Delillo’s ‘Truth’

 Mateo Hernandez

Delillo’s ‘Truth’

Libra. If you’re anything like me, you came into this book expecting something totally different. A simple history, perhaps, that is truthful and accurate regarding every event that occurred. But in the end, after we get an extremely complex conspiracy, Don Delillo leaves you with even more questions that beg to be answered. Although there are many different paths this post could take, I’d like to skim the surface of Lee Harvey Oswald’s story, from his early childhood up to his first assassination attempt on General Walker. The best way to go about this post is to start from the ‘beginning’, aka, what the government told us happened, and what the average American would believe from their story. Then dive into one of the first conspiracies of the world, Don Delillo’s Libra, whose goal is to satisfy the need for a believable narrative. Delillo takes the facts of Lee’s broken background, adds a believable narrative that gives a reasonable explanation for why, in his point of view, Oswald can be taken advantage of to kill Kennedy. Buckle your seatbelts ‘cuz this is gonna be a long, bumpy ride. 

To begin with, on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, John F. Kennedy was fatally shot by Oswald. 30 minutes later, he was pronounced dead, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president two hours and eight minutes later aboard Air Force One. Two days later, Oswald was shot and killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby before he could stand trial. According to the FBI, after conducting 25,000 interviews and investigating tens of thousands of leads, the FBI found that Lee Harvey Oswald worked alone. The Warren Commission, after a year of studying, agreed. They also display the infamous photo of Oswald holding his Italian rifle and two newspapers. That’s it. End of story. It’s all too clean- simply too believable. 

Delillo seems sceptical of the entire event and offers a different perspective. He begins his ‘counter-story’ by using a unique structure with chapters following Oswald's story leading up to the assassination, and a conspiracy in others. To oversimplify the plot, Delillo is claiming that the assassination was staged by the CIA. Individuals working for the CIA were essentially devastated by the Bay of Pigs a few years back (a humiliating attempt to overthrow Fidel in Cuba), and wanted to “take back Cuba” either to redeem themselves from the humiliating attempt, or to profit from it. The key is to have a communist take a shot at the president (and miss), to essentially enrage and awaken America to the relatively nearby communist threat in the Caribbean. Which is where (after many twists and turns) Lee comes in and ends up killing the president. There are so many unknowns and crazy coincidences that lead to more questions. An extremely interesting article, 8 Facts About the John F. Kennedy Assassination brings up slightly worrying facts. Oswald was murdered by Ruby before he could stand trial. To hide something that he would have revealed under oath? Or simply because he was a radical American who felt it was his duty to end the life of the Communist killer? Fact 2: The FBI destroyed evidence that Oswald visited the Dallas FBI office 2 days before the shooting of Kennedy. Fact 3 (out of many more): The CIA was monitoring Oswald in the months before JFK's murder. In the end, the overload of information creates this sense of paranoia. An obsession to try to understand what happened. It’s a key theme that drives Delillo's novel. 

There are many different ways to take this in, and if I don’t focus on a specific element or character, this blog post could honestly go on forever. Whether or not the government is trying to hide something from the world, the fact is that Lee killed JFK. The common narrative portrayed in popular media doesn’t reveal everything that happened. It simply claims that an ex-Marine who defected to Russia came back and murdered JFK. And that he worked by himself. But Delillo suggests there’s so much more to the story. To begin with, Oswald was a challenged child from the beginning of his life. He never had a stable father figure in his life after his birth father died from a heart attack. He was constantly moving with his mother, living in New York City and New Orleans. While living with his Aunt, he pulled a knife on her, leading to him getting evicted from her home. He had this signature grin/look on his face that he was bullied for. Almost like he knew something that you didn’t. That you were below him (which later on in the novel seems quite prominent, especially as he gets close to his first assassination attempt on hyper racist General Walker). “He began to study the bus schedule. The Preston Hollow Bus, the 36, stopped a block and a half from the general’s house. He walked past the house…Just walking down the street made him feel untouchable” (Delillo 272). This section doesn’t exactly mention his grin, but anybody reading this passage can almost certainly see the look on his face. That this is all a part of his plan, that he believes that he’s in control. He’s the powerful one.

Later on in his childhood, he began to have an obsession with communist ideas and novels and with the marine manual. He wanted to join the Marines after being inspired by his older brother Robert, but he also wants to be seen as an impressive person by reading Capital. Oswald never ended up completing school, but did join the Marines. He spent time in Atsugi and was court-martialled because he shot himself and got into a fight with a sergeant. Delillo suggests that during his time in Atsugi, he faced terrible abuse from the government, which would give a solid reason for him to hate his country and want to defect to another country. He meets the fictional character Bobby, who is a young black man sharing a cell with Oswald. Lee describes the brig as extremely strict, unfair, racist, and abusive. One day, Oswald returns to his cell to find Dupard being pummelled by guards, “They took their time. It looked like something else at first, and an epileptic fit, a heart attack, but then he understood it was a beating” (Delillo 99). Soon after his release, he began to learn Russian and attempted to defect to the Soviet Union. The Soviets turn him down and order him to leave the country, but in a rebellious attempt to stay, he slits his left wrist. He ends up staying in the country, and according to Delillo, coming into contact with the KGB. They interrogate him about his time in the Atsugi airbase and let him work in a factory in Minsk. He ends up meeting a Russian girl called Marina, marries her, and then returns to the U.S. 

Eventually, he comes into contact with George de Mohrenschildt, who claims that he may have influenced Lee to take a shot at General Walker, and ties him to being the gunman who killed Kennedy. De Mohrenschildt is an occasional informant for the CIA and is the connection to Oswald, bringing him into the plot. De Mohrenschildt is having dinner with Larry Parmenter, and they discuss Oswald and why he shot the General, “‘What got him interested in Walker?’ ‘The easy answer is politics. In 1959, an ex-Marine, what does he do? He defects to the Soviet Union. . . back he comes. Naturally, the Agency is interested. . . I’m to take the fatherly approach. . . In fact, I think my own feelings about General Walker may have influenced Lee to take a shot at him” (Delillo 55-56). Delillo utilises De Mohrenschildt (a historic figure) to explain so much about Lee's intentions, and how he is influenced. He lacks a father figure, and is seemingly quite unstable with his beliefs, and wants to return to the US after living in the Soviet Union for 3 years. So the CIA is seemingly interested in him. Later on in the discussion De Mohrenschildt reveals that he is  ‘far left’ “‘He may be a pure Marxist, the purest of believers. Or he may be an actor in real life’. . . Larry couldn’t help laughing. It was all so curiously funny. It was rich, that’s what it was” (Delillo 56-57). Everything about the situation is unnaturally perfect. Unusual. Every element of Lee’s development is important. Creates his desires, his needs, his unique personality. One that is perfect for the CIA to take advantage of. 

Lee’s story is an intriguing but honestly depressing one to read. He had a rough childhood in America, is a veteran, and the assassin of JFK. As stated earlier, the media portrays him as a radical killer, a man with a broken past who, due to his crazy beliefs and unique situation, killed JFK. Delillo takes an entirely different approach, one that isn’t a monster but one built out of instability, messy ideology, and a need for significance. He isn’t portrayed as a mastermind by Delillo, but as a pawn. A perfectly designed pawn that checks every box for the conspiracy. 

Overall, Libra fails to give any sense of closure. Rather, Delillo attempts to fill in the gaps that history cannot answer for us. The idea that a single man can change history with a single bullet is such a hard idea to accept, which is one way to look at why Delillo created this novel. And in the end, no one will be able to agree on what Oswald truly represents, after all, he was killed before his trial. Does he represent the power of a single man? The corrupt power of the CIA? Of the Soviets? Or even the failure of American institutions to raise a not messed-up American? Does Lee’s life and what he did even matter? I think yes. If it happened before, it can happen again. It has already almost happened again. Does anybody remember the assassination attempt on Trump??! No matter what, I think that it’s human nature to chase truth, even if the more ‘truthful’ narrative is really just fiction…

Works Cited(ish):

Delillo, Don Libra. Penguin Group, 1991.

https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/jfk-assassination 

https://www.history.com/articles/kennedy-assassination-facts-oswald-warren-commission