(2 of 6)
Marina frequently spoke of leaving him and once went to stay at a friend's house, where she complained that Oswald was cold toward her, that he would have sexual relations with her only about once every two months. "I felt sorry for him," she told a friend in an effort to explain why she had married him. "Everybody hated him—even in Russia."
Last April Oswald was out of a job and broke. Mrs. Paine took Marina to stay with her while Oswald went job hunting in New Orleans. Two weeks later he found employment, and Mrs. Paine drove Marina and the baby to New Orleans. But in September Oswald was again jobless. Mrs. Paine, whose kindness seems remarkable, once more drove to New Orleans, took the woman and the baby back to Texas.
During that period Oswald became the self-declared chairman of the New Orleans chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a pro-Castro outfit. He also got a card at a New Orleans public library, drew out several spy novels by Ian Fleming (Kennedy's favorite cloak-and-dagger author), a book about Kennedy called Portrait of a President, another about the Berlin Wall, two novels by Aldous Huxley, and several books on Soviet and Chinese Communism—nearly all of which were distinctly anti-Communist in flavor —and a book describing the assassination of Huey Long.
To Dallas. Was Oswald even then planning the assassination of the President? The chronology of his later actions tells much—even while leaving the answer tantalizingly beyond reach.
On Sept. 26, just a few days after his wife returned to Texas, Oswald got hold of a car (where, no one yet knows) and drove to Mexico City. He showed up at the Cuban consulate and applied for a transit visa for Moscow via Havana. Told that the procedure would take as long as twelve days, Oswald got angry (or so the Cubans claim), walked out slamming the door. Next day he appeared at the offices of the Russian consul-general, described himself as a militant Communist, asked for a visa for the Soviet Union. The consul told Oswald that there would be a delay of perhaps four months. Again Oswald stalked out in indignation.
On the very same day that Oswald left for Mexico—Sept. 26—the White House had announced that President Kennedy would visit Dallas, the precise date unspecified.
Oswald returned to his family on Oct. 4. He drew unemployment insurance for a week or so. And then one day Mrs. Paine and Marina heard from friends that there was a job opening at the Texas State Book Depository, a clearinghouse in Dallas for public school textbooks. They told Oswald. He immediately went to the building, which fronts on the main thoroughfares leading into the Dallas business district, and applied for the job. On Oct. 15—at about the time his wife had their second child—he went to work as an order filler at $1.25 an hour. He had the run of the building, roamed over seven floors as he collected books for shipment.