Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery

by Norman Mailer

  As Prusakov further explained, he also tried to convince his niece Marina that it was inexpedient to go to USA. A similar influence on Marina was undertaken by her Aunt Polina, living in Kharkhov. As a result of these conversations, Prusakov decided that Marina didn’t feel like going. However, she was very concerned how she would carry on her further life, having a baby from Oswald.

  Prusakov promised to continue to work on convincing Oswald and his wife to change their opinion about going to America. Prusakov didn’t recall any suspicious moments in Oswald’s behavior.

  Nov. 23

  Dear Mother,

  Today we received your grand gift. I am very surprised you guessed my taste in color and fabric.

  Here it is already cold so your wool stole will be very useful.

  It is very nice to feel that you are so attentive to me, more so, even, than to Lee. I shall always remember your gift as a mark of our friendship.

  I hope you won’t be nervous for us. You shouldn’t worry about us too much.

  I have never seen you (except on a photograph) but I have a lot of affection for you already.

  I hope you shall be well. I thank you again for the fine present.

  Marina

  (I wrote it for her but the words are hers.—Lee)3

  2

  A Bomb Scare

  In the chronology kept by KGB, Oswald, on December 6, “appealed to American Senator John Tower to help him to return to USA.” Here follows a translation in English of the Russian translation of Oswald’s letter in 1961.

  FROM KGB MAIL SURVEILLANCE

  Senator John G. Tower

  Washington, D.C.

  of Senate Building

  Lee Oswald

  Minsk

  Kalinina Street 4–24

  Dear Senator Tower!

  My name is Oswald. When I came to the Soviet Union, I presented documents that I was a citizen of the United States and that I had come to the Soviet Union temporarily. American Embassy in Moscow is familiar with my case.

  Since July 1960 I have attempted unsuccessfully to obtain an exit visa to go to U.S. but Soviet authorities refuse to let me and my Soviet wife go . . .

  I am a citizen of the United States (passport no. N1733242, 1959) and I ask you to help me, since Soviet authorities are detaining me against my will.

  Respectfully,

  Lee Oswald

  Perhaps the time had come for KGB Counterintelligence, Byelorussia, to divest itself of a person who could easily create an international episode and was contributing very little at work, or so said a report on December 11, 1961, sent to the Minsk City Militia Department from the Plant Director and the Personnel Department Chief.

  Lee Harvey Oswald . . . hired as regulator in experimental shop of this plant on January 13, 1960.

  During his employment as regulator his performance was unsatisfactory. He does not display initiative for increasing his skill as a regulator.

  Citizen Lee Harvey Oswald reacts in an oversensitive manner to remarks from the foreman, and is careless in his work. Citizen L. H. Oswald takes no part in the social life of our shop and keeps very much to himself.1

  At Horizon, Katya, working down the aisle from Alik, had come to notice that he was becoming less and less of a worker. More and more often, he would sit with his feet on the table. When there was no table, he would put his feet on a chair. His fellow workers decided it was American culture.

  They would say to him, “Alik, why do you come here and go to sleep? It’s still morning.” He would answer, “I made love a lot. That’s why I’m sleeping now.”

  “Maybe he said it in joking,” said Katya. “But it was not important for me.”

  Step by step, people stopped being curious about him. Once or twice, after Alik was called into the office for a reprimand, he would come back to his worktable and say, “I am going to write my memoirs—‘How I Remember the Soviet Union.’”

  Nobody reacted. Everybody thought: “What is he going to write if he can’t even speak properly?” It was best to keep some distance from him. How could you know what is in his mind?

  Dec. 14, 1961

  Dear Robert,

  Today I received your letter of November 29.

  First of all, I can confirm [that] I did not receive any letter with “certain” questions. It’s quite possible they destroyed it . . .

  I hope you get our little package by Christmas. Marina worked on those table napkins for Vada for two weeks . . .

  The housetops are covered with snow, but the pine trees stand out green. The river near our apartment house is frozen now. We have a very good view from our fourth floor windows.

  Well, that’s about all for now. Marina sends her love. Keep writing.

  Lee2

  After she filled out every paper, every one of so many needed for her to go to America, and all those weeks went by, and then all those months from August to December, a phone call came to her at last when she was at work. Marina was told to go over to the main government building on Lenin Street, where MVD and KGB were housed.

  She came in from a side street and walked downstairs. There was only one man in the room; he “was gray-headed, he was authority.” He was tall, but she doesn’t remember his face. Just that he was in uniform. Nor does she recall whether he called her Marina or Mrs. Oswald; but he did say, “I’m here to talk to you about your papers. You’re applying to go to the United States.” She told him that was correct. He said, “You don’t have to be afraid. This is not an interrogation. I just want to talk to you to find out what is your reason for leaving this country. I want to ask a few questions. You know,” he said, “you are not going to be arrested or anything. It’s just normal procedures.” Then he asked, “Is there any political reason? Do you have anything against this country? Do you disagree with something?”

  She said, “No. My reason is that I’m married to an American. He’s going home and I’m his wife. That’s my only reason for going. That’s all there is to it.”

  He said, “Is there any way I can persuade you not to leave? Because such an act will jeopardize the reputations of people you work with, and your relatives.”

  She picked up on this. She said, “My uncle had nothing to do with it. He didn’t approve of my marriage. He agreed only because my husband told him he was not able to go back to America. So it was my uncle’s understanding that I would not go. Now, my husband does have a chance to return, and,” she added, “I’m not leaving for any political reason.”

  He chewed it over from this side and that; then, he closed his file on all his papers and said, “If that’s what you think, I guess it’s what you do.”

  As he opened his door for her, he said—and she remembers that here he did call her by her first name—“I’m not talking to you right now as an official, Marina. Look at my hair—I’ve been through the war. You’re young, you could be my granddaughter. I’m strictly talking to you as a man. How do you know that your best circumstances are not right here? You cannot guarantee that your marriage will be all right. You’re taking a large leap. If your marriage doesn’t work, there’s no easy way back. You’ll be all alone. Think about that when you go home now. I’m talking to you like a grandfather, and this decision is yours.”

  She did think about it. As she walked home, she thought about it a lot. He had been a nice man. He had not switched to his mean side. He had talked to her as another human being. When she told Lee, word for word, what had happened, he said, “I don’t think we’re going to have any problems. The light looks green.”

  They had come a long way. Even when Lee had proposed, she hadn’t thought that they would allow them to get married. So much had happened so quickly.

  December 25,

  Christmas Day, Tuesday Marina is called to the Passport and Visa office. She is told we have been granted Soviet exit visas . . . It’s great (I think)! New Year’s we spend at the Zigers’ and a dinner party at midnight attended by six other persons.

  By
now Igor and Stepan had come to their assessment of Oswald: He was a person you could call emotional. That had manifested itself in fights which arose between him and his wife, although such fights tended to be short-lived. On the other hand, Oswald was never involved in acts of public violence. In fact, the head of MVD militia delivered an official document to KGB saying that Oswald had never been observed in any form of hooliganism. In turn, when Marina was excluded from Komsomol, it was because she was regarded as ballast: She had entered grudgingly, without personal desire, and had taken no part in organizational life.

  In addition, Oswald’s hunting trips now offered no problem for Counterintelligence. He had gone on several occasions, and according to their sources, he was a poor hunter and came back with nothing. He never made attempts to isolate himself from his group, never tried to approach industrial sites in the forest, and never made suspicious movements. KGB questions on this matter, therefore, were put to rest; Oswald even went without his camera. If he had brought it along, they would have looked to determine whether he approached such installations in order to take pictures. But he didn’t even bring it. Finally, he sold his gun on the second of January, 1962, approximately a year and a half after purchase, the gun bearing serial number 64621.

  So, the Organs concluded that they might as well allow Oswald to return to America. A heavy stone would be removed from their workload. After all, Oswald could always try to kill himself again. Next time he might succeed. Then there would be propaganda of the ugliest sort.

  So, at year’s end, a decision was taken that enough material had accumulated to conclude Oswald was not a foreign intelligence agent. Of course, they would still keep him under surveillance. It is never possible to be altogether certain. Some spies are so careful that you can watch them for years and they don’t make mistakes; finally, they make one mistake. It is not professional, therefore, to come to quick conclusions. Now that Oswald had decided to leave the Soviet Union, however, they decided, after analyzing all their material once more, that during the year and a half he had been in Minsk, there had been no evidence that he was an active agent of any intelligence service.

  They did, however, have one scare. A thoroughgoing scare. Their observer, looking through the peephole in the apartment next door to Oswald, saw some suspicious activity. Was Oswald making a bomb? He seemed to be putting gunpowder and metal fragments into a small box. It could be said that was one overnight sensation for them: Khrushchev would be visiting Minsk in January!

  The interviewers asked whether Oswald’s apartment had been entered while he and Marina were at work, but the replies were not responsive. Stepan would only say that Oswald’s device turned out to be some kind of toy. A species of firecracker, perhaps? He shrugged. It was nothing; it was nonsense. Oswald threw away this toy a day or two later. They had, said Stepan, been able to examine it in the apartment-house trash bin. Then, in January, before Khrushchev’s visit, Oswald even sold his shotgun for 18 rubles, at the exact same store at which he had bought it. However, he caused a shock to surveillance when he got on a bus holding his gun; but then they observed that he was merely on his way to sell the weapon. Much ado about nothing.

  If Oswald had chosen to remain in Minsk for five years, even ten, he would still have been kept under occasional surveillance; that goes without saying. One never drops one’s guard altogether. But this toy bomb retained no large significance for them. Whereas last July, when he had gone to his Embassy in Moscow to get permission to go back to America—why, then they had certainly continued to monitor his activities. For if he had chosen not to follow through on his repatriation, they would have had to suppose that it had been a pretext to enable him to visit his Embassy and receive instructions.

  Now, they had no good choice but to allow him to leave. To keep him inside the Soviet Union might yet require that they prove to world opinion that they had good reasons. If evidence of espionage had been there, they might have decided to put him in prison and conduct a formal interrogation. But no such material was available.

  Back last summer, when Oswald first asked permission for an exit visa, therefore, Stepan did not have to take a lot of time to consider. This was a file he knew like the five fingers of his hand; you could wake him three hours past midnight, ask any question—Stepan could tell you everything about him. So, his answer was positive. Oswald could go. No objections. Likhoi had become a negative factor—no Communist principles, nor did he want to work or to study. For a while, they had thought he was adjusting himself. They had even made allowances. Not now. Let him go home. Good riddance.

  Of course, Stepan would say, KGB was not the organization to give formal permission to leave. They could only say, No objections, and send such a paper over to OVIR, a branch of MVD which had its own protocol for visas. OVIR would send such papers on to Moscow. From there would come a final decision. That was why it had all gone on for months.

  There will still be street surveillance of Oswald from time to time, and periodic transcriptions of his quarrels with Marina, but Stepan will not return often to our narrative, not until November of 1963, when incredible events will occur in Dallas and Stepan will be summoned to Moscow Center. That will be a memorable day in his life. Until then, he will work on other cases. Before we take temporary leave of him, however, it may be of interest to pay some attention to the daily matters of his life. He has had, after all, the sort of circumscribed existence that Flaubert might have enjoyed depicting.

  3

  The Good Boy, the Good Man

  Stepan’s parents were poor peasants who worked on a small collective farm in the Gomel region of Byelorussia, but Stepan, who started school at the age of seven, was always an excellent student.

  Since he thought highly of his teachers, he began at an early age to dream about becoming an instructor himself. He was very good at math, and assiduous in his studies. Often, he would come to school before classes started, and if any pupils had been unable to do their homework, they came running to him.

  Such desires continued in adolescence. He found his teachers to be among the most decent people he knew; they treated children well—at least those who studied. That influenced his decision. When he graduated from high school, he wanted to go to the Pedagogical Institute in Minsk. Yet, he couldn’t stay there without financial help from his parents, and they were without that kind of money. So, he had to find a subject at this Institute that would provide him with a stipend large enough to live away from home. Therefore, he decided on journalism. That stipend was decent. But then, war broke out.

  He was seventeen. In Byelorussia, adolescents born in 1923 and 1924 were not yet subject to conscription. Instead, they were given small-caliber rifles to use in case German paratroopers tried to land among them, and they were organized to drive livestock east to the Sorzh River, where green grass and wetlands abounded. In these marshes they lived and learned how to milk cows. Stepan still remembers the first German he saw, a pilot in a plane just overhead, and he and the other adolescents had to hide because, in those first days of war, Germans were chasing not only soldiers but civilians, and were even shooting down on livestock. Stepan remembers bullets hitting the ground—explosive bullets. Earth flew about. That was when he first experienced the terror of war.

  His father was called up at the beginning, and immediately disappeared. There was no news until Stepan’s mother received a letter from his father, who was now in a Soviet military hospital. A machine-gunner, he had been seriously wounded. His arm was crushed. Only after Byelorussia was liberated could he return home. And at home he stayed until he died, in 1960.

  As for Stepan, he was allowed, once it became clear that the Germans would occupy all their territories, to leave the marsh and return to his village, where he lived, like the others, in all kinds of hardship until Byelorussia was liberated, in November 1943. Soon afterward, he was drafted. The war was at its height and there was no time for training. He, too, was assigned to a machine gun, number one in a four-man t
eam, and in an unheated barn they taught him to use it, and sent him straight into the fighting at the front. Whenever you sat on duty, if there was a sound, you pulled your trigger. You didn’t know whether you’d killed a German or not. Then you sat some more. You heard a whine, and a shell flew by—would it blow up right overhead? Once you knew that it was going to explode on someone else, you felt better. That’s what his defense line was like.

  He was wounded and spent three months in a military hospital, then went up again to take part in several battles, and wasn’t demobilized until early 1947. When he returned to his parents’ village, he had, of course, to decide where to go. Central Statistics Board in Minsk, he read, was organizing courses, so Stepan took along a few necessary documents, and was enrolled in the program. His math helped him.

  Since his dream was still to be a teacher, he didn’t wish to be in statistics, but there wasn’t much he could do about it, and soon he received his first official job. It was in the Gomel region, as District Inspector for Central Statistics. Immediately, due to shortages of personnel, he was one of the top three men, not a bad position. Still, frankly speaking, it was not a job he wished to keep for life. Two years, however, after going to work there, he was invited to the Central Office of State Security, where a department head made an official offer: Would Stepan like to work for them? He replied that he didn’t know whether he was qualified. Return answer: “You shouldn’t think that we’re going to hire you now. We’ll send you away for training.” That was in 1949, and he was sent to a school in Byelorussia.