Oswald's Tale (10 page)

4

What’s My News?

He still didn’t know whether he could remain in the country. They were deliberating. To Rimma, his situation began to seem bad. He had no money. At the Metropole Hotel, it was no longer Deluxe for him like at the Berlin Hotel, but still, he had a good room. Only now it was cold. Not winter, not yet snow, but cold outside. No tour, no sightseeing, no money for food, and who should pay for his hotel?

She went to Rosa, and both of them talked about the poor condition of his clothing to Alexander, who approved a purchase in GUM department store of one good hat. Lee Harvey Oswald liked it very much and tried to hug Rimma and Rosa and kiss them. He was very happy. Affectionate, yes, yes, emotional. And Alexander had no fear of buying this hat, because, certainly, he would report it.

From Tachikawa airbase in Japan, a telegram was sent on November 9 to Lee Oswald c/o the American Embassy in Moscow. Its author was Sgt. John E. Pic:

PLEASE RECONSIDER YOUR INTENTIONS.

CONTACT ME IF POSSIBLE.

LOVE
JOHN
¹

John McVickar, of the American Embassy in Moscow, wrote a note for the Oswald file.

Nov. 9, 1959

I took a typed copy of the message from Pic (Oswald’s half-brother) down to the Metropole Hotel today to deliver to Oswald. I went directly to the room (233) and knocked several times, but no one answered. The cleaning lady told me that he was in the room and only came out to go to the toilet . . . . I decided not to leave the message, but to have it sent by registered mail. On the way out I phoned from downstairs, but no answer. McV
²

Nov. 2–15

Days of utter loneliness. I refuse all reporters, phone calls. I remain in my room. I am racked with dysentery.

Now, at the Metropole, Rimma would go up to his room. She could. She had been given new rules, as if it were a new case. She was assigned to taking full care of him. He was no longer a tourist. They took it as something very serious, and so did he. Why were they not solving this problem? He was very nervous. He told her that all his money had gone for his tour Deluxe. He had done it purposely. If he was on a tour alone, more attention would be given to him than in a group, and that way he could fulfill his plan.

Rimma’s relationship with Lee became a good deal closer. He was very much like a relative now—but not a brother, not a boyfriend, in between. He wanted to kiss her and was ready to try, but she didn’t want that. She never kissed him at all, not ever. It was considered, as the English would say, not good form to behave like that. People who did could lose their jobs. Of course, for her, as a person, she could certainly kiss him if she wished it that much, but, you see, she did not. Certainly not. She had a boyfriend, a young engineer, graduate of Moscow Power Institute, whom she would see once a week. A loving fellow. Moreover, with Alik it was a situation where it was impossible to be light-minded. The consequences of improper behavior could not be simple. A Russian writer said once, “It’s better to die than to kiss without love,” and good girls were of that same opinion. If she didn’t love him and didn’t want close relations, then she should not kiss. So she patted him on his hand. Enough. Her psychology.

Besides, she had to send reports to her chief and be factual, always factual. So how could she kiss? Was she to report that? She would say Alik was okay, he wanted to be accepted into their Soviet Union; she tried to give a good impression of him, but factual. Sometimes she wrote her report daily, sometimes weekly; it depended on how much information she received. They didn’t ask her to tell them every day but absolutely when she felt she should. Very difficult days.

However, she must say: She enjoyed her Intourist job immensely, an adventurous job and patriotic, and connected with protecting her government and her country. She considered herself as doing a very important job that her country needed. So, when she gave her impression of Oswald to her chief, it was to enable them to make an educated decision on what to do. KGB needed intelligent reports. They had to know as many aspects as possible of how this specific person was different from other people, and Alik was different from others. Although she did not think he was a spy from American intelligence, she had never met a spy. So, despite her personal impressions, she had to be careful. Nowadays, if she were working in Intourist, she could analyze him, but in those days, they simply said to her, “Did he meet people in your presence?” They never asked her opinion if he was sincere. She would have told them he was; he is frank and wants to stay. But she wasn’t asked. And, of course, KGB, not Intourist, would make that final decision. Besides, she didn’t know what he did after dinner. Between nine and five, yes, but not after dinner.

November 15

I decide to give an interview. I have Miss Mosby’s card so I call her. She drives right over. I give my story, allow pictures. Later, story is distorted, sent without my permission, that is: before I ever saw and OKed her story. Again, I feel slightly better because of the attention.

November 16

A Russian official comes to my room, asks how I am. Notified me I can remain in USSR until some solution is found with what to do with me. It is comforting news for me.

Priscilla Johnson McMillan, later to write
Marina and Lee,
would encounter Oswald that day, and he would give her an interview as well:

I had just returned from a visit to the United States and, on November 16, I went to the consular office of the American Embassy, as the American reporters did, to pick up my mail. John McVickar welcomed me back with these words: “Oh, by the way, there’s a young American in your hotel trying to defect. He won’t talk to any of
us,
but maybe he’ll talk to you because you’re a woman.”

McVickar turned out to be right. At the Hotel Metropole I stopped by Oswald’s room, which was on the second floor, the floor below my own. I knocked, and the young man inside opened the door . . . To my surprise, he readily agreed to be interviewed and said he would come to my room at eight or nine o’clock that evening. Good as his word, he appeared, wearing a dark gray suit, a white shirt with a dark tie, and a sweater-vest of tan cashmere. He looked familiar to me, like a lot of college boys in the East during the 1950s. The only difference was his voice—he had a slight Southern drawl.

He settled in an armchair, I brought him tea from a little burner I kept on the floor, [and he] spoke quietly, unemphatically, and only rarely betrayed by a gesture or a slight change of tone that what he was saying at the moment meant anything special to him . . .

During our conversation Lee returned again and again to what he called the embassy’s “illegal” treatment of him . . . Once he became a Soviet citizen, he said, he would allow “my government,” the Soviet government, to handle it for him.

Lee’s tone was level, almost expressionless, and while I realized that his words were bitter, somehow . . . he did not seem like a fully grown man to me, for the blinding fact, the one that obliterated nearly every other fact about him, was his youth. He looked about seventeen. Proudly, as a boy might, he told me about his only expedition into Moscow alone. He had walked four blocks to Detsky Mir, the children’s department store, and bought himself an ice cream cone. I could scarcely believe my ears. Here he was, coming to live in this country forever, and he had so far dared venture into only four blocks of it.

I was astounded by his lack of curiosity and the utter absence of any joy or spirit of adventure in him. And yet I respected him. Here was this lonely, frightened boy taking on the bureaucracy of the second most powerful nation on earth, and doing it single-handedly . . . .

“I believe what I am doing is right,” he said. He also said that he had talked to me because he wanted to give the American people “something to think about.”
³

Now, days started to go by and still they didn’t give an answer. Rimma spent every working day with him. Very long intolerable days. He was upset, he didn’t know what to do, and she didn’t even try to teach him to speak Russian a little because, from a psychological point of view, it was not a time to learn; to her mind, he was in his room too much, thinking and thinking. She didn’t even know whether he was reading her gift
—The Idiot.
Maybe he had been a little shocked at such a title; could wonder if was personal, yes. And maybe Dostoyevsky was difficult for him, very difficult. He was interested in nothing but his own fate. Very self-centered.

Sometimes he would still say that all people are brothers and sisters, and the Soviets wanted more good for our world than America. But Rimma felt he had come to such ideas without knowing many facts. Very superficial. Not natural. Not deep.

She never said this to him, however, because it would be too easy to hurt his feelings. He knew that too. He would never insult her, she knew, because she could say something back that would show him to be a person who thinks too much of himself and shouldn’t behave as he does. You should know the kind of person you are, she was ready to tell him if he got at all unpleasant—you are just nothing.

“What’s my news?” he kept asking her. Always this same question. And she had a feeling that maybe he was going to ask her to marry him. But he didn’t. Maybe he knew she wouldn’t agree. However, he hinted many times, said how good and how happy he felt being with her. When she went to her chief and asked about his situation, one question they would always ask her is, “What can he do for a living?” Unfortunately, he could do nothing.

Finally, since he had no money, her boss told Rimma they should move him from his present good room to something smaller. They found such a cubbyhole, very small, very modest. His life was going from Deluxe down. Down and down. Which means up. Higher floor, smaller room.

Rimma couldn’t even eat with him. In those days, even if her salary was 100 rubles a month because of her excellent marks, meals at a hotel were too expensive. She went to reasonable places. Then, because they couldn’t afford to give him restaurant meals at his hotel any longer, higher-ups said, “Special meal.” Poorer quality. Of course, he wasn’t always gloomy. Sometimes he was certainly romantic, and would tell jokes, but mostly she had to try to cheer him up. He would say that if he was allowed to stay in her country, he would live in Moscow. Of course, if he married her, it would be easier for him to do that. But she never discussed this with him, and didn’t think he was just pretending that he loved her; she thought his feelings were sincere. But he wasn’t sleeping well. He was thinking of his situation. Always. His Russian didn’t get much better, either—no, no.

November 17 to December 30

I have bought myself two self-teaching Russian language books. I force myself to study eight hours a day. I sit in my room and read and memorize words. All meals I take in my room. Rimma arranged that. It is very cold on the streets so I rarely go outside at all for this month and a half. I see no one, speak to no one, except every now and then Rimma, who calls the Ministry about me. Have they forgotten? During December, I paid no money to the Hotel but Rimma told the Hotel I was expecting a lot of money from the USA. I have $28 left. This month I was called to the passport office and met three new officials who asked me the same questions I answered a month before. They appear not to know me at all.

All this time, no company for him. Maybe at night, when she wasn’t there, somebody could visit. Rimma can’t say for a fact; maybe in the evenings he began to try to find more people. Sometimes he said to her that he spoke with some Russians, so he must have met some people. Maybe it was on his floor.

If he had had more funds, it is possible his behavior would have been a bit different, but he had no warm clothes and no money. It was snowing, he didn’t know Moscow, didn’t know Russian. It was all: “How do you pronounce this word?” “What is Russian for that?”

Most of the time, he was in a bad mood. And it was difficult to get to his room, which was somewhere on top, you see. No rooms for foreigners there. A floor for employees who worked in the Metropole Hotel, Russians. He was there from the point of view of economy, and maybe for surveillance. “That could be a reason, I don’t deny it. Maybe.” She doesn’t know, because girls in Intourist never talked about a room being prepared. They did not talk like that; they did not exercise their head to think that way.

One day, finally, late in December of 1959, just before New Year’s, they called Rimma into Intourist’s main office and told her they were sending Oswald to Minsk. When she informed him, he was so disappointed he even cried at first, with tears, yes, he wanted Moscow not Minsk, but he was also happy he was allowed to stay, relieved and happy. Of course he was happy. He was shining. He did not hide it. But he was still upset he had to go to Minsk.

He had no idea where it was. Had never heard of it. Rimma told him it was a good city, which was true. She often took foreigners to Minsk in a railroad coach on trips. She liked its newest hotel, their Hotel Minsk. People in Minsk, she told him, are much better than in many other places. But he was depressed. He wanted her to accompany him on his all-night railroad trip from Moscow to Minsk, but by now he understood that everything was not so simple as he had thought before—everything was more serious than he had thought. In America, when he took this decision to go to Russia, he must have been like a child, but then in these days he grew up, you see. So now, he understood that even if Rimma wanted, she couldn’t leave her job and go with him. He understood it was impossible. He knew it was a very serious place here.