QUOTE (John Simkin @ Nov 8 2009, 09:30 AM)

George de Mohrenschildt, I'm a Patsy (1977)
In February of 1967 we finally found a suitable place to settle down, before that we moved from one place to another and visited our children in California and Mexico. the place called conveniently "La Citadellle" was exactly fitting to us and was ample enough to accomodate all the furniture which had been stored in the warehouse since the beginning of 1963... It was about time to settle as four years storage at the Southwestern Warehouses began to axhaust us financially.
I thought of abandoning the whole junk and leave it to the warehouse - it's good sometime to start anew, but there were books...
And so we went to the warehouse with an old, faithful friend, always ready to help and to pick up some old junk for himself, and, before our furniture was taken out, we began looking through the accumulation of various and sundry items that could be eliminated. I was less intrested in this task, so I chatted with my friend, a good guy who had followed us on many of our trips, while Jeanne was finishing the selection of things to take and to discard.
Suddenly, he rushed out of the warehouse with a crazy look on her face, shouting excitedly: "Look, look, what I found!"
She dragged me to the pile of open crates and I saw inside a slightly familiar-looking green box. "What the hell is this?"
"This is the box with the records I gave Marina before our departure," she shouted.
"How did they get there? We left them such a long time ago?"
"I haven't the slightest idea, I considered them lost." Jeanne was short of words, this was so weird. "I had used them myself to learn English when I came to this country. They served me well. Then I loaned them to Marina long before our departure for Haiti."
"Remember how punctiously honest Lee was," I said. "He would not keep any of our belongings. But how the hell did they into this warehouse? Possibly he remembered where we were storing our furniture. Or, maybe he have the package to Glover to whom we had loaned some of our furniture and who finally added it to the rest of stored boxes at the Southwest Warehouse?"
This remains a mystery to this day, because we lost track of Glover, a good guy who got so frightened of his very slight acquaintanceship with the "President's assassin" that he moved out somewhere without leaving an address.
My wife began taking the albums out of the box and as she opened to see if the records were not broken, she shrieded almost hysterically.
"Look, there is a picture of Lee Oswald here!"
This was the same, so controversial picture of Lee, which appeared on the cover the defunct "Life". Many newspapermen and "investigators" had assumed and had written hundreds of pages that this picture was a fabrication, a "fake", a superimposed photograph. Frankly we did not care but now, right there, was a proof that the picture was genuine.
We stood literally frozen stiff, Lee staring at us in his martial pose, the famous rifle in his hands. like in a Marine parade. It was a gift for us from beyond his grave.
"What did he mean by leaving this picture to us?" I wondered aloud. "He was not a vain kind of a person."
Then Jeanne shouted excitedly again: "look there is an inscription here. It read: "To my dear friend George from Lee." and the date follow - April 1963, at the time when we were thousand of miles away in Haiti. I kept looking at the picture and the inscription deeply moved, my thoughts going back when Lee was alive.
Then I slowly turned the photograph and there was another epitaph, seemingly in Marina's handwriting, in Russian. In translation it reads; "this is the hunter of fascists! Ha! Ha! Ha!"
Here Marina was again making fun of her husband, jeering Lee's very serious anti-fascists feelings, which we knew so well and described in several chapters of this book.
It's hard to describe the impact of this discovery on us, especially Lee's dedication and Marian's enscription. This message from beyond the grave was amazing and shocking. From the grave we did not even dare to visit, because FBI considered with suspicion all the visitors at Lee's burial place. The confirmation that Lee considered me his best friend flattered me but Marina's message expressed a chilling scorn for her husband. Anyway, if he were a hunter of fascists, and we agree with such a description, who was the making fun of him?
First of all it makes in doubt her assertion that Lee tried to shoot General Walker, secondly for a Soviet Russian refugee the word "fascist" is not a laughing matter - some fifteen million people lost their lives fighting them. And how many more died of cold and hunger?
We kept this photograph for ourselves and showed it only to a few close friends. Their reactions were interesting: to some the photograph indicated that Lee was a maniac, a killer, it constituted a proof of his aggressiveness, of his guilt. To others, just the opposite - it gave him the aura of a militant idealist. The man of such anti-facist inclinations COULD NOT be the assassin of the most liberal and race conscious president in the history of the United States.
We did not show the photograph to any authorities, to them Lee Harvey Oswald's case was closed and we did not want any further involvements. Neither did we show it to any investigators or reporters in the United States.
But I did write a letter to a friend, one of the editors of Life Magazine, explaining that I had a message from Lee Harvey Oswald and I did ask him to keep the matter confidential. I added to my letter a short resume of the facts - how this picture got into our possession.
Immediately I received a call from my friend saying that Life had a team working on Oswald's case, a team of investigators, because the magazine had doubts of Warren Committee's conclusions.
The next day a reporter assigned to the assassination case called me and we talked for a long time. He was intimately familiar with all the details, psychological and technical, of this unbelievable complex case, having worked on it since November 1963. Like ourselves, he was at Marina's inscription and gave it the same meaning as ourselves.
"We shall use to as a main feature of our special edition if and when we know something definite about Oswald's involvement or of his innocence he said.
Again I asked the man to keep this matter confidential temporarily and he promised to do so.
Obviously either Life's people were talkative or, more probably, our telephone was tapped. This we found at several occasions.
New we know much more about "Watergate" type tactics of our government agencies, especially FBI, but at the time we did not have anything to conceal - except the existence of this picture - and this only for our own sentimental reasons. Whenever we heard a suspicious noise on the telephone, we laughed, spoke in foreign languages or made offensive remarks at whoever was listening in. Some voluminous files must be hidden somewhere contaning "transcripts", translations and obliterations of our conversations.
Again, being faithful taxpayers for years and years, we could but marvel at the unbelievable waste of our money. But what was it compared to 140 billion U.S. dollars spent in Vietnam. But one bad habit leads to another...
Now something should be said as to why we did not contact Marina regarding picture. Naturally she knew of its existence from our mutual friends, the Fords. But as this story clearly indicates, there is not love lost between Marina and us. We had helped her with the baby care, with her own health and finally made a supreme effort trying to solve her unsolvable conflict with Lee. We never received a word of thanks from her. But this is not important, we helped her when she was not poor and desperate.
Unfortunately, after Lee's death she showed herself a real "operator". She created an appearance of a helpless victim, of a woman searching for God, and naturally God-fearing Americans sent her substantial contributions or donations, all tax-free. We heard from some reporters that donations were sent frequently stuck between the pages of Bibles and she would grab the money and flung the Bible furiously on the floor.
We did not treat her very nicely in our testimonies, but we were utterly truthful. Marina should have recognized it, had she taken the trouble of reading our depositions. She might have come then to a true evaluation of herself and of her dead husband.
Well, she is settled now, when we see each other we say "hello" politely. As a matter of fact the last time I even did not recognize her. She looked prosperous and spoke excellent English.
Another reason we did not contact Marina and haven't had a serious conversation with her, was her attitude towards Mrs. Ruth Paine. Ruth was a perfectly charming, charitable Quaker, a Christian in the true sense of this word, who, like us, helped the Oswalds out of pure humanitarian impulses. Actually she did more for them than anyone else. Marina lived with her for and off, took advantage of her hospitality. Ruth drove her to New Orleans and back. She showed utter kindness to her occasionally Lee, and especially to baby June. She and her husband were simply admirable people. Yet Ruth had her own family to take care of as well as her teaching profession. Her only reward consisted of lessons in conversational Russian.
Lee, on the other hand, seldom accepted hospitality and certainly did not ask for it. And yet, Ruth's and Marine's great friendship ended abruptly after the assassination.
As Ruth told us later, upon our return from Haiti, Marina said that she did not want to see her ever again. And Mrs. Paine was too proud a person to insist.
It is possible that Marina was advised by the authorities to shy away from her former independent-minded friends and she must have been scared stiff of authorities. Time will tell. But still many years went by and she still does not see mrs. Ruth Paine.
Short sketches of various incidents involving Marina will prove to the reader these peculiarities of her character, which may incidentally appear admirable to many readers. Her dreams of America bristling with high buildings, criss-crossed with high-speed roads, blessed with luxury for everyone and especially with fast automobiles for all teenagers and adults. And she was right, some economist calculated fifteen years ago that if the automobiles dept on proliferating at the same rate, each family in America would possess five hundred automobiles at the end of this century. A paradise of earth!
Yet we never disliked Marina, there was really nothing to dislike, there was no substance in her. She was amusing sometimes, witty, naive mostly, like some Russian peasants, yet with great deal of shrewdness underneath. My wife used to call her affectionately - "that rascal Marina" - and that description fitted her perfectly. Unusual visitors.
The photograph we found in the record album is identical to the one Life magazine published shortly after the assassination. I think Marina took it, at least she so testified. Only the dedication to me and the inscription by Marina constitute new elements. This picture, unquestionably did a lot of damage to Lee. It shows him in a militaristic pause, holding a rifle, a pistol on his side.
But let's not forget that Lee was trained by the Marine Corps to hold, show and respect weapons. The Beretta we saw in his apartment was well oiled and immaculately clean. Another bow to the United States Marine Corps. But whatever later testimony tried to prove, I knew that he was not a particulary good shot. He did not have that cold stare in his eyes - incidentally he had rather attractive gray eyes - he did not have a very steady hand and a stiff stance which indicate to anyone familiar with things military a good marksman. To Jeanne and I he did to have an ugly expression of a killer, and we knew professional killers, Jeanne in China during the Japanese occupation, I in other parts of the world. He owned a pistol but we never discussed why, I assumed for self defence, he lived in a very disreputable part of Dallas. Maybe Lee liked to shoot at the leaves, but he did not have a decisive, self-assured, automatic attitude of a sharpshooter. On the contrary, he was nervous, jittery, poorly coordinated type, and, as I said before completely unathletic. Also devoid of any mechanical ability. I had observed boys and men of that type in my own regiment and the were totally unfit for military performance - and usually very poor shots.
We had tried to keep the existence of Lee's photograph as secret as possible, just a few friends saw it and Life's reporter knew of it. Something, however, leaked out and about two weeks after my conversations with Life's writers, I received a strange telephone call. A slightly accented voice said, and I quote: "we are from Life Magazine,' and he mentioned the name of the reporter I had spoken to, "we are here in Dallas and would like to see you?"
"Certainly," I agreed immediately. "Come over."
They knew the address and an hour later two men appeared in our house. A strange pair; one slight, Latin-American type fellow, the other a big bruizer, beefy, powerful, Anglo type. They sat down, announced that they represented Life Magazine, the Latin mentioned his repetorial qualifications, the beefy character said he was a photographer. Indeed he was loaded with cameral of all types. The names were respectively - Smith and Fernandez. Smith mentioned also that he was a staff photographer for Fortune Magazine, which put me completely at ease.
"We would like to ask you a few questions the other Life reporter failed to discuss with you," said Fernandez.
I obliged him. These questions were unimportant, mostly about Lee's habits and his character. Then they became more specific. "Was he sociable? Whom did he know well? What were his relations with fellow workers in this country and in USSR? Did he have many friends in addition to us? What did he do in Mexico? Whom did he meet there? Could he speak Spanish? Why did he go to New Orleans? Could he drive a car? And many other questions, which I do not recall now.
I answered these questions to the best of my ability, but naturally many had to remain unanswered, since I was out of the country and did not have any contacts with Lee during that time.
The question may arise; why was I so frank with Life Magazine people and let myself pumped out so naively. The answer is that one of my most admired friends used to be a staff writer for Life and he had performed an extremely kind and difficult intervention of behalf of my father stranded in Europe during the war. Incidentally, I felt very much at ease with these two character because I had a visitor at the time, an economist from the East, a very athletic fellow and a good friend and he was there all the time.
Later in the afternoon Jeanne arrived, very surprised to see the unusual guests. I explained who they were. "But you have a very strong Spanish accent?" she asked Fernandez.
"Yes, of course, I am of Spanish origin and I had worked as a reporter for life mostly in Latin America. So, excuse my poor English."
This sounded reasonable enough.
Then Smith, "the photographer", producer a series of excellent, very clear photos of some twenty men, mostly of Latin appearance and asked pointedly if we had ever met any of them.
We both looked carefully at these strange, sometimes brutal, faces.
"I am not sorry not to have met any of them," I quipped. "They look rather disreputable. Who are they ?"
Somehow this question remained unanswered.
"I have an excellent memory for faces and I am positive not to have ever seen any of them," I added.
Jeanne, in a more cheerful and confident mood pointed out three better-looking ones: "This one has a cute moustache! That one has an interesting look about him. And this one is so handsome! Oh, I would like to meet these three men," he concluded laughingly.
This cheerfulness was met by a stony silence, a kind of hostile attitude. Fernandez did not say a word. He seemed disappointed. Smith broke the awkard silence and asked: "May I take a few pictures of you and the dogs?"
The mentioning of the dogs conquered Jeanne and we obliged again. Many photographs were taken.
The conversation lingered for a while longer. Fernandez became more amiable and called our dog Nero in the Spanish manner "Senor Neron" which pleased Jeanne to no end. Finally the two strangers left, promising to contact us again from new York, to gove our regards to my friend there and to send us copies of the pictures.
A few days went by. We both were busy and didn't have time or occasion to discuss this visit. One evening, lying in bed, I asked Jeanne: "What did you think of those two characters who came to visit us the other day?"
"Rather suspicious," she said. "I was thinking of them at this very moment. This is ESP. How did you know they were from Life?" She asked. "Did they have any identifications?"
"None," I mused. "And I did not ask for any. But they knew exactly what I was talking about with the Life reporter in new York. Fernandez remembered all the questions and all my answers."
"You were very careless," said Jeanne convincingly. "Don't you know that the house has been bugged on and off. More on than off."
She was absolutely right. These men were imposters. Next day I checked with the Life office in New York. Smith and Fernandez did not exist as far as Life was concerned.
"But let's not forget that Lee was trained by the Marine Corps to hold, show and respect weapons. The Beretta we saw in his apartment was well oiled and immaculately clean"
The Beretta!? huh?
-Bill