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century.
    *   *   *
    Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, the U.S. State Department has decided to return Lee Harvey Oswald’s American passport to him and allow him to return home. He delays his departure until Marina and their unborn child can travel with him.
    He also puts off telling Marina that they are going anywhere.
    At last, Oswald breaks the news. “My wife is slightly startled,” he writes in his journal in June, after finally telling Marina that they are leaving the Soviet Union, most likely forever, “but then encourages me to do what I wish to do.”
    Marina is on the verge of leaving behind everything she knows for a life of uncertainty with a man she barely knows. But she accepts this hard reality because she has already learned one important thing about Lee Harvey Oswald: He always does what he wants to do, no matter how many obstacles are thrown in his path.
    Always.

[© Corbis]

 
    CHAPTER NINE
    FEBRUARY 14, 1962
    Washington, D.C. 8:00 P . M . EST on NBC and CBS TV
    T HE FIRST LADY GLIDES ALONE down a hallway, walking straight toward the television cameras. Her outfit and lipstick are a striking red, but the camera will broadcast only in black and white, so this detail is lost on the 46 million Americans tuning in to watch her televised tour of the White House. This is Jackie’s moment in the national spotlight, a chance to show off her ongoing effort to restore the historic building.
    She begins by narrating a brief history of the White House. Viewers hear her voice as images of historical drawings and photographs fill the screen. “Piece by piece,” she says, “the interior of the president’s house was put back together.”
    The first lady once again steps before the camera to take viewers on a walk around her new home, now followed by the show’s host, Charles Collingwood of CBS. Jackie’s personal touches are everywhere, from the new draperies, whose designs she sketched herself, to the new guidebook she authorized to raise funds for the restoration. She has scoured White House storage rooms and the National Gallery of Art, turning up assorted treasures such as paintings by Paul Cézanne, Teddy Roosevelt’s drinking mugs, and James Monroe’s gold French flatware. President Kennedy’s new desk was another of Jackie’s finds. The Resolute desk, as it is known, was carved from the timbers of an ill-fated British vessel and was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880. Jackie found it in the White House broadcast room, buried beneath a pile of electronics. She promptly had it relocated to the Oval Office.

The first lady escorts the country through the newly refurbished White House. She won an Emmy Award for this televised tour. Here she is showing the State Dining Room. [© Associated Press]
    “Thank you, Mr. President,” concludes reporter Charles Collingwood. “And thank you, Mrs. Kennedy, for showing us this wonderful house in which you live, and all of the wonderful things you’re bringing to it.”
    John Kennedy has joined his wife on camera for the last few minutes of the broadcast special, explaining the importance of Jackie’s ongoing efforts and what the White House means as a symbol of America.
    Jackie’s White House tour is one of the most watched shows in the history of television. In fact, it earns the first lady a special Emmy Award. America is now smitten. Jacqueline Kennedy is a superstar.

 
    CHAPTER TEN
    EARLY 1962
    Minsk
    I N M INSK, THE O SWALDS ’ DAUGHTER IS BORN. Lee Harvey Oswald is ready to return home. The plan is for him, Marina, and baby June Lee to take the train to the American embassy in Moscow to pick up their travel documents. The Oswalds arrive in Moscow on May 24, 1962.
    On June 1, they board a train from Moscow to the Netherlands. Lee Oswald carries a promissory note from the U.S. embassy for $435.71 to help start his life in America. They board the SS Maasdam , bound for America, and stay belowdecks most of the