Marita Lorenz Obituary

[W. Niederhut]

Marita Lorenz, Who Told Tales of Castro and Kennedy, Dies at 80

She was romanced by revolutionaries. She was called “a patron saint of conspiracy buffs.” At least some of her stories appear to be true.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/world/americas/marita-lopez-dies.html

 

[Joe Bauer]

It's always frustrating to hear the memoir and or confessional claims of legitimately credentialed figures directly involved in some of our most important historical events and see their claims divided into sub-categories of true, not quite true and untrue and try to figure out whether this categorizing is valid.

I've read some of Lorenz's statements about her deep involvement with Castro and Frank Sturgis.

What part of her recollection accounts are true...not true?

There are always interjections by media connected outsiders with obvious self-interested agendas that try to tell you which of Lorenz's stories and claims to believe. 

You can believe she had a long term intimate relationship with Castro including being impregnated by him and then pressured to abort the fetus.

You can believe that she didn't go through with her end of a plan to murder Castro.

You can believe that Sturgis was her handler and that he once came to her New York residence to threaten her or even harm her years after the Castro affair because his arrest in Lorenz's apartment is in the public record.

But we are told to not believe any of Lorenz's claims that Sturgis was involved in some aspect of the JFK event in Dallas on 11,22,1963.

Of all the recollection claims by Lorenz, that particular one is untrue.

How the Lorenz claims judges came up with their true versus untrue lists is never quite well explained with facts that are easily checked out and seemingly just thrown out there with a "trust us" mentality.

If we ( Lorenz claim judges ) have the clout to be published and quoted in the media, we obviously know more than you "Average Joe" peons.  

Hey!  I am one of those "Average Joe" peons ... literally!

And I am not going to dismiss any of Marita Lorenz's claims simply because someone with their own agenda and access to the media says to.

 

Edited September 6, 2019 by Joe Bauer

[Pat Speer]

I once had the privilege of spending some time with Mark Lane. I didn't want to push him, but I had to know what he really thought of Lorenz. He told me the point was not that HE believed her story about Sturgis, Oswald, and Hunt, but that she had been used as an informant by a number of agencies, and they had believed her. 

She remains an enigma. Perhaps a John Newman-esque researcher will tackle that enigma, and expose the underlying truth. One can only hope.

Edited September 5, 2019 by Pat Speer

[Joe Bauer]

Curious ...

What does Jim DiEugenio believe regards Marita Lorenz and her claims about all the aspects of the entire story from her experience?

[Jim Hargrove]

 

Above left: Marita's book cover; Above center: Marita with Frank Sturgis; Above right: Marita with Fidel Castro

From John Armstrong's write-up on our website:

In late 1960 CIA asset Marita Lorenz was in a Miami CIA safehouse with members of her group and met LEE Harvey Oswald for the first time. The HSCA interviewed her and asked about her first meeting with Oswald:

Mr. Fithian: "Now is it your testimony that the first time you saw Oswald would have been in the camps in the Everglades?"
Marita Lorenz: "The very first time, no. I saw him in the Safehouse and then in the camps."
Mr. Fithian: "And that first meeting at the Safehouse would have been within a year of the Bay of Pigs?"
Marita Lorenz: "I would say 1960."
Mr. Fithian: "It would be some time during 1960?"
Marita Lorenz: "Late 1960."
Mr. Fithian: "All right. Now I want to be sure that I have your dates correct. You said the first meeting of LEE Harvey Oswald, the first time you saw him, was at a Safehouse in Miami in 1960."
Marita Lorenz: "Yes."
Mr. Fithian: "The next time or times that you saw him were during training at a camp in the Everglades, various places in the Everglades, in early 1960, 1961 period?"
Marita Lorenz: "Yes."
Mr. Fithian: "And after that you saw him at the Safehouse the second time?"
Marita Lorenz: "Yes."
Mr. Fithian: "What makes you so sure of the dates. Within a year of the first meeting in the Safehouse and the meeting at the camps in the Everglades, is there anything else you could match that up with?"
Marita Lorenz: "The photographs, the events that took place. the photographs that Alex (Rorke) took. Everywhere we went Alex took pictures."
Mr. Fithian: "This was prior to the Bay of Pigs?"
Marita Lorenz: "Yes, April, 1961, was the Bay of Pigs."
Mr. Fithian: "And you are sure you saw him (Oswald) before April, 1961."
Marita Lorenz: "Yes, because Alex took the pictures."
Mr. Fithian: "And the whole purpose of the training was to somehow participate or help in the Bay of Pigs.
Marita Lorenz: "Yes."
Mr. Fithian: "Did you see Oswald at any time in the intervening two years between early 1961 prior to April of 1961 and the September-October Safehouse meeting in 1963?"
Marita Lorenz: "No, but Frank (Sturgis) kept in touch with me. Alex kept in touch with me."
Mr. Fithian: "Mrs. Lorenz, has your attorney explained what perjury before a congressional committee is all about?"
Marita Lorenz: "That is right, yes."
Mr. Fithian: "In any way do you want to change your testimony on these dates?"
Marita Lorenz: "No, I do not."
Mr. Fithian: "There is adequate documentary evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald did not indeed return from the Soviet Union until June of 1962.
Marita Lorenz: "I don't know about that."
Mr. Fithian: "Therefore you could not have met him at the Safehouse in 1960, you could not have seen him in the Everglades in 1960 and 1961, and you could not have taken a picture in those areas and could not have a picture for the dates of that time."
Marita Lorenz: "No?"
Mr. Fithian: "It is not possible."
Marita Lorenz: "I don't know about that."
Mr. Fithian: "Now can you explain to the committee why you gave us this false information as far as dates?"
Marita Lorenz: "I did not give you false information."
Mr. Fithian: "Mrs. Lorenz, I went over your testimony very carefully a moment ago and you assured me that you met Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the Bay of Pigs."
Marita Lorenz: "I did."
Mr. Fithian: "On two occasions."
Marita Lorenz: "Yes."
Mr. Fithian: "Lee Harvey Oswald was in Russia during that entire period."
Marita Lorenz: "I do not know that. I did not know that. The Lee Harvey Oswald that I met was the same in that picture, the one in the Safehouse. the same one that Frank knows. I do not know where he was according to your information. I do not know. I never read up on anything about these theories that are coming out about him."
Mr. Fithian: "This is not a matter of theory."
Marita Lorenz: "I know I am telling the truth. If you don't want it, that's too bad, you know. I am here to gain nothing, you know. Nothing. Nothing at all. You are trying a homicide investigation that should be solved, you know. Don't dispute me or put me on trial."
Mr. Fithian: "Only if we can have full and truthful testimony."
Marita Lorenz: "You have got it. You have it from me. I don't know about the other people. I have nothing to lose and nothing to hide-nothing.
Mr. Fithian: "And it is your testimony that you are certain that the person you met at the Safehouse and at the camps of the Everglades is the same person that you met in Dallas."
Marita Lorenz: "Yes, it is."
Mr. Fithian: "Do you have any explanation for how we come up with two Lee Harvey Oswalds during this period?"
Marita Lorenz: "I have no explanation. I know the man I met; he was a creep. I didn't like him. I don't have to be here at all. I have nothing to gain.
Mr. Fithian: "Thank you. That is all."

NOTE: CIA asset/photographer Alex Rorke  had taken photos of LEE Oswald in Florida (1960-61) while HARVEY Oswald was in the Soviet Union. Rorke died in an airplane crash in Mexico in May 1964, along with Hugh Ward, DeLessups Morrison (former Mayor of New Orleans), his 7-year-old son Christopher, Daleigh Pellegrin and Ovide Cenac.

 

Edited September 6, 2019 by Jim Hargrove

[Ron Ecker]

I remember reading that Oliver Stone bought the rights to Marita's book. But there was no movie.

 

 

 

[Douglas Caddy]

 

From the lengthy Village Voice article beginning half way down the first column:

 “Late on Monday evening, Paul Meskill introduced Marita [Lorenz] to a couple of detectives from police intelligence, James Rothstein and Matthew Rosenthal. The four of them had some drinks at a bar on 43^rd Street. Since May, Rothstein and Rosenthal had been assigned to the New York Senate Select Committee on Crime, which was conducting a massive investigation in to pornography. Marita was supposed to give the detectives information concerning child prostitution; she also told them that Frank Sturgis had threatened to kill her. They accompanied her back to 88^th street and arrested Frank Sturgis when he turned up at her apartment around 11 o’clock.”

 

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1299&dat=19771121&id=_ABOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=94sDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6366,3812556

[David Andrews]

Her HSCA testimony was judged unreliable - yet no perjury charge, against which she was warned.

[Ron Ecker]

1 hour ago, David Andrews said:

Her HSCA testimony was judged unreliable

That gives her testimony credence.

 

 

 

[Joe Bauer]

I read Marita's testimony about seeing Lee Harvey Oswald in person from 1960 thru 1962.

On it's face it seems illogical and contrived.

Her standing by her Oswald encounter testimony was very frustrating for her questioner who had to keep reminding her that Lee Harvey Oswald was out of the country during the time Marita claims she interacted with him.

Only one explanation could be possible to make Marita's story about Oswald true.

And that is there was an Oswald impersonator during this time.

Either the one in Florida Marita claims to have occasionally seen during those two years.

Or, the one living in Russia and living with Marina Oswald.

[Jim Hargrove]

Joe,

Marita Lorenz was hardly the only person who saw LEE Harvey Oswald in the U.S. at the very same time Lee HARVEY Oswald was in Russia.  For example, the famous Bolton Ford incident occurred during this exact period, and there is much more.  See:

Harvey in Russia... Lee in the USA
 

[Douglas Caddy]

Retired NYPD Detective James Rothstein knew Marita and her daughter, Monica, for decades. He told me yesterday that not once did Marita ever lie to him. She told it like it was. She was an original who led an extraordinary life, one that most persons cannot begin to understand, including the investigator for Congress who interviewed her. She was also a killer who probably murdered a dozen bad guys during her lifetime, including a man who had just escaped from prison and had the bad luck of randomly choosing her where she was staying under a form of witness protection to be his next rape victim. She realized what was a stake and let the criminal proceed with his act and in the midst of it pulled a knife out from under the bed and cut his throat, cut off a certain part of his body and then tossed the his body out the front door.

[Jim Hargrove]

19 hours ago, David Andrews said:

Her HSCA testimony was judged unreliable - yet no perjury charge, against which she was warned.

David.... about this, John A. wrote:

NOTE: According to Marita, CIA agent Frank Fiorini/Sturgis knew Lee Oswald ("Ozzie") in Florida and, after the assassination, tried repeatedly to link "Lee Harvey Oswald" with Castro. Fiorini/ Sturgis was definitely one of the conspirators.

Pressured by her attorney, and possibly threatened with charges of perjury, Marita Lorenz later recanted her testimony regarding the dates she saw Oswald in Florida. But what the HSCA still failed to understand was that Lee Harvey Oswald was never in Florida at any time from 1960-1963. [H&L p. 311]

But American-born Lee Harvey Oswald was.

[David Andrews]

5 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

David.... about this, John A. wrote:

NOTE: According to Marita, CIA agent Frank Fiorini/Sturgis knew Lee Oswald ("Ozzie") in Florida and, after the assassination, tried repeatedly to link "Lee Harvey Oswald" with Castro. Fiorini/ Sturgis was definitely one of the conspirators.

Pressured by her attorney, and possibly threatened with charges of perjury, Marita Lorenz later recanted her testimony regarding the dates she saw Oswald in Florida. But what the HSCA still failed to understand was that Lee Harvey Oswald was never in Florida at any time from 1960-1963. [H&L p. 311]

But American-born Lee Harvey Oswald was.

I hadn't known that she recanted.  I had thought that the perjury threat faded because HSCA couldn't agree on whether she was "lying."

The pages you linked to at the Harvey and Lee website provide enough anecdotal evidence that an "Oswald" was operating in the US Gulf region while another was in Russia.

Edited September 7, 2019 by David Andrews

[Guest]

Did anyone say Marita met Oswald in Fl?

 

Thanks to Malcolm Blunt.