Oswald's Mother (A Mother in History, by Jean Stafford)
Larner, Jeremy
A MOTHER IN HISTORY, by Jean Stafford. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966. 121 pp. $3.95. Jean Stafford was sent to interview Mrs. Marguerite Oswald by McCall's, the ladies'...
...The dialogue rings true, and gives a picture of Mrs...
...One of Mrs...
...Her technique is haphazard, mingling long speeches from Mrs...
...Oswald with arch commentary on Mrs...
...Oswald's wall: MY SONLEE HARVEY OSWALD EVEN AFTER HIS DEATH HAS DONE MORE FOR HIS COUNTRY THAN ANY OTHER LIVING HUMAN BEING MARGUETITE G. OSWALD Such a sentiment is not inconsistent with the rest of Mrs...
...Miss Stafford needn't have bothered...
...Although the evidence remains circumstancial, Mrs...
...Miss Stafford does not pretend to examine in detail the case of Lee Harvey Oswald or to analyze the unhappy history of the Oswald family...
...Now it could be that my son and the Secret Service were involved in a mercy killing...
...What she does reveal is an extremely disturbed personality, replete with paranoid delusions of grandeur...
...Oswald sufficient to repel and disturb the reader without any need for added comment...
...New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966...
...For security reasons, we could not have a lingering President, because of our conflicts with other nations...
...Oswald's favorite theories is that her son was "an agent of the United States," whereupon the assassination of President Kennedy is transformed into an act of heroism: 'It's been in many articles that President Kennedy was a dying President, that he had Atkinson's disease, which is a disease of the kidney, and we know that he had three operations on his back and that he would have been a lingering President...
...Oswald's conversation, which consists of a self-glorifying and self-pitying defense of herself and her son...
...Oswald's home furnishings, and paragraphs apparently designed to demonstrate the writer's superiority to her subject...
...Oswald seems to consider her life a holy mission...
...If he was dying of an incurable disease, this would be for the security of our country.' We are not surprised when Miss Stafford discovers a copper scroll on Mrs...
...She hints that she has fresh evidence bearing on the assassination, but she does not reveal it...
...Jean Stafford was sent to interview Mrs...
...Oswald has taken a firm place among the circumstances...
...After all, I am responsible for two Presidents...
...Marguerite Oswald by McCall's, the ladies' magazine...
...Her performance only enhances the plausibility of her son's having acted upon similar delusions...
Vol. 13 • May 1966 • No. 3
