showed to me that he did not treasure his family life and his children also the fact that he beat me and wanted to send me to the Soviet Union.
Senator RUSSELL. And you think that the fact that he promised you after the Walker incident that he would never do anything like that again but did, is an indication that he didn't love you?*
*Mrs. OSWALD. Logically--yes. That shows to me that he did not love me. At times he cried, and did all sorts of helpful things around the house. At other times he was mean. Frankly, I am lost as to what to think about him.
And I did not have any choice, because he was the only person that I knew and I could count on--the only person in the United States.
Senator RUSSELL. Did he beat you very often, Mrs. Oswald, strike you hard blows with his fists? Did he hit you with his fists?* **
*Mrs. OSWALD. When he beat me, sometimes he would beat me hard and sometimes not too hard. Sometimes he would leave a black eye and sometimes he wouldn't, depending on which part of me he would strike me. When we lived in New Orleans he never beat me up.
Senator RUSSELL. Did he ever beat you in Russia before you came to this country? *

Mrs. Oswald.

No.
Senator RUSSELL. Had you ever heard of any husband striking his wife in Russia? *
*Mrs. OSWALD. It seems that beating of wives by the Russian husbands is a rather common thing in the Soviet Union and that is why I was afraid to marry a Russian.
Senator RUSSELL I see. Do they beat them with anything other than their hands?
There was a law in my State at one time that a man could whip his wife as long as he didn't use a switch that was larger than his thumb. That law has been repealed.
But, did they ever whip their wives with anything other than their hands in Russia?*
*Mrs. OSWALD. I do not know. I was not interested in what manner they beat their wives.
Senator RUSSELL. That's difficult for me to believe that a very charming and attractive girl who was being courted by a number of men, I would have thought you would have been greatly interested in all the aspects of matrimony?* **
*Mrs. OSWALD. How would I know?
Senator RUSSELL. How would you know it--well, by general conversation. Don't people talk about those things all over the world--in Russia and everywhere else?

Mrs. Oswald.

That's different there.
Senator RUSSELL. People are very much the same, aren't they, all over the world? If a man in the neighborhood gets drunk and beats and abuses his wife and children, isn't that discussed by all the people in the block--in that area?

Mrs. Oswald.

**Sometimes during a life of 20 years with a husband, everything will be all right, and then some occasion will arise or something will happen that the wife will learn about what kind of person he is.
*I know of one family in the Soviet Union in Minsk, where a husband was married to a woman 17 years, and he just went to another woman.
For 1 year.
*For 1 year--then he came back to the first one full of shame and repentance and he cried and she took him back in. He lived with her for 3 days and then left her again. He was excluded from the party.
Senator RUSSELL. Excommunicated from the party?

Mrs. Oswald.

**Expelled from the party.
*But he took all the possessions of their common property when he left.
Senator RUSSELL. I'm taking too much time, and I will hurry along. Did he ever beat you badly enough, Mrs. Oswald, for you to require the services of a doctor, a physician?*

Mrs. Oswald.

No.
Senator RUSSELL. Did he ever strike you during your pregnancy, when you were pregnant?*

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