. Thornley. Yes, sir; Exhibit No. 3 also does include some things on—that I have acquired through the news on Oswald since the assassination because Oswald tends to reflect the type of person I was talking about. So to put it, to make it as clear as possible, right now I realize I am saying Exhibit No. 3 is more like Oswald and less like Oswald, to put it as clearly as possible.

Mr. Jenner. You are going in two directions at once.

Mr. Thornley. Exhibit No. 2 is more like the Oswald I knew in MACS 9, the Oswald of my experience, whereas Exhibit No. 3 is a universalized Oswaldian-type character based upon not only my own experience but the news that has come to me about Oswald, about other people like Oswald, other defectors, other assassins, and so on and so forth, since November 22.

Mr. Jenner. All right. Now, Mr. Thornley, tell me something about Kerry Thornley. You obviously, to me, are not a doorman.

Mr. Thornley. Oh, yes; I am a doorman.

Mr. Jenner. You are at the moment performing that service. But that isn't your objective in life.

Mr. Thornley. My objective is to write books, novels primarily, as many as I can in the years that are given to me, and possibly upon publication of one of them to go back to school to further my ability to write.

Mr. Jenner. Are you taking any training in that respect or have you in recent years?

Mr. Thornley. Well, not formally. I have devoted myself to a lot of exercises in writing, and I have availed myself of the help of any experts I could grab onto, including successful novelists and former newspaper reporters and so on and so forth, to help me solve problems in my writing and improve it, but there is really, to my mind, my outlook on writing a novel; for example, there is not much you can learn from a formal course in writing. I think you can learn much more from, say, the study of linguistics or semantics; if you are going to learn anything from a university, for example, on writing, and this I intend to do in due time.

Mr. Jenner. We occasionally have been off the record, not often, and I have talked with you on the telephone. Is there anything that was said between us in the course of our telephone conversations or in any off-the-record discussions that you think is pertinent to the Commission's assignment of investigating the assassination of President Kennedy that I have failed to bring onto the record?

Mr. Thornley. No, sir; I think we have very thoroughly covered it.

Mr. Jenner. Is there anything that occurs to you that you would like to add that you think might be pertinent to our inquiry and of help to the Commission?

Mr. Thornley. No; there is certainly nothing else I can think of.

Mr. Jenner. Your deposition will be written up rather promptly. We probably will have it tomorrow, and would you be good enough to call me, say—when do you go on duty?

Mr. Thornley. At 5 o'clock.

Mr. Jenner. Call me in the forenoon—I mean right after lunch—and if it is convenient will you come in and read over your deposition and sign it?

Mr. Thornley. All right. May I just, to make absolutely sure, may I take down your phone number once more?