The Convenience of Lee's Persona

 

    Lee is an interesting character with a unique persona throughout the novel. He has a certain specific self image that influence his actions, motives, and precautions. He wants to be seen as special, as someone who knows their stuff. He's narcissistic and arrogant. All these traits combined with his interest in communism, the Soviet Union, and Cuba cause him to compile a history and background that perfectly portrays him as a communist. While he does this because he's simply interested in communism and because he wants Soviet and Cuban citizenships, his actions would be beneficial for other reasons down the line. It's interesting because this type of person is so difficult to come by as American citizens don't usually do these things. Lee stands out because he went all out. He spread communist propaganda, started the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and most importantly actually defected to the Soviet Union. These actions and many others are vital for the plot of Libra and it's what gets Lee pulled into it in the first place.

    Win Everett. Arguably the head of the entire conspiracy. He took it upon himself to compile together the false misleading past of the plot's patsy. Him along with the other conspirators eventually fell upon Lee Harvey Oswald, and they eventually decided that he would be the "killer" of JFK. Win Everett was obsessed with modifying and fabricating documents, and he was shown throughout the novel doing it as if it was a crafts project. "Once he had a handwriting sample, Win would scratch onto those miniature pages enough trails, false trails, swarming life, lingering mystery, enough real and fabricated people to occupy investigators for months to come. He unscrewed the top of the Elmer's Glue-All." He found pride in scrapping together legitimate looking records with the materials he had. He spent days sitting in his basement using basic arts and crafts supplies such as Elmer's glue to create the background that he was proud of. However, to do so he still needed some samples that connected to Lee, such as his signature. T-Jay Mackey went to search his stuff so that he could bring a copy of the signature back to Win. He ended up finding it, along with many more vital discoveries. "Lee H. Oswald was real all right. What Mackey learned about him in a brief tour of his apartment made Everett feel displaced. It produced a sensation of the eeriest panic, gave him a glimpse of the fiction he'd been devising, a fiction living prematurely in the world." What Mackey found was hoards of fabricated documents, fake names, fake passports, and address books. All of which supported the "false" trail that Everett was trying to lead investigators onto. Win spent ages meticulously crafting Lee's artificial history and he ended up discovering that the history was a reality. The eerie panic in the quote above is likely from Win's surprise at this whole ordeal. It's quite unlikely for an American man such as Oswald to exist in the world. He had an extreme interest in communism and also found pride in false documents and names. Above all else he had the desire to defect to the Soviet Union, which simply didn't happen at the time. It was all there, ready "prematurely" for the benefit of the conspiracy.

    The rare specimen that Lee was ended up being extremely helpful in the context of the entire conspiracy. Yes, Win Everett felt displaced in regards to Lee's background and the creation of false documents and names, but that's simply because Win found pride in his craft. Even he can't deny the usefulness of Lee's work. One may think that it simply saves the conspirators time because the documents are already done, however it does provide other benefits. In terms of leading investigators to believe Lee had a Soviet background, that much is 100% valid. Records do show Lee's connections to communism and that puts investigators right on the trail they're being lead on. "There was socialist literature strewn about. Speeches by Fidel Castro. A booklet with a Castro quotation on the cover: 'The Revolution Must Be a School of Unfettered Thought.'" The conspirators' original intention was to find a random person and forcefully connect their "past" to Castro and Cuba, so that the US would finally take action against them. Yet the next thing they know they find literature and speeches from Castro himself, as well as documentation on Lee being the leader of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans. In terms of Lee's false names, they're still false and could be discovered by investigators, but the fact that he used fake names just helps support the persona that will inevitably be constructed around Lee. The validity of Lee's communist ties is undeniable and it's extremely lucky that they found him, since he fits the position of patsy too perfectly.

Delillo, Don Libra. Penguin Group, 1991.