Mr. Dulles. 1955, did you say?
Mrs. Oswald. Yes, 1955.
Mr. Rankin. In this job that you obtained after you left the school, what were your duties?
Mrs. Oswald. When I worked in the pharmacy?
Mr. Rankin. Yes.
Mrs. Oswald. I worked in a hospital pharmacy. I prepared prescriptions. After the rounds every day, the doctors prescribed prescriptions, and the nurses of each department of the hospital enter that in a book, and turn it over to the pharmacy for preparation, where we again transcribed it from the nurses' book as a prescription and prepared it.
Mr. Rankin. Were you assigned to a particular job or did you go out and get the job? How was that arranged?
Mrs. Oswald. Generally upon graduation there is an assignment. I was sent to work to a drug warehouse in Leningrad. But this work was not very interesting, because everything was in packages. It is more of a warehousing job. And, therefore, if I had wanted to change I could have changed to any pharmacy. This assignment is only performed in order to guarantee that the graduate has a job. But the graduate can go to work somewhere else.
Mr. Rankin. How long did you stay in this first job?
Mrs. Oswald. I was there for three days, which is a probationary period, intended to have the employee familiarize himself with his duties. I didn't like that work, and I went to Minsk, and worked there. I worked there in my own specialty with pleasure. But the reference which I received after I was going to the United States was not very good, because they were very dissatisfied with the fact that I was going to the United States. They could not understand how could it be that a good worker could leave.