MikhailT/lj-speech huggingface dataset:
As a result of that conversation, Marina Oswald wrote the Soviet Embassy in Washington concerning a request she had first made
on February 17, 1963, for permission for herself and June to return to the Soviet Union.
While that first request, made according to Marina Oswald at her husband's insistence, specifically stated that Oswald was to remain in the United States,
she wrote in her letter of July 1963,
that things are improving due to the fact that my husband expresses a sincere wish to return together with me to the USSR. Unknown to his wife, however,
Oswald apparently enclosed a note with her letter of July in which
he requested the Embassy to rush his wife's entrance visa because of the impending birth of the second child but stated that, quote,
As for my return entrance visa please consider it separately. End quote.
Thus while Oswald's real intentions, assuming that they were known to himself, are not clear,
he may not have intended to go to the Soviet Union directly, if at all. It appears that he really wanted to go to Cuba.
In his wife's words, quote,
I only know that his basic desire was to get to Cuba by any means, and that all the rest of it was window dressing for that purpose. End quote.
Marina Oswald testified that her husband engaged in Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities, quote,
primarily for purposes of self-advertising.
He wanted to be arrested. I think he wanted to get into the newspapers, so that he would be known. End quote.
According to Marina Oswald, he thought that would help him when he got to Cuba.
He asked his wife to help him to hijack an airplane to get there, but gave up that scheme when she refused.
During this period Oswald may have practiced opening and closing the bolt on his rifle in a screened porch in his apartment.
In September he began to review Spanish.
He approved arrangements for his family to return to Irving, Texas, to live with Mrs. Ruth Paine.
On September 20, 1963, Mrs. Paine and her two children arrived in New Orleans from a trip to the East Coast
and left for Irving with Marina Oswald and June and most of the Oswalds' effects 3 days later.
While Marina Oswald knew of her husband's plan to go to Mexico and thence to Cuba if possible, Mrs. Paine was told that Oswald was going to Houston
and possibly to Philadelphia to look for work.
Oswald left for Mexico City on September 25, 1963, and arrived on September 27, 1963.
He went almost directly to the Cuban Embassy and applied for a visa to Cuba in transit to Russia.
Representing himself as the head of the New Orleans branch of the, quote, organization called Fair Play for Cuba, end quote,
he stated his desire that he should be accepted as a friend of the Cuban Revolution.
He apparently based his claim for a visa in transit to Russia
on his previous residence, his work permit for that country, and several unidentified letters in the Russian language.
The Cubans would not, however, give him a visa until he had received one from the Soviets, which involved a delay of several months.
When faced with that situation Oswald became greatly agitated, and although he later unsuccessfully attempted
to obtain a Soviet visa at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, he insisted that he was entitled to the Cuban visa because of his background,
partisanship, and personal activities on behalf of the Cuban government.
He engaged in an angry argument with the consul who finally told him that, quote, as far as he was concerned
he would not give him a visa, end quote, and that, quote,
a person like him (Oswald) in place of aiding the Cuban Revolution, was doing it harm, end quote.
Oswald must have been thoroughly disillusioned when he left Mexico City on October 2, 1963.
In spite of his former residence in the Soviet Union and his Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities he had been rebuffed
by the officials of both Cuba and the Soviet Union in Mexico City.
Now there appeared to be no chance to get to Cuba, where he had thought he might find his communist ideal. The U.S. Government would not permit travel there
and as far as the performance of the Cubans themselves was concerned, he was, quote, disappointed at not being able to get to Cuba
and he didn't have any great desire to do so any more because he had run into, as he himself said -- into bureaucracy and red tape, end quote.
Oswald's attempt to go to Cuba
was another act which expressed his hostility toward the United States and its institutions as well as a concomitant attachment
to a country in which he must have thought were embodied the political principles to which he had been committed for so long.
It should be noted that his interest in Cuba seems to have increased along with the sense of frustration which must have developed
as he experienced successive failures in his jobs, in his political activity, and in his personal relationships.
In retrospect his attempt to go to Cuba or return to the Soviet Union may well have been Oswald's last escape hatch,
his last gambit to extricate himself from the mediocrity and defeat which plagued him throughout most of his life.
Oswald's activities with regard to Cuba raise serious questions as to how much he might have been motivated in the assassination
by a desire to aid the Castro regime, which President Kennedy so outspokenly criticized.
For example, the Dallas Times Herald of November 19, 1963,
prominently reported President Kennedy as having, quote, all but invited the Cuban people today to overthrow Fidel Castro's Communist regime
and promised prompt U.S. aid if they do, end quote.
The Castro regime severely attacked President Kennedy in connection with the Bay of Pigs affair, the Cuban missile crisis, the ban on travel to Cuba,
the economic embargo against that country, and the general policy of the United States with regard to Cuba.
An examination of the Militant, to which Oswald subscribed,
for the 3-month period prior to the assassination reflects an extremely critical attitude toward President Kennedy and his administration
concerning Cuban policy in general as well as on the issues of automation and civil rights, issues which appeared to concern Oswald a great deal.
The Militant also reflected a critical attitude toward President Kennedy's attempts to reduce tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.
It also dealt with the fear of the Castro regime that such a policy might result in its abandonment by the Soviet Union.
The October 7, 1963, issue of the Militant
reported Castro as saying Cuba could not accept a situation where at the same time the United States was trying to ease world tensions
it also was increasing its efforts to tighten the noose around Cuba.
was also reported in the October 1, 1963, issue of the Worker, to which Oswald also subscribed.
In this connection it should be noted that in speaking of the Worker, Oswald told Michael Paine, apparently in all seriousness, that, quote,
you could tell what they wanted you to do by reading between the lines, reading the thing and doing a little reading between the lines, end quote.
The general conflict of views between the United States and Cuba was, of course, reflected in other media to such an extent
that there can be no doubt that Oswald was aware generally of the critical attitude that Castro expressed about President Kennedy.
Oswald was asked during the New Orleans radio debate in which he engaged on August 21, 1963,
whether or not he agreed with Castro that President Kennedy was a, quote, ruffian and a thief, end quote. He replied that he, quote,
would not agree with that particular wording, end quote.
It should also be noted, however, that one witness testified that shortly before the assassination
Oswald had expressed approval of President Kennedy's active role in the area of civil rights.
Although Oswald could possibly have been motivated in part by his sympathy for the Castro government,
it should be remembered that his wife testified that he was disappointed with his failure to get to Cuba
and had lost his desire to do so because of the bureaucracy and red tape which he had encountered.
His unhappy experience with the Cuban consul seems thus to have reduced his enthusiasm for the Castro regime and his desire to go to Cuba.
While some of Castro's more severe criticisms of President Kennedy might have led Oswald to believe that he would be well received in Cuba
after he had assassinated the American President, it does not appear that he had any plans to go there.
Oswald was carrying only $13.87 at the time of his arrest, although he had left, apparently by design,
$170 in a wallet in his wife's room in Irving.
If there was no conspiracy which would help him escape, the possibility of which has been considered in chapter 6,
it is unlikely that a reasoning person would plan to attempt to travel from Dallas, Texas to Cuba
with $13.87 when considerably greater resources were available to him.
The fact that Oswald left behind the funds which might have enabled him to reach Cuba suggests the absence of any plan to try to flee there
and raises serious questions as to whether or not he ever expected to escape.
Chapter 7. Lee Harvey Oswald: Background and Possible Motives, Part 6.
Possible Influence of Anti-Kennedy Sentiment in Dallas
It has been suggested that one of the motivating influences operating on Lee Oswald was the atmosphere in the city of Dallas,
especially an atmosphere of extreme opposition to President Kennedy that was present in some parts of the Dallas community
and which received publicity there prior to the assassination.
Some of that feeling was expressed in the incident involving then vice-presidential candidate Johnson during the 1960 campaign,
in the treatment of Ambassador Adlai Stevenson late in October of 1963
and in the extreme anti-Kennedy newspaper advertisement and handbills that appeared in Dallas at the time of the President's visit there.
The Commission has found no evidence that the extreme views expressed toward President Kennedy
by some rightwing groups centered in Dallas or any other general atmosphere of hate
or rightwing extremism which may have existed in the city of Dallas had any connection with Oswald's actions on November 22, 1963.
There is, of course, no way to judge what the effect of the general political ferment present in that city might have been, even though Oswald was aware of it.
His awareness is shown by a letter that he wrote to Arnold Johnson of the Communist Party U.S.A.,
which Johnson said he did not receive until after the assassination. The letter said in part, quote,
On October 23rd, I had attended a ultra-right meeting headed by General Edwin A. Walker, who lives in Dallas.
This meeting preceded by one day the attack on A. E. Stevenson at the United Nations Day meeting at which he spoke
As you can see, political friction between "left" and "right" is very great here.
Could you advise me as to the general view we have on the American Civil Liberties Union? End quote.
In any event, the Commission has been unable to find any credible evidence that Oswald had direct contact or association with
any of the personalities or groups epitomizing or representing the so-called right wing,
even though he did, as he told Johnson, attend a meeting at which General Walker spoke to approximately 1,300 persons.
Oswald's writings and his reading habits indicate that he had an extreme dislike of the right wing, an attitude most clearly reflected by his attempt
to shoot General Walker.
Relationship With Wife
The relations between Lee and Marina Oswald are of great importance in any attempt to understand Oswald's possible motivation.
During the period from Oswald's return from Mexico to the assassination,
he and his wife spent every weekend but one together at the Irving, Texas home of Mrs. Ruth Paine, who was then separated from her husband.
The sole exception was the weekend of November 16 to 17, 1963, the weekend before the assassination,
when his wife asked Oswald not to come to Irving.
During the week, Oswald lived in a roominghouse in Dallas, but he usually called his wife on the telephone twice a day.
She testified that after his return from Mexico Oswald, quote, changed for the better.
He began to treat me better. He helped me more -- although he always did help. But he was more attentive, end quote.
Marina Oswald attributed that to their living apart and to the imminent birth of their second child.
She testified that Oswald, quote, was very happy, end quote, about the birth of the child.
While those considerations no doubt had an effect on Oswald's attitude toward his family it would seem that the need for support and sympathy
after his recent rebuffs in Mexico City
might also have been important to him. It would not have been the first time that Oswald sought closer ties with his family in time of adversity.
His past relationships with his wife had been stormy, however, and it did not seem that she respected him very much.
They had been married after a courtship of only about 6 weeks, a part of which Oswald spent in the hospital.
Oswald's diary reports that he married his wife shortly after his proposal of marriage to another girl had been rejected.
He stated that the other girl rejected him partly because he was an American, a fact that he said she had exploited. He stated that, quote,
In spite of fact I married Marina to hurt Ella (the girl that had rejected him) I found myself in love with Marina, end quote.
Many of the people with whom the Oswalds became acquainted after their arrival in the United States thought that Marina Oswald had married her husband primarily in the hope
that she would be able to leave the Soviet Union. Marina Oswald has denied this.
Marina Oswald expressed one aspect of her husband's attitude toward her when she testified that, quote, Lee wanted me to go to Russia.
and I told him that
if he wanted me to go then that meant that he didn't love me, and that in that case what was the idea of coming to the United States in the first place.
Lee would say that it would be better for me if I went to Russia. I did not know why. I did not know what he had in mind.
He said he loved me but that it would be better for me if I went to Russia, and what he had in mind I don't know. End quote.
On the other hand, Oswald objected to the invitation that his wife had received to live with Mrs. Ruth Paine,
which Mrs. Paine had made in part to give her an alternative to returning to the Soviet Union. Marina Oswald wrote to Mrs. Paine that, quote,
Many times Oswald has recalled this matter to me and said that I am just waiting for an opportunity to hurt him.
It has been the cause of many of our arguments. End quote. Oswald claimed that his wife preferred others to him.
He said this about members of the Russian-speaking group in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, whom she said he tried to forbid her from seeing,
and also about Mrs. Paine.
He specifically made that claim when his wife refused to come to live with him in Dallas as he asked her to do on the evening of November 21,
The instability of their relations was probably a function of the personalities of both people. Oswald was overbearing in relations with his wife.
He apparently attempted to be "the Commander" by dictating many of the details of their married life.
While Marina Oswald said that her husband wanted her to learn English,
he made no attempt to help her and there are other indications that he did not want her to learn that language.
Oswald apparently wished to continue practicing his own Russian with her. Lieutenant Martello of the New Orleans police testified
that Oswald stated that he did not speak English in his family because he did not want them to become Americanized.
Marina Oswald's inability to speak English also made it more difficult for her to have an independent existence in this country.
Oswald struck his wife on occasion,
did not want her to drink, smoke or wear cosmetics and generally treated her with lack of respect in the presence of others.
The difficulties which Oswald's problems would have caused him in any relationship were probably not reduced by his wife's conduct.
Katherine Ford, with whom Marina Oswald stayed during her separation from her husband in November of 1962,
thought that Marina Oswald was immature in her thinking and partly responsible for the difficulties that the Oswalds were having at that time.
Mrs. Ford said that Marina Oswald admitted that she provoked Oswald on occasion.
There can be little doubt that some provocation existed.
Oswald once struck his wife because of a letter which she wrote to a former boyfriend in Russia.
In the letter Marina Oswald stated that her husband had changed a great deal and that she was very lonely in the United States.
She was, quote, sorry that I had not married him (the Russian boyfriend) instead, that it would have been much easier for me, end quote.
The letter fell into Oswald's hands when it was returned to his post office box
because of insufficient postage, which apparently resulted from an increase in postal rates of which his wife had been unaware.
Oswald read the letter, but refused to believe that it was sincere, even though his wife insisted to him that it was.
As a result Oswald struck her, as to which she testified, quote,
Generally, I think that was right, for such things that is the right thing to do. There was some grounds for it. End quote.
Although she denied it in some of her testimony before the Commission,
it appears that Marina Oswald also complained that her husband was not able to provide more material things for her.
On that issue George De Mohrenschildt, who was probably as close to the Oswalds as anyone else during their first stay in Dallas,
said that, quote, She was annoying him all the time
Why don't you make some money? Poor guy was going out of his mind. We told her she should not annoy him -- poor guy, he is doing his best, "Don't annoy him so much."
The De Mohrenschildts also testified that, quote, right in front, end quote, of Oswald Marina Oswald complained about Oswald's inadequacy as a husband.
Mrs. Oswald told another of her friends that Oswald was very cold to her, that they very seldom had sexual relations
and that Oswald, quote, was not a man, end quote. She also told Mrs. Paine that she was not satisfied with her sexual relations with Oswald.
Marina Oswald also ridiculed her husband's political views, thereby tearing down his view of his own importance.
He was very much interested in autobiographical works of outstanding statesmen of the United States, to whom his wife thought he compared himself.
She said he was different from other people in, quote, At, least his imagination, his fantasy, which was quite unfounded,
as to the fact that he was an outstanding man, end quote.
She said that she, quote, always tried to point out to him that he was a man like any others who were around us. But he simply could not understand that? End quote.
Jeanne De Mohrenschildt, however, thought that Marina Oswald, quote, said things that will hurt men's pride, end quote.
She said that if she ever spoke to her husband the way Marina Oswald spoke to her husband, quote, we would not last long, end quote.
Mrs. De Mohrenschildt thought that Oswald,
whom she compared to, quote, a puppy dog that everybody kicked, end quote, had a lot of good qualities, in spite of the fact that, quote,
Nobody said anything good about him. End quote.
She had, quote, the impression that he was just pushed, pushed, pushed, and she Marina Oswald was probably nagging, nagging, nagging, end quote.
She thought that he might not have become involved in the assassination if people had been kinder to him.
In spite of these difficulties, however, and in the face of the economic problems that were always with them,
things apparently went quite smoothly from the time Oswald returned from Mexico until the weekend of November 16 to 17, 1963.
Mrs. Paine was planning a birthday party for one of her children on that weekend and her husband, Michael, was to be at the house.
Marina Oswald said that she knew her husband did not like Michael Paine and so she asked him not to come out that weekend, even though he wanted to do so.
She testified that she told him, quote,
that he shouldn't come every week, that perhaps it is not convenient for Ruth that the whole family be there, live there, end quote.
She testified that he responded, quote, As you wish. If you don't want me to come, I won't, end quote.
Ruth Paine testified that she heard Marina Oswald tell Oswald about the birthday party.
On Sunday, November 17, 1963,
Ruth Paine and Marina Oswald decided to call Oswald at the place where he was living, unbeknownst to them, under the name of O. H. Lee.
They asked for Lee Oswald who was not called to the telephone because he was known by the other name.
When Oswald called the next day his wife became very angry about his use of the alias. He said that he used it because, quote,
he did not want his landlady to know his real name because she might read in the paper of the fact that he had been in Russia and that he had been questioned, end quote.
Oswald also said that he did not want the FBI to know where he lived, quote, Because their visits were not very pleasant for him
and he thought that he loses jobs because the FBI visits the place of his employment, end quote.
While the facts of his defection had become known in New Orleans as a result of his radio debate with Bringuier,
it would appear to be unlikely that his landlady in Dallas
would see anything in the newspaper about his defection, unless he engaged in activities similar to those
which had led to the disclosure of his defection in New Orleans.
Furthermore, even though it appears that at times Oswald was really upset by visits of the FBI,
it does not appear that he ever lost his job because of its activities, although he may well not have been aware of that fact.
While Oswald's concern about the FBI had some basis in fact, in that FBI agents had interviewed him in the past and had renewed their interest
to some extent after his Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities had become known, he exaggerated their concern for him.
Marina Oswald thought he did so in order to emphasize his importance.
For example, in his letter of November 9, 1963,
to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, he asked about the entrance visas for which he and his wife had previously applied.
He absolved the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City of any blame for his difficulties there. He advised the Washington Embassy
that the FBI was, quote, not now, end quote, interested in his Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities, but noted that the FBI, quote,
has visited us here in Dallas, Texas, on November 1. Agent James P. Hasty
warned me that if I engaged in F.P.C.C. activities in Texas the F.B.I. will again take an interest in me, end quote.
Neither Hosty nor any other agent of the FBI spoke to Oswald on any subject from August 10, 1963,
to the time of the assassination.
The claimed warning was one more of Oswald's fabrications.
Hosty had come to the Paine residence on November 1 and 5, 1963,
but did not issue any such warning or suggest that Marina Oswald defect from the Soviet Union and remain in the United States under FBI protection,
as Oswald went on to say. In Oswald's imagination, quote,
I and my wife strongly protested these tactics by the notorious F.B.I., end quote.
In fact, his wife testified that she only said that she would prefer not to receive any more visits from the Bureau
because of the, quote, very exciting and disturbing effect, end quote, they had upon her husband, who was not even present at that time.
The arguments he used to justify his use of the alias suggest that Oswald may have come to think that the whole world was becoming involved
in an increasingly complex conspiracy against him.
He may have felt he could never tell when the FBI was going to appear on the scene or who else was going to find out about his defection
and use it against him as had been done in New Orleans.
On the other hand, the concern he expressed about the FBI may have been just another story to support the objective he sought in his letter.
Those arguments, however, were not persuasive to Marina Oswald,
to whom, quote, it was nothing terrible if people were to find out that he had been in Russia, end quote.
She asked Oswald, quote,