Oswald's Tale

by Norman Mailer

  ROBERT OSWALD. . . . perhaps something in the nature of shock treatments or something along that line had been given to him in Russia . . . 5

  Let us move from the fraternal to the maternal:

  MARGUERITE OSWALD. . . . I was on a case in Crowell, Texas . . . And I was taking care of a very elderly woman whose daughter lived in Fort Worth, Texas.

  So I was not able to leave and meet Lee.

  Robert, his brother, met him and Lee went to Robert’s home.

  Approximately about a week later—I could not stand it anymore—I . . . took 3 days off and went to Fort Worth to see Lee and Marina.

  Marina is a beautiful girl. And I said to Lee, “Marina, she doesn’t look Russian. She is beautiful.”

  He says, “Of course not. That is why I married her, because she looks like an American girl.”

  I asked where he had met her, and he said . . . at a social function, a community function.

  I said, “You know, Lee, I am getting ready”—I was getting ready—“to write a book on your so-called defection.” . . .

  He said, “Mother, you are not going to write a book.”

  I said, “Lee, don’t tell me what to do . . . It has nothing to do with you and Marina. It is my life, because of your defection.”

  He said, “Mother, I tell you you are not to write the book. They could kill her and her family.” . . .

  While I was in Robert’s home, Lee was immediately out job-hunting. And I felt very bad about that, because . . . I thought he should have at least a week or two before he would look for work.

  But I want you to know that immediately Lee was out looking for work.

  And this is the time that Lee had gone to the public stenographer, made the statement that he was writing a book . . . I, myself, gave him the $10 that he gave the public stenographer.6

  MRS. BATES. I think it was around 10 o’clock or 11 o’clock in the morning, on the 18th of June, 1962 . . . He just walked in . . . He said, “First, I want to find out what your prices are and see if I can afford it.” So I gave him my price . . . I said it was either 2 and a half an hour or a dollar a page [and] he brought out this large manila envelope, legal size—oh, I think it was 10 by 14 or something—one of those large ones. And he said . . . that he had notes that he had smuggled out of Russia. And I looked up at him kind of surprised. I said, “Have you been to Russia?”

  He said, “Yes, ma’am. I just got back.” And that he had smuggled these notes out of Russia under his clothes, next to his skin . . .

  And that he wanted to have them typed by a professional typist. He said, “Some of them are typed on a little portable, some of them are handwritten in ink, some of them in pencil.”

  He said, “I’ll have to sit right here and help you with them because some of them are in Russian and some of them are in English.” So we agreed that I would do it—but I hadn’t seen them yet . . .

  MR. JENNER. Had you reached a conclusion as to the rate?

  MRS. BATES. Well, I immediately lowered it to $2 an hour. I was anxious to get on it.

  MR. JENNER. Why . . . ?

  MRS. BATES. Well, anybody that had just come back from Russia and had notes, I would like to have seen them. And . . . he looked like a high school kid to me when he first came in. I thought he was just a kid . . .

  MR. JENNER. Now, give me your best recollection of everything that was said on that occasion . . .

  MRS. BATES. . . . I asked him how come he had gone to Russia. I said, “It can’t be very easy. How did you arrange it? Why did you want to go?” . . . He wasn’t very talkative. And whenever I did get him to talk, I had to drag it out of him . . .

  He said that the State Department had finally agreed to let him go over, but they would not be responsible for him . . . in case he got in trouble or anything.

  So, he went. And that’s all I got out of him . . .

  And then we got busy and he opened this large package and he brought out his notes. And, as I said, they were on scraps of paper not even this big, some of them [indicating with finger] and some of them large pieces of paper, some of them were typed, some of them handwritten in ink and pencil. And he said that he had had to just do it when he could. And it was about the living conditions and the working conditions in Russia . . .

  MR. JENNER. Did he say when he had prepared these notes? . . .

  MRS. BATES. They were all done in Russia. And he smuggled them out of Russia. And he said that the whole time until they got over the border, [he and his wife] were scared to death . . .

  MR. JENNER. Did he imply that Marina was aware that he had these notes?

  MRS. BATES. He didn’t say. He just mentioned his wife once or twice in the 3 days he was up there . . .

  MR. JENNER. Did he spend substantially all day with you?

  MRS. BATES. No, it was 8 hours altogether in the 3 days . . . . I spent 8 hours typing 10 pages, single-spaced.

  MR. JENNER. Which would indicate to me, as a lawyer, that you were having some trouble interpreting these notes?

  MRS. BATES. . . . A lot of it was scribbled . . . he just had to . . . muffle the tone of the typewriter . . . so people wouldn’t know that he was—what he was doing . . . he said [his wife] would cover or watch for him . . . I tell you [those notes] were fascinating to read. “Inside Russia”—was what it was . . .

  MR. JENNER. Did you type all of his notes?

  MRS. BATES. No; not even a third of them.

  MR. JENNER. Tell me that circumstance.

  MRS. BATES. Well, on the 20th he came up and he was—uh—quite nervous. Um—the other 2 days he’d sit right there at my desk and—uh—if I needed to ask him anything, why, I would. But, this day, he was walking up and down and looking over my shoulder and wanting to know where I was—and, finally, I finished the 10th page. He said, “Now, Pauline, you told me what your charges were.” He said, “This is 8 hours you’ve worked and 10 pages. I have $10 and no more money. I can’t let you go on.”

  And that’s when I asked him if I couldn’t go on and type the rest of them. I told him I’d do it for nothing, or if he got the money, why, he could pay me.

  And he said, “No, I don’t work that way. I’ve got $10.” And he pulled a $10 bill out of his pocket and walked out.

  MR. JENNER. Were you in possession of these notes from day to day or did he take them back with him at night?

  MRS. BATES. Oh, he took them with him. He never left anything. And he never left the office until he had picked up what I had typed—even the carbon paper.

  MR. JENNER. Even the carbon paper?

  MRS. BATES. Oh, yes, he took the carbon paper . . . he had the deadest eyes I ever saw.7

  Had he begun to mistrust Pauline Bates and her interest? If he was feeling paranoid, his suspicions would hardly have been relieved when in the following week the FBI asked him to come by their office for an interview.

  From an FBI report:

  Character: Internal Security—Russia

  Reference: Report of Special Agent JOHN W. FAIN, Dallas, Texas, 7/6/62

  . . . OSWALD stated that no attempt was made by the Soviets at any time to “brainwash” him. OSWALD stated that he never at any time gave the Soviets any information which would be used in a detrimental way against the United States. He stated that the Soviets never . . . sought any such information from him. OSWALD denied that he at any time while in Russia had offered to reveal to the Soviets any information he had acquired as a radar operator in the U.S. Marines.

  . . . OSWALD stated that in the event he is contacted by Soviet Intelligence under suspicious circumstances or otherwise, he will promptly communicate with the FBI. He stated that he holds no brief for the Russians or the Russian system. [However] OSWALD declined to answer the question as to why he made the trip to Russia in the first place. In a show of temper, he stated he did not care to “relive the past.”

  During most of the interview, OSWALD exhibited an impatient and arrogant attitude. OSWALD finally stated that Soviet o
fficials had asked him upon his arrival why he had come to Russia. OSWALD stated that he told them, “I came because I wanted to.” OSWALD added that he went to Russia to “see the country.”

  OSWALD advised that newspaper reports which have appeared in the public press from time to time are highly exaggerated and untrue. He stated that the newspaper reports had pictured him as out of sympathy with the United States and had made him look attractive to the Russians. OSWALD stated that by reason of such newspaper reports he had received better treatment by the Soviets than he otherwise would have received.8

  In 1964 when Robert Oswald appeared before the Warren Commission, he was asked a few questions by Allen Dulles, the former Director of the CIA.

  MR. DULLES. How did you know that the FBI had talked with Lee?

  ROBERT OSWALD. . . . I was aware that they had called my house and requested Lee to come down to their office in Fort Worth and talk with them.

  MR. DULLES. Did he report to you on that conversation at all? The details of it?

  ROBERT OSWALD. A very small detail of it, sir.

  MR. JENNER. What details?

  ROBERT OSWALD. I asked him when I returned home from work that afternoon how did it go. He said, “Just fine.” He said they asked him at the end whether or not he was an agent for the United States Government. His reply was, “Don’t you know?”9

  3

  A Visit to the Organs

  Marina did not tell anyone, but Dallas and Fort Worth were disappointing. She was not impressed with Texas. She had thought it would be like the movie Oklahoma!, which she had seen in Minsk, and that had been full of cowboys and the West, but here it was not like that. The residential area was all right because the grass was mowed, and no matter how poor the house, it was at least big enough for a family—but she did not like the two cities Dallas and Fort Worth. They had no harmony. They were disorganized. One tall building and three short ones, then an empty lot. Never anything beautiful or old. She did not know if the city was dying or growing up. No, she was not impressed. The only thing she really liked was the smell of the mimosa trees.

  She wrote a letter back to the girls at the pharmacy and said that the Russian language had been difficult for Alik and he had always been mispronouncing words, but now she was living in his shoes, mispronouncing American words. At her letter’s end, she wrote, “Remember, I’m Marina. Don’t let her get lost in history.”

  As Stepan would inform the interviewers in the fall of 1992, Likhoi’s file was discontinued by the summer of 1962. In his actions, his behavior, in his way of life, there had been no indication that he was any kind of intelligence agent. Of course, the possibility still existed that he had been sent over to study USSR living conditions intimately. That information could then be used by American special services. Such a possibility could not be excluded, although there was no way to find that out. A person could always walk around, meet people, study everything, make mental notes. Then, on his return home, a report could be written telling about everything. One cannot do much about that. But as far as Oswald being an active agent—all indications were negative.

  They could ask their own overseas agents in the First Directorate who were stationed in America to watch Oswald now that he was back in his own country, but it would be very difficult, very expensive. To put surveillance on him in the United States would suggest that they considered him highly important, but by the time he left Minsk, he was no longer looked upon as being in so serious a category. Nor would any Russian people who lived in Fort Worth be considered a potential source. Over there, KGB officers avoided the Russian community and American Communists and sympathizers. If a KGB agent working illegally in America sees an American Communist coming his way, he will go in the opposite direction. One does not want to stray into the FBI’s field of surveillance. So, while there might have been some interest in following Oswald’s activities on his return to America, any estimates of risk and cost made it not worthwhile.

  On the other hand, they would never let Likhoi’s file die. It would live on, even if new material, now that Oswald was in America, would have to come through other channels—by press, radio, or television. Personnel in the Soviet Embassy in Washington were watching all that happens in America and, of course, whatever came in would go to Moscow Center, because they would never exclude altogether the small possibility that Oswald had been a spy for America, and so skillful that he evaded discovery. So, they would monitor letters written back and forth between him and Soviet persons. In this context, Pavel’s letter to America on September 15, 1962, two months after Oswald’s return, may have presented considerable concern for the Organs. It was written in a form that was compatible with a sophisticated code, a system of special allusions capable of being comprehended only by agents who were working closely together.

  Sept. 15, 1962

  Hello, Lee and Marina!

  I received your letter today after returning from work. I am answering it immediately as I am overflowing with joy . . .

  The incident of the crocodiles about which you wrote me is rather amusing; I like it. It even somehow resembles an anecdote; such an unexpected event. Marina, you should not tell me that you are unable to fix the record player; we are not speaking of repairs, just a remodeling. It’s too bad that there are no uniform standards in the world for the most important things. In Europe 50 cycles originated in Germany and in your hemisphere 60 cycles—[originated] in America. The easiest thing would be to buy a small motor which would resemble ours in construction and size and to put it into that box . . .

  The speed of revolution may not coincide and then you will have to match diameters of bushings just the same. For the beginning, try to take off from the axle of the motor a small brass bushing . . .

  So, if you take it off, the speed of the revolution of the disc will be diminished. I don’t remember exactly the brand of your record player but if it is the most common its motor should be of this construction . . .

  By the way, Marina, . . . the basic idea of Pogodin’s play A Man with a Rifle is contained in the words “Now we do not have to fear a man with the rifle.” This, as doctors say, is a quintessence . . . Goodbye, I am waiting for your letters.

  Pavel1

  In the fall of 1962, Pavel’s mother came on a visit to Minsk and told him that the Organs had insisted she take him to their offices. His mother said that they not only called her but required that both she and her son come over with every letter he had received from Oswald. Pavel didn’t understand why. He was sure KGB had copies. All the same, he took with him the two letters he’d already received from America. It was strange. The officer looked and said, “Oh, why did you bring these? We don’t need them. We signed the Geneva Convention about freedom of letters and correspondence, and we don’t need any of this.” Then this officer handed them back. Perhaps it had been to check on whether they had missed one.

  He didn’t know how many times his father had been called in to talk to the Organs, but here in Minsk, with his mother, it was Pavel’s first time in the building. And his mother said to him on the way over, “You’re going to damage our whole family.” She was his mother and he didn’t want to fight with her, so he just listened while she told him how bad he had made everything for his father, his mother, and even his sister.

  FROM KGB REPORT

  10.13.62

  . . . GOLOVACHEV’s mother told me that [she and] her husband . . . were indignant at behavior of their son, and were very worried about his actions, and GOLOVACHEV’s mother even decided to make a special trip to Minsk in order to obtain a clearer understanding of his actions and make appropriate suggestions . . .

  Considering that in one of his letters to OSWALD, which GOLOVACHEV brought, there was mention of [Doctor Zhivago], I inquired as to whether he had received [this book from Oswald and] GOLOVACHEV answered in the negative . . .

  In answer to a question about how Doctor Zhivago had attracted his attention, GOLOVACHEV explained that he had wanted to fa
miliarize himself with this book purely out of curiosity, in order to have some idea about that work. It was explained to GOLOVACHEV that it was a conclusion of prominent Soviet literary critics, writers, and other persons who had familiarized themselves with Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago that it contained slanders of Soviet reality and was not of artistic value. Therefore, GOLOVACHEV’s acquaintance with the book Doctor Zhivago would not enrich his knowledge but, to the contrary, would lead him to have false notions about particular issues. MRS. GOLOVACHEV sharply criticized GOLOVACHEV’s desire to read Doctor Zhivago, noting that no decent person would waste his time on such a book.

  In further course of my conversation with GOLOVACHEV I reminded him of our earlier meetings, during which he had been given appropriate suggestions about his behavior with respect to OSWALD and . . . pointed out GOLOVACHEV’s lack of discipline, which was manifested in his not appearing for an interview with an operative. These actions were seen as indicative of GOLOVACHEV’s disregard for interests of state security. At the same time, I indicated to GOLOVACHEV that we were not entirely certain that he had not told OSWALD about his interviews with this operative. GOLOVACHEV urged us to believe him that he had not discussed any interviews or suggestions made to him concerning OSWALD.

  Indignant at GOLOVACHEV P. P.’s display of indifference toward requests of this operative to meet with him, GOLOVACHEV’s mother addressed the following words to him: “Is this how Soviet patriots behave? You should have gone yourself and told them about your friendship with an American.” Agreeing with these arguments of his mother, GOLOVACHEV asked to be excused for his uncircumspect actions.

  At the conclusion of our interview, I asked GOLOVACHEV to immediately inform us of any facts which might be of interest to the Organs of the KGB, including those persons who may try to contact him as a result of his friendship with OSWALD. GOLOVACHEV stated that in the future he would act accordingly . . .