Beschreibung:

OSWALD, Lee Harvey (1939-1963). Autograph letter signed (“Lee H. Oswald”) to Gus Hall (1910-2000), New York [February or March 1963]. One page, 220 x 126mm. Lee Harvey Oswald's 1963 unanswered application to join the Communist Party of the United States of America : “I have followed the activities of the C.P. for the last few years, and have decided that it is very timely and correct for me at this time; to apply for membership in the Communist party of the U. S.” The letter bears the return address of the infamous Dallas post office box rented by Oswald to purchase the mail-order rifle he used in the assassination of President Kennedy later that year. Gus Hall joined the Communist Party in 1927, organizing the Young Communist League in the Midwest and rising to the position of General Secretary in 1959, an office he held for over 40 years. By all accounts, he never responded to Oswald and the letter remained in his files until his death in 2000. Despite Hall's failure to respond, however, Oswald may have already considered himself a member of the party (he was a subscriber to The Worker ). Upon his arrest in the wake of the Kennedy Assassination, Oswald requested that John Abt, chief counsel for the Communist Party U.S.A., represent him. However repeated calls to Abt went unanswered as the attorney was out of town that weekend. At the Warren Commission hearings the following spring, Apt testified that he had never known of Oswald prior to the shooting in Dallas. [ With :] Two photographs, one of Gus Hall, "Party Man," taken by Marcia Keegan, 26 July 1973, and a second of Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby, signed in ink by Dallas homicide detective James Leavelle, who was escorting the prisoner through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters at the time he was killed.