Questions for Marina Oswald

[Tim Gratz]

Suggest your questions, please.

[Stuart Wexler]

Suggest your questions, please.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Here are several possibilities:

1) Does she still stand by her statements to the effect that, when she was with Oswald in 1963, he was home virtually every night?

2) Did she know or does she know Kerry Thornley?

3) Follow up to #2. How does she react to the handful of witnesses who put Marina in the company of Thornley, one going so far as to say that she thought Thornley was Marina's husband based on the number of times she saw them together?

4) What was her reaction to Oswald's arrest in August of 1963? Does she have any specific recollection as to how he got of jail on the 10th?

5) Does she have any recollection of Oswald visiting Baton Rouge?

6) According to Ruth Kloepfer, Oswald openly hit on Ruth with a pregnant Marina watching (right before their return to Dallas). Does Marina recall this? How did she react?

7) Gus Russo reported that Oswald's rooming house "mates" recall that he was driven to and from the rooming house consistently. This, according to Russo, is an unidentified person not Frazier. Does Marina have any idea about this? Did Oswald ever talk about this?

8) Did Oswald talk about returning to the Soviet Union in Aug-September of 63 or anytime after?

9) A very bizarre question: did Lee ever shave his pubic hair? I ask only because his autopsy report describes shaven pubic hair.

10) Did she ever suspect that Oswald may have been bisexual?

--- Hopefully Greg Parker will chime in with a couple of questions regarding Jon Pic. I don't want to scoop him ---

-Stu

[Carrie Gallagher-Driscoll]

The only statement she has changed is that she believed Oswald did it. However, keep in mind, Marina was a Russian wife who spoke very little English living with a man she THOUGHT he knew and didn't. I've asked her most of those questins over the years. Then I realized something: Marina didn't do it. She wasn't there when it happened. So, she knew as much about what her husband was doing most days as I know. He's at work right now. Which is where Oswald was on November 22, 1963 and most other days. I look at Oswald and I realize he was just a name. No one really knows anything about him. How many FACTS do we really have? I don't know of anything. Everything is contradicted. No fact is supported and firm. It's all speculation. Marina took the backyard photos. But what does that mean? He did take a pot shot at a military official. Does that mean he did or did not kill a President? No. How many of you would LIKE to do something like that? Does that mean you're all assassins?

Anyhow, I am rambling. Marina has been fairly consistent with ME (I can;t speak for anyone else) the whole time I've known her. Granted, speaking Russian I may have gotten some translations wrong. Though, in English conversations, she stays the same.

Hope that helps.

-C

[John Simkin]

Some points that need discussing:

(1) In 1957 she moved to Minsk where she lived with her uncle, Ilya Prusakova, who worked at the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). Is this important?

(2) Marina claimed that on 12th April, 1963, Oswald attempted to assassinate General Edwin Walker. Marina reported that she "asked him what happened, and he said that he just tried to shoot General Walker. I asked him who General Walker was. I mean how dare you to go and claim somebody's life, and he said "Well, what would you say if somebody got rid of Hitler at the right time? So if you don't know about General Walker, how can you speak up on his behalf?." Because he told me... he was something equal to what he called him a fascist."

Other evidence suggests that Oswald was not guilty of this shooting attempt. If that is the case, why did Marina claim that it was Oswald who shot at Walker.

(3) Marina's relationship with Ruth Paine and George De Mohrenschildt needs explaining?

(4) After the assassination of JFK Marina was taken by the FBI and kept at the Inn of the Six Flags Hotel. Threatened with deportation, she agreed to give the authorities all the information she had. Some of this was information was later used by the Warren Commission to suggest that Oswald was the lone assassin.

Once Oswald was dead it made sense for Marina to agree to the FBI story in order that she was not deported. Does that explain point 2 above.

(5) Marina told the Warren Commission that the rifle found on the sixth floor was "the fateful rifle of Lee Oswald." As the historian Michael Kurtz, (Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination From a Historians Perspective) has pointed out this "statement is meaningless, since Marina Oswald's expertise in firearms identification included her inability even to distinguish between a rifle and a shotgun."

(6) Kurtz also points out: "She (Marina) also told the commission that the rifle was wrapped up inside a blanket in the garage of the home in Irving, Texas, where she lived between 24 September and 22 November 1963. The owners of the Irving home, Ruth and Michael Paine, both testified they had actually picked up the blanket and moved it around in the garage and were completely unaware that it contained a rifle."

(7) In September 1988 Marina gave an interview to the Ladies Home Journal. This included the following:

''I'm not saying that Lee is innocent, that he didn't know about the conspiracy or was not a part of it, but I am saying he's not necessarily guilty of murder. At first, I thought that Jack Ruby (who killed Oswald two days after the assassination) was swayed by passion; all of America was grieving. But later, we found that he had connections with the underworld. Now, I think Lee was killed to keep his mouth shut.''

''I believe he (oswald) worked for the American government... He was taught the Russian language when he was in the military. Do you think that is usual, that an ordinary soldier is taught Russian? Also, he got in and out of Russia quite easily, and he got me out quite easily.''

(8) In April 1996 Marina wrote: "At the time of the assassination of this great president whom I loved, I was misled by the "evidence" presented to me by government authorities and I assisted in the conviction of Lee Harvey Oswald as the assassin. From the new information now available, I am now convinced that he was an FBI informant and believe that he did not kill President Kennedy."

[John Simkin]

Some sources that show how Marina has changed her mind about her husband over the years.

(1) San Jose Mercury News (28th September, 1988)

Twenty-five years after the assassination of President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald's widow says she now believes Oswald did not act alone in the killing.

''I think he was caught between two powers - the government and organized crime,'' said Marina Oswald Porter in the November issue of Ladies' Home Journal, published Tuesday.

Testimony by Oswald's widow, who married Dallas carpenter Kenneth Porter in 1965, helped the Warren Commission conclude that a deranged Oswald acted alone in the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination.

''When I was questioned by the Warren Commission, I was a blind kitten,'' she said. The commission, appointed to investigate the assassination, concluded it was the work of a single gunman, Oswald. But in 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, relying in part on acoustical evidence, concluded that a conspiracy was likely and that it may have involved organized crime.

Since then, Porter, 47, has drawn new conclusions. ''I don't know if Lee shot him,'' she said. ''I'm not saying that Lee is innocent, that he didn't know about the conspiracy or was not a part of it, but I am saying he's not necessarily guilty of murder.''

''At first, I thought that Jack Ruby (who killed Oswald two days after the assassination) was swayed by passion; all of America was grieving,'' she said. ''But later, we found that he had connections with the underworld. Now, I think Lee was killed to keep his mouth shut.''

Porter said that in retrospect, Oswald seemed professionally schooled in secretiveness, ''and I believe he worked for the American government.''

''He was taught the Russian language when he was in the military. Do you think that is usual, that an ordinary soldier is taught Russian? Also, he got in and out of Russia quite easily, and he got me out quite easily,'' said the Russian-born Porter. She had emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1961 after marrying Oswald, who had defected to the Soviets and then changed his mind and returned to the United States.

In the months preceding the assassination, a man posing as Oswald reportedly appeared in several public places in the Dallas area.

''I learned afterward that someone who said he was Lee had been going around looking to buy a car, having a drink in a bar. I'm telling you, Lee did not drink, and he didn't know how to drive.

''And afterward, the FBI took me to a store in Fort Worth where Lee was supposed to have gone to buy a gun. Someone even described me and said I was with him. This woman was wearing a maternity outfit like one I had. But I had never been there,'' she said.

Porter said she hopes the truth will emerge when the Warren Commission materials are declassified.

''Look, I'm walking through the woods, trying to find a path, just like all of us,'' she said. ''The only difference is, I have a little bit of insight. Only half the truth has been told.''

(2) Marina Oswald Porter, letter to John Tunheim (19th April, 1996)

I am writing to you regarding the release of still classified documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy and to my former husband, Lee Harvey Oswald.

Specifically, I am writing to ask about documents I have learned of from a recent book and from a story in the Washington Post by the authors of the same book (as well as other documents they have described to me). The book reviews Dallas police, FBI, and CIA files released since 1992, and places them in the context of previously known information. I would like to know what the Review Board is doing to obtain the following:

1. The Dallas field office and headquarters FBI reports on the arrests of Donnell D. Whitter and Lawrence R. Miller in Dallas on November 18, 1963 with a carload of stolen US army weapons. I believe that Lee Oswald was the FBI informant who made these arrests possible. I would also like to know what your board has done to obtain the reports of the US Marshal and the US Army on the same arrests, and the burglary these men were suspected of.

2. The records of the FBI interrogations of John Franklin Elrod, John Forrester Gedney and Harold Doyle (the latter men were previously known as two of the "three tramps") in the Dallas jail November 22-24, 1963. All of these men have stated that they were interrogated during that time by the FBI.

3. The official explanation of why the arrest records for Mr. Elrod, Mr. Gedney and Mr. Doyle, as well as for Daniel Wayne Douglas and Gus Abrams were placed "under federal seal" in the Dallas Police Records Division for 26 years as described by Dallas City Archives supervisor Laura McGhee to the FBI in 1992.

4. The full records of the interrogation of Lee Harvey Oswald, including his interrogation in the presence of John Franklin Elrod as described by Elrod in an FBI report dated August 11, 1964.

5. The reports of army intelligence agent Ed J. Coyle on his investigation of Captain George Nonte, John Thomas Masen, Donnell D. Whitter, Lawrence R. Miller, and/or Jack Ruby. I am also requesting that you obtain agent Coyle's reports as army liaison for presidential protection on November 22, 1963 (as described by Coyle's commanding officer Col. Robert Jones in sworn testimony to the House Select Committee on Assassinations). If the army does not immediately produce these documents, they should be required to produce agent Coyle to explain what happened to his reports.

6. Secret Service reports and tapes of that agency's investigation of Father Walter Machann and Silvia Odio in 1963-64.

7. Reports of the FBI investigation of Cuban exiles in Dallas, to include known but still classified documents on Fermin de Goicochea Sanchez, Father Walter Machann and the Dallas Diocese Catholic Cuban Relocation Committee. These would include informant files for Father Machann and/or reports of interviews of Father Machann by Dallas FBI agent W. Heitman.

8. The full particulars and original of the teletype received by Mr. William Walter in the New Orleans FBI office on the morning of November 17, 1963, warning of a possible assassination attempt on President Kennedy in Dallas. I now believe that my former husband met with the Dallas FBI on November 16, 1963, and provided informant information on which this teletype was based.

9. A full report of Lee Harvey Oswald's visit to the Dallas FBI office on November 16, 1963.

10. A full account of FBI agent James P. Hosty's claim (in his recent book, Assignment Oswald) that Lee Harvey Oswald knew of a planned "paramilitary invasion of Cuba" by "a group of right wing Cuban exiles in outlying areas of New Orleans." We now know that such an invasion was indeed planned by a Cuban group operating on CIA payroll in Miami, New Orleans, and Dallas - the same group infiltrated by Lee Oswald. We know this information only from documents released since 1992, as described in the book I have mentioned. On what basis did agent Hosty believe Lee "had learned" of these plans, unless Lee himself told him this? I am therefore specifically requesting the release of the informant report that Lee Oswald provided to agent Hosty and/or other FBI personnel on this intelligence information.

The time for the Review Board to obtain and release the most important documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy is running out. At the time of the assassination of this great president whom I loved, I was misled by the "evidence" presented to me by government authorities and I assisted in the conviction of Lee Harvey Oswald as the assassin. From the new information now available, I am now convinced that he was an FBI informant and believe that he

did not kill President Kennedy. It is time for Americans to know their full history. On this day when I and all Americans are grieving for the victims of Oklahoma City, I am also thinking of my children and grandchildren, and of all American children, when I insist that your board give the highest priority to the release of the documents I have listed. This is the duty you were charged with by law. Anything else is unacceptable - not just to me, but to all patriotic Americans.

(3) Marina Oswald Porter, statement published on 17th September, 1996.

When I came to this country I came as a friend. I was then and am now. When the assassination happened I believed it was my obligation - anybody's obligation - to abide by the law of this land. I testified to the Warren Commission and I obliged any request the government made of me. I agreed with the findings of the Warren Commission not because I really understood everything about it, but because I had enough trust that they investigated honestly and that the conclusions they came to were based on the highest form of investigation. So, with my blind faith, I accepted their conclusions. Of course, at that time lots of people in this country who knew more about what was going on questioned the findings of the commission. And I defended the commission against those people, and I wanted all those so-called conspiracy people to just go away. Then there was a second investigation because the people demanded it. This was the investigation of the U.S. House Select Committee. And I testified for them. And their conclusion was possible conspiracy, meaning that the assassination involved more than one person, and they stopped it at that. Even then, I wasn't very pleased. I wasn't very pleased because when I was testifying for them and I thought they were honest - after so many years, and because the people demanded it I asked them questions that would be answered just for me, and I was told that I was there only to answer questions, not to ask them. So I knew that that investigation was doomed.

And how can I respect the conclusions of the House Select Committee, when they locked up their records?

I gave the two investigations everything I had. Then later I found out that the FBI knew more about me than I knew about myself. Literally, even my underwear was investigated. And I have no problem - they didn't have to trust me, why should they? I don't hold anything against that. But my private matters were investigated - even when they had all the proof that I was nobody's "spy" and I feel that this was for blackmail - my house was bugged, and I saw pictures of me which I knew nobody but the FBI could have done. I've seen with my own eyes that any kind of gossip from people even remotely related to me by name in Russia - any kind of nonsense - is in the record. You cannot be more thorough than that. And even so, I don't object. But now I think, it's my turn to ask the questions and for the FBI to clean their own laundry. I don't want to know everything about the FBI, but since they claim that I am wife of the assassin, and I have to defend myself , only in that regard am I sticking my nose in their business. And I'm not begging for answers. I think I've earned them, and I think they should give them to me.

[Gary Buell]

Suggest your questions, please.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Did she ever meet Robert Webster?

[Tim Gratz]

Great stuff, John!

Gary's question was an excellent one as well.

Edited August 17, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Stuart Wexler]

Carrie,

Have you ever asked her about Thornley? And have you asked her if she maintains the statements re: Oswald home every night? Both are very important questions.

-Stu

[Carolyn Hanson]

As a young teen I lived in Abilene, Texas, in the early 60's. Around 1962-63 a young Russian woman with a baby girl moved into an inexpensive upstairs duplex apartment down the street from me. Each day this beautiful woman with dark hair and heavy Russian accent strolled down our out-of-the-way street, pushing her baby in a large, dark baby carriage. My girlfriend and I would walk with her often and enjoyed her company.

Due to her difficulty in speaking English very well, and because she seemed to be a very private person, we didn't plague her with too many questions about herself. I remember she said she was from Russia, and that she was selling magazines to help make a living. She also said her husband would be sending for her soon.

As she pushed the baby carriage, she always kept her head bent down looking at her baby, and seldom looked up or around. I don't remember what the woman called herself, but when we asked about the baby, she said she called her something that sounded to me like Lil Bee-Aye-Sha. She said that meant Little Bear in Russian, saying the bear was a symbol of her native country.

She lived there a very short time and moved out during the night. The next day we checked her apartment, and it was empty. I would like to ask Marina Oswald if she ever lived in Abilene, Texas, even if for a very brief time. Or was this just a strange coincidence.

[Nic Martin]

As a young teen I lived in Abilene, Texas, in the early 60's. Around 1962-63 a young Russian woman with a baby girl moved into an inexpensive upstairs duplex apartment down the street from me. Each day this beautiful woman with dark hair and heavy Russian accent strolled down our out-of-the-way street, pushing her baby in a large, dark baby carriage. My girlfriend and I would walk with her often and enjoyed her company.

Due to her difficulty in speaking English very well, and because she seemed to be a very private person, we didn't plague her with too many questions about herself. I remember she said she was from Russia, and that she was selling magazines to help make a living. She also said her husband would be sending for her soon.

As she pushed the baby carriage, she always kept her head bent down looking at her baby, and seldom looked up or around. I don't remember what the woman called herself, but when we asked about the baby, she said she called her something that sounded to me like Lil Bee-Aye-Sha. She said that meant Little Bear in Russian, saying the bear was a symbol of her native country.

She lived there a very short time and moved out during the night. The next day we checked her apartment, and it was empty. I would like to ask Marina Oswald if she ever lived in Abilene, Texas, even if for a very brief time. Or was this just a strange coincidence.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

First off, it couldn't have been 1963.

1.) Marina Rachel Oswald was born October 20, 1963.

2.) On April 24, 1963 is when Marina moved in with Ruth Paine.

3.) We know Lee & Marina were living together in February 1963, because that's when they were introduced to the Paines by George DeMohrenschildt.

Secondly..

LHO didn't get permission to bring Marina to the US until June 1962. There's no documented time of him leaving her alone when she wasn't living with Ruth Paine.

Therefore, I think your experience was just a coincidence.

Edited August 23, 2005 by Nic Martin

[John Simkin]

I think this document explains why Marina Oswald told the FBI what they wanted to hear.

Telephone conversation between Lyndon B. Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover (1.40 pm, 29th November, 1963)

Lyndon B. Johnson: How many shots were fired? Three?

J. Edgar Hoover: Three.

Lyndon B. Johnson: Any of them fired at me?

J. Edgar Hoover: No.

Lyndon B. Johnson: All three at the President?

J. Edgar Hoover: All three at the president and we have them. Two of the shots fired at the President were splintered but they had characteristics on them so that our ballistics expert was able to prove that they were fired by this gun. The President - he was hit by the first and third. The second shot hit the Governor the third shot is a complete bullet and that rolled out of the President's head It tore a large part of the President's head off and, in trying to massage his heart at the hospital on the way to the hospital, they apparently loosened that and it fell off onto the stretcher. And we recovered that... And we have the gun here also.

Lyndon B. Johnson: Were they aiming at the President?

J. Edgar Hoover: They were aiming directly at the President. There is no question about that. This telescopic lens, which I've looked through-it brings a person as close to you as if they were sitting right beside you. And we also have tested the fact that you could fire those three shots... within three seconds. There had been some stories going around... that there must have been more than one man because no one man could fire those shots in the time that they were fired...

Lyndon B. Johnson: How did it happen they hit Connally?

J. Edgar Hoover: Connally turned to the President when the first shot was fired and I think in that turning, it was where he got hit.

Lyndon B. Johnson: If he hadn't turned, he probably wouldn't have got hit?

J. Edgar Hoover: I think that is very likely.

Lyndon B. Johnson: Would the President've got hit with the second one?

J. Edgar Hoover: No, the President wasn't hit with the second one.

Lyndon B. Johnson: I say, if Connally hadn't been in his way?

J. Edgar Hoover: Oh, yes, yes, the President would no doubt have been hit.

Lyndon B. Johnson: He would have been hit three times.

J. Edgar Hoover: He would have been hit three times from the fifth floor of that building where we found the gun and the wrapping paper in which the gun was wrapped... and upon which we found the full fingerprints of this man Oswald. On that floor we found the three empty shells that had been fired and one shell that had not been fired... He then threw the gun aside and came down. At the entrance of the building, he was stopped by a police officer and some manager in the building told the police officer, "Well, he's all right. He works there. You needn't hold him." They let him go... And then he got on a bus... He went out to his home and got ahold of a jacket.... and he came back downtown... and the police officer who was killed stopped him, not knowing'who he was and not knowing whether he was the man, but just on suspicion. And he fired, of course, and killed the police officer. Then he walked.

Lyndon B. Johnson: You can prove that?

J. Edgar Hoover: Oh, yes, oh, yes, we can prove that. Then he walked about another two blocks and went to the theater and the woman at the theater window selling the tickets, she was so suspicious the way he was acting, she said he was carrying a gun... He went into the theater and she notified the police and the police and our man down there went in there and located this particular man. They had quite a struggle with him. He fought like a regular lion and he had to be subdued, of course, and was then brought out and... taken to the police headquarters....

Lyndon B. Johnson: Well your conclusion is: (1) he's the one that did it; (2) the man he was after was the President; (3) he would have hit him three times, except the Governor turned.

J. Edgar Hoover: I think that is correct.

Lyndon B. Johnson: (4) That there is no connection between he and Ruby that you can detect now. And (5) whether he was connected with the Cuban operation with money, you're trying to...

J. Edgar Hoover: That's what we're trying to nail down now, because he was strongly pro-Castro, he was strongly anti-American, and he had been in correspondence, which we have, with the Soviet embassy here in Washington and with the American Civil Liberties Union and with this Committee for Fair Play to Cuba... None of those letters, however, dealt with any indication of violence or contemplated assassination. They were dealing with the matter of a visa for his wife to go back to Russia. Now there is one angle to this thing that I'm hopeful to get some word on today. This woman, his wife, had been very hostile. She would not cooperate, speaks... Russian only. She did say to us yesterday down there that if we could give her assurance that she would be allowed to remain in this country, she might cooperate. I told our agents down there to give her that assurance... and I sent a Russian-speaking agent into Dallas last night to interview her.... Whether she knows anything or talks anything, I, of course, don't know and won't know till -

[Robert Howard]

I think this document explains why Marina Oswald told the FBI what they wanted to hear.

Telephone conversation between Lyndon B. Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover (1.40 pm, 29th November, 1963)

Lyndon B. Johnson: How many shots were fired? Three?

J. Edgar Hoover: Three.

Lyndon B. Johnson: Any of them fired at me?

J. Edgar Hoover: No.

Lyndon B. Johnson: All three at the President?

J. Edgar Hoover: All three at the president and we have them. Two of the shots fired at the President were splintered but they had characteristics on them so that our ballistics expert was able to prove that they were fired by this gun. The President - he was hit by the first and third. The second shot hit the Governor the third shot is a complete bullet and that rolled out of the President's head It tore a large part of the President's head off and, in trying to massage his heart at the hospital on the way to the hospital, they apparently loosened that and it fell off onto the stretcher. And we recovered that... And we have the gun here also.

Lyndon B. Johnson: Were they aiming at the President?

J. Edgar Hoover: They were aiming directly at the President. There is no question about that. This telescopic lens, which I've looked through-it brings a person as close to you as if they were sitting right beside you. And we also have tested the fact that you could fire those three shots... within three seconds. There had been some stories going around... that there must have been more than one man because no one man could fire those shots in the time that they were fired...

Lyndon B. Johnson: How did it happen they hit Connally?

J. Edgar Hoover: Connally turned to the President when the first shot was fired and I think in that turning, it was where he got hit.

Lyndon B. Johnson: If he hadn't turned, he probably wouldn't have got hit?

J. Edgar Hoover: I think that is very likely.

Lyndon B. Johnson: Would the President've got hit with the second one?

J. Edgar Hoover: No, the President wasn't hit with the second one.

Lyndon B. Johnson: I say, if Connally hadn't been in his way?

J. Edgar Hoover: Oh, yes, yes, the President would no doubt have been hit.

Lyndon B. Johnson: He would have been hit three times.

J. Edgar Hoover: He would have been hit three times from the fifth floor of that building where we found the gun and the wrapping paper in which the gun was wrapped... and upon which we found the full fingerprints of this man Oswald. On that floor we found the three empty shells that had been fired and one shell that had not been fired... He then threw the gun aside and came down. At the entrance of the building, he was stopped by a police officer and some manager in the building told the police officer, "Well, he's all right. He works there. You needn't hold him." They let him go... And then he got on a bus... He went out to his home and got ahold of a jacket.... and he came back downtown... and the police officer who was killed stopped him, not knowing'who he was and not knowing whether he was the man, but just on suspicion. And he fired, of course, and killed the police officer. Then he walked.

Lyndon B. Johnson: You can prove that?

J. Edgar Hoover: Oh, yes, oh, yes, we can prove that. Then he walked about another two blocks and went to the theater and the woman at the theater window selling the tickets, she was so suspicious the way he was acting, she said he was carrying a gun... He went into the theater and she notified the police and the police and our man down there went in there and located this particular man. They had quite a struggle with him. He fought like a regular lion and he had to be subdued, of course, and was then brought out and... taken to the police headquarters....

Lyndon B. Johnson: Well your conclusion is: (1) he's the one that did it; (2) the man he was after was the President; (3) he would have hit him three times, except the Governor turned.

J. Edgar Hoover: I think that is correct.

Lyndon B. Johnson: (4) That there is no connection between he and Ruby that you can detect now. And (5) whether he was connected with the Cuban operation with money, you're trying to...

J. Edgar Hoover: That's what we're trying to nail down now, because he was strongly pro-Castro, he was strongly anti-American, and he had been in correspondence, which we have, with the Soviet embassy here in Washington and with the American Civil Liberties Union and with this Committee for Fair Play to Cuba... None of those letters, however, dealt with any indication of violence or contemplated assassination. They were dealing with the matter of a visa for his wife to go back to Russia. Now there is one angle to this thing that I'm hopeful to get some word on today. This woman, his wife, had been very hostile. She would not cooperate, speaks... Russian only. She did say to us yesterday down there that if we could give her assurance that she would be allowed to remain in this country, she might cooperate. I told our agents down there to give her that assurance... and I sent a Russian-speaking agent into Dallas last night to interview her.... Whether she knows anything or talks anything, I, of course, don't know and won't know till -

I know that the document is now over eight years old, but the questions posed may give an idea of where Marina herself, was looking in 1996 as to corroborate the fact that Oswald was not the Lone Nut the media has painted him out to be for the last 43 years, and where the research community perhaps should be looking as well.

Text of Letter to ARRB

April 19, 1996

Mr. John Tunheim, Chairman

JFK Assassination Records Review Board

600 E Street N.W., Second Floor

Washington, D.C. 20530

(Certified Mail No. P 271 942 632)

Dear Mr. Tunheim:

I am writing to you regarding the release of still

classified documents related to the assassination

of President Kennedy and to my former husband,

Lee Harvey Oswald.

Specifically, I am writing to ask about documents

I have learned of from a recent book and from a

story in the Washington Post by the authors of the

same book (as well as other documents they have

described to me). The book reviews Dallas police,

FBI, and CIA files released since 1992, and

places them in the context of previously known

information. I would like to know what the Review

Board is doing to obtain the following:

1. The Dallas field office and headquarters FBI

reports on the arrests of Donnell D. Whitter and

Lawrence R. Miller in Dallas on November 18, 1963

with a carload of stolen U.S. army weapons. I

believe that Lee Oswald was the FBI informant who

made these arrests possible. I would also like

to know what your board has done to obtain the

reports of the U.S. Marshal and the U.S. Army on

the same arrests, and the burglary these men were

suspected of.

2. The records of the FBI interrogations of John

Franklin Elrod, John Forrester Gedney and Harold

Doyle (the latter men were previously known as

two of the "three tramps") in the Dallas jail

November 22-24, 1963. All of these men have

stated that they were interrogated during that

time by the FBI.

3. The official explanation of why the arrest

records for Mr. Elrod, Mr. Gedney and Mr. Doyle,

as well as for Daniel Wayne Douglas and Gus

Abrams were placed "under federal seal" in the

Dallas Police Records Division for 26 years as

described by Dallas City Archives supervisor

Laura McGhee to the FBI in 1992.

4. The FULL records of the interrogation of Lee

Harvey Oswald, including his interrogation in

the presence of John Franklin Elrod as described

by Elrod in an FBI report dated August 11, 1964.

5. The reports of army intelligence agent Ed J.

Coyle on his investigation of Captain George

Nonte, John Thomas Masen, Donnell D. Whitter,

Lawrence R. Miller, and/or Jack Ruby. I am also

requesting that you obtain agent Coyle's reports

as army liason for presidential protection on

November 22, 1963 (as described by Coyle's

commanding officer Col. Robert Jones in sworn

testimony to the House Select Committee on

Assassinations). If the army does not

immediately produce these documents, they

should be required to produce agent Coyle to

explain what happened to his reports.

6. Secret Service reports and tapes of that

agency's investigation of Father Walter

Machann and Silvia Odio in 1963-64.

7. Reports of the FBI investigation of Cuban

exiles in Dallas, to include known but still

classified documents on Fermin de Goicochea

Sanchez, Father Walter Machann and the Dallas

Diocese Catholic Cuban Relocation Committee.

These would include informant files for Father

Machann and/or reports of interviews of Father

Machann by Dallas FBI agent W. Heitman.

8. The full particulars and original of the

teletype received by Mr. William Walter in the

New Orleans FBI office on the morning of

November 17, 1963, warning of a possible

assassination attempt on President Kennedy in

Dallas. I now believe that my former husband

met with the Dallas FBI on November 16, 1963,

and provided informant information on which

this teletype was based.

9. A full report of Lee Harvey Oswald's visit

to the Dallas FBI office on November 16, 1963.

10. A full account of FBI agent James P.

Hosty's claim (in his recent book, ASSIGNMENT:

OSWALD) that Lee Harvey Oswald knew of a planned

"paramilitary invasion of Cuba" by "a group of

right wing Cuban exiles in outlying areas of New

Orleans." We now know that such an invasion

was indeed planned by a Cuban group operating on

CIA payroll in Miami, New Orleans, and Dallas--

the same group infiltrated by Lee Oswald. We

know this information ONLY from documents

released since 1992, as described in the book I

have mentioned. On what basis did agent Hosty

believe Lee "had learned" of these plans, unless

Lee himself told him this? I am therefore

specifically requesting the release of the

informant report that Lee Oswald provided to

agent Hosty and/or other FBI personnel on this

intelligence information.

The time for the Review Board to obtain and

release the most important documents related to

the assassination of President Kennedy is running

out. At the time of the assassination of this

great president whom I loved, I was misled by

the "evidence" presented to me by government

authorities and I assisted in the conviction of

Lee Harvey Oswald as the assassin. From the new

information now available, I am now convinced

that he was an FBI informant and believe that he

did not kill President Kennedy. It is time for

Americans to know their full history. On this

day when I and all Americans are grieving for the

victims of Oklahoma City, I am also thinking of my

children and grandchildren, and of all American

children, when I insist that your board give the

highest priority to the release of the documents

I have listed. This is the duty you were charged

with by law. Anything else is unacceptable --

not just to me, but to all patriotic Americans.

Please be advised that this is an open letter,

and I intend to make it available to anyone who

wishes to see it. The time for secrecy in

government is over. I ask that you respond to

me in writing within two weeks, and will take

no further action until then.

Thank you for your attention to my requests.

Sincerely,

Marina Porter (signed)

cc: Rep. John Conyers Jr.

Rep. Newt Gingrich

Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez

Rep. Lee H. Hamilton

Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy

Sen. William S. Cohen

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy

Sen. Bob Kerrey

Sen. John Kerry

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Sen. Arlen Specter

[Thomas Graves]

Suggest your questions, please.

Question for Marina Oswald: Could Lee whistle?

FWIW, Thomas

[Greg Parker]

Suggest your questions, please.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Here are several possibilities:

1) Does she still stand by her statements to the effect that, when she was with Oswald in 1963, he was home virtually every night?

2) Did she know or does she know Kerry Thornley?

Hi Stu, if she still knows him, I'd be a bit concerned...

3) Follow up to #2. How does she react to the handful of witnesses who put Marina in the company of Thornley, one going so far as to say that she thought Thornley was Marina's husband based on the number of times she saw them together?

4) What was her reaction to Oswald's arrest in August of 1963? Does she have any specific recollection as to how he got of jail on the 10th?

5) Does she have any recollection of Oswald visiting Baton Rouge?

6) According to Ruth Kloepfer, Oswald openly hit on Ruth with a pregnant Marina watching (right before their return to Dallas). Does Marina recall this? How did she react?

To clarify, Ruth and Henry (Warner) Klopefer had a daughter also named Ruth. It is the daughter being referred to here. However, it should be added that it was young Ruth's impression she was being hit on -- and maybe that's all it was - a (wrong) impression. Though impossibly attractive, she was also nevertheless, somewhat sheltered and a little naive.

7) Gus Russo reported that Oswald's rooming house "mates" recall that he was driven to and from the rooming house consistently. This, according to Russo, is an unidentified person not Frazier. Does Marina have any idea about this? Did Oswald ever talk about this?

8) Did Oswald talk about returning to the Soviet Union in Aug-September of 63 or anytime after?

9) A very bizarre question: did Lee ever shave his pubic hair? I ask only because his autopsy report describes shaven pubic hair.

Good question.

10) Did she ever suspect that Oswald may have been bisexual?

Possibly related to the above?

--- Hopefully Greg Parker will chime in with a couple of questions regarding Jon Pic. I don't want to scoop him ---

I'm wondering what the purpose is of Tim's request for questions. Is he planning on putting these questions to her?

Re Pic:

why was she discussing morphine and dicain with him? Was the third word she wrote in his notebook a reference to heroin ("heroica")?

The words Pic wrote were the names of emzymes, and blood waste products. They can all be related to pathology carried out post radiation treatment -- including human radiation experiments, for instance, one of the enzymes was transtaminase -- a Dr Petersen related during an oral history on human radiation experiments that "my interest had been in radiation effects on enzymes. That was start[ing] to develop here [Los Alamos]." The USAF hospital where Pic was in charge of the Special Pathology Unit was named in the 1990s as conducting such experiments. Was this what Pic was dicussing with her?

Was she aware that Pic had worked for the Port Security Unit when Lee was living with him, and that the PSU was solely involved with ridding the docks of alleged subversives... and did so with the help of FBI and ONI informants?

Why did they have these written medical conversations at all if idle chit-chat was the purpose, and Lee could have interpreted for them on any old mundane subject?

On other matters...

Why did she need dental work so badly in the USA when the USSR had free dental?

Specifically, what work was done on her teeth?

When attendting ESL classes at the University of Michigan, did she meet Alexander Orlov, who worked at the Law School there at the same time, and if so, was he in fact the same Orlov whom George DeM brought along on his initial visit? DeM said in testimony this was a "Lawrence Orlov"... but no investigation of this person was done bt WC, FBI or HSCA, so DeM's claim was never verified.

Was she Niki's daughter?

-Stu

[Gerry Hemming]

Suggest your questions, please.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Here are several possibilities:

1) Does she still stand by her statements to the effect that, when she was with Oswald in 1963, he was home virtually every night?

2) Did she know or does she know Kerry Thornley?

Hi Stu, if she still knows him, I'd be a bit concerned...

3) Follow up to #2. How does she react to the handful of witnesses who put Marina in the company of Thornley, one going so far as to say that she thought Thornley was Marina's husband based on the number of times she saw them together?

4) What was her reaction to Oswald's arrest in August of 1963? Does she have any specific recollection as to how he got of jail on the 10th?

5) Does she have any recollection of Oswald visiting Baton Rouge?

6) According to Ruth Kloepfer, Oswald openly hit on Ruth with a pregnant Marina watching (right before their return to Dallas). Does Marina recall this? How did she react?

To clarify, Ruth and Henry (Warner) Klopefer had a daughter also named Ruth. It is the daughter being referred to here. However, it should be added that it was young Ruth's impression she was being hit on -- and maybe that's all it was - a (wrong) impression. Though impossibly attractive, she was also nevertheless, somewhat sheltered and a little naive.

7) Gus Russo reported that Oswald's rooming house "mates" recall that he was driven to and from the rooming house consistently. This, according to Russo, is an unidentified person not Frazier. Does Marina have any idea about this? Did Oswald ever talk about this?

8) Did Oswald talk about returning to the Soviet Union in Aug-September of 63 or anytime after?

9) A very bizarre question: did Lee ever shave his pubic hair? I ask only because his autopsy report describes shaven pubic hair.

Good question.

10) Did she ever suspect that Oswald may have been bisexual?

Possibly related to the above?

--- Hopefully Greg Parker will chime in with a couple of questions regarding Jon Pic. I don't want to scoop him ---

I'm wondering what the purpose is of Tim's request for questions. Is he planning on putting these questions to her?

Re Pic:

why was she discussing morphine and dicain with him? Was the third word she wrote in his notebook a reference to heroin ("heroica")?

The words Pic wrote were the names of emzymes, and blood waste products. They can all be related to pathology carried out post radiation treatment -- including human radiation experiments, for instance, one of the enzymes was transtaminase -- a Dr Petersen related during an oral history on human radiation experiments that "my interest had been in radiation effects on enzymes. That was start[ing] to develop here [Los Alamos]." The USAF hospital where Pic was in charge of the Special Pathology Unit was named in the 1990s as conducting such experiments. Was this what Pic was dicussing with her?

Was she aware that Pic had worked for the Port Security Unit when Lee was living with him, and that the PSU was solely involved with ridding the docks of alleged subversives... and did so with the help of FBI and ONI informants?

Why did they have these written medical conversations at all if idle chit-chat was the purpose, and Lee could have interpreted for them on any old mundane subject?

On other matters...

Why did she need dental work so badly in the USA when the USSR had free dental?

Specifically, what work was done on her teeth?

When attendting ESL classes at the University of Michigan, did she meet Alexander Orlov, who worked at the Law School there at the same time, and if so, was he in fact the same Orlov whom George DeM brought along on his initial visit? DeM said in testimony this was a "Lawrence Orlov"... but no investigation of this person was done bt WC, FBI or HSCA, so DeM's claim was never verified.

Was she Niki's daughter?

-Stu

---------------------------

Greg, Stu -- et al.:

Thornley was one of the MACS-9 [MCAF Santa Ana (LTA)] clowns who showed up in Habana [uninvited] around the same time that LHO did.

Nelson Delgado, and others at the Marine GCI unit ["Swanny Approach Control"] who turned down the "recruiting efforts" and therefore never went to Cuba.

GPH

__________________________