During the week of March 18, Lee resumed his vigil at the post office. His time sheets at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall reveal that he signed out early enough nearly every day that week to pick up a package if it arrived.[13] But a real coincidence was in the making. The revolver that Lee had ordered in January from Los Angeles and the rifle he had ordered from Chicago in March were both shipped on the same day, March 20. Lee probably received notice of their arrival early in the morning on Monday, March 25, and he signed out early enough that day, and only on that day of the week, to pick up his rifle at the post office.[14] The revolver, meanwhile had arrived by REA Express, and to pick it up Lee had to ride a bus two miles from downtown Dallas to an office close to Love Field. No one remembers today what hours REA kept in Dallas in 1963, but Lee probably picked it up on Monday or Friday evening of that week.[15] Marina recalls, however, that she first saw the rifle toward the end of the week. It was propped up in Lee’s office, and he had camouflaged it, more or less, by draping his raincoat over it.
Thursday of that week was the last time Lee attended typing class. Mrs. Yoakum later described his arrival that evening:
The last time I clearly recall seeing him, he walked past my desk and stood momentarily scanning the crowded room for a seat, and as usual he took the back row…. He seemed to be as straight and thin as a figure “1” in profile. Later, on TV I hardly recognized him because… he appeared filled out…. I’ve asked myself why he usually “seemed” to try to slip in when my back was turned; yet the last time I recall seeing him he seemed to “want” me to observe him before he located his seat.[16]
But that night Lee wanted Mrs. Yoakum to notice him. And he had, in fact, lost weight. During February he had been so upset that he nearly stopped eating, and Marina was afraid he was “starving himself.” In March he was too busy to eat. There were evenings when he came home from work and slipped into the apartment so quietly that Marina did not hear him. The first she knew he was racing down the stairs, going out again. “Back soon,” he would shout up to her. She would run to the balcony and trace his silhouette as it disappeared down the street. She does not know where he went or what he was doing.
He would return for supper and then retire to his “little closet,” as Marina calls it. There he worked out his plan of attack. Months before, George Bouhe had given him a blue looseleaf folder, and Lee now filled it with a description and photographs of Walker’s house, a description of the route he planned to use to escape after he shot Walker, and more photographs and a description of the place where he was going to bury his rifle. He may also have included a brief autobiography with photographs of himself in Russia and the Pacific. It was all part of the record he intended to leave for history.
In addition, Lee wrote on lined paper a fairly long historical rationale, which was both a justification for what he was about to do and a political program for the future. The first document, the historical rationale, is apocalyptic in tone and is hand-printed, not written, as if he had attempted several drafts, then printed it carefully.[17] Even so, he made mistakes and had to cross out a good many words, a sign that he was excited, hurried, or disturbed when he wrote it. Lee predicted that a “total crisis” of some kind would soon destroy the capitalist system and the government of the United States. “We have no interest in violently opposing the U.S. government,” he said, or “in directly assuming the head of government.” But in order to prevent foreign intervention and set up a “separate, democratic, pure communist society,” he proposed the formation of a small party made up of disenchanted radicals, socialists, even remnants of the Republican Party, to defend “the right of private personal property, religious tolerance and freedom of travel (which have all been violated under Russian ‘Communist’ rule).” Lee concluded:
No rational man can take the attitude of “a curse on both your house’s.” There are two world systems, one twisted beyond recognition… the other decadent and dying.
A truly democratic system would combine the better qualities of the two upon an American foundation, opposed to both… as they are now.
The other document was handwritten, not printed, and set out Lee’s political program in detail.[18] For example, no individual would be allowed to own the means of production; free speech, racial and religious freedom would be guaranteed; there would be heavy taxes against surplus profits but none on individuals; medical care would be free; and there would be general disarmament and “abolition of all armies except civil police force armed with small arms.” Under the category “sale of arms,” Lee wrote: “Pistols should not be sold in any case, rifes [rifles] only with police permission, shotguns free.” Lee Oswald was for gun control.
Lee drafted and redrafted these documents until midnight or 1:00 a.m. many nights during March, reported to his job regularly, and, for the sake of the time-and-a-half pay, worked long hours every Saturday that month except March 2. Still he made time for family life on Sundays. Each week he took June and Marina to a nearby lake to have a picnic. He loved to swing Junie on the swings. Then he would treat “his two girls” to ice cream. He did some fishing, which, next to hunting, was his favorite sport, and he had luck catching goldfish. One night they lugged his catch home, and Marina made fish soup for dinner. Lee could not bear to go into the kitchen while the cooking was going on, for the fish were swimming and thrashing in the pail right up to the moment Marina thrust them into the pot of boiling water.
He did not hit Marina now, a blessing she attributes to his “little closet” and the fact that he had “nobody beating on his nerves.” But he was often cold to her, sometimes snappish and cross, and frequently the very sight of her seemed to annoy him. The baby was his only real joy. Often he came home at night, sat on the balcony with June on his knee, sipped a bottle of Dr. Pepper, and gazed down at the street below. But if Marina joined them, he would stare at her in displeasure. “What did you come out here for?” he would say, or, “Haven’t you any housework to do?” Sometimes he stood up and left.
Marina was upset when she discovered the rifle. She hated guns and was annoyed that Lee was spending money on what she called “this dangerous toy” at a time when they were scrimping and saving even on food.
“Why did you buy a gun?” she asked. “Why don’t you think of your family first?”
Lee shrugged. “Maybe I’ll go hunting sometime.”
Marina reflected that it was his money; he earned it, and he had a right to spend it as he liked. She liked dresses, he liked guns.
Sunday afternoon, March 31, Marina got a huge surprise when Lee came up to her in the backyard and asked her to take his picture. The sun was out, their ground-floor neighbors were away, and the Oswalds had the fenced-in yard to themselves. Marina was hanging up diapers.
“Why me?” She was startled. “I’ve never taken a picture in my life.”
He promised to show her how.
Her surprise was transformed into astonishment when she glanced up from the clothesline a few minutes later to see her husband descending slowly, triumphantly, down the outdoor staircase dressed, as she had never seen him before, all in black—a black shirt and slacks. At his waist he was wearing his revolver. In one hand he carried his rifle, in the other he had a camera and a couple of newspapers. On his face was an expression of sublime contentment. Marina’s eyes grew large and round. The diapers fell from her hand. She broke into peals of laughter.
14
Since neither weapon was sent by insured or registered mail, the dates of arrival have to be guessed at. But in a letter to the author of February 6, 1976, A. M. Temples, manager of mailing requirements of the US postal service in Dallas, stated that a pistol shipped by REA Express from Los Angeles on March 20 and a rifle sent by mail from Chicago on the same day could both have arrived on the 25th, since each would have traveled at the rate of one time zone per day and each city was at a distance of five time zones from Dallas. Moreover, in another of his telltale misdatings, on his time sheets Oswald dated two successive days, Monday and Tuesday of that week, as March 25, a clue to the importance of the date.
15
REA Express no longer exists, but in 1963, the Dallas office was at 2311 Butler, near Love Field. According to former REA officials, office hours varied from city to city, depending on business. In Boston, packages could have been picked up at the REA office at Logan Field twenty-four hours a day; in certain other cities, offices were open until 8:00 P.M., and in others again, they closed much earlier.
17
Exhibit No. 97, Vol. 16, pp. 422–430. This is probably the most significant document Oswald ever wrote, revealing both his emotions and his political ideas. It is striking for its apocalyptic, megalomaniacal tone, and the reader almost has to conclude that the author was possessor of the “narcissistic” personality described in Ernest Jones’s famous essay “The God Complex” (