Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery

by Norman Mailer

  It is worth repeating the point more than once: To show Oswald constantly in the toils of his dyslexia is to do no more than repeat society’s low estimate of him, whereas to correct his spelling and punctuation brings us closer to his psychological reality—which is that he would yet be most important in the scheme of things. Be it said that if he had not distinguished himself verbally in the two radio debates with Stuckey, one would not have been nearly so inclined to dress up his literary appearance; but it was obvious from reading Stuckey’s transcripts that Oswald had polemical gifts large enough to encourage a closer look at what he was saying.

  To give readers an idea of the extent of the changes, a half page of some of the worst of his original text from his essay on Minsk will now be placed next to the copy-edited version.

  Example of Oswald’s uncorrected writing:

  It may be explained that in the Eastern European custom all citizens upon reaching the age of 16 years are given a grey-green “passport” or identifecation papers. On the first page is a foto and personal information, on the following 4 pages, are places for registring address, this including rented rooms, on the next four pages are places for paticular remarks as to the conduct of the carier, a place better kept blank, the next three pages are for registering the places of work, then the next page is for marriage license and divorce stamps, these passprts are changed for a small chrage every five years, a lost passport can be replaced after a short investagation for 10 rubles, all persons regardless of nationality are required to carry these at all times in the Soviet Union nationalities are allso marked on the passport, for instance, a Urakranion is marked Urakrinuien, a Jew is marked Jew, no matter where he was born . . .

  Oswald’s writing as corrected:

  It may be explained that in the Eastern European custom, all citizens upon reaching the age of 16 years are given a gray-green “passport” or identification papers. On the first page is a photo and personal information. On the following four pages are spaces for registering addresses, this including rented rooms. On the next four pages are places for particular remarks as to the conduct of the carrier—a place better kept blank. The next three pages are for registering the places of work; then the next page is for marriage licenses and divorce stamps. These passports are changed for a small charge every five years. A lost passport can be replaced after a short investigation for 10 rubles. All persons regardless of nationality are required to carry these at all times. In the Soviet Union, nationalities are also marked on passports. For instance, a Ukrainian is marked Ukrainian; a Jew is marked “Jew” no matter where he was born . . .

  The excerpts that follow are corrected, and make up about half of those fifty-odd pages of Oswald’s manuscript upon which George De Mohrenschildt offered his comments to the Warren Commission:

  FROM THE COMMISSION EXHIBITS

  VOL. XVI, PP. 287–336

  The Minsk Radio and Television Plant is known throughout the Union as the major producer of electronic parts and sets. In this vast enterprise created in the early ’50s, the Party Secretary is a 6′ 4″ man in his early forties [who] has a long history of service to the Party. He controls the activities of the 1,000 Communist Party members here and otherwise supervises the activities of the other 5,000 people employed at this major enterprise in Minsk, the capital of the third-ranking Republic, Byelorussia.

  This factory manufactures 87,000 large and powerful radios and 60,000 television sets in various sizes and ranges, excluding pocket radios, which are not mass-produced anywhere in the USSR. It is this plant which manufactured several console model combination radio-phonograph-television sets which were shown as mass-produced items of commerce before several hundreds of thousands of Americans at the Soviet Exposition in New York in 1959. After the Exhibition, these sets were duly shipped back to Minsk and are now stored in a special storage room on the first floor of the Administrative Building—at this factory, ready for the next International Exhibit.

  I worked for 23* months at this plant, a fine example of average and even slightly better than average working conditions. The plant covers an area of 25 acres in a district one block north of the main thoroughfare and only two miles from the center of the City with all facilities for the mass production of radios and televisions. It employs 5,000 full-time and 300 part-time workers, 58% women and girls.

  Five hundred people during the day shift are employed on the huge stamp and pressing machines where sheet metal is turned into metal frames and cabinets for television sets and radios.

  Another five hundred people are employed in an adjoining building for the cutting and finishing of rough wood into fine polished cabinets. A laborer’s process, mostly done by hand, the cutting, trimming and the processes right up to hand-polishing are carried out here at the same plant. The plant also has its own stamp-making plant, employing 150 people at or assisting at 80 heavy machine lathes and grinders. The noise in this shop is almost deafening as metal grinds against metal and steel saws cut through iron ingots at the rate of an inch a minute. The floor is covered with oil used to drain the heat of [the] metal being worked so one has to watch one’s footing; here the workers’ hands are as black as the floor and seem to be [so] eternally . . .

  The plant has its electric shop where those who have finished long courses in electronics work over generators, television tubes, and testing experiments of all kinds. The green worktables are filled high here. Electric gadgets are not too reliable, mostly due to the poor quality of the wires, which keep burning out under the impact of the usual 220V voltage . . .

  The plastics department is next. Here forty-seven women and three physically disabled persons keep the red-hot liquid plastic flowing into a store of odd presses, turning out their quotas of knobs, handles, non-conducting tube bases, and so forth. These workers suffer the worst conditions of work in the plant (an otherwise model factory for the Soviet Union) due to bad fumes and the hotness of the materials. These workers are awarded 30 days vacation a year, the maximum for workers. Automation is now employed at a fairly large number of factories, espcially in the war industry. However, for civilian use, their number is still small . . .

  Factory meetings of the Kollectives are so numerous as to be staggering.

  For instance, during one month, the following meetings and lectures are scheduled: 1 Professional Union, which discusses the work of the Professional Union in gathering dues, paying out receipts on vacation orders, etc.; 4 political information every Tuesday on the lunch hour; 2 Young Communist* meetings on the 6th and 21st of every month; 1 Production Committee made up of workers discussing ways of improving work; 2 Communist Party meetings a month called by the section Communist Party Secretary; 4 School of Communist Labor meetings, compulsory, every Wednesday; 1 sports meeting per month, noncompulsory—for a total of 15 meetings every month, 14 of which are compulsory for Communist Party members and 12 compulsory for all others. These meetings are always held after work or on the lunch hour. They are never held during working time. Absenteeism is by no means allowed. After long years of hard discipline, especially under the Stalin regime, no worker will invite the sure disciplinary action of the Party men, and inevitably the factory Party Committee, because of trying to slip out of the way or giving too little attention to what is being said.

  A strange sight indeed is the picture of the local Party man delivering a political sermon to a group of usually robust, simple working men who through some strange process have been turned to stone. Turned to stone—all except the hard-faced Communists with roving eyes looking for any bonus-making catch of inattentiveness on the part of any worker. A sad sight for someone not used to it, but the Russians are philosophical. Who likes the lecture? “Nobody—but it’s compulsory.” . . .

  For a good cross-section of the Russian working class, I suggest we examine the lives of some of the 58 workers and 5 foremen working in the experimental shop of the Minsk radio plant . . .

  The shop itself is located in a two-story building with no
particular noticeable mark on its red brick face. By 8:00 A.M. sharp all the workers have arrived and at the sound of a bell sounded by the duty orderly, who is a worker whose duty it is to see the workers don’t slip out for too many smokes, they file upstairs, except for 10 turners and lathe operators whose machines are located on the first floor. Work here is given out in the form of blueprints and drawings by the foreman Zonof and junior foreman Lavruk to workers whose various reliability and skills call for them, since each worker has with time acquired differing skills and knowledge. Work is given strictly according to so-called “pay levels,” the levels being numbered 1 through 5 with the highest level [6, called] “master.” For level 1, a worker receives approximately 68 rubles for work; level 2, a worker receives 79.50; level 3, 90 rubles; level 4, 105 rubles; for level 5, 125 rubles; and for “masters,” about 150 . . . Except in instances of poor quality work, bonuses are always the same, giving rise to a more or less definite pay scale. A worker may demand to be tested for a higher pay level at any time [and] higher bonuses are awarded to the best shops by the factory committee for good production standards.

  Our shop head Stephen Tarasavich is a stout, open-faced, well-skilled metal-worker who, although he hasn’t got a higher education (which is now a prime requisite for even a foreman’s job) managed to finish a four-year specialty night school course . . . Stephen has an almost bald head except for a line of hair on the left side which he is forever combing across his shiny top. Aged 45, he is married, with two children aged 8 and 10. It may be explained that Russians seem to marry much older than their American counterparts. Perhaps that can be explained by the fact that in order to receive an apartment people often must wait for 5 or 6 years and since security is so unstable until a commonly desired goal is reached—that is, an apartment for oneself—most Russians do not choose to start families until later in life. Stephen is responsible to the Factory Committee and Director for the filling of quotas and production quality. His foreman Zonof is 38 years old, has a wife and 15-month-old baby. Not too long ago, [he] moved out of his one-room flat without kitchen or private toilet into a newly built apartment house and flat of two small rooms, kitchen and bath, a luxury not experienced by most Russians. A tall, thin man with dark creases in his face, his manner, nervous, spontaneous, and direct, betrays his calling. His job: keep the work on the premises going as quickly and efficiently as possible. His assistant, junior foreman Lavruk, is much younger, ten years younger, enigmatic, handsome, quick. He climbed to his post through a night school degree and a sort of rough charm which he instinctively uses in the presence of superiors. The shop’s mainstay is composed of 17 “Shock Workers” whose pictures hang on a wall near the stairs so that all might strive to imitate them. Usually of the 5 level or “master” class of workers, they are experienced at work and politics.

  Most Shock Workers are men of the older age groups, 40–50, and not always members of the Communist Party. They carry the production load and most of the responsibility of the inner life of the Kollective.

  The remaining 41 workers are divided into about half 18–22 year olds, new metalworkers, trying to fulfill their obligatory two years at a factory before going on to full-time day studies at the local University or one of the specialized Institutes, and half [are] older workers who have been working at the plant for 4 to 6 years and occupy the middle number worker levels, 3 and 4; these workers are aged about 24–30 and form the mass of laborers at the factory. Seventy percent have families. Apartments are few. Most occupy rooms belonging to relatives or rooms to let by holders of two- and three-room apartments, often for rents as high as 20 rubles a month. The housing shortage is so critical that people count themselves lucky even to find a person willing to let his room. Room renting is also the most common form of speculation in the USSR. Often it reaches heights out of all proportion with reality, such as the man who derived 80 rubles a month from letting his rooms in the summer while he himself was living in a summer house or dacha in the country. Such speculation is forbidden and carries penalties including deportation to other economic areas of the USSR for terms of up to six months . . .

  All plants and factories in the Soviet Union have Party Committees, headed by one graduate of a higher Party school whose function is to control discipline of members of the Communist Party, and who, working in conjunction with the Directors of the factory, control all factors pertaining to the work, alterations, and production of any given line. It must be noted that officially the Party man occupies a position exactly equal to the head of any factory. However, the facts point out that the Party man has, due to the fact that Communists hold the leading positions in plants, considerably more sway over the activities of the workers than anyone else. No suggestion of the Party man is ever turned down by the directors of our factory. That would be tantamount to treason. The Party man is appointed by the Headquarters of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. He designates who shall be Shop and Section Party Secretaries, a post well-coveted by employed Communists. These Communists, in reality, control every move of the Kollectives. They are responsible for the carrying out of directives pertaining to meetings, lectures, and Party activities in the local cells.

  These meetings of sabranias are almost always held at the lunch hour or after working hours [and] meetings last anywhere from 10 minutes to two hours . . . An amazing thing in watching these political lectures is that there is taken on by the listeners a most phenomenal aspect, one impervious to outside interference or sounds. After long years of hard-fisted discipline, no worker will permit himself to be trapped and called out for inattentiveness by the ever-present and watchful Party Secretary and members of the Communist Party . . . At these times, it is best to curb one’s naturally boisterous and lively nature. Under the 6′ by 6″ picture of Lenin, the Party Section Secretary stands, in our Section, a middle-aged pocked man by the name of Sobakin, an average-looking man wearing glasses. His wrinkled face and twinkling eyes give one the impression that at any moment he’s going to tell a racy story or funny joke, but he never does. Behind this man stands twenty-five years of Party life. His high post, relatively speaking for him, is witness to his efficiency. He stands expounding from notes in front of him the week’s “Information” with all the lack of enthusiasm and gusto of someone who knows that he has no worries about his audience or about someone getting up and going away.

  In the same way, May Day and other “demonstrations” are arranged as well as spontaneous receptions for distinguished guests. I remember when I was in Moscow in 1959 I was just passing in front of the Metropole Restaurant when out of the side streets came a ten-man police unit which stopped all people on the street from passing in front of the entrance, surrounding the crowd and keeping them hemmed in (not detouring the flow of traffic, as would be expected) for three minutes until, right on schedule, an obviously distinguished foreign lady was driven up to the restaurant, where a meeting in her honor had been arranged. She was taken through the “spontaneous” welcoming crowd, after which the police were withdrawn, allowing the passers-by to continue.

  Another instance of this was in 1961 when a Chinese delegation arrived in Minsk and was driven from the railway station to a house on the outskirts of the city. Even though it was 10:30 at night, all along the way members of the MVD (security) forces ran into apartment buildings and student dormitories ordering people out onto the street to welcome the arriving guests.

  Although there was no prior notice of any delegation, another “spontaneous” welcoming committee met the cavalcade of black limousines and dutifully waved back to the darkened cars with their slightly protruding yellowish waving hands . . .

  At the Minsk radio factory, holiday demonstrations (there are two a year, May Day and Revolution Day) are arranged in the following manner: Directives are passed down the Communist Party line until they reach the factory, shop, and mill Kollectives. Here they are implemented by the Communist Party Secretary, who issues instructions as to what time the demonstrato
rs are to arrive. At the arrival point, names are taken well in advance of the march so that latecomers and absentees may be duly noted. Neither one is allowed. At the assembly point, signs, drums and flags are distributed and marchers formed in ranks. In the city of Minsk on such days, all roads are closed by driving trucks across them, except the prescribed route [of march]. This, as well as meticulous attention to attendance, ensures a 90% turnout of the entire population. Stragglers or late risers walking through the streets may be yanked into the steady stream of workers by the police or volunteer red-armbanded “people’s militia.” Anyone who argues may be subjected to close investigation later on—one thing to be avoided in any police state . . .

  People have been known to do odd, even unlawful, things to get a little higher on the housing waiting list, such as faking the ownership of a baby or two to get special rating. The opening of [new] apartment houses is always done with a great deal of gusto and preparation. Indeed, for the lucky ones receiving their orders on rooms and flats, it is a big moment, a moment culminating years of waiting and often years of manipulation. The lucky few get the word to move out of their old quarters, usually one room in an oblong building built after the war which are mostly to be later torn down. As soon as a newly built [apartment] house is ready . . . it is opened—even though there may not be light fixtures or toilet seats just yet. What does that matter?! In 1960 there were 2,978,000 living places built in the USSR; in the USA 1,300,000, including Alaska and Hawaii . . .