intense desire to join the Marines and get away from his Surroundings and his mother. His study of Communist literature, which might appear to be inconsistent with his desire to join the Marines, could have been another manifestation of Oswald's rejection of his environment.109

His difficulty in relating to other people and his general dissatisfaction with the world around him continued while he was in the Marine Corps. Kerry Thornley, a marine associate, who, shortly after Oswald's defection, wrote an as yet unpublished novel based in considerable part on Oswald's life, testified that "definitely the Marine Corps was not what he had expected it to be when he joined." He said that Oswald "seemed to guard against developing real close friendships." 110 Daniel Powers, another marine who was stationed with Oswald for part of his marine career, testified that Oswald seemed "always [to be] striving for a relationship, but whenever he did * * * his general personality would alienate the group against him." Other marines also testified that Oswald had few friends and kept very much to himself. 112

While there is nothing in Oswald's military records to indicate that he was mentally unstable or otherwise psychologically unfit for duty in the Marine Corps, 113 he did not adjust well to conditions which he found in that service. 114 He did not rise above the rank of private first class, even though he had passed a qualifying examination for the rank of corporal.115 His Marine career was not helped by his attitude that he was a man of great ability and intelligence and that many of his superiors in the Marine Corps were not sufficiently competent to give him orders.116 While Oswald did not seem to object to authority in the abstract, he did think that he should be the one to exercise it. John E. Donovan, one of his former officers, testified that Oswald thought "that authority, particularly the Marine Corps, ought to be able to recognize talent such as his own, without a given magic college degree, and put them in positions of prominence? 117 Oswald manifested this feeling about authority by baiting his officers. He led them into discussions of foreign affairs about which they often knew less than he did, since he had apparently devoted considerable time to a study of such matters.118 When the officers were unable to discuss foreign affairs satisfactorily with him, Oswald regarded them as unfit to exercise command over him.119 Nelson Delgado, one of Oswald's fellow Marines, testified that Oswald tried to "cut up anybody that was high ranking" in those arguments "and make himself come out top dog.". 120 Oswald probably engaged his superiors in arguments on a subject that he had studied in an attempt to attract attention to himself and to support his exaggerated idea of his own abilities.

Thornley also testified that he thought that Oswald's extreme personal sloppiness in the Marine Corps "fitted into a general personality pattern of his: to do whatever was not wanted of him, a recalcitrant trend in his personality." 121 Oswald "seemed to be a person who would go out of his way to get into trouble" 122 and then used the "special treatment" he received as an example of the way in which