Warren Commission (08 of 26): Hearings Vol. VIII (of 15)United States. Warren Commission
History
Warren Commission (08 of 26): Hearings Vol. VIII (of 15)
United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Oswald, Lee Harvey
Now, the Irish Channel is a part of town around Magazine Street, oh,
maybe the 3000 block, generally around Magazine and Louisiana Avenue,
I think, in that section, and it was pretty well known that any time
a stranger or someone new moved in the neighborhood, he had to face
something like that. The whole neighborhood had gangs, and unless he
joined one of them someone would have to fight something, and it was
the same at Beauregard. Of course, it was all, you know, children and
adolescent things.
Mr. JENNER. And it was your impression that Lee had that social force,
whatever it was; is that right?
Mr. VOEBEL. Yes, sir; he met it head on.
Mr. JENNER. He was inclined to meet it head on and not back up?
Mr. VOEBEL. Right. He wouldn't take anything. I used to try to avoid
it as much as possible, until you just couldn't avoid it any more. I
think a few of the boys at the time got a wrong impression of me. They
thought I was just a fat kid, and I wouldn't do anything, and I used
to take a little pushing around, and another thing, they would always
be in gangs. Now, if you got them alone, you could whip them, but they
would hang around in bunches.
In fact, I had an incident like that happen to me over at that school
where this boy marked me out. He said he didn't like the way I looked,
so he just kept talking and trying to force me into an incident, and
finally he got it. I beat the dickens out of him, and it was after
school, almost the same way this happened to Lee.
Word got around at the school what I had done, and a whole gang of
people met me after school one day, but I was lucky enough to talk
myself out of it. Now, when they passed the post on Lee, he was
inclined to fight back, but I had sense enough to know that you can't
fight a whole gang, so I talked myself out of it. This gang came over
to my house and piled out of automobiles and started joshing and using
all kinds of vulgar language to try to get me to come out, and my uncle
ran them off, and after that I didn't have any more trouble. You just
had to prove yourself to gain the respect of those gangs.
Mr. JENNER. They didn't attack you any more?
Mr. VOEBEL. No.
Mr. JENNER. Would you say that the course of conduct of Lee Oswald was
normal, having in mind the problems he was facing?
Mr. VOEBEL. Yes, except that he didn't make friends.
Mr. JENNER. He did not?
Mr. VOEBEL. No; he was not inclined to make friends.
Mr. JENNER. But you don't know why he was so disinclined?
Mr. VOEBEL. Well, let's just put it this way; he didn't make friends.
It was just that people and things just didn't interest him generally.
He was just living in his own world, let's say.
Mr. JENNER. But you did have some measure of common interest that you
told me about?
Mr. VOEBEL. I guess you are trying to get at the gun. Is that what you
have in mind?
Mr. JENNER. Well, I am not going to say what I'm trying to get at.
Mr. VOEBEL. Well, I know Lee seemed to have an interest in guns.
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