The Tears of Autumn - Charles McCarry [114]
“Kennedy’s horoscope gives not only the auspicious time for the assassination, November 22, but also the place, Dallas. Yu Lung had selected that city as the most favorable geomantic location. He drew up a long treatment of geomantic conditions in Dallas. The only limitation he put on success was that the assassin must not fire toward the north or northwest; under the principles of geomancy, these are directions to be avoided. Oswald fired almost due west from the window of the Texas School Depository. I don’t imagine he’d been instructed to do that. It was a coincidence that Kennedy’s car was traveling in a westerly direction.
“They knew Kennedy would be in Dallas on November 22. The American newspapers had reported this fact, and you can be sure that the Vietnamese, in Hanoi and in Saigon, had a complete file of clippings.
“When Do Minh Kha went back to Hanoi after seeing Nicole in Vientiane, he found Manuel Ruiz there. Ruiz was on his way to the Congo to organize a guerrilla force, and he’d come to consult with the world’s leading authorities on guerrilla warfare, the North Vietnamese. Ruiz was surprised that Do knew where he was when I tracked him down in the Congo— of course, Do didn’t know; I was lying to Ruiz—so he probably didn’t tell Do what his target country was.
“However, Do had to tell Ruiz what his target was—John F. Kennedy. Do wanted an assassin for one-time use. Ruiz told him about Oswald. The Cubans had contacted Oswald, on an unwitting basis, when he was in New Orleans during the summer. He’d tried to pass himself off as an expert on guerrilla tactics. The Cuban network in New Orleans informed Ruiz— that was his department. The Cubans assessed Oswald, decided he was a nut and dropped any idea of recuiting him.
“Ruiz didn’t think the Vietnamese had a chance of killing Kennedy, even though Do Minh Kha was absolutely confident the operation would succeed. Ruiz played a game with the Vietnamese. He agreed to approach Oswald and activate him as Kennedy’s assassin. You saw in the report what Ruiz thought of Oswald. But he went ahead, as a favor to Do. The irony is extraordinary: to this day, Ruiz doesn’t know that he was an agent for the Truong toe—he thinks the Kennedy assassination was a North Vietnamese operation.
“At the instigation of an agent of Ruiz’s in New Orleans, Oswald went to Mexico City, leaving New Orleans on September 25 by bus. He arrived in Mexico City at ten in the morning on September 27 and registered at the Hotel Comercio, as the Cubans had instructed him to do. That day he went twice to the Cuban embassy and once to the Soviet embassy to apply for visas. He was refused in both places. Ruiz picked him up on that day and kept him under surveillance. When Ruiz was certain that Oswald was clean—that there was no U.S. interest in him and no American surveillance, he contacted him by phone, using a coded recognition signal.
“David tells me there are three dead days in Oswald’s stay in Mexico City. The official investigation has not turned up anything on Oswald’s activities between September 27 and October 1, when Oswald left Mexico City by bus.
“Ruiz talked to Oswald on September 30, in the park called the Alameda. You have Oswald’s reaction in the report. He took Ruiz’s bait. When Oswald walked out of the Alameda, he was activated, and President Kennedy was a dead man.
“Ruiz went on to the Congo. Oswald went back to Dallas.”
Dennis Foley left his place by the window. Christopher saw through the window that two White House Cadillacs were drawn up at the curb; the chauffeurs stood smoking on the brick sidewalk. The meeting was taking more time than Foley and Trumbull had expected. Foley, at the bar, poured neat scotch into his glass. His harsh blue eyes were fastened on Christopher’s face.
“The killing of Oswald seems to