Marina Oswald Porter On National Enquirer Cover This Week.

[Guest]

For those who haven't seen this, here is an excellent Dick Cavett interview from 1977 of Marina and PJM together.  The dynamics between the two are interesting and scarcely consistent with Marina's later claim that she had been used by PJM.  As I'm sure everyone knows, PJM essentially lived with Marina for around six months.  In the interests of fair and accurate reporting, here Jim D.'s dark assessment of PJM:  https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/priscilla-johnson-mcmillan-she-can-be-encouraged-to-write-what-the-cia-wants.  It strikes me as the typical swirl of conspiracy-oriented innuendo and speculation that is supposed to cast doubt on PJM but to me really tells us nothing about the substance or accuracy of her book.  You can judge for yourself.  I believe that the Marina of 1993 and perhaps of today is the classic example of someone who immerses herself in conspiracy books, conferences and discussions and, like most Americans, comes away thinking "Well, there simply HAD to be some sort of conspiracy."  I believe this is why she hasn't distanced herself more from her previous testimony or PJM's book - she really knows no more about a conspiracy than the average man or woman on the street, merely that "there simply HAD to be some sort of conspiracy."  If she's actually latched onto the Alien Presence theme - oh, dear, let's hope she keeps that to herself.  But whatever her current position, I find her about-face completely understandable in light of the obvious psychological appeal of believing that Oswald might have been innocent (as she acknowledges in this interview) and her immersion in the conspiracy community.  One of the minor subplots of Walt Brown's chronology is how much Marina relied on him, even to the point of asking him at conferences to set her straight on the timeline of her own actions.

 

[David Andrews]

I believe that the Marina of 1993 and perhaps of today is the classic example of someone who immerses herself in conspiracy books, conferences and discussions and, like most Americans, comes away thinking "Well, there simply HAD to be some sort of conspiracy." 

Oh, please, dude: Jack Ruby?

What exactly was the occasion of Marina and her handler appearing on Cavett?  Did Marina need the lousy $300 scale they were paying talk show guests?  Or could it have had anything to do with the HSCA, still in operation that year?

Edited November 21, 2018 by David Andrews

[Joe Bauer]

6 hours ago, Douglas Caddy said:

Joe: My friend who has known Marina for years and who arranged the initial call between her and me earlier this year telephoned me today. He called on a totally unrelated matter that we are working on and I took the opportunity to call his attention to the current National Enquirer story.

I am bound by my promise to Marina not discuss the substance of our two conversations.  However, there may come a time when, while I cannot discuss the substance of our conversations, I may be able to disclose an action she took in recent years that astounded me and would cause the same reaction in you if it became known. Such disclosure may come about through the natural course of events. It could happen in the near future or maybe years away. I have no control over this.

 

 

Wow!

[Joe Bauer]

On 11/20/2018 at 1:07 PM, Lance Payette said:

For those who haven't seen this, here is an excellent Dick Cavett interview from 1977 of Marina and PJM together.  The dynamics between the two are interesting and scarcely consistent with Marina's later claim that she had been used by PJM.  As I'm sure everyone knows, PJM essentially lived with Marina for around six months.  In the interests of fair and accurate reporting, here Jim D.'s dark assessment of PJM:  https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/priscilla-johnson-mcmillan-she-can-be-encouraged-to-write-what-the-cia-wants.  It strikes me as the typical swirl of conspiracy-oriented innuendo and speculation that is supposed to cast doubt on PJM but to me really tells us nothing about the substance or accuracy of her book.  You can judge for yourself.  I believe that the Marina of 1993 and perhaps of today is the classic example of someone who immerses herself in conspiracy books, conferences and discussions and, like most Americans, comes away thinking "Well, there simply HAD to be some sort of conspiracy."  I believe this is why she hasn't distanced herself more from her previous testimony or PJM's book - she really knows no more about a conspiracy than the average man or woman on the street, merely that "there simply HAD to be some sort of conspiracy."  If she's actually latched onto the Alien Presence theme - oh, dear, let's hope she keeps that to herself.  But whatever her current position, I find her about-face completely understandable in light of the obvious psychological appeal of believing that Oswald might have been innocent (as she acknowledges in this interview) and her immersion in the conspiracy community.  One of the minor subplots of Walt Brown's chronology is how much Marina relied on him, even to the point of asking him at conferences to set her straight on the timeline of her own actions.

 

Geeminy, where does one begin?

Marina seemed totally dependent on PJM emotionally.

Often physically turning to look at PJM for support, reassurance and smiling nodding approval when she was unsure of her answers to Cavett.

And PJM ( looking and sounding like a cross between Leave It To Beaver's Barbara Billingsley and a kind of manic, wild eyed Carol Channing ) was almost too eager to be Marina's ever watchful and correcting mentor during the interview. To the point of seeming more personal attorney/ therapist than author friend.

Cavett put PJM on the spot regards reported speculation that she was connected to secret agencies, enhanced by what seemed to be her almost too coincidental close associations with both Lee Oswald and Marina at pivotal times in their lives.

PJM seemed quite uncomfortable when Cavett kept this subject going, shifting around more and seemingly trying to giggle and laugh her way out of directly saying a clear "no" to the question.  She even came up with a silly diversion story of how she and Marina just laugh at these agency connection stories.

PJM wasn't connected when she contacted Lee Oswald when he first came to Russia? Please.

In this interview Marina seems to me to be too emotionally connected to and dependent on PJM. 

And my gut instincts found PJM and her over-the-top, girlish giggling Carol Channing impersonation a contrived mask hiding a much more calculating and darker agenda character.

Marina has certainly changed her views of her husbands involvement in the JFK event since this interview.

Edited November 22, 2018 by Joe Bauer

[Joe Bauer]

9 hours ago, Douglas Caddy said:

 

 

 

Just watched the Dick Cavett interview of Marina ( with PJM chiming in ) again and am curious about many things stated that seem very contrary in this.

In random order:

The diary. Lee's diary.

When Cavett brought this up, PJM immediately jumped in with saying the diary somehow got from the Police to the Dallas Morning News. Marina says she didn't even know how the diary was taken. And she had never read it's contents up to that point.  Questions burst forth everywhere here.

Marina was mad and deeply hurt after learning Lee had supposedly married her to spite another Russian girl who Lee liked.  PJM made a big deal out of Marina's hurt feelings.

I'm sorry, I don't think Marina was truly hurt by this revelation. After the JFK event, she seemed to resent Lee and what she and her children were enduring so deeply , that she could care less about this silly diary entry.

What that entry and other so-called "lurid" entries in Lee's diary did show imo, was that Lee liked the ladies, played the field when he could and felt enough sentimental memories of this experience to note them in his private diary. And he kept these entries secret even from Marina.

Combined with Oswald's secrecy ( even to Marina ) about this and so many other activities he engaged in through out their time in N.O. and Dallas, even in their struggling poverty, a thought occurred to me that Oswald was capable in his lady loving character to have had an affair ( perhaps briefly ) at some point in his frequent separations from Marina. Judyth Vary Baker's story ( don't bash me too hard for this ) becomes just a tad more believable through this lens.

Cavett hits Marina pretty hard concerning her non-action regards turning her husband in after she knew Lee had shot at General Walker.

Her answer to this question made sense to me in my life experience knowledge of very poor young women/mothers who are very dependent on another person. Her speculations about what might happen to her and her children if she did report her husband would of course include her fear of perhaps being deported. She was hugely torn I think and said she felt much long term guilt for not doing so.

Walker escaping injury made her decision a little more acceptable.

I was around nutty violent people as a child and adolescent. I wanted to report their abuse to the police many times. But I sensed that if I did, it would create an even more explosive situation where my mother would lose her financial security which was provided solely by her abusive husband. I would be fostered out as well. People let awful things go on that are close to them often because they fear worse things happening if they go to the authorities. Marina gets a pass here imo.

When the Nixon episode occurs where Lee packs a pistol and says he's going to some Nixon appearing event, Marina's tale of what happened between her and Lee just as he was leaving becomes almost preposterous though.

So many other questions here.

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

Just watched the Dick Cavett interview of Marina ( with PJM chiming in ) again and am curious about many things stated that seem very contrary in this.

You do realize that the revelation was about Ella German, with whom Oswald was deeply in love in Minsk and who astonished and devastated him by rejecting his marriage proposal before he had met Marina?  There is no indication anywhere this side of JVB's fantasies that Oswald was a womanizer after his marriage.  If you haven't read Ernst Titovets' book, it is very enlightening in many respects including the Ella German episode and its aftermath.  He does find it inconceivable that the Oswald he knew in Minsk could have become a Presidential assassin, but I have been equally astonished in my own life by people I thought I knew intimately.  My best friend and roommate in college, who was a devout Christian who introduced me to the faith, and who was the best man at my wedding as I was at his, and on whose utter decency I would have truly staked my life, ended up spending a fair portion of his adult life in prison for repeatedly molesting a little boy (the son of his former college girlfriend, no less) and became a raving Marxist atheist who arrogantly dismissed me as unworthy of his time.

I believe the Marina you see in the video is simply the real Marina.  As described by one of her sex partners in Titovets' book (the son of a very high level scientist), she was a "pretty face and an empty head."  I believe her relationship with PJM was not unlike her relationship with Ruth Paine and the members of the conspiracy community who later steered her thinking.  FWIW, Titovets is suspicious of the circumstances in which Marina and Oswald met and pieces together the likely true story in his book, but the suspicion does not extend beyond airhead Marina being anything more than subject to KGB influence in that agency's efforts to nail down whether Oswald was a sincere defector.  The notion of Marina being some sort of KGB operative in the USSR and sleeper agent in America is just another of those cartoon caricatures in which conspiracy theorists specialize.

I stated above that I was deleting myself for the foreseeable future, and now I am going to follow through on that.  Good luck with your quest for the truth.  If the truth is a conspiracy, I don't think that participation on sites such as this is likely to bring one closer to that truth.  QUITE the contrary.  I don't believe I could voice my honest assessment of the segment of the conspiracy community that predominates on such sites without running afoul of the Terms of Service.  The psychology, the group dynamics, the weird species of logic and all the rest are simply fascinating - way more fascinating to me than the issue as to who was responsible for the assassination of JFK.  But not endlessly fascinating.

[Pamela Brown]

On 11/19/2018 at 8:14 AM, David Andrews said:

The part where she offers the possibility that she (or Lee) may have been a triple agent in the US raises questions re: Angleton.

I find this interesting, as when I interviewed Agent Hosty -- I wanted to learn all he knew about LHO, but he insisted on talking about Marina -- he said that if there were a spy in the Oswald family he thought it was Marina, not Lee.  He thought she was a sleeper agent.  I consider Marina an enigma (hence my blog marinaenigma.blogspot.com).  

Edited November 22, 2018 by Pamela Brown

[Sandy Larsen]

On 11/20/2018 at 10:53 PM, Lance Payette said:

I stated above that I was deleting myself for the foreseeable future, and now I am going to follow through on that.  Good luck with your quest for the truth.  If the truth is a conspiracy, I don't think that participation on sites such as this is likely to bring one closer to that truth.  QUITE the contrary.  I don't believe I could voice my honest assessment of the segment of the conspiracy community that predominates on such sites without running afoul of the Terms of Service.  The psychology, the group dynamics, the weird species of logic and all the rest are simply fascinating - way more fascinating to me than the issue as to who was responsible for the assassination of JFK.  But not endlessly fascinating.

 

Bye bye.  

 

(That's the closest thing I could find to a waving emoji.)

 

[James DiEugenio]

I decided to bring this back because I have the Russell book and bought the Enquirer.

The banner on the cover is simply misleading. In the article and in the Russell book there is no hint that she has proof Oswald was innocent.  And the idea that she is now demanding a new investigation is simply wrong since the story is from 1993. (On the Trail of the JFK Assassins, pp. 205-10)

If you read the Russell book and compare it to the new article one can see how the readar could confuse her comment about comparing herself with a  double or triple agent.  In the book one can see plainly that what she doing was comparing Richard Case Nagell and his predicament with Oswald's. (p. 205)  In the article, that distinction is not made clear, as it jumps from her talking about herself to making the comment about Lee being a double or triple agent. So it was easy to misconstrue  since the true meaning was lost in the transfer.

There are two things that are important that Marina told Russell and the article does not screw them up. She says that someone touched up the BYP. The rifle is different and there should have been more poses.

She also contravenes the Arizona lawyer in his WC depiction of LHO.  In the book she says that "He was not just a plain Joe from the street, of course not."  Then the article quotes the rest: "He was manipulated and he got caught.  He tried to play with the big boys." She also says in both that she had a hard time buying him as the assassin because Lee loved  JFK.  She later said in the book "I can't tell you how much he admired John F. Kennedy." (p. 206)

She also calls Posner a "phony baloney" with a big machine behind him. (p. 206)

In the book she has a sharp riposte to Russell saying that history changed the day of the assassination.  She replies, "No, history went back to where it was supposed to be.  Because Kennedy would have changed it." (p. 207)

She is also very interested by the mysterious DOD card that the LaFontaines made an issue about.(p. 207)  No one has ever gotten to the bottom of that card.  But I hope Chris Newton finally does.  He did some really good work on that on this forum.  I am trying to get him to do an article for K and K.

The lawyers at the meeting were Dan Alcorn and Jim Lesar of the ARRC, Joan Stanley and Harvey Silverglate a famous ciivl liberties attorney from Cambridge.