“Thanks for being so bighearted,” she said. “But feel free to go any time.”
Marina believes that he had another reason for refusing to go without her. It was a matter of principle with him that he had a right to do anything he pleased. Moreover, he wanted to show the Russians he could get the better of them. He would leave their country and take a Soviet citizen with him. “As if,” she laughs, “the Soviet state would suffer if it had one Marina less.”
The Soviet government, however, had complied with his request. The Oswalds were free to leave Russia. It was the American government that was causing the delay; and besides being unusually frequent—between December 27 and January 23 there are four of them—Oswald’s letters to the American embassy during this period were peremptory and, as always, impatient. On January 23 he added a new reason for his haste: “I would much rather have my child born in the United States, than here, for obvious reasons.”3 Oswald had troubled, or dared, to tell the embassy only two weeks earlier, on January 5, that he and his wife were expecting a baby. But to the embassy, Oswald’s reasons may not have been “obvious” at all. They might have seemed ludicrously far-fetched. Oswald was expecting a boy, of course. He wanted his son born at home, and not in Russia, so that he could be president of the United States.
“My David will be president,” he said a number of times as he lay on his back, stared at the ceiling, and dreamed of the future. But when the visa business dragged on and it became apparent that the child would be born in Russia, he remarked matter-of-factly one day: “Too bad. If it’s a boy, he can’t be president.” Later, when the child was born and was a girl, he said: “That’s all right. My son will be born in America. He can be president.”
It was Marina who suggested a name for the baby if it was a girl. Alik wanted an English, not a Russian, name, and remembering one of her favorite English novels, The Forsythe Saga, Marina proposed Fleur and Irene and then, finally, June.
Alik’s arms shot exultantly into the air. “That’s it! That’s the name for our daughter. Only I’m sure she won’t be a girl.” He counted back and pointed out that the child had been conceived in June. “Let’s name her June Marina. If we stay here, we’ll call her Marina. And if we go to America, she shall be June.” And that was the way they left it.
Politics scarcely intruded on their lives that winter, so taken up were they with waiting for the baby and with thoughts of leaving Russia. But in January an event occurred that, even though it was a carefully guarded secret, rocked the whole of Russia. An attempt was made on the life of Nikita Khrushchev, and it took place in Minsk.
It was the sort of thing that was unheard of in the modern USSR. In czarist Russia terrorism and assassination had been a way of life, a familiar form of political struggle. But because Lenin taught that individual terror was not acceptable, and because Stalin deported or slaughtered thousands for nonexistent plots against his life, the assassination of political leaders had faded out. Ordinary men and women were murdered, but if leaders disappeared from the face of the earth, it was done at the hands of other leaders and not of the led. Perhaps no one believed any longer that by taking violent action he could alter the course of history. Or perhaps individual Russians felt that they were so small, and the state so large, there was nothing anyone could do. Besides, if one leader died, there was always another, just as oppressive, to step into his shoes.
Then, in January of 1962, Nikita Khrushchev came to Minsk to do some shooting in the Belovezhskoye Pushche, one of his favorite hunting preserves. He was accompanied by Wladyslav Gomulka, leader of the Polish Communist Party, and there was the usual retinue of Soviet and Polish officials. He was staying in a government dacha outside Minsk and hunting in the winter forests when the unthinkable occurred.
Rumors of the assassination attempt swept the length and breadth of Russia, but to this day no one knows exactly what happened. Some said that Khrushchev’s entire bodyguard turned against him, others that a row of young men formed a roadblock and, as Khrushchev walked toward them, fired a single, dramatic volley into the air. But the account that seems least fanciful was that a young man from Khrushchev’s bodyguard tried to shoot him.4
The Oswalds heard about the incident in frightened colorful undertones from Marina’s Aunt Lyuba Axyonova, who was not a witness but had been present at the dacha in her capacity as bookkeeper of the Council of Ministers dining room. According to Lyuba, only one member of Khrushchev’s bodyguard was responsible. He missed, and Khrushchev escaped uninjured. No one knew what happened to the would-be assassin.
Lyuba was afraid to speak of the shooting in detail in front of Alik, a foreigner, since the incident was not made public and, for spreading “anti-Soviet propaganda,” or information the government does not want known, a citizen could receive seven to fifteen years. The would-be murderer had been a member of Khrushchev’s entourage, and Lyuba was also afraid that in a single, Stalinesque stroke all other employees who had been anywhere nearby would be summarily dismissed. She feared for herself and her job.
It was in this atmosphere of subdued hysteria that Alik first heard of the assassination attempt. He doubtless heard a great deal more talk about it from the men at the factory. Because such a thing was unprecedented at that time, and because it had happened right there, it must have created a tremendous stir in Minsk. And the incident may have been imprinted even more indelibly on Alik’s mind because Lyuba’s account was whispered and because she was so obviously terrified.
Marina had left her job at the pharmacy on maternity leave just after the first of the year. The last month of her pregnancy was a privileged time, and she enjoyed it to the full. Her legs and thighs ached. Alik rubbed and kissed them and said: “My poor, poor girl. You’re hurting yourself just to give life to our baby.” He curled up into a tiny ball in one corner of the bed so that she could have the rest for herself. Soon she got used to sleeping with her feet on his back for warmth, as well as for the relief it gave her aching legs. He came to like this and would ask, “Are your feet cold?” Even when the answer was no, he would tell her to “put your feet up there anyway.”
Alik had misconceptions about the birth of a child. He thought that an expectant mother produces milk from the beginning of pregnancy. Marina enlightened him as to the facts. Later, after the baby was born, Marina had too much milk and ran a fever. Alik offered to suck the milk. Marina was shocked, but he assured her that it was “quite natural.” She was more surprised still when, instead of spitting it out as she expected, he swallowed it. Why not? he asked. It was good milk, sweet and fat. If it was good enough for his baby, it was good enough for him. And he went right on drinking it.
By then, they ate their meals at home and made use of a communal trash can in the courtyard. One night Alik saw some stray dogs and cats bolting food from the trash can. After that, he put out a special meal for the strays each time he emptied the garbage. “My animals ate up everything I left them,” he would report happily to Marina.
They bought a secondhand crib for the baby, and Alik lovingly gave it three coats of white paint. Their friends came, as always, in the evenings, only now they brought sheets, which they had sewn for the baby; diapers, which they had also sewn; and toys. Alik’s friend Erich was corresponding with a pen pal in England. And so, from England, they got a copy of Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care. Well before the baby was due, Alik had the book nearly memorized.
On February 14 Marina woke in the middle of the night and told him the water had burst. Alik jumped out of bed, consulted Dr. Spock, and told her, incorrectly, that they had 14 hours to go. Marina went back to sleep, but Alik was too nervous. Finally, at seven in the morning, wild with anxiety, he insisted that they start for the hospital.
Outside it was cold and gray. Everyone was hurrying to work, and there was an early morning crowd at the taxi stand. Pale as a ghost, Alik tried to get to the head of the line by shouting that he was rushing his wife to the hospital. “Your wife’s no more pregnant tha
n I am,” one man shouted back. “And I have to get to work.”
They took a bus, and Marina was in labor as they walked the last block or so to the hospital. Alik wanted to carry her, but she insisted that she could make it on her own. Each time she felt a thrust of pain, however, it was as if it were stabbing him, too.
It was over, by natural childbirth, in an hour. “Our day for foreign babies,” said the doctors. “We’ve had a Jewish one, a gypsy, a Belorussian—and now an American!”
The mother was disappointed. “A girl, when I wanted a boy,” she thought and did not even want to see it. But when she did see it, she felt a spasm of pity and love. “Poor, helpless little thing. No one on earth to love you. How can I not love you and take care of you?” A new feeling was born in Marina.
Alik, meanwhile, had gone to work, since he was not allowed in the maternity section of the hospital. “Congratulations, Papa!” the men shouted when he arrived at the factory. Someone had telephoned from the hospital and left word that his wife had given birth to a baby girl.
Alik had never told the men at the factory that he was expecting a child. But somehow they had found out about it, and the next day at lunch, they held a special ceremony for the new father. They presented him with a big box. Inside were a blanket, a tiny sweater, overalls, little shirts, a yellow bonnet, swaddling cloth—everything a newborn baby would need.
Alik hesitated. He did not know what to do.
“Take it, Papa. What’s the shilly-shallying about?” the men said.
Alik took it. He was very touched, but he was so reticent that he did not know how to thank them.
Because of hospital regulations, Alik did not see the baby until it was eight days old, when he arrived to take mother and daughter home. He was, he confessed later, shocked by the sight of the child; like any new father, he expected her to be partly grown and already quite good-looking.
He made their homecoming memorable. In Marina’s absence he had washed the floors, cleaned the apartment from stem to stern, and washed and ironed all the laundry. Ushering the two of them in, his wife and child, he was filled with happiness. He kissed Marina and said simply: “Thank you.” Then, quietly, “What a pity we have to wait,” meaning for sex. Marina herself felt that if they could have made love on that day, it would have been a kind of completion. It was, anyway, the happiest day of her life. She felt that her husband truly loved her and that, for the first time, he was aware of it.
That evening two of Marina’s friends came by to teach her to swaddle and feed the baby. They left, and Marina was alone. Alik had gone to Ilya and Valya’s to celebrate Valya’s name day. At one o’clock he came home, his cap falling off the back of his head, smiling and tipsy (the fourth and last time Marina was to see him so). “Where’s my baby?” he said. “I want to look at her.”
The baby was asleep, and Marina objected when he said he wanted to pick her up. So he stood over the crib and gazed at her. That night, and every night thereafter, he dragged the crib over to the bed and insisted on sleeping on the side closest to it.
The young couple were more or less on their own when it came to tending the baby. Aunt Musya came to show Marina how to bathe her, but Alik objected to the casual way she handled the baby, as matter-of-factly as if she were a doll. Aunt Valya, too, dropped by whenever she dared, but she quickly learned to come during her nephew’s working hours. His face grew so menacing and pale each time she picked up the baby, and Valya loved holding his “little jewel” so much, that it seemed best to come when the anxious father was out.
Husband and wife differed on how to care for the baby. Alik was faithful to Dr. Spock and loyal to American ways. Marina, of course, preferred Russian ways, and when Alik objected to swaddling the baby, she pointed out that they had no choice, since there were no diapers, no rubber pants, no little shirts or baby pins to be bought in the whole of Minsk. “All right, then, I can swaddle her as well as you,” Alik boasted. But his first attempt ended in hopeless confusion, and Marina had to teach him how to do it. He, on the other hand, using Dr. Spock as a guide, taught her how to burp the baby.
In one sense husband and wife were conspirators. Alik had wanted the baby called June Marina, and as was not unusual for him, he got into a hassle at ZAGS, the registry office, because it was the Russian custom for a child to bear a form of his father’s first name as its middle name, or patronymic. The registry officials (“those burerecrats,” he called them in his diary) won out, and the baby was named June Lee. But as far as the father was concerned, she was June Marina. When they were alone or with friends, all of whom were thrilled at having in their midst a baby with a foreign name, Alik called her Junka (Junie) or Marinka. But Marina, who shuddered each time she heard the baby called by her own name, called her June or Junka.
To the older generation, however, it would have been a scandal for the child to bear any but a Russian name. When they were with Marina’s uncles and aunts, therefore, everyone, even her parents, called the baby Marina. But sometimes Alik forgot and got a warning look or a punch from Marina or one of her friends so that he would not, in the presence of her relatives, give the baby’s true name away.
The birth of June brought with it a sudden diminution of Alik’s desire to go home. He wrote only one letter to the American embassy in February and one in March. Perhaps, as with the lull following his marriage the year before, it was the change of focus, the increase of private happiness, that was responsible. But at the same time his anxieties about returning to America were never wholly quiescent. In letters written before and after his daughter’s birth, he was still anxious about what might happen to him when he set foot on American soil. In a letter to the American embassy on January 16, he wrote that he believed his passport might be confiscated on his arrival home.5
Then, at the end of the month, a real blow fell. From his mother, Alik heard that his “honorable” discharge from active Marine Corps duty had been changed to “dishonorable.” In fact, it was only changed to “undesirable,” and it had all happened years before when Alik defected to Russia. But this was the first he knew of it.
Alik lost little time in mailing a new batch of letters. On January 30 he wrote the governor of Texas, John Connally. Under the impression that he was still Secretary of the Navy, he asked Connally to look into the matter. “I shall employ all means to right this gross mistake or injustice,” he wrote. He claimed that he was a “boni-fied” American citizen and had “always had the full sanction” of the US embassy and government. He went so far as to compare his sojourn in Russia with that of Ernest Hemingway in Paris during the 1920s.6 Again Alik had gone to the top. It was the first round of a prolonged and ultimately futile, battle with the Department of the Navy to change the status of his discharge.
On the same day he wrote Connally, Alik also wrote his brother Robert, who, like Connally, was a resident of Fort Worth, asking him to get in touch with Connally about the discharge. He also requested Robert to “ask around again” to see if the government might have charges against him. “Now that the government knows I’m coming,” he added archly, maybe “they’ll have something waiting.”7
On February 10 another event sharpened Alik’s anxieties. Francis Gary Powers was released from a Russian prison and returned to the United States. In a letter to his brother written the same day his baby was born, and in another letter soon after, he expressed anxiety about Powers’s return, as if his treatment was a harbinger of how he himself would be treated on his return to the United States. “I hope they aren’t going to try him or anything,” he wrote Robert.8
Oswald’s interest in Powers is striking, for the two men appeared to have nothing in common. Shot down on a high-altitude reconnaissance flight over Russia, Powers was captured, branded a “spy,” convicted in a show trial in Moscow in 1960, and spent nearly two years in a Soviet prison. An Eisenhower-Khrushchev summit conference was canceled because of the incident, and Powers became an international celebrity. Oswald was an enlisted m
an in the Marine Corps whose defection had barely caused a ripple in either the United States or the USSR.
But the career of Oswald and Powers did have one thing in common—the U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance plane. Oswald, as a Marine, had been stationed at three bases—Atsugi, Japan; Cubi Point (Subic Bay) in the Philippines; and El Toro, California—where U-2 aircraft were kept. Everything about the plane was supposed to be secret: its name, its mission, and above all, the incredible altitude to which it could climb. At each base the planes were kept in a classified, tightly guarded area that no one could enter without a very high security clearance. Oswald had only a low security clearance, but it is likely that he saw the U-2 and heard a good deal of gossip about its mission.9 And if he glimpsed the plane, it is unlikely that he ever forgot the breathtaking sight. With its fragile fuselage and its slender, incredibly elongated wings, the U-2 looked like a giant bird of beauty and menace.
When a U-2 was shot down over Sverdlovsk six months after his arrival in Russia, and then became the cause of an international scandal, Oswald may have felt that he had had, for the first time, a brush with history. And in Powers he may have seen a little of himself. Powers was much bigger than he was, but both men had dark hair and slightly receding hairlines. Both had high-pitched voices and spoke with slight Southern accents. Powers was a highly skilled “spy in the sky,” a man at the center of world attention who had had to defend himself in a klieg-lit trial. Oswald would have liked to be a spy, and he might have enjoyed the spotlight as well.10
Oswald may have thought he was like Powers in another way. Nearly all Russians—including Pavel Golovachev, the son of a Soviet air ace, and other men that Oswald knew at the factory—considered Powers a “disgrace.” No Russian would have allowed himself or his super-secret aircraft to fall into unfriendly hands. Powers had “betrayed” the United States. That was the core of Oswald’s concern. He believed that he, too, had betrayed his country by defecting and denouncing it. And if America sought revenge against Francis Gary Powers, might it not do the same to Lee Harvey Oswald?11
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