Mr. Jenner. You didn't share that view?
Mr. Thornley. Not as much as some did, and while this was popularly believed, I mention this as kind of a framework for the significance of Oswald's comment: Master Sergeant Spar, our section chief, jumped up on the fender one day and said, "All right, everybody gather around," and Oswald said in a very thick Russian accent, "Ah ha, collective farm lecture," in a very delighted tone.
This brought him laughs at the time, and he had gotten me to read "1984," as I mentioned earlier, and this was one of his favorites——
Mr. Jenner. Tell me what "1984" was.
Mr. Thornley. This was a book about—it is a projection into the future, supposed to take place in 1984 in England under a complete police state. It is, I would say, an anti-utopian novel, by George Orwell, a criticism of English socialism and what it might lead to, based upon Orwell's experiences with communism and nazism, his observations about a society in which a mythical leader called Big Brother dominates everybody's life. Where there are television cameras on every individual at all times watching his every act, where sex is practically outlawed, where the world is perpetually at war, three big police states constantly at war with one another, and where thought police keep every, all of the citizens in line. Oswald would often compare the Marine Corps with the system of government outlined in "1984."
I remember one day we were loading equipment——
Mr. Jenner. By way of protest against the Marine Corps?
Mr. Thornley. Yes; humorously, satirically. One day we were unloading, moving a radarscope off the truck and it slipped, and he said, "Be careful with Big Brother's equipment."
It was things like this. He did a lot of that.
I remember one day he—I was walking along with my hands in my pocket, which is something you don't do in the service if you are—certainly if you are in an infantry outfit you don't dare. Things were a little lax in our outfit, so we could get away with it once in a while, so I happened to be walking along with my hands in my pockets and suddenly I heard a voice: "Hey, Smith, Winston," and rattle off a serial number, "get your hands out of your pockets," which was a direct quote from the book "1984."