Michael knew that Lee had a job at the School Book Depository. And now he had been arrested in a part of town far away from where he worked for the random killing of a police officer. Years later, still trying to put distance between himself and the event, Michael said: “I realized that Lee must be uptight about something—and I’d better be getting on home.”
Lee had another friend whose intuition was working that day. George and Jeanne de Mohrenschildt were at a reception at the Syrian Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, when they heard that President Kennedy had been shot in their home city of Dallas. As they drove away from the reception, they wondered who on earth the assassin might be. Could it be anyone they knew?
They went to the home of a friend who worked for the American embassy. He greeted them and told them a suspect had been captured. The name was “Lee, Lee, Lee Someone,” or else it was “Somebody Lee.”
All of a sudden George remembered the rifle with a telescopic sight, “Can it,” he cried at the top of his voice, “be that crazy Lee Oswald?”
“Yes,” said the host, to the incredulous de Mohrenschildts. “That is the name, I guess.”7
The moment they discovered that Lee’s rifle was missing, the police announced to Marina and the Paines that they would all have to go to police headquarters in downtown Dallas. It was plain that every one of them, Marina and the Paines, were under suspicion.
Marina, who was wearing slacks, wanted to change into a dress. “Come along, hurry up, we don’t have time to wait for you,” the policemen told her and refused to allowed her to change. Ruth protested, but the police not only refused to let Marina change, they also refused to allow her to use the bathroom with the door closed. Marina was angry. “I’m not a criminal,” she thought. “I didn’t do anything.”
Soon she was outside the house, with no idea how she got there, and she was shaking all over with fright. She had her children with her, and the Paines had theirs.
On the way to Dallas in a car, Marina turned to Ruth and asked the question that was uppermost on her mind: “Isn’t it true that in Texas the penalty for shooting someone is the electric chair?”
Ruth said that it was true.
Marina turned to her again. This time, with characteristic bluntness, she said: “Your Russian has suddenly become no good at all.”8
At police headquarters all of them were interrogated, with Ruth acting as Marina’s interpreter. Marina was shown a rifle and was asked if it belonged to Lee. She hated rifles; to her they all looked alike. She knew that Lee’s was dark and had a sight on it. Beyond that, she could not say. Glancing through a glass partition as the rifle was being held up in front of Marina, Michael suddenly realized what had become of the “camping equipment” he had held in his arms.
Marina was truthful in her inability to identify the rifle, but she was in a quandary over what she might be asked next, and what she ought to reply. She had no idea that Lee was charged with shooting a police officer; she had never even heard the name Tippit. She was aware only that Lee was suspected of killing President Kennedy, and she had no idea whether or not he was guilty. The facts appeared to be against him, but then, Lee was always in trouble, and Marina thought that his arrest might be a provocation or a misunderstanding. Whatever she did, she did not want to add a scintilla to any evidence the police might have against him. For behind the president, as she alone was aware, lay General Walker. Suppose Lee was cleared of killing Kennedy. They still might find out about Walker. And Marina mistakenly assumed that Lee was as likely to be put in the electric chair for an attempted murder as for murder itself.
Marina asked to see Lee. She was told that he was upstairs being interrogated and she could not see him that day.
Everything was topsy-turvy—Marina could make no sense of it at all. At first she had been offended and angered by the way the police officers had burst into Ruth’s house, ransacked everything, routed them out, and brusquely carried them off as if they were all criminals. But at the police station she felt badly frightened, and she expected to be arrested any second. That was how it would have been in Russia. Even if your husband were innocent, they would arrest you until it was straightened out. Now, inexplicably, the police were much nicer than they had been at Ruth’s. One officer offered to get her coffee, and another offered help with the baby. They saw her fear and tried to calm her. Even the officer who questioned her was kind. He was not harsh with her and did not try to twist her answers or catch her out in a lie. That was lucky, Marina thought. She did not want to say anything that might hurt Lee.
After the police finished questioning her, Marina saw Marguerite Oswald, Lee’s mother. It was the first time Marguerite had seen Rachel—indeed, she had not known that Marina and Lee had been expecting a second child—and she greeted Marina and the children warmly. Marina also caught a glimpse of Lee’s brother, Robert. He was sitting alone, very pale, with his head in his hands.
Marina has no idea how long they were at police headquarters, but eventually she, Ruth, Michael, and the five children were allowed to go back to the Paines’. She does not remember whether they ate, or what they ate, or who did the cooking. But the house was in an uproar. It was overrun by reporters who wanted to talk to Marina, Ruth, and Marguerite. Suddenly there were angry words between Ruth and Marguerite. Ruth was defending Marina’s right to speak, but Marguerite would not allow it. “I’m his mother,” she shrieked. “I’m the one who’s going to speak.” Then she told Marina that neither of them should talk to the reporters, and Marina, without being told, understood her reason—money. For a while they had the television on, and Marina remembers watching Lee being led through a corridor at the police station.
Despite the shocks she had had, Marina had her wits about her. Alone in the bedroom she found June’s baby book, which, by some miracle of oversight, the policemen had left behind. In it were the two small photographs of Lee dressed in black and wearing his guns. He had given them to her to keep for June. Not looking at them closely, Marina thought they were two copies of the same photograph. These, she realized, were evidence. She took them out of the baby book carefully and, in the privacy of the bedroom, showed them to her mother-in-law. “Mama,” she said, pointing to the photographs and explaining as best she could in English, “Walker—this is Lee.” “Oh, no,” Marguerite moaned, raising her hands to her head. She gesticulated a bit, put her finger to her mouth, pointed toward Ruth’s room, and said, “Ruth, no.” She shook her head, meaning that Marina was not to show the photographs to Ruth, or tell her anything about them.
Marina later made a terrible discovery. She happened to glance at the bureau and saw that, again by a miracle of oversight, the police had left another of her possessions behind. It was a delicate little demitasse cup of pale blue-green with violets and a slender golden rim that had belonged to her grandmother. It was so thin that the light glowed through it as if it were parchment. Marina looked inside. There lay Lee’s wedding ring.
“Oh, no,” she thought, and her heart sank again. Lee never took his wedding ring off, not even on his grimiest manual jobs. She had seen him wearing it the night before. Marina suddenly realized what it meant. Lee had not just gone out and shot the president spontaneously. He had intended to do it when he left for work that day. Again, things were falling into place. Marina told no one about Lee’s ring.
Before they went to bed that night, Ruth and Marina had a talk in the kitchen. Ruth thought Marina was “stunned.” Marina said that everything she had ever heard about the Kennedys came from Lee. If he had minded translating articles about them or telling her what he knew about the president, she was sure she would have known it.
Something else hurt Marina and left her bewildered. Only the night before, she told Ruth, Lee had suggested that they get an apartment together in Dallas soon. How could Lee have made such a suggestion, she wondered aloud, when he must already have been planning an act that would destroy their life together?9
“Do you think he did it, then?
” Ruth asked.
“I don’t know,” Marina said.10
Marina did not sleep that night. All she saw before her was the electric chair. She knew nothing about American law, the long trials and appeals that might take years in the courts. She thought that it would be over in three days and that Lee would be electrocuted.
What should she do if he were tried? She thought she would have to testify and would be committing a crime if she failed to tell everything she knew. She could tell them nothing about the Kennedy shooting. But she did know about Lee’s attempt on Walker. If they asked her about that, she would not be able to lie. And yet to say anything about it would be to incriminate Lee, help seal the case against him, and put him in the electric chair. To send your husband to his death—that would be a real crime.
Marina did not know if Lee was guilty, although the signs seemed to point that way. And so, of course, she could not know if he would confess. He might, claiming that his actions had been justified. Then again he might not. Either way, Marina thought, he would love being in the spotlight and would use it to proclaim his ideas. In his eyes his political ideas stood higher even than himself. He would talk about Marxism, Communism, and injustice all over the world.
None of this helped Marina as she tried to figure out what to do. Again and again, her thoughts came back to the electric chair. If Lee was guilty, then within three days he would be strapped in that chair and he would be dead. She herself would be in prison. What provision do they have in America, she wondered, for babies whose parents are both gone, one dead, the other in prison?
— 38 —
An End and a Beginning
The following morning, Saturday, November 23, evidently with Marguerite’s consent, reporters from Life magazine whisked Marina, Marguerite, and the children from the Paine house in Irving to the Hotel Adolphus in downtown Dallas. Shortly after they were installed there—with reporters and photographers from Life, a woman interpreter, an FBI man named Bardwell Odum, and a clackety teletype machine—Marina and Marguerite were told that they could see Lee. They went to the city jail about 1:00 P.M.
Marina had now convinced herself that Lee was innocent after all and was under suspicion merely because he had been to Russia. His arrest had been a mistake. It would be straightened out soon.
Such thoughts were cut short the moment she caught sight of Lee. He looked pitiful, his eyes full of trouble. She could not reach out to him or kiss him because a glass partition separated them. They could talk only over a pair of telephones.
“Why did you bring that fool with you?” Lee said, glancing over at Marguerite. “I don’t want to talk to her.”
“She’s your mother,” Marina said. “Of course she came. Have they been beating you in prison?”
“Oh, no, Lee said. “They treat me fine. You’re not to worry about that. Did you bring Junie and Rachel?”
“They’re downstairs. Alik, can we talk about anything we like? Is anybody listening in?” Marina had folded the photographs of Lee dressed in black with his rifle and revolver and tucked them carefully inside her shoe. She had them there that very moment, and she wanted to ask Lee what to do with them.
“Oh, of course,” he said. “We can speak about absolutely anything at all.”
From his tone Marina understood that he was warning her to say nothing.
“Alka,” she began again,” “they asked me about the gun.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” he said, “and you’re not to worry if there’s a trial.” His voice was high, and he was speaking rapidly. “It’s a mistake,” he said. “I’m not guilty. There are people who will help me.” He explained that there was a lawyer in New York on whom he was counting for help.
His words were the old Lee, full of bravado, but Marina could tell by the pitch of his voice that he was frightened. She saw fear in his eyes, and the tears started rolling down her cheeks.
“Don’t cry,” he said, and his voice became tender and kind. “Ah, don’t cry. There’s nothing to cry about. Try not to think about it. Everything is going to be all right. And if they ask you anything, you have a right not to answer. You have a right to refuse. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Marina said.
Lee had tears in his eyes, too, but he did his best to hold them back, and he talked for a few minutes with his mother. Then he asked to speak to Marina again.
“You’re not to worry,” he said. And in words almost identical to the ones he had written her in the “Walker note,” he added: “You have friends.1 They’ll help you. If it comes to that, you can ask the Red Cross for help. You mustn’t worry about me. Kiss Junie and Rachel for me.”
“I will,” Marina promised.
The guards stood behind him now, ready to take him away, yet trying to give them an extra minute.
“Alka,” Marina said. “Remember that I love you.” She was telling him that he could count on her not to say anything that would betray him.
He got up and backed out of the room, edging toward the door so that he could see her until the very last second. He was saying goodbye with his eyes.
Marina was now certain that Lee was guilty. She saw his guilt in his eyes. Moreover, she knew that had he been innocent he would have been screaming to high heaven for his “rights,” claiming he had been mistrusted and demanding to see officials at the very highest levels, just as he had always done before. For her the fact that he was so compliant, that he told her he was being treated “all right,” was a sign that he was guilty.
Was he sorry for what he had done? Marina’s impressions were mixed. Lee seemed to be closing in on himself like a sea creature, a contented mollusk or a clam, trying not to show what was inside. After the Walker affair, when he failed at what he had set out to do, he had remained keyed up and tense until the “Nixon” charade eleven days later somehow relieved him of strain. Now he was altogether different. He had succeeded. The inner tension was gone. Marina sensed in him a glow of satisfaction that she had not seen there before.
She thought that he was glad he had succeeded, and yet at the same time sorry. What he had done so impulsively could not now be undone. In spite of his obvious satisfaction, it seemed to her that he was also carrying a burden of regret heavier than he, or anyone, could bear. He was on the edge of tears all the time they were together and was barely holding them back. He did not want to break down and show himself, or his fear, to the police. And while much of his anger was spent, Marina saw that Lee’s act had failed to lift off him the inner weight he had with him all the time, nor had it made him any happier. He had looked at her, altogether uncharacteristically, with supplication in his eyes. He was pleading with her not to desert him. He was begging for her love, her support and, above all, her silence. He knew that this was the end.
Marina did not see Lee alive again. As she, Marguerite, and the children left the city jail, she was pelted with questions from reporters. “What did he say? What did he say? What did your husband say?” Some of them spoke to her in Russian. Marina did not answer. “Leave me alone,” she wanted to say to them. “It is hard for me now.”
Marina was tired. She had not had much sleep, and she was not accustomed to having policemen and reporters around her. She felt that everyone must be looking at her with hatred because of what Lee had done. And that was one of the heaviest things to bear, her feeling that the world was against her.
Isolated by language; not seeing television much; busy, in fact, nursing Rachel, Marina had less idea than most people what had happened to her husband since they had said good-bye on Friday morning. She did not know that on leaving the Book Depository Building with only $15.10 in his pocket, he had gone to his rooming house, fetched his pistol, and run in the direction of their old homes on Neely and Elsbeth Streets. She did not know that in the very vicinity where they had lived the previous spring, a patrolman had stopped him, and he had shot the patrolman dead. She had never heard of J. D. Tippit. It was only on Saturday that somebody told her of his mu
rder. Until then, she knew only that her husband was suspected of killing President Kennedy.
In fact, Oswald had been suspected of killing Kennedy from the moment Captain Fritz learned that he was missing from the Book Depository Building. And when Fritz returned to police headquarters to discover that the man he was looking for was already there, he did not waste a moment. He sent a posse to the Paine house. And, in his glassed-in office on the third floor of the Police and Courts Building, he started to question Lee Oswald.
Fritz had been trying for months to obtain a tape recorder for the homicide and robbery bureau. But he had not succeeded. As a result, the only record of Oswald’s twelve hours of interrogation that weekend comes from the notes and memoranda of those who happened to be present. There were seven or eight men moving in and out of the room—detectives from the homicide squad, a Secret Service inspector, a pair of FBI agents—but no one was there the entire time. If Fritz was called out to interview a witness or give an order, others picked up the questioning. “We were,” Police Chief Jesse Curry said later, “violating every principle of interrogation.”2
Despite the untranquil atmosphere, Oswald managed to keep his composure. He refused a lie detector test, appeared to anticipate questions that might incriminate him, and declined to answer them. One of the few times his calm failed him was at 3:15 P.M. on Friday, when two FBI men entered and Oswald learned that one of them was James P. Hosty. He became “arrogant and upset” and accused Hosty of twice “accosting” his wife. Fritz asked what he meant. Oswald answered that Hosty had “mistreated” his wife on two occasions when he talked to her and “practically accosted her.”3
Hosty asked Oswald if he had been to Russia, and Oswald said yes. Hosty then asked if he had been to Mexico Ctiy, and Oswald’s composure deserted him again. “He beat his fists on the table and went into a tantrum,” Fritz said later.
By 3:00 P.M. on Friday afternoon, it became known that a suspect had been apprehended, and not just Fritz’s office but the entire Police and Courts Building was in an uproar. It was a policy of the Dallas police to be accessible to the press, but now, with reporters from Dallas, from all over the country, and even from abroad clamoring to get in, the guards virtually gave up trying to check press credentials. Almost anyone could get to the third floor. And among those who did was a nightclub operator named Jack Ruby, who was seen there at 11:30 P.M. on Friday, and again at a midnight press conference in the basement.
Marina and Lee Page 68
