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

funny about Oswald’s alleged physical abuse of Marina, which occurred for the first time
after their marriage and would allegedly escalate after they arrive in the United States.
The KGB documents did not contain any revelations about whether Oswald was
an American intelligence agent -- or an operative of the Soviet Union. The KGB officers
told Mailer that they had “decided, after analyzing all their material once more, that
during the year and a half [Oswald] had been in Minsk, there had been no evidence that
he was an active agent of any intelligence service.” The Soviet authorities decided “Let
him go home. Good riddance.” 368 These conclusions dovetail with the defenders of the
Warren Commission who repeatedly state that Oswald had no connection to any
intelligence agency, but Mailer would examine whether Oswald had a peripheral ties to
the CIA when he returned to the United States.
Oswald’s personal and political experiences in the Soviet Union are important to
Mailer in determining Oswald’s character and whether he killed Kennedy. Mailer
accepted Oswald's Marxist declarations at face value and dealt seriously with his political
beliefs to draw a more rounded picture of the alleged assassin than the Warren
Commission, which depicted him as a one-dimensional social misfit and loser. After his
departure from the Soviet Union, Oswald declared his intention to "put forward" an
alternative to both the capitalist and communist systems. Oswald said "I have lived under
both systems" in an effort to find the truth behind "Cold War clichés” but found that
neither system was better than the other. 369
368 Mailer, 252-253.
369 Mailer, 302.
164