Oswald's Tale (89 page)

Now, in addition to Robert Oswald’s grief over the death of his brother, the horror of the assassination, and his own fear that Lee did it, he could include his suspicions of Marina and the Paines, plus his new look askance at the FBI, only to be faced at the end of all these scenarios with the recognition that it would have been easier to arrange a funeral for a leper than for his brother Lee Harvey Oswald.

Robert Oswald:
Finally, two Lutheran ministers who seemed sympathetic appeared at the Inn of the Six Flags about eleven o’clock Monday morning. One stayed in the lobby, but the other came back to see us. The National Council of Churches office in Dallas had asked the ministers to come out and offer to serve at the funeral service, which was now scheduled for 4
P.M.
that day at the Rose Hill Cemetery.

The minister did not seem at all eager to officiate, but he did say, rather reluctantly, that he would be at the cemetery at four.
⁷

Why were all these ministers being so un-Christian? Well, in Dallas–Fort Worth, it might cost a minister his future assignment to a more prestigious church if he officiated at Oswald’s last rites. Soon enough, word arrived that the Lutheran minister who had given his assent to conduct the service had now rescinded it.

While these unhappy negotiations continue, Marguerite finally convinced one of the Secret Service agents to record her on tape—she wanted to set down for posterity why Lee, in her opinion, should, by all rights, be interred in Arlington; but before she had been speaking for long, Robert came out of the bedroom and he was crying and so Marguerite said to the tape recorder, “I’m sorry, but my thoughts have left me because my son is crying.”

MARGUERITE OSWALD.
. . . I thought for a moment that Robert was crying because of what I was saying, and he was sorry he had not listened to me before, because I tried to tell him about the defection and my trip to Washington. But Robert was crying because he received a telephone call that we could not get a minister at my son’s grave.
⁸

Recalling this blow, she informs the Warren Commission of her personal credo, which she is proud to deliver:

MARGUERITE OSWALD.
. . . I have no church affiliation. I have learned since my trouble that my heart is my church. [In that sense] I go to church all day long, I meditate. [Besides] I am working on Sunday most of the time, taking care of the sick, and the people that go to church that I work for, . . . have never once said, “Well, I will stay home and take care of my mother and let you go to church, Mrs. Oswald, today.”

You see, I am expected to work on a Sunday.

So that is why—I have my own church. And sometimes I think it is better than a wooden structure . . .
⁹

It is a credo for lonely people: My heart is my church.

Meanwhile, the complications continue. At some point, another minister appears:

MARGUERITE OSWALD.
. . . Well, a Reverend French from Dallas came out to Six Flags and we sat on the sofa. [Robert] was crying bitterly and talking to Reverend French and trying to get him to let Lee’s body go to church. And he was quoting why he could not.

So then I intervened and said, “Well, if Lee is a lost sheep and that is why you don’t want him to go to church, he is [exactly] the one that should go into church . . .”

And that agent [who up until now] had the decency to stay at the far end of the room . . . said, “Mrs. Oswald, be quiet. You are making matters worse.”

Now, the nerve of him—[and then] Reverend French [told us] that he could not take the body into the church. And we compromised for chapel services.
¹⁰

The agent who had told Marguerite that she was making matters worse soon reappears in her narrative:

MARGUERITE OSWALD.
. . . He was very, very rude to me. Anything that I said, he snapped. At this particular time, they showed the gun on television. I said, “How can they say Lee shot the President? Even though they would prove it is his gun doesn’t mean he used it—nobody saw him use it.”

He snapped back and he said, “Mrs. Oswald, we know that he shot the President.”

I then walked over to Mr. Mike Howard and I said, “What’s wrong with that agent? That agent is about to crack. All he has done is taunt me ever since he has been here.”

He said, “Mrs. Oswald, he was the personal bodyguard to Mrs. Kennedy for 30 months and maybe he has a little opinion against you.”

I said, “Let him keep his personal opinions to himself. He is on a job.”
¹¹

When it comes to circling the wagons around her ego, she is the equal of any FBI or Secret Service man.

Her complaints at the unfeeling deportment of everyone around her will not abate. It is difficult for Marguerite to grieve because she must first pass through the round of her discontents, and they are numerous enough to seal her off from her sorrow:

MARGUERITE OSWALD.
Marina was very unhappy with the dress—they brought her two dresses. “Mama, too long.” “Mama, no fit.” And it looked lovely on her. You can see I know how to dress properly. I am in the business world as merchandise manager. And the dress looked lovely on Marina. But she was not happy with it.

I said, “Oh, honey, put your coat on. We are going to Lee’s funeral. It will be all right.”

And we had one hour in order to get ready for the funeral.

I said, “We will never make it. Marina is so slow.”

She said, “I no slow. I have things to do.”
¹²

While Marina was complaining about her dress, my little grandbaby, two years old—she is a very precious little baby, they are good children—was standing by her mother. And Marina was very nervous by this time. She was not happy with the dress. And Marina was combing her hair. She took the comb and she hit June on the head. I said, “Marina, don’t do that.” And this agent—I wish I knew his name—snapped at me and said, “Mrs. Oswald, you let her alone.” I said, “Don’t tell me what to say to my daughter-in-law when she was hitting my grandbaby on the head with a comb.” . . .

Now, why did this man do these things?

MR. RANKIN.
Are you saying that the agent did anything improper, as far as Marina was concerned? . . .

MARGUERITE OSWALD.
No. I am saying—and I am going to say it as strongly as I can—and I have stated this from the beginning—that I think our trouble in this is in our own Government. And I suspect these two agents of conspiracy with my daughter-in-law in this plot . . .

MR. RANKIN.
What kind of a conspiracy are you describing that these men were engaged in?

MARGUERITE OSWALD.
The assassination of President Kennedy.

MR. RANKIN.
You think that two Secret Service agents and Marina and Mrs. Paine were involved in the conspiracy?

MARGUERITE OSWALD.
Yes, I do. Besides another high official.
¹³

Grief, fear, rage, woe, and growing detestation of Marguerite are a few of the emotions circulating in the car that goes out to the cemetery that has agreed to accept Lee’s body. There, the last rites will be held:

Robert Oswald:
Marina, Mother and the children went into the chapel first. I followed, accompanied by Mike Howard and Charlie Kunkel.

The chapel was completely empty. I saw no sign of any preparation for the funeral service.

“I don’t understand,” I said to Mike and Charlie, and they were obviously puzzled too. They said they would try to find out what had happened.

Two or three minutes later, one of them came back into the chapel, where I had been waiting.

“Well, we were a few minutes late,” he said. “There’s been some misunderstanding, and they’ve already carried the casket down to the grave site. We’ll have a graveside service down there.”
¹⁴

To which Marguerite adds in her testimony, “Robert cried bitterly.”
¹⁵
She had to know how much he would detest these numerous descriptions of him in tears that she freely offers to the Warren Commission.

Every few yards along the cemetery fence, uniformed officers were on guard.

The coffin was covered in moleskin, and supposedly, the grave-diggers did not know that its occupant was Lee Harvey Oswald. They were told that the dead man’s name was William Bobo.
¹⁶

Of course, they soon found out. A horde of newsmen had arrived at the cemetery.

Robert Oswald:
We drove down a curved road to the grave site. Just before we reached it, one of the Secret Service men turned to Bob Parsons and said, “All right, now. You stay in the car with the carbine. If anything happens, come out shooting.”

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to mow down fifteen or twenty reporters,” Bob said.

The Lutheran minister who had promised to be there at four had not appeared, and the Secret Service received word that he would not be coming out. The Reverend Louis Saunders, of the Fort Worth Council of Churches, had driven out to Rose Hill by himself just to see if he could be of any help to Marina and the family. When he was told that the other minister would not be there, the Reverend Mr. Saunders spoke the simple words of the burial service . . .

I motioned to Mike Howard, and when he came over I told him that I planned to have the coffin opened and would like to have all reporters and spectators moved back some distance from the grave site. He nodded, and almost immediately six or eight plainclothesmen from the Fort Worth police department formed a kind of protective semicircle between us and the crowd, insuring a certain amount of privacy.

Mother, Marina, the children and I then got up and walked toward the open coffin. After I had taken a last, long look at my brother’s face, I turned to go back to the place where we had been sitting. I then noticed the semicircle of plainclothesmen standing guard, solemn and stony-faced . . . .
¹⁷

They are stony-faced, and Robert has been weeping. For two days now he has been unable to control himself. His emotions seem to be the most poignant among the assembled, but then, the love of an older brother for a younger one is rarely without its paradox, since the kid brother is the first human being one has been able to control, scorn, bully, scold, tease, and torment, while beneath, sometimes wholly concealed from oneself, a reservoir of love can well up through the years. Lee wrote a long letter to Robert one month after coming to Moscow in 1959, and one can wonder whether Robert was recalling its contents now in the hours after Lee was shot. The letter was certainly at a distance from recent events, and it could hardly have been a communication Robert enjoyed—indeed, it denied everything he believed—but yet, its tone suggests a bond between the brothers. Is that now part of Robert’s grief? Written in a lonely hotel room by a young man just turned twenty, the sentiments are so steeped in the passion, innocence, and idealism of a very young man that the words could have rested silently in the very center of Robert’s feelings for his kid brother. Now, even as Lee is buried, it may be worth going back to this letter to note how much has changed in four years:

Nov. 16, 1959

Dear Robert,

. . . I will ask you a question, Robert: What do you support the American government for? What is the ideal you put forward? Do not say “freedom” because freedom is a word used by all peoples through all of time. Ask me and I will tell you I fight for
communism.
This word brings to your mind slaves or injustice, this is because of American propaganda . . . you speak of advantages. Do you think that is why I am here? For personal, material advantage? Happiness is not based on oneself, it does not consist of a small home, of taking and getting. Happiness is taking part in the struggle where there is no borderline between one’s own personal world and the world in general. I never believed I would find more material advantages at
this
stage of development in the Soviet Union than I might have had in the U.S . . . .

You probably know little about this country so I will tell you about it. I did find, as I suspected I would, that most of what is written about the Soviet Union in America is for the better part fabrication. The people here have a seven hour work day now and only work till three o’clock on Saturdays with Sundays off. They have socialization which means they do not pay for their apartments or for medical care. The money for this comes from the profit they help to create in their labor, which in the U.S. goes to capitalists . . . Most important [here] is the fact they do not work for employers at all, a milkman or a factory supervisor are both socially equal. This does not mean they have the same salary, of course. This just means their work goes for [the] common good of all.

These people are a good, warm, alive people. They wish to see all peoples live in peace, but at the same time, they wish to see the economically enslaved people of the West free. They believe in their ideals and they support their government and country to the full limit.

You say you have not renounced me. Good, I am glad, but I will tell you on what terms I want this arrangement.

I want you to understand what I say now, I do not say lightly or unknowingly, since I have been in the military as you know, and I know what war is like.

1. In the event of war I would kill
any
American who put a uniform on in defense of the American government—any American.

2. That in my own mind I have no attachments of any kind in the U.S.

3. That I want to, and I shall, live a normal, happy and peaceful life here in the Soviet Union
for the rest of my life.

4. That my mother and you are (in spite of what the newspapers said)
not
objects of affection, but only examples of workers in the U.S.

You should not try to remember me in any way I used to be since I am only now showing you how I am. I am not all bitterness or hate, I came here only to find freedom. In truth, I feel I am at last with my own people. But do not let me give you the impression I am in another world. These people are so much like Americans and people the world over. They simply have an economic system and the ideal of communism which the U.S. does not have. I would never have been personally happy in the U.S . . . .