Snyder, of course, did not know that the young man sitting opposite him was lying. Snyder had no sympathy for Communism or the Soviet Union and very little sympathy for those who were taken in by either. On the first meeting almost two years before, he had taken a harsh line, some said too harsh, toward this very same young man; he had even poked fun at his Marxist convictions.[12] Still, Snyder’s record was replete with evidence that he had compassion for anyone unfortunate enough to be trapped in this inhospitable land. He had found Oswald “aggressive,” “overbearing,” “insufferable” during their initial interview, but now, as he would report to the State Department:
Twenty months of the realities of life in the Soviet Union have clearly had a maturing effect on Oswald. He stated frankly that he had learned a hard lesson the hard way and that he had been completely relieved of his illusions about the Soviet Union at the same time that he acquired a new understanding and appreciation of the United States and the meaning of freedom.[13] Much of the arrogance and bravado which characterized him on his first visit to the Embassy appears to have left him.[14]
Snyder reread the answers to the completed questionnaire that Oswald brought in to him. He glanced at the application for renewal of Oswald’s American passport. Carefully, he signed both copies and placed a stamp, “Valid only for direct travel to the United States,” in the green document that Oswald had left with him nearly two years before.
Then, in what must have been almost the last official act of his two long years in Moscow, Richard Snyder leaned across his desk and handed back his American passport to Lee Harvey Oswald.
As he led her through the embassy gate back to the street, Marina could see that Alik was elated by their visit. He was overjoyed that Snyder had received him, welcomed him back to the fold, and even returned his passport. Alik was so reassured by his visits to the embassy that the following day, Tuesday, July 11, he and Marina returned, this time to initiate the steps that might enable her to enter the United States. Nevertheless, he was nervous as they again approached the building, and he coached Marina on what not to say. She was not to admit that she was pregnant; that could cause a delay. If anyone asked, she was to say that she did not know. Above all, on no account was she to admit that she belonged to the Komsomol. That might ruin things for good.
They walked through the embassy gates without hindrance and headed for the consular office. “Go on in,” Alik said to Marina when her turn came. “Only don’t say anything about the Komsomol.”
“How can I lie?” Marina said. “They’ll find out anyway. They’ll say I can’t have a visa for lying.”
“It’ll help your visa if you shut up,” he replied.
Marina was received by John McVickar, the vice-consul, whose job it was to handle applications by foreigners seeking to enter the United States. McVickar had brown hair, a round face, a gentle manner. Marina sat in front of him shaking like a leaf. He sat very straight in his chair, she noticed, and offered her chewing gum.
“I don’t speak Russian very well,” McVickar began, smiling at her. “Please correct me if I make a mistake.”
Here she was, Marina thought, talking to practically an ambassador or a minister of the American government, and he was asking her to correct his Russian! It was in keeping with the rest of this whole incredible journey. Marina liked McVickar immediately. He was simple and direct, and she was grateful for his lack of airs. The office, too, was wonderful. It was neat, compact, convenient. But Marina was feeling unwell. If she had one thing on her mind, apart from her extraordinary surroundings, it was the fact that she was pregnant.
“Excuse me, are you feeling all right?” McVickar asked.
“Oh, oh, yes!” she stammered, terrified that she had given her secret away.
McVickar asked her to take an oath promising to tell the truth. Then he asked a whole string of questions: where was she born, where had she lived as a child, where did she go to school, were her parents alive, and so forth? Do you belong to the trade union, he asked, and Marina answered that she did. Finally, the question she was dreading: “Are you a member of the Komsomol?” Lying, she told him that she was not, trying to comfort herself, meanwhile, with the thought that she had, after all, never bothered to pick up her membership card. If there was one thing she did not like, it was Alik’s forcing her to lie. You have to support a husband and back him up, she knew, and Alik wanted to go home. But Marina would have preferred to tell the truth and take her chances.
McVickar was having trouble understanding her, for she spoke rapidly, out of one corner of her mouth, allowing the ends of words and even sentences to trail away. He went to the waiting room door and asked her husband to come in to translate.
“Have you relatives in the United States?” the questioning proceeded.
“Oh, no,” Marina protested. It was a frightening thought.
“She doesn’t understand,” Alik interrupted quickly. “She has a mother-in-law and a brother-in-law there.”
Marina was puzzled, to say the least. For a Russian it could be a calamity to have a relative abroad. It was always cause for suspicion and sometimes even for arrest. Naturally, she had been quick to deny it. How could she know that for Americans it was just the opposite? It not only helps to have a relative in America, the authorities practically require it. Without one, you may fail to get into the country.
Marina’s interview was satisfactory. McVickar filled out a visa petition for her to be allowed to enter the United States, and Alik signed it.[15]
Afterwards, happy and hopeful, they returned to the Hotel Berlin and spent the day enjoying Moscow. On Wednesday night or Thursday, they returned to Minsk by air.
— 9 —
Marina’s Ordeal
On her first day back at the pharmacy, Marina was greeted by icy silence. Word had spread that she had visited the American embassy in Moscow with her husband. That could mean only one thing, and the girls parted like a wave as she walked in, leaving her face to face with her superior.
“Marina,” Evgenia Ivanovna said coldly, “you’re a foolish child. If I were your mother I’d take down your pants and spank you.”
The next day Marina was called to the office of the head of the hospital. Assisted by the Communist Party organizer of the hospital and two junior doctors, he conducted a virtual inquisition. “You’re so young,” one of them said to her. “You hardly know your husband at all. Yet here you are, trying to go to a strange country with a man you scarcely know.” Urging her to do nothing hasty, her inquisitors suggested that she think it over, and Marina agreed.
A day or so later she had a visit from the party organizer, a woman. Had Marina changed her mind? If not, the woman said, she would regret it the rest of her life. Next, a Komsomol organizer appeared at the pharmacy and told her that she would be summoned to Komsomol headquarters. Her colleagues at the pharmacy continued to treat her with such suspicion that finally, her temper growing short, Marina said: “Girls, don’t worry about a thing. There’s a big corridor in the embassy and nothing but Russian girls on one side. Our government knows every move I made. I didn’t do a thing, I didn’t sign a single piece of paper that isn’t legal. I’m a big girl. Maybe I’m ruining my life, but at least I’m not ruining yours!” The only note of sympathy and understanding came from two elderly cleaning women. “Where your husband goes, you go,” one of them told her. “Fish go where water’s deeper, man goes where life is better,” said the other. “Your husband has seen both. He can compare. He knows which is better.”
12
Testimony of Richard Edward Snyder, Vol. 5, pp. 260–299, especially p. 290. See also Oswald’s diary and Exhibit No. 101, p. 440.
13
Marina laughed on hearing this particular statement of her husband’s and remarked that without an ulterior purpose he would never have said any such thing.
15
Marina remembers only one visit to the embassy, on Monday, July 10, and she thinks that both sets of interviews, hers and Oswald’s, were completed that day. Her memory, however, is in error, for Exhibits No. 944, Vol. 18, p. 158, and No. 959,