Oswald's Game

by Davison, Jean

  During January Oswald got troubling news from his mother, who wrote him that the Marines had changed his honorable discharge to a dishonorable (in fact, an “undesirable”) discharge. He must have suspected this change was a prelude to criminal charges, for on January 30 he wrote Robert:

  You once said that you asked around about whether or not the U.S. government had any charges against me, you said at that time “no,” maybe you should ask around again, it’s possible now that the government knows I’m coming they’ll have something waiting.… If you find out any information about me, please let me know. I’d like to be ready on the draw so to speak.

  On the same day he also wrote John Connally, who he believed was still secretary of the navy. (Connally was by that time governor of Texas.) Oswald’s letter to him was a shrewd mixture of gall and dissembling:

  I wish to call your attention to a case about which you may have personal knowledge since you are a resident of Ft. Worth as I am. In November 1959 an event was well publicized 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 reporters 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 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 have and always had the full sanction of the U.S. Embassy, Moscow USSR and hence the U.S. government. Inasmuch as I am returning to the U.S.A. in this year with the aid of the U.S. Embassy, bringing with me my family (since I married in the USSR) I shall employ all means to right this gross mistake or injustice to a boni-fied [sic] U.S. citizen and ex-service man. The U.S. government has no charges or complaints against me. 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.

  Conally referred his letter to the Department of the Navy, which informed Oswald that it contemplated no change in his undesirable discharge.

  On February 15 Oswald wrote Robert once more. After indicating that he and Marina had received their Soviet exit visas, he said:

  The chances of our coming to the States are very good.…

  How are things at your end? I heard over the voice of America that they released Powers, the U2 spy plane fellow. That’s big news where you are I suppose. He seemed to be a nice, bright, American-type fellow, when I saw him in Moscow.

  You wouldn’t have any clippings from the November 1959 newspapers of Ft. Worth, would you?

  I am beginning to get interested in just what they did say about me and my trip here.

  The information might come in handy when I get back. I would hate to come back completely unprepared.

  Oswald may have had a particular reason for mentioning Francis Gary Powers.

  The Russians had created an international sensation by shooting down Powers’s U-2 plane in May 1960. Powers cooperated with his captors by revealing what he knew, and President Eisenhower was forced to admit that the United States had been conducting reconnaissance flights over Soviet territory. It was one of the Soviets’ most impressive propaganda coups ever. That August, Powers went on trial in Moscow. Oswald couldn’t have missed hearing about it—excerpts from the trial became daily fare on Soviet television, and a movie of the trial made the rounds at neighborhood theaters. During his trial Powers’s defense attorney, Mikhail Griniev, had emphasized that “the divulgence of state secrets in the United States is punishable by ten years’ imprisonment, or a fine of ten thousand dollars, or both.” Griniev pointed out that Powers had said: “I know that I shall be tried in your court, but if I happen to return home I shall be tried there as well.” In February 1962 Powers was exchanged for an imprisoned Russian spy, Colonel Rudolf Abel.

  The ten-year sentence for divulging state secrets may have been the kind of lengthy prison sentence Oswald was worried about. Over and over he had asked Robert to look into certain unspecified charges he might be faced with. Robert apparently didn’t know what he was talking about. He may have wanted Robert to send him the newspaper clippings so he could find out whether anything had been said about his threat to expose military secrets. In any case, the Powers case stayed on his mind, for two weeks later he wrote Robert: “In another month or so it’ll start to thaw out here although I suppose it’s already hot in Texas. I heard a “voice of America” program about the Russians releasing Powers. I hope they aren’t going to try him in the U.S. or anything.”

  By May the paperwork was finally completed and the Oswalds and their infant daughter June left the Soviet Union. It had taken Oswald fifteen months to get out. On board the SS Maasdam Oswald found some stationery and spent hours in the ship’s library writing about politics. Still worried about his reception, he prepared himself for the hostile questions American reporters might ask a returning defector. He compiled a list of possible questions and two sets of answers—one giving sanitized responses reminiscent of his diary and the other giving what was evidently the truth. Here are some of the dual answers he gave.

  Why did you go to the Soviet Union? One response was that he went as a tourist “to see the land, the people and how their system works.” The other, that he went “as a mark of disgust and protest against American political policies in foreign countries, my personal sign of discontent and horror at the misguided line of reasoning of the U.S. Government.”

  What are the outstanding differences between the Soviet Union and the United States? Answers: “freedom of speech, travel, outspoken opposition to unpopular policies, freedom to believe in god,” and “None, except in the U.S. the living standard is a little higher, freedoms are about the same, medical aid and the education system in the USSR is better than in the USA.”

  Are you a Communist? “No, of course not….” and “Yes, basically, although I hate the USSR and [its] socialist system I still think Marxism can work under different circumstances.”

  The defector was coming home, essentially unchanged.

  7 … Homecoming

  ON June 8, 1962, a Fort Worth newspaper carried a photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald and an article headlined, “Ex-Marine Reported on Way Back from Russia.” Six days later the Oswalds arrived at Love Field, the Dallas airport. Robert and his family met them and brought them home to stay until they could get settled—they would live at Robert’s for about a month. Oswald had cautioned his brother to make no statements to the press before he got home—“None at all!”—and now, when reporters called the house Oswald refused to talk with them. A week later a Fort Worth Press writer sent him a letter asking for an interview, saying that Oswald’s story might be salable to a magazine or book publisher or possibly even to the movies. The writer warned Oswald he might have trouble finding a job in Fort Worth: “You would be surprised how many people still link the name Lee Oswald with ‘traitor’ and ‘turncoat.’” Oswald never answered.

  Marina enjoyed her first taste of American life. Robert’s wife, Vada, cut her hair and gave her a permanent, and Marina seemed delighted with the way she looked. She bought her first pair of shorts and was overwhelmed by the supermarkets. Before long Oswald would begin speaking disparagingly of his wife as a typical American girl, someone more interested in material things than in important political issues. He would complain that he had thought he married a different sort of girl, “a Russian girl.”

  On June 19 Oswald called on Peter Gregory, a Siberian-born petroleum engineer who taught Russian at the Fort Worth Public Library. Oswald asked if Gregory would write him a letter of recommendation, certifying his competence in the Russian language, so that he might try to get a job as a translator. (Oswald was by this time fluent
in Russian.) Gregory opened a book at random and had Oswald read for him, then gave him the letter he wanted. Through Gregory, Oswald would meet other members of the Russian-speaking émigré community in the area.

  Meanwhile, the Fort Worth FBI had taken note of Oswald’s return. Special Agent John Fain saw Oswald’s picture in the paper and called Marguerite, and then Robert, to locate Oswald and arrange for an interview. Oswald went down to the FBI office and spoke to Fain and another agent for about two hours. Fain found him to be “insolent and tense.” When Fain asked him why he went to Russia, Oswald said “because I wanted to” and “to see the country.”

  For the past five years it had been part of the FBI’s job to interview returning defectors and report any significant findings to the CIA.1 The FBI agent also wanted to make sure Oswald wasn’t going to be recruited by Soviet intelligence, and on this point Oswald “seemed to be just a little bit derisive of our questions, and hesitated to bring out whether or not the Soviet intelligence officials might have been interested in him or might have contacted him.… He just didn’t think he was that important; in other words, that they would want to contact him.” According to Fain’s written report, Oswald denied that he had tried to renounce his American citizenship or that he had said he would reveal radar secrets to the Soviets. Fain asked Oswald to take a lie detector test on whether he had dealings with Soviet intelligence and Oswald refused.

  In mid-July he got a job as a sheet-metal worker for a manufacturer of louvers and ventilators and moved his family to an apartment on Mercedes Street, in a low-income area of Fort Worth. He spent much of his free time reading books on history and politics he’d checked out of the library. As soon as he had settled, he sent an airmail payment to The Worker for renewal of his subscription. On August 12 he sent a letter to the Socialist Workers party asking for information, and the party sent him some literature. He also wrote to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New York and received some pamphlets.

  Agent Fain hadn’t been satisfied with Oswald’s responses in their first meeting. He decided to interview Oswald again on August 16, and went to the Mercedes Street address. The interview went over the same ground and yielded similar denials. Marina recalled:

  Lee had just returned from work and we were getting ready to have dinner when a car drove up and [a] man introduced himself and asked Lee to step out and talk to him. There was another man in the car. They talked for about two hours and I was very angry, because everything had gotten cold.… I asked who these [men] were, and he was very upset over the fact that the FBI was interested in him.… Lee said that the FBI had told him that in the event some Russians might visit him and would try to recruit him to work for them, he should notify the FBI agents. I don’t know to what extent this was true.… he said that they saw Communists in everybody and they are much afraid … inasmuch as I had returned [with him] from Russia.

  The FBI’s concern was that the Soviets might be able to coerce Oswald into intelligence work because Marina had relatives in Russia. Oswald quickly developed what an acquaintance would call an “extreme allergy to the FBI.” Fain had gotten Oswald’s new address from Robert, and from that point on, whenever Oswald moved, he rented a post office box and refused to give Robert his home address. After this FBI visit, Marina says he remained nervous and irritable for some time. If the past is any guide, his fear of being arrested must have been renewed.

  Oswald didn’t know it, but before Fain retired in October, he determined that Oswald wasn’t working in a sensitive industry, and decided to close his case, at least temporarily.2

  Many of the Russian-speaking émigrés in the Dallas-Fort Worth area had heard about Oswald’s arrival, and they were eager to find out about current conditions in the Soviet Union. Peter Gregory gave a dinner party to introduce the Oswalds to George Bouhe and Anna Meller. Like most of the émigrés, Bouhe and Meller were strongly anti-Communist. They quickly discovered they had nothing in common with Oswald politically. When Bouhe asked about the living standards of the Russian worker, Oswald told him he had made 90 rubles a month and had a rentfree apartment. Pressed about other costs, Oswald said a pair of boots cost about 19 rubles, cafeteria food about 45. Bouhe said, “90 minus 45, minus 19, what is left?” Oswald didn’t respond. Bouhe soon stopped discussing the Soviet system with him.

  Bouhe later visited the Oswalds at their apartment, and when he saw what few things they had, he collected clothes for the whole family and bought some groceries and a crib for the baby, who had been sleeping on the floor in a suitcase. Oswald was furious. He picked up a shirt Bouhe had brought him and measured and remeasured it. Finally Bouhe said, “Lee, this is to go to work. Wear them 3 or 4 days, get them dirty, then throw them away.” Oswald folded the shirt and gave it back to him. He said, “I don’t need any.” The other gifts were tacitly accepted, however. Anna Meller visited, too, and was shocked to see Marxist books in the living room. She thought Oswald was extremely irresponsible in not taking better care of his family and in refusing to let Marina learn English. (Oswald wanted to retain his Russian and wanted June to learn the language.) From his point of view, he was eminently responsible: he was pursuing important political concerns that they were too self-centered and bourgeois to recognize. But the way he criticized both the Soviet Union and the United States made Meller think he was mentally ill. She told the Warren Commission, “He had always something hidden; you [could] feel it.”

  That summer Gregory’s son Paul, a student, paid Marina to tutor him in Russian for a couple of months. Sometimes he would drive the Oswalds to the grocery store, and he was amazed at how little Lee bought. Oswald would get the cheapest possible cut of meat and then haggle to make sure they gave him the best of the lot. Paul remembered that once when they were coming out of the store Marina missed the step down and fell with June in her arms. Oswald rushed over to make sure the child was all right, ignoring his wife, and then gave her a tongue-lashing.

  Paul Gregory believed that Oswald considered him a friend, while other people were “beneath him.” The two young men discussed politics, and Oswald expressed admiration for Castro and for President Kennedy, whom he called “a good leader.” He told Paul the Party leaders in Russia were “‘ruining the principles which the country should be based on.’ In other words, they were not true Communists.” When Paul mentioned his interest in going to the Soviet Union as an exchange student, Oswald advised, “Just go over there. Don’t get on a waiting list. You will never get there. If you want to do something, go ahead and do it. You will get involved in red tape.” After recalling this conversation for the Warren Commission, Gregory added, “And I think that was possibly the way he thought about everything.” After the assassination, Paul told the FBI that Oswald was “arrogant, stubborn, and would not discuss anything but his particular type of politics, which was definitely radical.”

  Before long, other members of the Russian-speaking community were offering their help. Meller and Bouhe noticed that Marina’s teeth were in very poor condition and sought out the assistance of another émigré, Elena Hall, a dental technician, who directed Marina to a low-cost clinic and began collecting money and clothes for the family. Elena’s husband John drove her to the Mercedes Street apartment, and on the way over she told him how destitute the Oswalds were. When they walked in, John Hall remembered, Oswald had just been to town to buy “this 50-cent magazine on Russia, which of course I thought, to myself, here they are destitute and he is spending 50 cents on a magazine, especially about Russia.” Oswald seemed to him “a so-called egghead.” At a later meeting Hall, who was a Baptist and owned his own dental lab, tried to convince Oswald that “our system was, a tremendous enterprise, was the best.” But to Hall’s mind, this young man was “completely out in left field in politics” and “you just didn’t have any idea at all that you were going to change him.” Elena thought the same thing. Her attitude was that after seeing what Russia was like he should have learned his lesson.

  Oswald resented th
e émigrés’ help, never thanked anyone, and showed his contempt for these middle-class anti-Communists. Marina told the Commission, “Well, he thought that they were fools for having left Russia, they were all traitors.” He said that they only liked money, and that everything is measured by money in this country.

  There was only one exception to his general dislike of this group—George de Mohrenschildt, a petroleum engineeer from Dallas. Almost thirty years Oswald’s senior, de Mohrenschildt had a flamboyant personality and a colorful past. Born in Russia in 1911, de Mohrenschildt had been an officer in the Polish Army and a roughneck in the Louisiana oilfields. In 1941 he had worked for a French intelligence agent collecting information on people involved in pro-German activity in the United States. Nicknamed “The Mad Russian,” de Mohrenschildt was a nonconformist. It was said of him that he might show up at a formal dinner in a bathing suit or come to a church function and announce that he was an atheist. George, who had the reputation of being a “leftwing enthusiast” of some kind, was the one émigré who would listen to Oswald’s political ideas and take him seriously. For this reason, Oswald looked up to him, and apparently was more open with him than he was with most people. The older man would be Oswald’s confidant until de Mohrenschildt left Dallas in April 1963.

  De Mohrenschildt told the Warren Commission, “I could understand his point of view, because that is what happens exactly in the whole world with dissatisfied people. If they are constructive, they study more and try to get good jobs and succeed. The [others] try to form a revolutionary party. And he was one of them.” He described Oswald as “an idealistic Marxist” who “had read and created some sort of a theory, a Marxist theory for himself…. he was building up a doctrine in his head.” He testified that when he asked him why he had left Russia, Oswald replied, “Because I did not find what I was looking for.”