Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery

by Norman Mailer

  Met agent of MVD “P” at meeting on 23.II.62. Said that he had recently spoken on two occasions with his niece, Marina, regarding her upcoming departure from the Soviet Union for the U.S. “P” explained to Marina necessity of conducting herself in worthy manner and not taking part in any anti-Soviet propaganda or other hostile actions aimed at Soviet Union, so as not to cause any trouble for “P” and other relatives living in USSR. Marina promised “P” that she would not commit any acts in U.S. that would compromise “P” or her other relatives.

  “P” will continue to have educational conversations and will have a talk with “Likhoi”8 so that upon arrival in U.S. he will refrain from making any slanderous statements about USSR.

  “P” explained that in conversation with Marina, expressing concern about her well-being, he inquired as to whether she had noticed anything suspicious in L.H. Oswald’s behavior or actions which would show him to be a dubious personality. Marina stated to “P” that she had noticed nothing of that sort in Oswald’s behavior.

  During his meetings with her, “P” also asked Marina if she wasn’t afraid that Oswald would be repressed by American authorities since he defected from United States. Marina is aware, having been told by Oswald, that in U.S. it is not considered to be a crime which would threaten him with arrest and that, supposedly, according to American laws, there is no basis for making Oswald answer for it after his return to U.S.

  There may have been organizational tension present in such a meeting between an MVD Colonel and a KGB Captain. At one time, Misha Kuzmich, Ilya’s neighbor, had been chief doctor in Minsk for both KGB and MVD. A line of patients from both organizations would form in his outer office as people waited for their turn. When a Colonel from MVD came in, however, he would approach Misha’s nurse like a big boss, and she would take him right through. He was a Colonel and in uniform, after all. KGB guys were more modest. They didn’t wear uniforms. So you couldn’t determine their rank. They might be well dressed and elegant, but they would have to wait in line. KGB got upset, therefore, but could do nothing about it. They were too secretive to show who was of higher rank among their people. In fact, KGB was so unhappy that they eventually set up their own polyclinic, and even their own hospital, as a means of avoiding such annoyances.

  There were other differences. KGB did surveillance and so did MVD; but the latter did it in a more primitive style. At MVD, there was a saying: “If you have enough strength, you don’t need brains.”

  Of course, should a job concern internal security, they would cooperate. All the same, you would usually know who was from one organization and who from the other, because people in KGB had better manners and were more cultivated. Misha could say with some authority that a lot of people who spoke of being brought in by KGB had in fact been approached by MVD. Since both were located in the same building on Lenin Prospekt, you weren’t going to separate one from another just by being summoned to that large yellow building, with its high white columns out front and its small doors.

  7

  “There Are Microbes in Your Mouth”

  February 28

  I go to register (as prescribed by law) the baby. I want her name to be June Marina Oswald. But those bureaucrats say her middle name must be the same as my first. A Russian custom supported by a law. I refuse to have her name written as “June Lee.” They promise to call the City Ministry (city hall) and find out in this case, since I do have a U.S. passport.

  His next entry is for February 29, although 1962 is no leap year.

  February 29

  I am told that nobody knows what to do exactly but everybody agrees, “Go ahead and do it ‘Po-Russki’ [the Russian way].” Name: June Lee.

  When Valya came to visit, Marina was ironing diapers. Since they were too dry, she held some water in her mouth and blew it out in a spray. Alik said, “What are you doing? There are microbes in your mouth.” This meant to Valya that he cared about the baby. He actually took a plate and put a little water in it and showed Marina how to do it with her fingers, lightly. Of course, Marina’s family might be elegant to look at, but Valya knew by now—peasant stock. Rich peasant stock. Tatiana, for instance, had not been educated—she could barely read—but all the same, elegant.

  Then, one day in early spring, when Marina and Alik had a terrible fight over at Valya’s home, Alik said, “Stay in Russia if you want, but at least let me take my baby,” whereupon Marina grabbed June and said, “You have no right to remove a child from her mother.” Valya ran back and forth between them, and then told Marina that Alik was pale as a ghost standing by her window. Of course, they made up. Valya was the peacemaker. “Look what you’ve done to him,” Valya kept saying.

  After his marriage, Stellina heard nothing from Alyosha. No contact. After the baby’s birth, however, serious problems began, because he did call. He said, “You know, Marina doesn’t know how to cook; she doesn’t clean up.” He said, “You, Stellina, had a child and you still went to work. But I come home and bring her money and our clothes aren’t washed, the house is dirty, the kid’s crying, she doesn’t have anything to eat for me . . .”

  Stellina told him that was strange. You have to talk to her, she told him. Explain! With a child, a woman has to work. Your wife has to clean and cook. You should help, of course, but that’s what she should do.

  After this conversation, there was no word for a while, then he called again and said, “Ma, this situation is unbearable. Our child isn’t taken care of. I leave for work hungry. I come back home hungry. We are constantly getting in fights.” He began to cry.

  Sometimes he would meet Stellina at night. She taught night school for workers, and on their way, as they were walking, he would be crying, out on the street, yes. Then he started to say that his wife was insisting they go to America. She would say there was no way he could earn any more money at his factory, and finally she insisted they go.

  Let no one say that he did not have different sides to offer to different people. We can be certain that the State Department was hardly seeing Oswald in the same light as Stellina.

  On March 9, Joseph Norbury, the American Consul at the Embassy, wrote to Oswald to inform him that the American Embassy was now authorized to advance him as much as $500 “to defray the cost of travel to an American port of entry,” for his family and himself:

  . . . You will of course be expected to use the cheapest available mode of transportation [and] will be asked to sign a promissory note for the funds at the time you receive them . . .

  We have not yet received the approved visa petition for your wife [but] as soon as it is approved, you can submit your passport to the OVIR for your exit visa . . . 1

  Why had the American Embassy in Moscow not yet received approval of Marina’s visa? Was there a problem still unsettled? Lee told Marina, “If they don’t allow you to enter America, I will stay in Russia. I am not going alone.” At that moment she would have supported him if he had told her they must go to the moon. They were really a family, she decided. Good days came back to their marriage.

  Now, when Lee came home from work, he always had a nice smile no matter how bad his day had been. He might tell her about his troubles at work later, but once he opened their door, he would say, “Daddy’s home,” or, “Here I am.” Would announce himself as if he were an actor bounding onstage. And she looked forward to that. “Girls, Daddy’s here, everything’s fine. Devochki, ya doma. Little girls, I’m home.”

  As soon as he came in, he would take off his dirty clothes, shower right away, and put on clean ones. Of course, they only had hot water three times a week, so on days there was none, he would not take a cold shower but just clean himself off. She did not have to boil water for him. Lee would help her with laundry as well and sometimes wash their dishes.

  Meanwhile, the sanction was still in force. The next two communications speak for themselves. The first is from the American Consul, Joseph Norbury, in Moscow, to the State Department in Washington.

  M
arch 15, 1962

  Decision needed soonest on re-consideration 243 (g) waiver Marina OSWALD. Husband . . . telephones and writes Embassy frequently to find out reason delay. We deemed it unwise discuss 243(g) problem as long as waiver still possible, but find it increasingly awkward put Oswald off.2

  The second is from Robert Owen, in the Office of Soviet Union Affairs in the State Department, to John Crump, the officer in the State Department’s Visa Office handling Oswald’s case, and it may be the most important single memo in the file.

  March 16, 1962

  VO Mr. John E. Crump

  SOV Robert I. Owen

  . . . SOV3 believes it is in the interest of the U.S. to get Lee Harvey Oswald and his family out of the Soviet Union and on their way to this country as soon as possible. An unstable character, whose actions are entirely unpredictable, Oswald may well refuse to leave the USSR or subsequently attempt to return there if we should make it impossible for him to be accompanied from Moscow by his wife and child.

  Such action on our part would also permit the Soviet Government to argue that although it had issued an exit visa to Mrs. Oswald to prevent the separation of a family, the United States Government had imposed a forced separation by refusing to issue her a visa. [Moreover, a] detour to a third country would require additional United States funds.

  SOV recommends that INS be asked to reconsider on an urgent basis its decision regarding the 243(g) waiver for Mrs. Oswald . . . motivated in part by the fact that Oswald is using up his funds while awaiting documentation.4

  Marina was still not sure she wanted to go. She was looking for advice. Some of the pharmacy girls tried to talk her out of it. She would say to them, “What am I going to do? I have a baby, and a baby should have its father.” But they would say she was going to a foreign country with a man who was not such a balanced person. He wants to live here, gets married, gets her pregnant—then suddenly he wants to go back to America. Lots of uncertainty in him. Maybe her child needs a father, but he was moving his wife into a new country without knowing—can she cope with such a situation? After all, people were brought up here in a different way. He is taking his wife over there without even thinking ahead of how she will feel.

  8

  Second Thoughts

  Along with everything else, Lee was having an exchange of letters with a Brigadier General in the Marine Corps.

  7 Mar 1962

  Dear Mr. Oswald:

  . . . A review of your file at this Headquarters reflects . . . reliable information which indicated that you had renounced your United States citizenship with the intention of becoming a permanent citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Commander, Marine Air Reserve Training, made responsible efforts to inform you of your right to appear before the review board in person [but in] the absence of reply from you concerning your rights, [the board] met on 8 August 1960 at which time a recommendation was submitted that you be separated from the Marine Corps Reserve as undesirable . . .

  Sincerely, R. McC. Tompkins,

  Brigadier General U.S. Marine Corps1

  One can feel the pressure of Oswald’s hand upon each word he chooses to emphasize in his reply of March 22.

  Dear Sirs:

  In reply to your notification of the granting of an undesirable discharge and your conveying of the process at which it was arrived:

  I would like to point out in direct opposition to your information that I have never taken steps to renounce my U.S. citizenship. Also that the United States State Department has no charges or complaints against me whatsoever.

  I refer you to the United States Embassy, Moscow, or the U.S. Department of State, Washington DC, for the verification of this fact.

  Also, I was [not] aware of the finding of the board of officers of 8 August 1960. I was notified by my mother, in December of 1961.

  My request to the Secretary of the Navy, his referral to you, and your letter to me, did not say anything about a review, which is what I was trying to arrange.

  You mention “reliable information” as the basis for the undesirable discharge. I have no doubt it was newspapers’ speculation which formed your “reliable information.”

  Under U.S. law governing the use of passports and conduct abroad, I have a perfect right to reside in any country I wish to . . . therefore, you have no legal, or even moral, right to reverse my honorable discharge . . . into an undesirable discharge.

  You may consider this letter a request by me for a full review of my case in the light of these facts, since by the time you receive this letter I shall have returned to the USA with my family, and shall be prepared to appear in person at a reasonable time and place in my area before a reviewing board of officers.2

  On March 27 comes the last entry in his diary:

  I receive a letter from a Mr. Phillips (employer of my mother) pledging to support my wife in case of need.

  March 27, ’62

  Dear Mother,

  . . . We should be in the States in May at the latest. The Embassy has agreed to loan me $500.00 for the trip, and also they accepted my own affidavit of support so yours won’t be necessary after all. However, don’t try to get that businessman friend of yours to cancel his affidavit; it may come in handy someday. As you say, my trip here would make a good story about me. I’ve already thought about that for quite a while now. In fact, I’ve already made 50 pages of longhand notes on the subject.

  Love xxx

  Lee3

  March 28

  Dear Mother,

  . . . You asked whether I’ll be staying at your place or Robert’s in Fort Worth. I don’t think I’ll be staying at either but I will be visiting both. In any event, I’ll want to live on my own . . . 4

  April 12, 1962

  Dear Robert,

  . . . It looks like we’ll be leaving the country in April or May; only the American side is holding us up now. The Embassy is as slow as the Russians were . . .

  . . . Now that winter is gone, I really don’t want to leave until the beginning of fall since the spring and summer here are so nice.

  Your brother,

  Lee5

  Can he be thinking of his undesirable discharge and all the problems it could cause him when looking for a job? America may be waiting for him like an angry relative whose eyes glare in the heat.

  9

  “His Impertinence Knows No Bounds”

  From March 16 to May 4, there has been no change in the problem concerning the waiver.

  INCOMING TELEGRAM DEPARTMENT OF STATE

  May 4, 1962

  FROM: Moscow

  TO: Secretary of State

  Decision needed soonest on re-consideration 243(#) [sic] Oswald . . . We deemed it unwise discuss 243(g) problem as long as waiver still possible, but find it increasingly awkward put Oswald off.

  THOMPSON1

  Does Oswald have any idea how many people whom he dislikes, and who in turn detest him, are now working for his cause? Telegrams are even being sent out from Moscow under Ambassador Thompson’s name.

  From a letter on May 8 by Joseph Norbury, to Robert I. Owen, in the Office of Soviet Union Affairs, Department of State:

  Dear Bob,

  . . . You will also have noted our cable of May 4 on the OSWALD case. If the 243 (g) waiver is not granted soon on this one, I think we should call the Oswalds in and send them on to Belgium. It is not that our hearts are breaking for Oswald. His impertinence knows no bounds. His latest letter contained an imperious demand that the State Department stop trying to get travel funds from his relatives in the U.S . . . . On the two or three recent occasions he has telephoned from Minsk, I have had to refer lamely to a still unsettled “problem” which is still holding up his wife’s case . . . 2

  If, for months, State has been requesting Justice to waive the sanction, now . . . the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the Department of Justice finally relinquishes its punitive position in a letter on May 9 to Michael Cieplinski of the Bureau of Security
and Consular Affairs at State.

  Dear Mr. Cieplinski:

  . . . Your letter also states that the waiving of sanctions in behalf of Mrs. Oswald would be in the best interests of the United States.

  In view of the strong representation made in your letter of March 27, 1962, you are hereby advised that the sanctions imposed pursuant to Section 243 (g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act are hereby waived in behalf of Mrs. Oswald.

  Sincerely yours,

  Robert H. Robinson, Deputy Assoc. Commissioner

  Travel Control3

  It is well worth quoting from the most salient paragraph of Michael Cieplinski’s letter of March 27:

  . . . if Mrs. Oswald is not issued a visa by the Embassy, the Soviet Government will be in a position to claim that it has done all it can to prevent the separation of the family by issuing Mrs. Oswald the required exit permission, but that this [American] Government has refused to issue her a visa, thus preventing her from accompanying her husband and child . . . 4

  Finally, on May 10, Joseph B. Norbury can write to Oswald with positive news.

  Dear Mr. Oswald:

  I am pleased to inform you that the Embassy is now in a position to take final action on your wife’s visa application. Therefore, you and your wife are invited to come to the Embassy at your convenience . . .

  The Embassy has on file two copies of your wife’s birth certificate and one copy of her marriage certificate. Therefore, she need bring only one more copy of her marriage certificate, three photographs, an X-ray, serological analysis and certification of smallpox inoculation.