The Day Kennedy Was Shot (66 page)

Marina submitted to the ordeal with little grace. It is possible that her chronically deprecating assessment of her husband was on her mind. In the Soviet Union, she had had a small and secure place in the society of Minsk. She was a qualified pharmacist and the niece of a man who was a colonel in the security police. No matter what one's private opinions might be, members of her family did not say or do things which would draw the attention of the police. To be picked up for questioning was debasing. There was a standing to be maintained in the community. Had she been slightly more callous—or more practical, perhaps—she might have been relieved that her husband had been arrested, that he stood an excellent chance (if guilty) of dying in the electric chair and freeing her. There was always the odd chance that, in the process, the United States government might choose to deport her to the Soviet Union. If she had a poignant regret, it was embraced in the prospect of having to take the children and “go home.” She had written the letters which Lee demanded that she pen to the Soviet embassy in Washington, asking to be repatriated. But Marina Oswald did this because of her European notion that the wife must always be subservient to the wishes of the husband.

A room in Forgery was cleared, and Mrs. Oswald, in plaid slacks and a head kerchief, sat with Rachel on her knee. Outside, reporters yelled: “Who are these people? Is this Oswald's family?
Which woman? How about an interview?” Ruth Paine sat on the opposite side of the desk, but she couldn't hold June. The little one kept breaking away and running back to her mother.

A dignified middle-aged Russian stepped into the room. He was Ilya A. Mamantov. He bowed, smiled, extended his hand. It would be impossible for Mrs. Paine to serve as interpreter for Mrs. Oswald, he explained, because Mrs. Paine was also a witness. Therefore he, a geologist living in Dallas with a Latvian wife and mother-in-law, had been summoned by friendly policemen with shrieking sirens and revolving red lights to attend Mrs. Oswald. He hoped the ladies would not be nervous—as he was. He assured Marina that he would do his best to translate her thoughts into impeccable English.

A stenographer was called and the interrogation started. Mrs. Oswald's life stood at its true crossroads in this room. She could, if she chose, protect Lee by lying, lying which would be difficult to disprove. She could say that her husband admired few politicians but that John F. Kennedy was one. She could say that, to her knowledge, he never owned a rifle. She could say that her Russian was misunderstood when she pointed to the blanket in the garage as the storage space of his rifle. She meant to say that the blanket “looked” like a rifle, had the conformation of a rifle. They had disagreed, yes, but they had made up this morning, and he had left $170 with her and had promised to return to her tonight.

The other road was to tell the truth as Marina saw it. It would help the police to hang her husband. If she chose this road, the marriage would die in this room at this hour. Her little girls would bear a stigma as daughters of an assassin all their lives. The American government might return them to Russia. She could hardly support the children in the United States even if the government was favorably inclined toward her. She could not work because her husband had prevented her from learning any English.

Mr. Mamantov listened to each response, stared at the ceiling in silence, and tried to think it out in precise English. The work was difficult because he also had to translate the questions of the police—sometimes spoken in idioms—to Russian. Captain Will Fritz stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. He told the detectives that Lieutenant Day was coming down with the rifle. Paine, he said, was being questioned across the hall in a room with Robert Oswald.

Day came down the corridor holding the rifle high with a finger inside the leather sling. The press was upon him, shooting pictures and demanding to know if this was the gun which had killed the President. Day shouted, “Out of my way!” He had been testing this weapon when Fritz asked for it to be brought down for identification. The lieutenant did not like to stop in the middle of his work, but the captain ranked him.

Did Marina Oswald recognize the weapon? She and Mrs. Paine studied it with curiosity. Even to those who neither understand nor appreciate rifles, this one would appear to be cheap. Black paint had worn off the fibers of the wood stock. The telescopic sight was twisted to the left side. The leather sling, with its pad of soft leather in the center for shoulder-carrying was dirty. Marina stood to examine it. She didn't touch it. Then she shrugged. In Russian she said it could be the rifle owned by her husband. One detective reminded her that she had said her husband owned a rifle in Russia. Could this be it? It could be, she said. Obviously, she did not know the difference between a rifle and a shotgun.

Mr. Mamantov felt obliged to volunteer the information that no citizen in Russia is permitted to own a rifle. A shotgun yes, but not a rifle. Mr. Mamantov subsided. He was not a witness; his function was to translate. “When did he buy his gun?” Mrs. Oswald shifted the squirming baby to the other knee. “I don't know. He always had guns. He always played with guns even in the Soviet Union. He had a gun and I don't know which gun
was this.” “Would you recognize his gun—do you know it by color?” “All guns are dark and black as far as I am concerned.”

Fritz told his detectives to question her about the telescopic sight. A detective touched it. “Is this what you saw?” he asked. “No,” she said. “No. I saw the gun. I saw
a
gun. All guns are the same to me—dark brown or black.” He pointed to the sight again. “No,” she said. “I have never seen a gun like that in his possession.” She pointed dramatically to the sight. “This thing.” The questions stopped. “No. I have only seen this part of the gun,” pointing to the stock. “The end of the gun.” They asked if she had seen it rolled up in that blanket. “Yes. Dark brown, black.”

More questions were asked. The rifle went back to the laboratory. Fritz said, “Excuse me” and returned to his prisoner. Marina answered everything candidly but volunteered no additional information. She might have told them about her husband's confession to her that he had tried to kill Major General Edwin Walker at his home. She could, if she chose, have told them about the day he wanted to assassinate the Vice-President of the United States and of how she had locked him in the bathroom. She confined herself to the questions.

Mrs. Paine told of her relationship with the Oswalds and her trip to New Orleans in a station wagon to return Marina to Dallas. None of it was exciting material. Still it added bits and chips of information to the rapidly augmented pile. The affidavits were typed and ready for signature. Mrs. Paine read hers—it stated, among other things, that she heard Marina say, in the garage this afternoon, that her husband had kept a rifle in that blanket. She signed it. Marina's, written in English, had to be retranslated in Russian word by painful word. She said: “Da” and signed.

There was a commotion in the next office, and Marina looked up in time to see a stout middle-aged woman coming into the Forgery Bureau. She gave a cry and arose to hand Ra
chel to her paternal grandmother. Marguerite Oswald looked down at the tiny face in her arms. Tears glistened behind her glasses. The women fell into each other's arms, neither one able to communicate except by embraces and kisses. Marguerite was moaning: “I didn't know I was a grandmother again. Nobody told me.”

Policemen glanced up from their work and returned to the study of affidavits. Ruth Paine stood and extended her hand. “Oh, Mrs. Oswald,” she said. “I am so glad to meet you. Marina wanted to contact you, but Lee didn't want her to.” The grandmother stopped weeping. She rocked the baby back and forth in her arms and turned the large eyes of the inquisitor upon Mrs. Paine. “You speak English,” she said. “Why didn't you contact me?” Mrs. Paine felt embarrassed. “Well,” she said, “because of the way they lived. He lived in Dallas and came home on weekends. I didn't want to interfere.”

The grandmother began to dominate the scene. She told Mrs. Paine to tell her daughter-in-law that she had been on her way to work in her car when she heard on the radio that Lee had been arrested. The police had asked her about a rifle that Lee was supposed to have, but she as a mother knew of no such weapon. The inference could have been that she hoped that no one else would recall a rifle.

Then she heard the admissions in Marina Oswald's affidavit as Mr. Mamantov read them slowly. The grandmother may have felt that Marina did not understand the question. Besides, who would know what the young woman said when the police had their own interpreter? Ruth Paine wasn't paying much attention to Marguerite Oswald's debate with the police. She recalled that six weeks ago her friend Marina had said: “It is only proper to tell the woman of the coming baby.” Her husband did not want Marina to contact his mother. He said he didn't even know her address. He ordered his wife to leave his mother out of family matters.

“I don't know what I'm going to do,” Marguerite Oswald said, turning her gaze upon Mrs. Paine. “I want to stay in Dallas and be near Lee, so that I can help with this situation.” Mrs. Paine gave the proper response. “You are welcome in my home,” she said, “if you care to sleep on the sofa.” The grandmother was grateful. “I'll sleep on the floor to be near Dallas,” she said.

She asked the police if the ladies could leave. The men phoned Fritz. All had made statements and signed them. They could go. In the next office Michael Paine was signing his words. Robert Oswald had concluded his interrogation. Mrs. Oswald pulled her white uniform skirt out from her side. “It's all I brought,” she said. She had demanded to see her son Lee, but this privilege had been denied “until later.” He was thirty feet away.

A policeman escorted Robert Oswald to meet his family. His mood was depressed. His younger brother was involved in an infamous crime. The name Oswald, which Robert had carried with honor, would be anathema all over the world. The situation, beyond doubt, would affect Robert's life and his career. In addition, he did not get along well with his mother. She masterminded every family difficulty, and Robert felt that, in the main, she was concerned solely with herself. Then there was this Russian woman and a baby—who would take care of them? Robert?

He walked into the office and saw Marina with
two
babies. Robert was surprised. Neither could understand the other, so he nodded. A tall, slender woman stepped between them and said: “I'm Ruth Paine. I'm a friend of Marina and Lee. I'm here because I speak Russian, and I'm interpreting for Marina.” Robert Oswald felt little interest. He had just met her husband in the next office, and, when they shook hands, Oswald felt an instant dislike for Michael Paine.

He was still trying to greet his sister-in-law when his mother said: “I would like to speak to you—alone” and took him into an empty office. The jowly face quivered, the eyes stared around
the room, and Marguerite whispered: “This room is bugged. Be careful what you say.” The young man thought: All my life I've been hearing her tell me about conspiracies, hidden motives, and malicious people.

“Listen,” he said loudly. “I don't care whether the room is bugged or not. I'd be perfectly willing to say anything I've got to say right there in the doorway. If you know anything at all about what happened, I want to know it right now. I don't want to hear any whys, ifs, or wherefores.”

Apparently this speech caused her to forget to whisper. She began to speak swiftly and dynamically. She wanted Robert to know that she was sure his baby brother Lee had been carrying out official orders, if he had done anything wrong. When he went to Russia, she said, she was convinced that he was a secret agent for the United States government. He could have been recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency while he was still in the Marine Corps. If so, and if he was involved in some act today, well, the boy was probably under orders.

Robert was half listening, half meditating. His mother had learned that her son was a possible assassin of a President of the United States with no sense of shock. He felt her reaction was that she was about to receive the kind of attention she had craved all her life. She would never again be regarded as an unknown woman among millions of them. And yet he knew he must stand here and listen. It was his mother. The chronic sorrow was that, of her children, he and his half brother John Pic were hardworking responsible citizens, whereas she and the little loner made harsh and inexorable demands of life. They wanted recognition. Now they had it. It was such a joy that neither mother nor gunman had time to devote a moment of grief for the man who had fallen among the roses.

The doctors stepped away from the body on the table. Alone, it had more dignity under the white light. The supple arms, the
strong hands were at his sides. The radiologist, from outside the area, called out his orders. The enlisted men moved the body at his whim. The large X-ray plates numbered fourteen. Among them were a front shot of the head, a lateral shot, a posterior picture. The positions were repeated for the thoracic cavity and the abdomen. Several pictures were made of the complete head and torso.

Before the next phase of the autopsy began, the doctors waited for the wet plates to be developed. A Navy photographer used the pause to get on a ladder and make color photographs and black and white pictures of the body as it appeared—front, side, and back—when received at the hospital. The commanding officers explained that these negatives would not be developed or printed. It did not occur to them that there was no point in ordering photographs if they were not to be used to support and augment the findings of the autopsy itself. The cassettes of film would go to the Secret Service, which was expected to make them a shocking gift to the widow. The philosophy of the Navy, on the night of November 22, 1963, was to play it safe and survive. The death of a President is a sensitive political event.