This is another entry in the Life Magazine, 1964 series. If you want to read the series from the beginning, use the link above.

The next story is a bunch of excerpts from Lee Harvey Oswald's diaries from a trip to Russia in 1959 and 1960. I'm not going to go into it in detail, the diaries weren't that interesting. Lee Harvey had terrible spelling and grammar, which makes them all the harder to read.

Basically, he went to Russia with the idea of becoming a Russian citizen. He wanted to renounce his American citizenship and become Russian. The first person he told this to, his Intourist minder, couldn't believe her ears. The folks at the American consulate wouldn't allow him to renounce his American citizenship, they just laughed at him. The Russian officials, when he went to see about getting citizenship, were suspicious. Eventually, he was allowed a work permit and sent to Minsk. He was given a job in a factory and started dating a girl. Eventually, he asked her to marry him and she refused because he was an American and thus subject to arbitrary arrest and punishment and she wanted nothing to do with that. He made a great living, because the Red Cross was giving him a subsidy for some reason that doubled his income. He got tired of Russia, however, because there was nothing to spend the money on. He found another girl, Marina, married her, had a kid, then went to the American embassy and arranged to go back to the states. Luckily, he still had his citizenship, so he could get out of Russia and back in to the US.

The whole tale is full of warnings about the kind of place Russia had become. At this time the American left was still in love with Communism, but here are clear warnings that the Worker's Paradise was a sham. Here's an excerpt from August-September 1960 (all of the misspellings are his):

As my Russian improves, I become increasingly concious of just what sort of a sociaty I live in. Mass gynmastics, compulsory afterwork meeting, usually polictcal information meeting. Compulsory attendence at lectures and the sending of the entire shop collective (except me) to pick potatoes on a Sunday, at a state collective farm: A "patroict duty" to bring in the harvest. The opinions of the workers (unvoiced) are that its a great pain in the neck. They don't seem to be esspicialy enthusiatic about any of the "collective" duties a natural feeling. I am increasingly aware of the presence, in all things, of Lebizen, shop party secretary, fat, fortyish, and jovial on the outside. He is a no-nonsense "party" regular.

Clearly, even to the most committed believer communism in practice is not as much fun as it is in theory. The reality simply didn't match the advertising. The article has some grainy, fuzzy pictures, but they're not worth scanning.

Next, we have a picture of Henry Cabot Lodge, ambassador to Vietnam, returning home. The headline says, Saigon likes Lodge - and he likes Scranton. The picture shows him wearing a silk tunic, which is "worn by the learned men of Vietnam". Where to start? Let's just put it this way: no way did Saigon like Lodge. After all, his biggest achievement during his tenure as ambassador was to help overthrow the legitimate government of President Ngo Dinh Diem. Khanh only sucked up to him because he was thrown into the leadership position by his own ill-fated coup. Lodge had viciously botched up the situation in Vietnam and the only reason he hadn't been recalled is that both Johnson and Kennedy had wanted to keep him out of the country during the election season. He was only being allowed back because it was too late for him to campaign very much against the Democrats. As usual, Life is willing to lie like a dog, as long as there is a good picture. Scranton, of course, didn't get the nomination, Goldwater did.

Next we see a picture of Robert and Ethel Kennedy standing on the roof of their car on Warsaw street, supposedly singing, When Polish Eyes Are Smiling. There is no such song, of course, it's When Irish Eyes Are Smiling. Is it good form to take a foreign song, switch the lyrics and present it to your hosts? I don't know. Why are they on the roof of the car? Shouldn't a Kennedy be more concerned with security? Kennedy says he isn't running for Vice President, but then he says to the crowd, "but if you were in America and could vote for me I would be". Huh? Kennedy was running, by the way, but LBJ crowded him out in a typical LBJ maneuver that left Bobby out in the cold. So much for getting your news from Life.

Our next news brief shows a picture of Khrushchev dancing with a Swedish girl. The headline says, Khrushchev Whirls A Swedish Flicka. So, "flicka" was 60's slang for "girl"? I guess so... Or does it have something to do with Sweden? The last line of the article is appropriately down on Khrushchev: "Khrushchev himself made it all worse by gibing at Sweden's capitalism and criticizing her farms." There is no mention of who the striped-pants boy with the huge grin on the right might be. It's good that Khrushchev was having some fun here. He was to be kicked out of his leadership position in October, only a few months after this picture was taken.

Of course, it wouldn't be 1964 without cigarette ads. This Carlton ad shows, however, that even in 1964, people were already worried about tar and nicotine. 1964 was the year of the infamous Surgeon General's report that said officially, for the first time, that smoking causes cancer. This was a bombshell at a time when 46% of American adults smoked cigarettes. By 1990, that number had fallen to 25%. The Carlton brand seems to be built for the single purpose of making people feel more comfortable with their smoking. If it has less tar and nicotine, it must cause less cancer, right? Hey, who knows, maybe it did. Their add was pretty sad, though. It's stark and mostly text. There are no pictures of pretty girls, no outdoorsy fresh-air scenes, just some frank information about "independent testing" and the chemicals in the cigarette. I think it makes smoking even scarier, but maybe that's just me. Later, they apparently humanized the brand a bit to actually include humans.

OK, that's it for this entry in the Life series. We're right up to the topless swimsuit article, which will be next in the series, I swear. See you then.

Note: this entry is part of a series called "Life Magazine, 1964", which contains the following entries:
     Life Magazine, 1964
     Life Magazine, 1964, Part II
     Life Magazine, 1964, Part III
     Life Magazine, 1964, Part IV
     Life Magazine, 1964, Part V