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Scarce hand-addressed airmail envelope, 7 x 3.75, addressed by Lee Harvey Oswald to his brother, "Robert Oswald, 7313 Davanport St., Fort Worth, Texas," and signed as part of the return address: "Pvt. L. H. Oswald, MACS-9, MWHG, MCAF, Santa Anna, Calif." Postmarked at Santa Ana on December 23, 19[58]. In fine condition. Oswald mailed this envelope the day after he was assigned to Marine Air Control Squadron No. 9 (MACS-9). Less than a year later, he received a hardship discharge from active service and defected to the Soviet Union.
From the Warren Commission Report: 'On December 22, [1958], Oswald was assigned to Marine Air Control Squadron No. 9 (MACS-9) at the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro, where he had been briefly before he went overseas. He was one of about seven enlisted men and three officers who formed a 'radar crew,' engaged primarily in aircraft surveillance. This work probably gave him access to certain kinds of classified material, some of which, such as aircraft call signs and radio frequencies, was changed after his defection to Russia. For part of his time at El Toro, Oswald may have been assigned to clerical or janitorial tasks on the base…The officer in command of the radar crew, Lt. John E. Donovan, found him 'competent in all functions,' and observed that he handled himself calmly and well in emergency situations…He had a pronounced interest in world affairs, in which he appears to have been better informed than some of the officers, whose lack of knowledge amused and sometimes irritated him; he evidently enjoyed drawing others, especially officers, into conversations in which he could display his own superior knowledge.
It seems clear from the various recollections of those who knew him at El Toro that by the time Oswald returned to the United States, he no longer had any spirit for the Marines; the attitudes which had prompted his enlistment as soon as he was eligible were entirely gone, and his attention had turned away from the Marines to what he might do after his discharge. While no one was able to predict his attempt to defect to Russia within a month after he left the Marines, the testimony of those who knew him at El Toro in contrast to that of his associates in Japan, leaves no doubt that his thoughts were occupied increasingly with Russia and the Russian way of life.'
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