[Sample B: Approval/Signature Sheet] - George Mason University

Oswald marriage from the beginning. Mailer discounted the tales of Marina’s
promiscuity, but reported that Marina lost her virginity when raped by a soccer player
and that she hung out with an adventurous young crowd. Her stepfather considered her a
“whore” and made her sleep outside the apartment if she came home late. The stigma of
those years would haunt her even when she left to stay with her aunt and uncle in Minsk.
As Mailer put it, “Now her reputation felt like ugly clothing, smelly, that she was
condemned to war.” 362 She seized the opportunity to marry Oswald “to find someone to
belong to, and to have a family. 363 Earlier on in the marriage, a dissatisfied Marina
would cheat on Oswald while he was away in Moscow, seeking a night with an old
boyfriend while her husband was trying to arrange their passage to the United States.
The early emphasis on Oswald's life in the Soviet Union also derived in part from
Mailer's unprecedented access in the post-Cold War era to Soviet documents and the
ability to interview people who knew Marina and Oswald in the Soviet Union. Mailer
acknowledged that this was a major stimulus to writing the book. Among those
interviewed were KGB officers in charge of the surveillance of Oswald, but they were
identified by pseudonyms. The KGB sought to determine whether “some American
intelligence service sent Lee Harvey Oswald [to the Soviet Union] to check out …Soviet
legal channels” or as “a test case to determine how moles might be implanted for special
tasks.” 364 In short, the Soviets wanted to determine whether Oswald was a spy. Mailer
was allowed access to detailed KGB documents about the surveillance of Oswald in
362 Mailer, 170.
363 Mailer, 183.
364 Mailer, 72.
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