Ronnie Dugger on Stevnson Demonstration

Oswald Picketed Adlai Rally in Dallas, Witnesses Say
By Ronnie Dugger

DALLAS, Dec.8 -- Curious ironies continue to multiply in the wake of the President's assassination here Nov. 22.

It now appears that Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin, attended not only a rally addressed by Gen. Edwin Walker Oct. 23, but also one addressed by United Nations Ambassador Adlai Stevenson Oct. 24.

A Dallas woman who sat near Oswald at an Oct. 25 meeting of the Dallas Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union says that when the Stevenson meeting of the night before was being discussed, Oswald nodded his head and said, "I was there."

Oswald said this in an aside to Michael Paine, who had brought him to the meeting, the woman clearly recalled. Oswald's wife and children lived with Paine's estranged wife in Irving, a Dallas suburb.

Larrie Schmidt, Dallas insurance salesman was also at the Stevenson meeting, leading a group of pickets against Stevenson.

Yesterday Bernard Weissman, who placed an anti-Kennedy advertisement in the Dallas News on the morning of the assassination, told a newsman in Mt. Vernon, N.Y., that Schmidt telephoned him after the meeting at which Stevenson was spat upon, and asked Weissman to come to Dallas to help out in the aftermath.

Schmidt acknowledges that, in advance of the Stevenson speech, he telephoned "a friend of mine in a local university" and asked if he could help find people to demonstrate against the United Nations. The friend arrived with 14 young pickets, and a "peaceful picketing" was organized, Schmidt said.

The persons who spat on Stevenson and struck him with a picket sign had nothing to do with his well-dressed and orderly group, Schmidt said today. "We deplore and certainly do not condone the actions of those people," Schmidt says.

At the A.C.L.U. meeting on Oct. 25, Oswald rose during the open discussion and remarked that he had attended the Walker speech two nights before and had observed anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic symptoms there.

A man who attended the A.C.L.U. meeting and who sat beside Oswald, has been located and corroborates other recollections about Oswald's remarks there.

This source confirms that Oswald said in the aside that he had attended the Stevenson rally.

A Dallas businesswoman, who refused to be identified, said she believes she saw Oswald picketing at the scene of the Stevenson speech.

"He was the only one who did a military type turn. This called my attention to him," she said.

She believed Oswald's group picketed and left before the disturbance broke out against Stevenson.

A second Dallas woman, a housewife, said: "I believe he was there, and he was carrying a picket sign in the lobby."

Neither the businesswoman nor the housewife remembered what kinds of signs were carried by the group led by the man they now believe was Oswald.

Dave notes - The "local university" was most likely the University of Dallas. Robert Morris was president. Morris was a noted Bircher, lawyer to Walker, and source to Loran Hall.

BK notes: I think it has been established that the students involved in the Stevenson demonstration were from the University of North Texas at Denton.