Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery

  You see, when I would make fun of him, of his activity to some extent, he said that I didn’t understand him and here, you see, was proof that someone else did, that there were people who understood his activity.9

  From Marina’s narrative: . . . To tell the truth, I sympathized with Cuba. I have a good opinion of this new Cuba, since when I was living in Russia I saw lots of excellent movies about the new life in Cuba [and] I came to think that the people were satisfied . . . and that the revolution had given to many work, land, and a better life than they had had before. When I came to the United States and people told me that they did not love Fidel Castro, I did not believe them . . . .

  But I did not support Lee since I felt that he was too small a person to take so much on himself. He became conceited about doing such an important job and helping Cuba. But I saw that no one here agreed with him. So why do it? . . . Cuba will get along by itself, without Lee Oswald’s help. I thought it was better for him to take care of his family.10

  Of course, Marina’s grandmother used to tell her, “Politics is poop!” How Russian is such an attitude: My private life is my only wealth! She was in this sense the worst possible wife for Oswald.

  McMillan: She believed it was his family, June and herself, whom he loved in his heart, but that in accordance with his lofty ideas about himself, he . . . forced himself to put politics above everything. It seemed to her that Lee was not being true to himself. Marina longed to cry out to him: “Why do you torture us so? You know you don’t believe half of what you are saying.”11

  We come back to his basic dilemma: To which half of himself will he be faithful—his need for love, or his need for power and fame? What is never taken seriously enough in Oswald is the force of his confidence that he has the makings of a great leader. If his living conditions are mean and his role is not viewed solemnly by anyone but himself, he can still fortify his belief in the future of Lee Harvey Oswald by contemplating those anonymous early years spent by Lenin and Hitler. So his ideas are at least as real to him as the family that he does indeed care for—in his fashion.

  Public events, however, may have been tipping the balance. On June 11, Kennedy broadcast a nationwide speech that called for a new civil rights bill, and on that same night, Medgar Evers of the NAACP was fatally shot on the doorstep of his home in Jackson, Mississippi.

  Jackson was but two hundred miles from New Orleans, and the air was boiling in the Deep South. Oswald may have seen it as his personal duty to face into such heat. On June 16, the day after Medgar Evers’ funeral, he went to the Dumaine Street wharf, where the USS Wasp, an aircraft carrier, was docked.

  Oswald started passing out his newly acquired Fair Play for Cuba leaflets. Here is part of the text:

  On January 16, 1961, the United States Government issued a ban on travel by U.S. citizens to Cuba. Failure to abide by the ban is punishable by a fine of $5,000 or 5 years in jail or both . . . .

  What mysterious features exist on this tiny island of 6-½ million people to become so taboo for American eyes? Although the policy of the Castro government is to promote tourism everywhere in Cuba, our government innocently explains that the travel ban is to safeguard our welfare . . . .

  #Why then do other Western countries such as Canada, Mexico, England, France, West Germany, etc., find that the safety of their nationals does not require restrictions on travel to Cuba? . . .

  #Why then is travel allowed and even encouraged to admittedly Communist countries such as Poland, Yugoslavia and even the Soviet Union?

  In short, WHAT IS THE GOVERNMENT HIDING?

  #Can it be that the new schools, homes, and hospitals of revolutionary Cuba might contrast severely with the Cuba that served as a U.S. plantation and might weigh heavily on the American conscience? . . .

  WE MAINTAIN THAT THE TRUTH ABOUT CUBA IS IN CUBA AND THAT WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO OBSERVE AND JUDGE FOR OURSELVES WHAT IS HAPPENING THERE!12

  There were a few consequences to handing out the leaflets. From a report by a Special Agent of the FBI on July 21, 1963:

  Patrolman Ray stated that late in the afternoon, possibly between 3:00 pm and 5:00 pm, he was approached by an unknown enlisted man from the “USS Wasp” who told him that the Officer of the Deck of the “USS Wasp” desired Patrolman Ray to seek out the individual who was passing out leaflets regarding Cuba and to request the individual to stop passing out these leaflets. Patrolman Ray . . . immediately went to the Dumaine Street Wharf where he saw an unknown white male . . . age late 20’s, 5′9″ tall, 150 pounds and slender build. He said this individual was distributing these leaflets to U.S. Naval personnel in the area and also to civilians who were leaving the USS Wasp. Patrolman Ray stated that he approached this person and asked if he had permission to distribute the leaflets. This person replied that he . . . was within his rights to distribute leaflets in any area he desired to do so. Patrolman Ray stated that he told this individual that the wharves and buildings along the Mississippi River . . . are operated by the Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans, and that if this individual received permission from the Board of Commissioners, he could distribute these leaflets. Patrolman Ray stated that . . . this person kept insisting that he did not see why he would need anyone’s permission and thereafter, Patrolman Ray informed this individual that if he did not leave the Dumaine Street Wharf, Patrolman Ray would arrest him. Upon hearing this, this person left the Dumaine Street Wharf . . . .

  Patrolman Ray stated that he feels this unknown individual who was distributing the leaflets was Lee Harvey Oswald.13

  It is not hard to feel the suppressed intensity of that confrontation! He may be frequently hysterical at home, but is a model of emotional austerity on the street: calm, firm, quiet-voiced, formal, unbending. He is even—his own favorite word—stoic. We can only guess how much it costs him to conceal his emotions. All the same, he moves ahead. In the following week, on June 24, he will apply successfully for a passport—his belated reward for paying off the State Department loan. Now, he will be able to leave the United States once more, and as a political adventurer in a game of high stakes. His anxiety erupts:

  McMillan: . . . one night toward the very end of June he had four anxiety attacks during which he shook from head to toe at intervals of half an hour and never once woke up. Just as in the period when he was making up his mind to shoot General Walker, these attacks appear to have presaged a decision that was causing him pain.14

  On the following night, Marina was watching him read and he looked up at her:

  McMillan: . . . she saw a look of sadness in his eyes. He put his book down and went into the kitchen by himself. Marina waited a few minutes. Then she put the baby down and followed him. Lee was sitting in the dark with his arms and legs wrapped around the back of a chair and his head resting on top. He was staring down at the floor. Marina put her arms around him, stroked his head, and could feel him shaking with sobs . . .

  Finally she said: “Everything is going to be all right. I understand.”

  Marina held him for about a quarter of an hour and he told her between sobs that he was lost. He didn’t know what he ought to do. At last he stood up and returned to the living room.15

  Recalling that night thirty years later, she said that if he had wanted to tell her about his problem he would have, but it was better not to ask. She could still feel his burden. There was something so heavy he had been carrying, and she didn’t know what it was. She never knew. It was sad, she said. When they were a little hungry, he would offer meat from his plate to give to her; she would offer meat from her plate to give to him. “Save it for yourself later,” each of them would say.

  That night, they felt so close.

  McMillan: . . . he said suddenly, “Would you like me to come to Russia, too?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No,” he said . . . . “I’ll go with my girls . . . We’ll be together, you and me and Junie and the baby [when she is born]. There is nothing to hold me here. I’d rath
er have less but not have to worry about the future . . .”

  A while later they were in the kitchen together. Lee held her by the shoulders and told her to write the Soviet Embassy that he would be coming too. He would add his visa request to her letter . . .

  That weekend, the 29th or 30th of June, Marina wrote her longest, warmest, and so far her only uncoerced letter to Nikolai Reznichenko, head of the consular section of the Soviet Embassy in Washington.16

  Dear Comrade Reznichenko!

  I received two letters from you in which you requested me to indicate the reason for my wish to return to the USSR.

  But first of all, permit me to apologize for such a long silence on my part and to thank you for a considerate attitude toward me on the part of the Embassy. The reasons for my silence were certainly family “problems” which is also one of the reasons I wish to return to the Homeland. The main reason, “of course” is homesickness, regarding which much is written and spoken, but one learns it only in a foreign land.

  I count among family “problems” the fact that . . . my relatives were against my going to America and, therefore, I would be ashamed to appeal to them. That is why I had to weigh everything once more before replying to your letter.

  But things are improving due to the fact that my husband expresses a sincere wish to return together with me to the USSR. I earnestly beg you to help him in this. There is not much that is encouraging for us here and nothing to hold us. I would not be able to work for the time being, even if I did find work. And my husband is unemployed. It is very difficult for us to live here. We have no money to enable me to come to the Embassy, not even to pay for hospital and other expenses connected with the birth of a child. We both urgently solicit your assistance to enable us to return and work in the USSR.

  In my application I did not specify the place in which I would like to live in the Soviet Union. I earnestly beg you to help us to obtain permission to live in Leningrad where I grew up and went to school. I have a sister and a brother of my mother’s second marriage there. I know that I do not have to explain to you the reason for my wish to live precisely in that city. It speaks for itself. I permit myself to write this without any desire to belittle the merits of our other cities . . .

  These are the basic reasons why I and my husband wish to return to the USSR. Please do not deny our request. Make us happy again, help us to return to that which we lost because of our foolishness. I would like to have my second child, too, to be born in the USSR.

  Sincerely and respectfully,

  M. Oswald17

  By morning, he had changed his mind. His strength was restored. In his own note, which he enclosed with Marina’s letter, he wrote:

  Dear Sirs,

  Please rush the entrance visa for the return of Soviet citizen Marina N. Oswald.

  She is going to have a baby in October, therefore you must grant the entrance visa and make the transportation arrangements before then.

  As for my return entrance visa please consider it separately.

  Thank You

  Lee H. Oswald

  (husband of Marina Nicholeyev)18

  To commit his mind to one action sometimes meant no more than that he was constructing a mental platform which would enable him to spring off in the opposite direction. He was the living embodiment of the dialectic—where was the thesis in him that would fail to create its antithesis? But then, that is the nature of narcissists, locked forever into an inner dialogue with themselves. Half of the self captures the argument for a night; the other half takes over in the morning.

  Their letters to the Soviet Embassy are sent off on June 30. The next day, he takes out from the public library William Manchester’s biography of John F. Kennedy, Portrait of a President. Maybe he is looking to see what he might be giving up by leaving America. Five days later, he takes out Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. If an outspoken book about a prisoner in a gulag can actually be published under Khrushchev, then Soviet life is becoming more liberal. Five days later, he reads Alexander Werth’s Russia Under Khrushchev. He must be looking for reinforcement of the idea that it is worth going back. Of course, this is just one theme among several. The following week, he will peruse JFK’s Profiles in Courage, and for that matter, he takes out C. S. Forester’s Hornblower and the Hotspur on the same day as Ivan Denisovich. We have to keep reminding ourselves that he is only twenty-three years old, and there are days when thrillers and naval battles are closer to him than politics. On July 18, he took out Five Spy Novels selected by Howard Haycraft.

  We can recall that the first book he took out from the New Orleans Public Library was Robert Payne’s biography of Mao, and in it he must have come across the following passage. What reassurance it must have offered to such a devoted reader and individual thinker (by his own measure) as Oswald:

  Mao could read twice or three times as fast as any other man. In libraries he surrounded himself with a wall of books. No one Hsiao San had ever known had ever hungered for such a vast quantity of knowledge on so many different levels. [However, said Mao,] it was perfectly easy to read but that something more was necessary—an understanding of the laws of civilization.19

  Exploring these “laws of civilization” was a quest for Oswald as intense as any fifteenth-century navigator’s belief that he could find a westward passage to India. Oswald was dyslexic, yet how much he reads. It is altogether uncharacteristic for those afflicted with dyslexia to go out of their way to read, but once again, Oswald does not fit a category, no more than would any man who leads an expedition. The obvious pain that Oswald suffers from, however, is that on his expedition he has no support team, no equipment, no funds, no goal that others can recognize, and his first mate is his most constant critic.

  6

  Atheism and Morality

  Unaware of Lee’s proposal to Marina that the Oswald family go back to Russia, Ruth Paine, on July 11, wrote a letter in Russian to Marina with a wholly different suggestion:

  If Lee doesn’t wish to live with you any more, and prefers that you go to the Soviet Union, think about the possibility of living with me. It would be necessary, of course, to live dependent on me for a year or two, while the babies are small, but please do not be embarrassed. You are an able girl. Later, after a year or two, you could find work in America . . . .

  You know, I have long received [financial support] from my parents. I lived “dependent” a long time. I would be happy to be an aunt to you. And I can. We have sufficient money. Michael would be glad. This I know. He just gave me $500.00 extra for the vacation or something necessary. With this money it is possible to pay the doctor and hospital in October when the baby is born. Believe God. All will be well for you and the children. I confess that I think this opportunity for me to know you, came from God. Perhaps it is not so, but I think and believe so . . . .

  Marina, come to my home the last part of September without fail. Either for two months or two years. And don’t be worried about money.

  I don’t want to hurt Lee with this invitation to you. Only I think that it would be better if you and he do not live together if you do not receive happiness. I understand how Michael feels—he doesn’t love me, and wants the chance to look for another life and another wife. He must do this, it seems, and so it is better for us not to live together. I don’t know how Lee feels, I would like to know. Surely things are hard for him now, too. I hope that he would be glad to see you with me where he can know that you and the children will receive everything that is necessary, and he would not need to worry about it. Then he could start life again.

  Write, please . . . 1

  By the time this letter arrived, two weeks must have gone by since the night when Lee had cried in her arms so, doubtless, matters had shifted again. At the least, Marina must have given much private consideration to the possibility offered by Ruth.

  Soon enough, new and depressing events came over the mood of the Oswalds’ household:

  MR. LE BLANC. H
e was standing there by me and watching me, [so] I says, “Are you finished all your greasing?” He said yes . . . he stood there a few minutes and all of a sudden, he said, “You like it here?” I said, “What do you mean?” He says, “Do you like it here?” I said, “Well, sure I like it here. I have been here a long time, about 8½ years or so.” He said, “Oh, hell, I didn’t mean this place.” I said, “Well, what do you mean?” He says, “This damn country.” I said, “Why, certainly, I love it. After all, this is my country.” He turned around and walked off. He didn’t say any more.2

  MR. LIEBELER. Did [his absences] get worse as he stayed there?

  MR. LE BLANC. Well, toward the last it began to get pretty regular, and that is when I think they decided to let him go . . . .he had this habit, every time he would walk past you . . . just like a kid playing cowboys or something—you know, he used his finger like a gun. He would go “Pow!” and I used to look at him, and I said, “Boy, what a crackpot this guy is!”3

  On July 17, his employment was terminated.

  MR. ALBA. When he did leave, he came in the office and he says . . . “Well, I will be seeing you.” I said, “Where are you headed?” He said, “Out there, where the gold is.” I said, “Where is that?” He said, “I told you I was going to Michaud [the NASA space center].” He said, “Well, I have heard from them and I have just wound up things next door at the coffee company, and I am on my way out there now.”4