Oswald's Tale

by Norman Mailer

  MR. BALL. Or anything?

  MRS. ROBERTS. He wouldn’t say nothing.

  MR. BALL. Did you ever speak to him?

  MRS. ROBERTS. Well, yes—I would say, “Good afternoon,” and he would maybe just look at me—give me a dirty look and keep walking and go on to his room.7

  Over the next forty days, he will see a great deal of Ruth Paine and her estranged husband, Michael, on weekends in Irving. Ruth, as indicated earlier, is an apostle of reason and decency, as archetypical a liberal as Mrs. Bledsoe is a landlady.

  While Ruth Paine has no great comprehension of Lee, it is hardly fair to ask her to have divined the secret thoughts of a young man who draws his spiritual sustenance equally from authoritarians and anarchists.

  Ruth Paine became, nonetheless, one of the stand-bys of the Warren Commission even if the FBI started with great distrust of her—could she be a KGB agent hooked into Marina? Then they found out that her husband, Michael, was the son of Lyman Paine, an American radical who had gone to Norway in the Thirties to visit Leon Trotsky, who was there in exile from Russia.

  On questioning her, the Warren Commission discovered that Ruth had written numerous letters to her mother about Marina and Lee. In the course of having such letters read into her testimony, and indeed the letters are full of Ruth Paine’s gifts at fine-tuning her reactions to Lee and Marina, she ends up with the greatest number of pages of testimony—more than De Mohrenschildt, or Marina, or Marguerite, or Robert Oswald, or Captain Fritz of the Dallas police, a feat marred only by the fact that we don’t really learn a great deal more than we knew before. It is no great surprise to us that Oswald is, already by half, a most domesticated husband:

  MRS. PAINE. I disliked him actively in the spring when I thought he just wanted to get rid of his wife and wasn’t caring about her . . . I then found him much nicer, I thought, when I saw him next in New Orleans in late September, and this would be a perfectly good time to admit the rest of the pertinent part of this letter to my mother written October 14, because it shows something that I think should be part of the public record, and I am one of the few people who can give it, that presents Lee Oswald as a human person, a person really rather ordinary, not an ogre that was out to leave his wife and be harsh and hostile to all that he knew.

  But in this brief period during the times he came out on weekends, I saw him as a person who cared for his wife and child, tried to make himself helpful in my home, tried to make himself welcome although he really preferred to stay to himself.

  He wasn’t much to take up a conversation. This [letter] says, “Dear Mom—He arrived a week and a half ago and has been looking for work since. It is a very depressing business for him, I am sure. He spent last weekend and the one before with us here and was a happy addition to our expanded family. He played with Chris”—my 3-year-old, then 2—“watched football on the TV, planed down the doors that wouldn’t fit . . . And generally added a needed masculine flavor. From a poor first impression I have come to like him.”8

  The next excerpt may give a glimpse of Michael Paine, who was not without concern for the shadings of moral nicety:

  MR. LIEBELER. When did you have this discussion with your wife concerning whether or not you should let Marina live with you? Was that before they came back from New Orleans?

  MR. PAINE. Yes, it was.

  MR. LIEBELER. And you concluded at the time there was no reason why Marina should not come here; is that right?

  MR. PAINE. That is right. Of course, Ruth went in and sounded them out rather cautiously and reported to me also [Oswald’s] facial expressions and what-not when she was suggesting this, and he seemed to be glad of that rather than worried.

  MR. LIEBELER. Now, after Marina came and lived at your house, Oswald was there during parts of the months October and November . . . was [your opinion] reinforced on the basis of his activities and your observation of him during that period?

  MR. PAINE. It was reinforced.

  MR. LIEBELER. You did not think him to be a violent person or one who would be likely to commit an act such as assassinating the President?

  MR. PAINE. I didn’t—I saw he was a bitter person, [with] quite a lot of very negative views of people in the world around him, very little charity in his view toward anybody, but I thought he was harmless.

  REPRESENTATIVE FORD. Was this a different reaction from the one you had had at your first meeting or first acquaintance?

  MR. PAINE. When we first became acquainted I was somewhat shocked, especially that he would speak so harshly to his wife in front of a complete stranger, and it was at that point . . . that I was persuaded I would like to free Marina from her bondage and servitude to this man [so] I became interested in helping her escape from him. Of course, I was not going to try to force that. I didn’t want to be separating a family that could get along.

  MR. LIEBELER. This bitterness you detected following his return from Mexico, was that a new reaction?

  MR. PAINE. No. That bitterness had existed all along [but] when Marina came to our house, she gained in health and weight. She started to look better and it looked to me as if the strain was off the family relationship. They were not quarreling. They billed and cooed. She sat on his lap and he said sweet things in her ear.9

  Back in Dallas after the weekend in Irving, Lee would call every night, and each night he had the same sad story to recount: no job yet.

  Later, many conspiracy theorists would find his employment at the Texas School Book Depository to be suspicious in the extreme, but on the face of it, he got the job through one of Ruth Paine’s neighbors, who remarked that “her brother worked in the School Book Depository and there was apparently an opening there.”10 That Ruth would be instrumental in getting him hired was, naturally, one of the elements in the FBI’s early suspicion of her.

  MR. TRULY. I received a phone call from a lady in Irving who said her name was Mrs. Paine [and she said,] “Mr. Truly, you don’t know who I am but I have a neighbor whose brother [Wesley Frazier] works for you [and] he tells his sister that you are very busy. And I am just wondering if you can use another man . . . I have a fine young man living here with his wife and baby, and his wife is expecting a baby—another baby—in a few days and he needs work desperately.”

  . . . I told Mrs. Paine to send him down, and I would talk to him—that I didn’t have anything in mind for him of a permanent nature, but if he was suited we could possibly use him for a brief time . . .

  So he came in, introduced himself to me, and I took him in my office and interviewed him. He seemed to be quiet and well mannered.

  I gave him an application to fill out, which he did . . . . I asked him about experience that he had had, or where he had worked, and he said he had just served his term in the Marine Corps and had an honorable discharge . . . 11

  He did not give Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall as a reference.

  MR. TRULY. . . . thinking that he was just out of the Marines, I didn’t check any further back. I didn’t have anything of a permanent nature in mind for him. He looked like a nice young fellow to me—he was quiet and well mannered. He used the word “sir,” you know—which a lot of them don’t do at this time.

  So I told him [to] come in to work on the morning of the 16th . . .

  MR. BELIN. Well, could you describe how his work progressed as he was working for you?

  MR. TRULY. [For] the time he was there, the work that he did was a bit above average . . . he did a good day’s work.

  MR. BELIN. What was his pay?

  MR. TRULY. $1.25 an hour . . . he worked by himself. His job was something that he needed no help with, other than to ask occasionally for stock . . . Consequently, he didn’t have much occasion to talk with the other boys.

  I thought it was a pretty good trait at the time, because occasionally you have to spread your boys out and say, “Quit talking so much, let’s get to work.”

  And it seemed to me like he paid attention to his job.12

  That Friday, th
e eighteenth of October, was his twenty-fourth birthday. He had a new job three days old, Marina’s pregnancy was close to term, and there was a surprise birthday party with decorations on the table. As Marina told Priscilla Johnson McMillan, Lee “could not hold back the tears.”13 It is a touching moment until we realize it is one more thundering contradiction between the two halves of his nature—the stoic and the man who has wept for us a score of times already. Of course, tears are near to tenderness, and he is thoughtful of Marina’s condition—he massages her ankles and props her back with pillows. Yet, he is still Marguerite’s son, a perfectionist:

  McMillan: He brought his dirty laundry to the house each weekend for Marina to wash and iron, and he often refused to wear a shirt she had just ironed on the grounds that she had failed to do it exactly right. No sooner would they sit down at the dinner table than he would snap at Marina: “Why don’t you fix me iced tea? You knew I was coming out.” Or he would put on a baby face and complain in baby talk that he couldn’t eat because Marina had forgotten to give him a fork and a spoon. He never once got up to fetch for himself or help a wife in the final stages of pregnancy . . . 14

  Still, he did cradle her head while they watched television that night.

  By the end of the weekend, October 20, Marina went into labor. Lee, however, had to let Ruth take her to Parkland Hospital in Dallas and he was obliged to stay back in Irving baby-sitting Ruth’s two children and June. He did not know how to drive.

  After no more than two hours of labor, Marina gave birth to a girl, while Lee, having gone to sleep, found out only on Monday morning before he went off to work.

  McMillan: He returned to Irving that afternoon with Wesley Frazier, but for some reason seemed reluctant to visit the hospital. Puzzled, Ruth guessed he was afraid to go lest someone [there] find out that he had a job and charge him with the expenses of the birth. And so Ruth told him that the hospital already knew he had a job; she had been asked the night before at the admissions office and had told the truth. But it did not make any difference. The delivery and maternity care still were free. After learning that, Lee agreed to go.

  Marina never knew of his reluctance. “Oh, Mama, you’re wonderful,” he said, as he sat down on her bed. “Only two hours. You have them so easily.” He had tears in his eyes.15

  From Marina’s narrative: He was very happy at the birth of another daughter and even wept a little. He said that two daughters were better for each other—two sisters . . . In his happiness he said a lot of silly things and was very tender with me, and I was very happy to see that Lee had improved a little, i.e., that he was thinking more about his family.16

  By the following weekend in Irving, he had become the model of a loving father:

  McMillan: He held the baby to his shoulder and stroked her head. “She’s the prettiest, strongest baby in the world,” he boasted. “Only a week old and already she can hold up her head. We’re strong because Mama gives us milk and not a bottle that’s either too hot or too cold. Mama gives us only the very best.” He studied her fingers, her “tender little mouth,” and her yawn. He was delighted with them all and pronounced that his baby was getting prettier every day. “She looks just like her mama,” he said.17

  The baby’s full name is Audrey Marina Rachel Oswald. She will be called Rachel.

  Meanwhile, fatherhood brings out the conservative in Lee. Marina tries to enlarge his understanding of Ruth’s marital situation, but he is censorious of Michael’s behavior.

  McMillan: Lee thought it was a man’s obligation once married to want his wife and want children. He was indignant at Michael for having married without wanting children. And he condemned Michael for coming home, eating supper, and seeing his children just like a married man, and then leaving . . . Lee was not ordinarily interested in other people’s private affairs. But now he regularly asked Marina, over the telephone and on his arrival for the weekend, how Ruth and Michael were getting along. For the first time, he seemed aware of the Paines as human beings. He even gave signs of awareness that he and his family might be in the way in the modest one-story ranch house . . . 18

  Now a letter comes to Marina in Irving from her younger sister, Galina, in Leningrad:

  September 29, 1963

  Leningrad

  Hello, dear Marinochka!

  . . . I dream very often about mother; it is even unpleasant, somehow, for, after all, she is dead. And when I wake up, I feel rather frightened . . .

  Marinochka, how nice it would be if you could come here to the Homeland; you could find a job for yourself and your husband would have work and the children could be sent to a public nursery, and everything would be all right. But would they allow you to return again? If you adopted American citizenship, they may not permit it, and generally, it seems to me, that it would be very difficult for you to leave. But, honestly speaking, I would like it better if you would live here. The unemployment is the most vicious scourge in life. We do not have it here; we do not even know what unemployment is. You know it yourself. There is a crying need for pharmacists in Leningrad. Come, I am always waiting for you. If things get hard—we will help you . . .

  Come, Marina. We will walk together, you and I, and recollect our youth. It was nice then, and even then you, too, could have gotten married and we would have been together in Leningrad. But we were fools.

  Marinochka, my dear, write to me about everything in detail. I, too, am always glad to receive your letters . . .

  Galka19

  While this letter stands for itself, it has collateral effects. Certainly, it has been perused by both the Soviet and the American mail-intercept programs. So, it has enabled the FBI, which had lost sight of Oswald’s whereabouts once he left New Orleans, to pick up his address in America again.

  2

  The Shadow of the FBI

  On Friday afternoon, November 1, while Marina was setting her hair in preparation for Lee’s arrival, an FBI man came to Ruth’s house in Irving. A dark, strong, pleasant-looking man with a dark mustache, his name was James P. Hosty, and as he would later tell the Warren Commission, he had a revolving load of about forty cases to take care of around Dallas and environs. Lee Harvey Oswald was one of those cases. Back in April, he had located Oswald on Neely Street, but before he could interview him, Oswald had moved. Now, Hosty had not only picked up the address in Irving, but knew that Oswald had been in Mexico City visiting the Cuban and Soviet embassies. Since the FBI had a source installed in the Russian compound, they now knew that Oswald had been closeted with Valery Kostikov, who was categorized by FBI and CIA as a functioning officer in the Thirteenth Department of KGB, precisely the cadre that took care, from time to time, of those bloodletting actions described euphemistically as “wet jobs.” The FBI, we can recognize, had a colder view of Kostikov than Oleg Nechiporenko’s portrayal of him as a star volleyball player.

  McMillan: . . . Ruth was doing work around the house when [Hosty] reappeared . . . She greeted him cordially, asked him in, and the two sat in the living room talking pleasantries. Hosty said that, unlike the House Un-American Activities Committee, the FBI was not a witch-hunting organization.

  Gradually, Hosty switched the conversation to Lee. Was he living at Ruth’s house? Ruth answered that he was not. Did she know where he was living? Once again the answer was a surprising “No.” Ruth did not know where Lee was living, but it was in Dallas somewhere and she thought it might be Oak Cliff. Did Ruth know where he was working? She explained that Lee thought he had been having job trouble on account of the FBI. Hosty assured her that it was not the FBI’s way to approach an employer directly. At this Ruth softened, told him where Lee was working, and together they looked up the address of the book depository in the telephone book. Lee worked at 411 Elm Street.1

  About this time, Marina came into the room:

  McMillan: Before Hosty left, Marina begged him not to interfere with Lee at work. She explained that he had had trouble keeping his jobs and thought he lost them “because t
he FBI is interested in him.” . . .

  “I don’t think he has lost any of his jobs on account of the FBI,” Hosty said softly.

  Ruth and Marina urged the visitor to stay. If he wanted to see Lee, they said, he would be there at 5:30. But Hosty had to get back to the office; and . . . he asked Ruth to find out where he was living. Ruth thought that would be no problem; she would simply ask Lee.2

  MRS. PAINE. I said to Agent Hosty that if in the future Marina and Lee are living together, and I know, or I have correspondence with them, I would give him his address if he wished it. Then it was the next day or that evening or sometime shortly thereafter Marina said to me while we were doing dishes that she felt their address was their business . . . This surprised me. She had never spoken in this way to me before, and I didn’t see that it made any difference.3

  We can only speculate on the kind of contained wrath Oswald would feel at Ruth Paine’s obeisance to authority in the name of being aboveboard, forthright, keeping her word, and having nothing to hide.

  Lee had been in a fine mood on arrival, but the moment he heard of Hosty’s visit, it was obvious that he was upset. At supper, he descended into depths of silence. He went through the motions all weekend, hung up the diapers on the clothesline in the backyard, played with the children under a tree in that same yard, watched football, which was his greatest diversion each Saturday and Sunday afternoon, but his mind was on the FBI. He gave Marina specific instructions: The next time they came, he wanted her to be able to describe the car, note how many doors it had and what color it was, and, most important, take down the license number.4 He even told her that if the car was not in front of Ruth’s house, it would still be there on the street, next door probably. He was in one of those moods she had come to know all too well on Neely Street, and was silent again all Sunday afternoon as he watched football.