Reclaiming History

by Vincent Bugliosi

  The American consul at the U.S. embassy in Russia, Richard Snyder, had already indicated that he believed Oswald had not lost his U.S. citizenship,774 and a July 11, 1961, Foreign Service dispatch from the Moscow embassy to the Department of State suggested as much.775 On August 18, 1961, the State Department, after a review of all pertinent documents as well as Oswald’s history by the Passport Office of the State Department, stated in an “Operations Memorandum” to the Moscow embassy that “we concur in the conclusion of the Embassy that there is no information and/or evidence to show that Mr. Oswald has expatriated himself under the pertinent laws of the United States,” and ruled that his application for the renewal of his passport to return to the U.S. “is authorized.”776†It was okay with America for Oswald to come home. Now it was up to the Soviets to decide when they would let him and Marina leave Russia.

  On September 25, 1961, Lee made a special effort to listen to the live broadcast of a complete speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City by America’s new young president, Jack Kennedy, then in office less than nine months. According to Marina, Lee was rigid with attention as he listened to the often faint and fading signal, and he indignantly hushed her if she dared to make the slightest noise. After Kennedy’s speech, Marina asked Lee what it was about.

  “War and peace,” he said, and quoted a few of Kennedy’s remarks.

  “That’s funny,” Marina observed. “Everybody wants peace here. They want peace there, too. So why do they talk about war?”

  “Politics,” Lee smiled.

  Several days later, Lee hotly defended the president’s speech in a discussion with Marina’s Uncle Ilya, denouncing the Soviet press for attacking the speech without printing a full and fair account of it. The colonel defended his own government with equal fervor, but on one thing both of them agreed—the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, which had failed so ignominiously right after Kennedy took office. Lee was still an ardent defender of Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution.777

  Two and a half months having elapsed without the Soviet government doing anything on his and his wife’s application to leave the country, Oswald wrote to the U.S. embassy in Moscow on October 4 to ask that his government intervene with the Soviet government to facilitate getting exit visas for Marina and himself. He began to revert to that odd mixture of whining and bullying which he had adopted in his initial dealings with the embassy on his arrival in the country and which was to become increasingly his tone whenever he dealt with authorities:

  Dear Sirs,…

  I believe there is justification for an official inquiry, directed to the department of “Internal Affairs, Prospect Stalin 15, Minsk,” and the offices of the “address and passport office,” Ulitsa Moskova, Colonel Petrakov director.

  Also, I believe it is doubley important for an official inquiry, since there have been systematic and concerted attempts to intimidate my wife into withdrawing her application for [a] visa. I have notified the Embassy in regard to these incidents by the local authorities in regard to my wife, these incidents had resulted in my wife being hospitalized for a five day period, on September 22, for nervous exhaustion…

  I think [it] is within the lawful right, and in the interest of, the United States government, and the American Embassy, Moscow, to look into this case on my behalf.

  Yours very truly

  Lee H. Oswald778

  Marina later testified before the Warren Commission that she was not hospitalized over this matter,779 and since Lee failed to mention it either in his diary or in letters to his family, the Commission concluded Oswald probably lied in his letter.780 However, near mid-August Marina had, indeed, at least undergone a special medical examination because of “unpleasant sensations in the heart region,” probably because of the pregnancy and the heavy strain she was under.781 Then, in late September, as Marina later told Priscilla McMillan, she was overcome by gas fumes from the bus taking her to work, and after stepping off the bus, she fainted in the street. She was taken to the Third Clinical Hospital, which was right above the pharmacy where she worked, and remained there for about five days. (Oswald obviously got the “five day” reference in his letter to the U.S. embassy from this hospital stay by Marina.) Marina’s doctors found that she was rundown, deficient in iron and vitamins, and, worse, had RH-negative blood. Fearing for her pregnancy, they tested Lee’s blood and found, to everyone’s relief, that he too was RH-negative.782

  The American consul at the U.S. embassy in Moscow replied about a week later to Lee’s letter of October 4 and counseled patience, as the embassy had no way to pressure the Soviet government, which seldom acted rapidly on visa matters. The embassy clearly had no interest in Lee’s attempt to set up a fight between the Soviets and American officials. They would have to live with the Soviet government long after Lee Harvey Oswald was gone.783

  In early October, Marina used her annual three weeks’ vacation to visit her Aunt Polina in Kharkov—alone (Lee had already taken his to go to the U.S. embassy in Moscow), even though it would mean missing Lee’s birthday on the eighteenth. She sent him a few presents, including a gold and silver cup inscribed “To My Dear Husband On His Birthday,” which he appreciated, but he also told Robert that he and Marina had agreed that the “change of scenery was good for her.” It was their first separation, after four months of marriage, but hardly the last—there would be many more in the remaining two years of Oswald’s life. Mindful of her pregnancy—she could already feel the baby’s movements—Marina did little in Kharkov but sleep and eat. Polina and her husband, Yuri Mikhailov, an engineer in the building trades, weren’t even there for the first week, so they hired distant relatives to cook and look after Marina, and she must have enjoyed having the relatively luxurious three-room apartment to herself for awhile. But her aunt’s remonstrations when she and her husband returned against Marina’s going to America with Lee upset Marina, particularly in the pregnant condition she was in, and she left for home a day earlier than planned.784

  Lee wrote a letter to Marina on October 14, 1961, that sounded as antiseptic as a weather report,785 but by the eighteenth he responded to the birthday presents she sent him somewhat more warmly: “Well, are you returning soon? I will be glad to see you again—I will love you so!!”786 That evening, his twenty-second birthday, he went alone to see his favorite opera, The Queen of Spades.787

  By the time Marina returned in the latter part of October, “with several jars of preserses for me from her aunt in Khkov,” he wrote in his diary that she was “radient.”788 Later, when he looked back on this period after her return, he wrote in a November–December entry that “we are becoming anoid about the delay Marina is beginning to waiver about going to the US. Probably from the strain and her being pregrate, still we quarrel and so things are not to bright esp. with the approach of the hard Russian winter.”789

  Given her Uncle Ilya’s fears that the Oswalds’ attempt to leave the country might jeopardize his own position, Marina knew that the colonel would never intervene on her behalf with the Passport Office at the MVD in Minsk, but she had a more direct line of information, if not influence. Her best friend’s (Lyalya Petrusevich’s) boyfriend, Tolka, lived as a family friend in the apartment of Colonel Nicolai Axyonov, head of the Passport Office in Minsk. It seems that Axyonov’s wife had been entertaining certain male visitors at home during her husband’s absences, and Tolka found it easy to worm information from the wife in return for his silence about her dalliances. It was Tolka who was finally able to tell Marina and Lee that their exit visas had been granted sometime between December 12 and 15. However, Marina told author Priscilla McMillan that Lee wasn’t content with the good news. He wanted to know exactly when he and Marina would be receiving the official word. And of course, when nothing happened between December 12 and 15 or in the immediate days thereafter, he probably had every reason to believe Tolka’s information was not good. Lee, wild with impatience, sought an interview with Colonel Axyonov but was denied a
ccess to him by lower-ranking personnel in the office.

  He then insisted that Marina try and see the colonel herself. She was fearful of any unnecessary contact with the authorities but eventually gave in. She was surprised when she was shown into his office immediately, though perhaps less surprised when Axyonov kept her waiting for another half hour before he appeared.790 As is so frequently the case in life, Axyonov was not as fearsome as she imagined. He turned out to be a small, mousy man in civilian clothes. “Why do you want to leave Russia?” he asked Marina, who deflected a direct answer to the question by trying to convince Axyonov that she wished to leave not at all out of disloyalty to the Soviet Union but only out of loyalty to her husband, and Axyonov took no exception to that. She also hoped to leave before her pregnancy came to term, but he suggested that she wait until after the child was born so it would be born in Russia. He was kindly, even soothing. “Tell your husband not to worry,” he said, “I believe your request will be granted.” He also told her that the decision was not really up to him—which was undoubtedly true. In fact, such decisions were normally made in Moscow, probably by the KGB rather than the MVD, and Axyonov’s receiving her in his private office was most likely a courtesy extended to her as the niece of a colleague in the ministry, nothing more. He made it clear to Marina that there were many others seeking visas and told Marina that she and her husband would “have to wait your turn.”791

  On the other hand, they no doubt benefited from the liberalization in Soviet society and the thaw in U.S.-Soviet relations, which was back on track after the temporary derailment occasioned by the U-2 overflight of Francis Gary Powers. While Marina was away in Kharkov, Premier Khrushchev, who had once been one of Stalin’s henchmen, had boldly and courageously denounced Stalin and the crimes of the Soviet state during the Stalin era at the Twenty-second Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in Moscow. The fresh wind of “de-Stalinization” raised there (which included removing the dictator’s tomb from Red Square—Lenin’s would remain) had visible effects even in Minsk, where a monumental statue of Stalin had been demolished—if only with great difficulty—by chains, tanks, and explosives.792

  In the meantime, Lee, who had rebuilt his bridges back home with his many letters not only to Robert but to Marguerite as well, was rewarded with several shipments of chewing gum and books in English, neither easy to come by in Minsk.793

  Finally, on Christmas Day 1961, Marina was called to the Soviet Passport Office and told that she and her husband had been granted permission to leave.* Lee noted in his diary, “Its great (I think!).” Marina was surprised—she had never quite believed that she would ever be allowed to leave.794

  For the Soviet authorities, allowing Oswald to leave the Soviet Union was a desirable solution. By the end of 1961 they had been studying him for over two years—and he had been trying to depart for nearly half that time—and they had come to the conclusion that he was not a spy. His carefully watched trips to the countryside on hunting parties produced no evidence of any interest in military installations. He hadn’t even bothered to take his camera to photograph anything he might have come across by accident. Several approaches to him, offering the bait of secret information or access, had also been ignored. And they were confident he had no military secrets to give them that would be of any value. Also, he clearly had shown himself to be someone who could only cause them trouble, someone so tenacious in his determination that he was literally “willing to do anything, including the use of violence against his own person, in order to get what he wanted.”795

  Vladimir Semichastny, the KGB chairman during the period of Oswald’s stay in Russia, said, “We [the KGB] concluded that he was not working for American intelligence. His intellectual training, experience, and capabilities were such that it would not show the FBI and CIA in a good light if they used people like him…As for Marina, about whether she had been planted by the KGB as his wife, I was often asked this question and I can say with authority that nothing of the sort happened.”796 Semichastny told Soviet author Nechiporenko that “Oswald knew little about Soviet reality. Almost everything he saw was completely unexpected by him. While living in the Soviet Union, he made no effort to augment and deepen his theoretical knowledge of Marxism. He was incapable of adapting himself to our reality. Incidentally, based on this, we concluded that he was not employed by any special intelligence service. Oswald’s actions in Minsk were not those of a foreign agent. His primary interest was in attending dances.”797

  Oswald also didn’t seem to be much of a worker. His radio plant had forwarded a report on his performance at work to the Minsk City Militia Department, which found nothing favorable to say about him: “During his employment as regulator his performance was unsatisfactory. He does not display the initiative for increasing skill as a regulator. Citizen Lee Harvey Oswald reacts in an over-sensitive manner to remarks from the foremen and is careless in his work. Citizen L. H. Oswald takes no part in the social life of the shop and keeps very much to himself.”798

  Sending Oswald back to the United States was, all in all, good riddance. Only one very major hurdle remained. The U.S. government had to grant an entrance visa to Marina. But since she was his wife and he was going to be permitted to return to America, Lee was confident it would be just a matter of time before the approval came. Pursuant to this belief, on January 2, 1962, Oswald wrote his mother and asked her to “get in touch with the Red Cross” and ask it to contact an organization called the International Rescue Committee or some other group that helps persons from abroad get settled in the United States. He said he needed eight hundred dollars for two tickets from Moscow to New York and New York to Texas, that she should try to get a gift, not a loan, and not to send any of her own money.799 Despite instructions, Marguerite asked the Red Cross for a loan, but was told the organization was not in a position to give her a loan.800

  On January 13, 1962, Oswald himself wrote to the International Rescue Committee in New York to ask for eight hundred dollars to purchase two tickets from Moscow to Texas. “We are in need of help, he wrote, “and would appreciate any help that you can give us. We are expecting a baby the latter part of February.”801 Two weeks later he wrote again, this time upping the request to one thousand dollars.802

  Curiously, now that the problems with the ponderous Soviet bureaucracy seemed to be solved, Lee’s own government took over the endless reel of red tape. The U.S. embassy wrote Oswald on January 5 with the suggestion that he skirt the difficulties of obtaining an American visa for Marina by returning alone to the United States and sending for her later. Among the difficulties mentioned were the fact that she still lacked an affidavit of support or offer of employment in the United States.803 He replied on January 16 that he would not consider leaving Russia without her. In the same letter he enclosed his own affidavit of support for Marina,804 but the letters were going back and forth so quickly that the embassy had not received the affidavit by the time Embassy personnel wrote to him that there was no evidence that she would not become a public charge in the United States. They suggested that Oswald’s mother or some other close relative file the affidavit of support.805 The wrangling with letters and affidavits continued, to Lee’s growing exasperation, for several months and extended beyond the U.S. embassy in Moscow and the U.S. State Department to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which had its own set of obstacles and procedures to follow. Meanwhile, in late January, Marguerite wrote to Lee to inform him that he had been given a dishonorable discharge from the Marine Corps.806 This was incorrect in two respects. The discharge had actually been “undesirable,” a less serious category than “dishonorable,” and it was an undesirable discharge from the Marine Corps Reserve, not the Marine Corps, where his earlier dependency discharge remained intact.807 The Marine Corps Reserve, apparently acting in response to the press accounts of Oswald’s defection to Moscow, had moved against him almost immediately, and his case had been referred to a board of officers at the Glenview, Illinois,
training station of the Marine Air Reserve by July 1960. On August 8, the board recommended that Oswald be “separated from the Marine Corps Reserve as undesirable,” and his undesirable discharge was dated September 13 of that year, a time when neither the Marines nor anyone else in America knew where he was.808

  Oswald, seeking to set aside the dishonorable discharge he thought he had been given, immediately sought the help of John B. Connally Jr., under the mistaken assumption that Connally was still secretary of the navy. Connally had in fact resigned to become governor of Texas. Lee wrote on January 30, 1962,

  Dear Sir,

  I wish to call your attention to a case about which you may have personal knowlege since you are a resident of Ft. Worth as I am. In November 1959 an event was well publicated in the Ft. Worth newspapers concerning a person who had gone to the Soviet Union to reside for a short time, (much in the same way E. Hemingway resided in Paris.)

  This person in answers to questions put to him by reporteds in Moscow criticized certain facets of american life. The story was blown up into another “turncoat” sensation, with the result that the navy department gave this person a belated dishonourable discharge, although he had received an honourable discharge [he had received a hardship/dependency discharge] after three years service on Sept. 11, 1959 at El Toro, Marine corps base in California

  These are the basic facts of my case…

  I ask you to look into this case and take the necessary steps to repair the damage done to me and my family. For information I would direct you to consult the american Embassy, Chikovski St. 19/21, Moscow, USSR.

  Thank you

  Lee H. Oswald809

  Connally, to whom Oswald’s letter had been forwarded, merely passed the letter on to his successor at the Department of the Navy, Fred Korth, and wrote to Oswald on February 23, 1962, that he had done so.810 In an undated letter, the department wrote to Oswald in Minsk affirming the propriety of the undesirable discharge and sending him a copy of it, which he had never seen.811 On March 22, Oswald wrote to the Department of the Navy seeking a further review of his undesirable discharge, but the department referred him to the Navy Discharge Review Board. He filled out the enclosed application for review while still in Minsk but did not send it until shortly after he returned to the United States.812