Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery

by Norman Mailer

  A career in spookdom does seem to take place too quickly, however, to be a viable hypothesis. He would have fit few acceptable categories for any examiners passing on him for some venture in covert action. It is easier at this point to think of him as trade for the closet rather than as a paid novice beginning contract work for the CIA.

  2

  Oswald’s Kampf

  One ought to list another possibility, and it may be the most viable, if the least novelistic. Oswald had been under scrutiny for years in the Marine Corps, the Soviet Union, and lately with the FBI and the émigré community, not to mention living under the acerbic criticisms of Marina. So, by this time, he may have wanted no more than to have a secret address, a secret name, and a place where no one could find him or observe him unless he chose to go out and visit others.

  If it is uncomfortable to try to comprehend a man who might have been traveling on any one of these three tracks, let us recognize that this is likely to be our situation from now on.

  McMillan: Lee himself was reading a good deal, Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and William L. Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. He also reread . . . 1984 and Animal Farm . . . loaned to him by . . . George De Mohrenschildt.1

  While chronology in relation to Oswald can, as advertised, rarely be depended upon, one can think of no moment in Oswald’s life when he would have been more ready to read Mein Kampf and feel some identity with Hitler than in these weeks alone in Dallas working at a low-paying job while feeling within himself every presentiment that he was a man destined for greatness against all odds. So it is worth looking at a few of Hitler’s remarks:

  I soon learned that there was always some kind of work to be had, but equally soon I found out how easy it was to lose it.

  The uncertainty of earning my daily bread soon seemed to me one of the darkest sides of my new life.2 . . .

  I studied more or less all of the books I was able to obtain . . . and for the rest immersed myself in my own thoughts.

  I believe that those who knew me in those days took me for an eccentric.3 . . .

  Five years in which I was forced to earn a living, first as a day laborer, then as a small painter, a truly meager living which never sufficed to appease even my daily hunger . . . I had but one pleasure, my books.

  At that time I read enormously and thoroughly. All the free time my work left me was employed in my studies. In this way I forged in a few years’ time the foundations for a knowledge from which I still draw nourishment today.

  And even more than this:

  In this period there took shape within me a world picture and a philosophy which became the granite foundation of all my acts. In addition to what I then created, I have had to learn little; and I have had to alter nothing.4

  It must never be forgotten that nothing that is really great in this world has ever been achieved by coalitions, but that it has always been the success of a single victor . . . Great, truly world-shaking revolutions of a spiritual nature are not even conceivable and realizable except as the titanic struggles of individual formations . . . [Hitler’s italics]5

  “Individual formations” are, of course, to be understood as a synonym for one man. It is possible that De Mohrenschildt, intrigued by the extreme contrast between Oswald’s anarchism and his authoritarianism, could have suggested that he read Mein Kampf.

  MR. VOSHININ. . . . I was invited by George to go to the Bohemian Club. He will give a historical lecture . . .

  I was present on that occasion.

  And George discussed the question, you know, about the Vlasov army. That was an army composed of Russian—Soviet Russian prisoners . . . who wanted to fight the Communists. And . . . in between, he injected a lot of praise for such people as Himmler . . . He said, “After all, I came to the conclusion that Himmler wasn’t a bad boy after all.”

  You know, that’s typically George.

  MR. JENNER. Do you think that this was sincere or do you think that he was just attempting to provoke shock?

  MR. VOSHININ. I think he was attempting to provoke shock. Especially [since] there were, at least, three Jewish people there present—Sam Ballen and Lev Aronson [and myself]. I saw that Lev Aronson . . . became red, terribly red in his face. I was afraid that the poor guy, you know, would have a stroke, you know. And George was looking into the face of Aronson and, you know, continued praising the Nazis and look what effect it has on Lev, who is a close friend of George. Of course, Lev was terribly bitter—and I understand, after that, Lev and him went to drink vodka the whole night. So, well—that’s the type of person you have . . . 6

  Possessor of an eclecticism that made him delight in presenting himself as right-wing, left-wing, a moralist, an immoralist, an aristocrat, a nihilist, a snob, an atheist, a Republican, a Kennedy lover, a desegregationalist, an intimate of oil tycoons, a bohemian, and a socialite, plus a quondam Nazi apologist once a year, De Mohrenschildt could hardly have failed to see that there was a profound divide between Oswald’s ideology and his character: Absolute freedom for all was the core of his political vision, yet he treated Marina as if he were a Nazi corporal shaping up a recruit.

  Alex Kleinlerer is not our most unbiased émigré, but this moment does offer an image:

  . . . Oswald observed that the zipper on Marina’s skirt was not completely closed. He called to her in a very angry and commanding tone of voice . . . His exact words were, “Come here!” in the Russian language, and he uttered them the way you would call a dog with which you were displeased in order to inflict punishment on him . . . When she reached the doorway he rudely reprimanded her in a flat imperious voice about being careless in her dress and slapped her hard in the face twice. Marina still had the baby in her arms. Her face was red and tears came to her eyes. All this took place in my presence. I was very much embarrassed and angry but I had long been afraid of Oswald and I did not say anything.7

  It is best, however, not to carry any analogy to Hitler too far. Oswald would have identified with the early struggles in Vienna, and would have been heartened by the fact that a plain ordinary-looking man with nothing better than a high school education had succeeded for a time in dominating half the world. He could certainly have accepted Hitler’s way of reading and absorbing knowledge, he would have given assent to Hitler’s belief in great individuals, and he would have applauded the following from Mein Kampf:

  . . . anyone who wants to cure this era, which is invariably sick and rotten, must first of all summon up the courage to make clear the causes of this disease [and then organize] those forces capable of becoming the vanguard fighters for a new philosophy of life.8

  Oswald, however, would have found Hitler’s most fundamental concept indigestible.

  . . . For only those who . . . learn to know the cultural, economic, but above all, the political greatness of their own fatherland can and will achieve the inner pride in the privilege of being a member of such a people. [Hitler’s italics]9

  Oswald was a Marxist. To relax his grip on Marxism would have been equal to intellectual decomposition for himself. The concept of a fatherland was odious to him; can one conceive of his “feeling inner pride in the privilege” of being an American? He would hate concepts of race and historically destined folk. Hitler’s success, however, was another matter—it probably lit a candle in the dungeon of Oswald’s immense hopes for himself.

  Sometime in the fall of 1962—the date is wholly unclear—De Mohrenschildt took Oswald to meet his friend Samuel Ballen with the possibility that Ballen would employ him in his corporation or send him to some promising place. The three men were together for two hours:

  MR. BALLEN. . . . during the entire course of the two hours [there were] general observations, general smirks, general slurs that were significant to me that he was equally a critic of the United States and of the USSR and that he was standing in his own mind as somewhat of a detached student and critical of both operations . . .

  . . . the one thing that greatly started to rub me the wro
ng way is, as I started to seriously think through possible industrial openings or possible people I could refer him to, and he could see I was really making an effort in this respect, he kept saying, and then he repeated himself a little too often on this, he said to me, “Now, don’t you worry about me, I will get along. Don’t you worry yourself about me.” He said that often enough that gradually it became annoying and I just felt this is a hot potato that I don’t think will fit in with any organization that I could refer him to.10

  It was not corporate for Lee to suggest, “Don’t worry about me.” The corporation is built on the premise that it not only takes care of all its people but worries about them, because it is, after all, the largest factor in their lives. Not unlike the Soviet Union, one is tempted to say.

  3

  “I Refused to Tell a Lie”

  Back on October 7, we left Marina and June at the Taylors’ house. By the next day, Jeanne De Mohrenschildt had arranged for Marina to receive some dental work. We can pick up an idea of how much Marina’s presence annoyed Jeanne by the following:

  MR. JENNER. You immediately noticed that she was ignorant, let me say?

  MRS. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. In bringing up the child? . . . Absolutely . . .

  MR. JENNER. The pacifier would fall on the floor, she would pick it up and stick it in the baby’s mouth?

  MRS. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; first she put it in her infected mouth and then in the baby’s mouth . . . Pick it up off the floor. The floor was less germs than her infected teeth, but she was not aware of it. That is what didn’t make . . . sense at all. After all, a pharmacist . . . 1

  Jeanne might be Russian by birth, but she had developed American notions of sanitation. Marina lived by other premises: She loved June so much that she would take it for granted that the adoration in her heart would imbue her saliva with cleansing powers. Perhaps she was right. Love plus infection might be more than equal to disinfectant that comes in a big company’s bottles.

  But, working together, the De Mohrenschildts and George Bouhe took steps to fix Marina’s teeth. With the aid of Elena Hall, who lived and worked in Fort Worth as a dental assistant and made arrangements for them at Baylor University’s dental clinic, Marina had six teeth extracted, and preparations for new ones commenced over a Monday and a Wednesday, October 8 and 10. Bouhe paid the $70 fee, and Jeanne was in charge of driving Marina to the appointments in Fort Worth, then bringing her back to the Taylors’ in Dallas, a harrowing few days for Marina, it is safe to suppose.

  Alexandra Taylor, being deputized on each occasion to take care of baby June, offers her sidelight:

  ALEXANDRA GIBSON. . . . The minute Marina left, the child would start to cry . . . Every time I got near her she’d scream. She never slept . . .

  MR. JENNER. Do you think she found it strange to have anyone speak to her in English as distinguished from Russian?

  ALEXANDRA GIBSON. . . . I don’t believe she had ever been with anybody but her parents and I think that might have had a lot to do with it, plus she was very spoiled, very catered to by her mother and her father.2

  Following the dental work, it was agreed that Marina would move over with June to Elena Hall’s place. An émigrée, Elena Hall spoke Russian, had a larger apartment, and was separated at this time from her husband, an American. The immediate result was that Lee was in Dallas and Marina was now back in Fort Worth. They were thirty miles apart and he could see her less frequently, but Kleinlerer was standing in for him as resident critic of Marina:

  I noticed that [she] did nothing to help Mrs. Hall in the house. Mrs. Hall often complained that Marina was lazy, that she slept until noon or thereabouts, and would not do anything . . . to help.3

  Nonetheless, Elena Hall and Marina were able to collaborate on certain matters. On October 17, in the evening, the two women knocked on Alexandra Taylor’s door in a state of excitement. An hour earlier, they had had June baptized at a Russian Orthodox church. Elena Hall was now the godmother. Since Marina was certain that Lee would object strenuously, she had done it “on the sly” and asked Alexandra not to tell him.4

  Since Lee’s twenty-third birthday was tomorrow, October 18, and they would not be together but thirty miles apart, Marina asked Alexandra if she could leave a small box of new clothes for him. (In those days, Oswald dropped by frequently at the Taylors’.) As soon as Marina returned to Fort Worth, however, she had a change of heart. When Lee called her that night, she told him about the baptism. When he came by the Taylors’ apartment to pick up his gift the next day, he was cool. Alexandra remarked: “ . . . said he didn’t like the idea, but that was all.”5

  On October 18, Lee’s birthday, Elena Hall got into a car crash that would put her in the hospital for eight days. About that, Alexandra said, “It was very shocking . . .”6

  We can assume the émigrés were even more disturbed by the news, particularly when they learned of the baptism. The accident had to intensify everyone’s fear of Oswald: Marina, with her deep if unfocused intuitions about magical matters, could hardly be free of the guilty assumption that she had helped to injure Elena Hall.

  The immediate result was that Marina now lived alone in Elena’s apartment in Fort Worth. Indeed, since Elena Hall went off to New York as soon as she was discharged from the hospital in order to be reunited with her husband, Marina would continue to dwell there alone for more than two weeks. Alex Kleinlerer, left to look after the apartment and make certain that it remained in some kind of order, gave his usual generous evaluation:

  On a good many of the occasions that I dropped by the Hall residence during my lunch hour, I found that Marina had not yet awakened. I would have to arouse her by ringing the doorbell and banging on the front door. I would find the household unkept, unwashed dishes in the sink or on the eating table, and hers and the baby’s clothing strewn around the room. Marina would come to the door in a wrap-around, her hair dishevelled and her eyes heavy with the effect of many hours of sleep. She would make some excuses about sleeping late.7

  This may have been the first period of real rest for Marina in years. Who can measure the exhaustions of her harsh adventures in Leningrad, Minsk, and Texas? Now, over the space of a week and three days, she had had six teeth taken out and her daughter baptized and had then been the prime mover—could it be?—behind a fearful accident. No wonder, then, if she overslept and was exhausted on awakening. There was a series of obsessions to encounter each night, including the bottomless question—“What do I do next with my existence?”

  Paradoxically, her sexual life may have been stimulated. Curses that prove successful open the gates to libido. (Otherwise, there would be no warlocks.) In this period, while Elena was away, Lee came to visit for full weekends, and was full of himself.

  McMillan: “This is your house. I give it to you—all!” he would announce to Marina, sweeping his arm grandly around the entrance hall upon his arrival on a Friday. “Isn’t this a fine house I bought you?”

  Marina remembers that he was “always running to the icebox,” a thing he never did at home when he was paying for the groceries himself, to fix a Coke or a sandwich. “A full icebox!” he would exclaim delightedly before he pounced . . . And at night, he made love to Marina while watching . . . the bedroom television set, a distraction which helped slightly his problem of premature ejaculation. Afterwards, the two of them slept in separate bedrooms, a luxury which Lee said made him feel “like an aristocrat.”8

  By the twenty-sixth of October, he is searching for a place they can live in together, and finally chooses an apartment on Elsbeth Street in Dallas, a ground-floor lodging that has a back entrance as well as a front door. He will not have to call as much attention to himself when he comes in and when he goes out.

  On November 4, Lee and Marina move into the Elsbeth Street place. Elena Hall, still in New York and distrustful of Lee, asks the reliable Kleinlerer to make certain that Mr. Oswald, in the course of removing his worldly goods from the Halls’ garage, does not take anything b
elonging to her.

  Lee inveigled Gary Taylor into contributing his taxi, then rented a U-Haul, and the two spent a good part of the day on the packing, the move, the unpacking, and the return of the trailer. Kleinlerer weighs in one last time:

  I supervised the placing of the Oswald goods and wearing apparel in the “U-Haul-It” trailer. There were several instances when I had to intervene when Oswald picked up some of Mrs. Hall’s things . . . I could not say whether this was deliberate or inadvertent, except that there were several instances.9

  Alexandra Taylor comes along with Gary for the last leg of the move and gives a telling description of the apartment on Elsbeth Street that the Oswalds would occupy for the next four months:

  ALEXANDRA GIBSON. It was a hole. It was terrible, very dirty, very badly kept, really quite a slum . . . large, quite large, built very strangely, little rooms here and there, lots of doors, lots of windows. The floor had big bumps in it . . . you walked uphill, you know, to get from one side of the room to the other. It was not a nice place, no.

  MR. JENNER. Was it a brick structure, wooden?

  ALEXANDRA GIBSON. It was brick outside, dark red brick. It was a small apartment building, I think two stories, overrun with weeds and garbage and people.10