Chuck Schwartz

(5) 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.

(6) 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.

Oswald Talked

Assignment: Oswald

• Marina Oswald : Biography
• Primary Sources
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