Oswald's Tale (71 page)

#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 rather 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. Oswald
¹⁷

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.
He 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

He had spent many grave hours conversing with Mr. Alba on such matters as the mortality of wounds and the merits of guns. Oswald was not about to tell him now that he had been fired. Serious riflemen take farewell of one another in a golden light—“Out there, where the gold is.”

McMillan:
Marina was to be twenty-two on July 17, and Lee had promised her something special, a dress or a new pair of shoes. He . . . returned home as usual, oblivious of the date. Over supper Marina looked morose, and he asked her why. “Today was my birthday,” she said.

A few minutes later, Lee said, “Come on. Let’s go out.”

“The stores are closed now anyway,” she answered without enthusiasm.

He took her to the drugstore across the street and bought her face powder and a Coca-Cola.

The next day he gave her his news . . .
⁵

After he lost his job at the coffee factory, Lee stopped shaving on weekends. Sometimes he would not even shave on a weekday. Sometimes he brushed his teeth only at night. He didn’t wash his face in the morning. He would sit in a chair for three days melting away. One night he began to talk in his sleep again.

McMillan:
. . . when he took a bath, he even stopped using soap. He just sat listlessly in the bathtub until he could stir himself to get out. “I’m not dirty,” he would say . . . He would burp at meals without excusing himself . . . His breath got bad and Marina used to beg him to brush his teeth, especially if he was going to kiss her. “You’re my wife. You’re supposed to love me any way I am,” and he would come at her, his mouth open, breathing as hard as he could.
⁶

It is possible that part of Lee’s anxiety was that he was going to give a lecture on July 27 at a Jesuit seminary in Mobile, Alabama, and this could prove to be a severe test. He would be speaking before college seminarians who were, at the least, not sympathetic to his ideas.

On July 6, a letter had been sent to him by his cousin Gene Murret, who was studying to enter the priesthood.

Dear Lee and Marina,

Here at the House of Studies during the summer months we have a series of lectures [that] deal with art, literature, economics, religion, politics, etc. We usually have a speaker every one or two weeks on a Saturday or Sunday night. Since we are studying philosophy, most of us are interested in the various phases of Communism, as this is a very timely and practical subject.

We were hoping you might come over to talk to us about contemporary Russia and the practice of Communism there. [Our best time] to have you speak, if you are willing, is on Saturday night, July 27. The talk usually begins at 7 and lasts for about an hour. Then there is a five minute intermission and the speaker returns for a question period which may last a half-hour or so . . . be assured we want you to feel at home talking to us . . .
⁷

On July 27, Dutz and Lillian Murret drove Lee and Marina to the House of Studies at Spring Hill College, Mobile. Since the women were not allowed to be part of the seminarians’ audience, they were given instead a tour of the grounds.

Before they separated, Aunt Lillian asked Lee if he had prepared any notes in order to leave himself less prone to be nervous, and he, whether ready to lie or feeling confident, said, “Oh, don’t worry about me. I give talks all the time.”
⁸
In his daydreams, he had certainly given many public talks.

The only record we have of Lee’s performance comes from FBI interviews in 1964 with two of the priests who were present:

Father
MULLEN
said that
OSWALD
conducted himself very well [and] spoke very well and he at the time thought he was a college graduate.

He further recalled that whenever the subject of religion came up,
OSWALD
passed it off and would not comment on it. He said he definitely received the impression
OSWALD
was an atheist.
⁹

Father
JOHN F. MOORE,
S.J., Professor of Logic and Epistemology, Jesuit House of Studies . . . advised that
OSWALD
was not an outstanding speaker but in his opinion was just fair. He said
OSWALD
used no notes whatsoever during his talk, but handled himself very well. He said he definitely received the impression
OSWALD
had at least a college education. He also said
OSWALD
did not appear to be prosperous, but was casually dressed in sports clothing. He further informed that to the best of his recollection
OSWALD
made no statements indicating he was in favor of a revolution and he did not receive the impression
OSWALD
was a violent individual.
¹⁰

The FBI report goes on to give a summary of the question-and-answer period that followed Oswald’s lecture:

While Marina does not recall his mood on their return from Mobile, odds are that Oswald had to be a bit impressed with himself, for when they began to talk about the new baby who would be born in October, he was not only convinced that it would be a boy but that he would know just how to bring him up.

McMillan:
“I’ll make a President out of my son.” He had spoken this way before the birth of his first child, and again . . . before he tried to shoot General Walker. But now, he went a step further. He said that in twenty years’ time,
he
would be President or prime minister. It did not seem to matter that America has no prime minister.
¹²

Perhaps he was thinking of an entirely new structure of government. The Atheian system was going to produce great changes in America.