Word: lees
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...have absorbed as much bile in their mother's milk as the son of Marguerite Oswald. Her sense of grievance against a world that she felt owed her a living pervaded Lee's life, causing him, at the age of 20, to seek some fancied redress in the U.S.S.R. Though the Soviets finally accorded the American defector privileged status-with perquisites that included an apartment of his own and a cash subsidy-the Soviets' largesse could not satisfy Lee's inexhaustible demands...
Marguerite Oswald also nourished Lee with the delusions of grandeur displayed in the celebrated interviews she gave Novelist Jean Stafford: "Lee Harvey Oswald even after his death has done more for his country than any other living human being." Once Lee emerged from Marguerite's cocoon, he seemed to regard himself as a rare and vivid specimen, on the wing in an ungrateful world...
Unlettered and unskilled, Lee compared himself favorably with the great men whose biographies he read, such as Mao Tse-tung and John F. Kennedy. He declared that in 20 years he himself would be President, or maybe Prime Minister, of the U.S. Such a rich fantasy life had to be concealed from the real world, so Lee became a compulsive liar and profoundly distrustful, like his mother. As McMillan points out, his personality made him an unlikely recruit in an assassination plot that would require accepting orders, obeying plans and working with coconspirators. Instead, she believes he acted alone...
Violence was ever ready to erupt in Lee. At nine, he lunged at his half brother with a butcher knife-an attack that their mother dismissed as one of Lee's "little scuffles." A New York City social worker, who interviewed Lee when he was a truant of 13, reported that he had fantasies of being powerful and killing people. Before he turned 16 he confided to a friend that he would like to kill President Eisenhower "because he was exploiting the working class." After Lee shot at and very nearly killed General Walker, Marina became convinced that...
Still, Marina was not quite the typical battered wife. She was Oswald's mate, in the strict sense of the term. The squalid tale of their symbiotic relationship - told in excruciating detail by McMillan - makes it difficult to imagine Lee with out Marina. When he proposed to her, she was the belle of the Minsk Culture Palace dance hall and, at 20, a full-grown shrew...