How did Hosty expect to talk to Marina?

[Steve Thomas]

2 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

Interview of Former Special Agent James P. Hosty (1952 – 1979)  by Jack O’Flaherty, Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, on March 8, 2006: 

We had an investigation on her under the SOBIR Program, that’s the Soviet Bloc Immigrants and Repatriates Program. They had information, good information from informants, defectors that the Soviets were going to infiltrate the United States with immigrants and repatriates to build up an illegal network of espionage in the event that the diplomatic immunity was taken away from the Embassy people and they could no longer operate.  Then they would have a network in this country. There were certain criteria; they had to be within a certain age limit, had to have a certain educational limit and come from Soviet Bloc countries. 
 
Marina fit the category perfectly.  She was the only the third known Soviet spouse allowed to leave the Soviet Union with their non-Soviet spouse and go to the west.  It turns out, we didn’t have it at the time, but as the investigation continued it turned out that Marina’s uncle, the man who raised her, she was an orphan, was raised by her uncle and aunt, her mother’s brother was a MVD Colonel, a full colonel in the MVD in the Gulag section of the prison section.  Also, she was a registered pharmacist or the equivalent, the Russian equivalent of a pharmacist so she was not an ignorant little peasant girl as the press tried to pretend she was.  You know, the sweet little girl.  She was one tough cookie.  I interviewed her after the assassination and believe me she isn’t what people think she was. 
 
I’m not saying that she was involved.  I don’t think she was involved in the assassination of Kennedy but we were looking at her for other reasons. 
 

Gene,

 

Thanks for this. It fills in some blanks for me. "Only the third known Soviet spouse" huh? That's interesting.

Like Hosty, I've been wondering lately if Marina wasn't involved in something else, and then the assassination happened. It would have been nice if Hosty could have expounded on what the "other reasons for looking at her" were. Is the full interview online anywhere?

 

MVD and not GRU? I wonder where that came from?

 

It's those damned colonels again, I'm tellin ya...

 

Steve Thomas

[Pamela Brown]

On 1/30/2018 at 11:31 PM, Ron Bulman said:

Do I remember right and Marina once said "follow the money" on some show in the 90's.  Did she (maybe unknowingly) mean to the Rockefeller's  and Rothschild's? 

I had not heard that.  Do you have a cite for that?  Interesting...

[Gene Kelly]

Steve:

I'm not sure how the FBI would have an accurate count of Soviet spouses allowed to defect to the West.  As Marina's legend goes, her father had been killed in the war and she lived with her stepfather and mother in Archangel, in the far north of Russia.  She then moved to Moldova as a small child and then to Leningrad at age 12.  Her Mother, Klavdia, died in 1957 and she moved to Minsk to live with her Uncle Ilya (and his wife Valya), a colonel in the MVD, the Soviet Interior Ministry security service.  The notion of no father or mother invokes the imaginative portrait of an orphan being crafted into a deep-cover sleeper agent (and parallels that of Lee Harvey himself).  Her testimony over the years contains contradictions and inconsistencies (e.g. she entered a pharmacy school -  Pharmacy Technikum - for what the Warren Report later characterized “special training” when she was 14 years old).  According to certain authors, Young Marina Prusakova's  job in the health sector was a cover; she was actually a personal office clerk in the GRU.  Marina is said to have associated with diplomats and high government bureaucrats in Leningrad, and her "clientele" allegedly was foreigners (she would later vaguely admit to being raped by an Afghan ambassador). The CIA purportedly wrote a 29-point report suspecting her of being an intelligence agent.  At the beginning of the ARRB (during the 30th anniversary of the assassination), Marina was briefly open to discussion about her early Leningrad experiences.  She was somehow involved with the LaFontaine’s and their 1996 book, "Oswald Talked".  She also appeared on Oprah and refuted her original testimony about the rifle (she has since refused to make appearances). The INS in Dallas, Texas, have a file (A12530645) on Marina Nikolaevna Oswald, nee Prusakova.

Gene

 

Edited January 24, 2019 by Gene Kelly

[Ron Bulman]

5 hours ago, Pamela Brown said:

I had not heard that.  Do you have a cite for that?  Interesting...

No Mam I don't.  So I probably shouldn't have posted it.  It was from an internet post, not out of a book.  The main two sites I've read and eventually started posing on about the assassination are here and jfkfacts.  I think I's been at lest 3-4 years ago if not more.  I'm pretty sure it had a link to a really grainy television talk show interview.  I thought maybe someone else might remember better than I.

[Paul Trejo]

2 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

...According to certain authors, Young Marina Prusakova's  job in the health sector was a cover; she was actually a personal office clerk in the GRU.  

Gene

"According to certain authors..."

How far we've fallen from careful research.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited February 1, 2018 by Paul Trejo

[Joe Bauer]

On 1/31/2018 at 9:39 AM, Steve Thomas said:

Joe,

 

I do not want to make light of your thoughts. It's obvious that you have spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I respect that.

 

I do not know if Marina was a sleeper agent or not. I haven't come to a conclusion.

My only thoughts were:

If Gary Taylor can be believed, at 23 years of age, Marina was making four times what Lee was making in the Soviet Union. Who do you think was the breadwinner here?

Steve, thanks for the respectful response.

First, could you explain why Marina making more income than Lee in Russia is important? Maybe she thought this situation would reverse itself in America?

Marina marries Oswald six weeks after meeting him. (She did the same with Kenneth Porter. She married him one month after meeting him).

Millions of young couples marry almost immediately after they meet, especially one's from poorer backgrounds. I asked my wife to marry me after only two months of meeting her.

The mercurial 1 month Porter thing is curious, but maybe Marina was just that instantly and fully gratified by him?

She's got an uncle who's a colonel in the GRU. She's plucked from obscurity and flown halfway around the world. Eight months later she's writing the Soviet Union trying to get back. She says it's because Lee was forcing her to, but who knows?

Her explanation of being forced to do this by Lee is as believable as any other based on the known fact of Lee's domineering and controlling behavior toward her.

As for living in poverty here in the U.S., I think it was DeMohrenschildt who told the WC that she must have had over one hundred dresses.

I wonder, were these dresses new ones she picked out herself at a retail store and were purchased for her by the White Russians?

Or were they older generation style hand-me-downs she graciously accepted but would never really wear and kept so as to not offend her well meaning benefactors?

And wasn't it in the last months of her life with Lee that she acquired these? She also was given things for her baby, perhaps a decent bed after it was known June was sleeping in a suitcase?

And used clothes are one thing, how many times was Marina actually handed real funds for her personal use and to give her some actual self control and power in her life? 

When Gary Taylor moved them to Elsbeth St., he had to rent a trailer to carry their belongings. When Demohrenschildt moved her out of Elsbeth on a temporary separation from Lee, his car was so full, it was dragging on the ground; but when they moved from Elsbeth to Neely, they moved their belongings in a baby stroller. What happened to all their furniture?

Much of the bulk of their belongings was probably clothes like those 100 dresses and many other donated items. Marina must have discarded most of them by the time they moved to the Neely address.

Did the Oswalds "ever" own much furniture? If they did, it probably wasn't more than second hand stuff not even worth keeping during moves.

And renting "one" trailer ( probably small compared to today's larger ones ) for a young couple with child doesn't seem any more indicative of a more provided for situation than less so.

Her sojourn in the U.S. could be analagous to a lower-level mob guy who's asked to sit it out for a couple of years in the pen and not rat the boss out, with the promise that the boss will make it up to him after he does his stretch.

Ha!  Regards this analogy...

Asking a young mother with an infant child (and carrying another for 9 months) to live as stressed, depressed and embarrassingly dependent on others as constantly moved around Marina usually was with Lee ( would in some ways be more "worried mom" stressful than a guy in prison with three meals and health care provided and no rent to worry about ) is asking more than I can believe they would. 

*shrug* I don't know.

I think that many in the Marina research community inadequately consider the true "real life" stresses Marina experienced with Lee beginning not long after arriving to the U.S. and increasing all the way up to and even beyond 11,22,1963.

Place yourself in Marina Oswald's shoes during all this time. I mean seriously and honestly so.

Imagine moving as many times as Marina had to move and usually into lowest rent, pretty run down places, all with an infant child to care for and going through another 9 months of pregnancy. And include months of having to live with others ( who you may not even like ) and being dependent on them for the most basic of needs? That is humiliating to most anyone.

And throughout this entire time your family never has a car and you must depend on others for the most basic transportation needs. You must occasionally wonder what you will do if your baby needs to see a doctor day or night.

You are much more confined to your residence and often alone in this way. You have no income of your own and your husband makes little income and is very controlling ( and reportedly tightfisted ) in deciding how to spend this.

You do not have any outside friendship or social life and your husband doesn't want this for you.

Being from another very different country and culture only enhances this feeling of isolation. What do you listen to on the radio? Everything is in English.

Your one indulgent desire to smoke is met with angry orders to stop by your husband.

You fight often with your husband. He is overly serious and prefers reading more than conversing.You have problems in the area of intimacy.

Your husband goes from one lowest pay job to another.

He is secretive and doesn't even tell you what he is up to sometimes ( his New Orleans political activities. ) He tells you things that are dangerous and scary sounding like hijacking planes.

He asks you to take pictures of him brandishing guns and holding provocative literature.

You know or suspect he has done something crazy like the Walker thing, which puts you and your child at great risk if he is found out.

Your physical health needs are seriously neglected ( teeth and prenatal care ) and only addressed through the assistance of others.

Finally you are forced to live full time with others and depend on them for you and your baby's needs. You are separating to the breaking point from your husband on every level.

Days after giving birth to your second baby you then are thrust head first into a terrifying historic crime nightmare beyond description and imagination. 

A police, federal agency and press hyper-scrutiny chaos beyond anybody's wildest nightmare dreams.

This is Marina's daily reality!

It is crazy and traumatic beyond imagination.How many women could get through this just days after giving birth? A women's mind and body and hormones are already drained and exhausted in that situation.

You don't have to exaggerate or embellish any of these facts regarding the massive stresses in Marina's life up to and through the JFK assassination.

Could Marina have had a secret spy agenda life ( even a "laying low" one ) throughout her time  with Lee here in the states through all this?

Yes, I must admit that scenario is still possible. 

However, if she did and was able to keep it all inside of her throughout those years of highest level turmoil, stress and suspicion minded scrutiny and also throughout the rest of her relatively long life, and no one to this day has come up with distinctly clear proof to verify that proposition, I would classify Marina as one of the most uniquely steeled and clever women to ever participate in the highest level of political spy games ever.  

 

 

Steve Thomas

 

 

Edited February 1, 2018 by Joe Bauer

[Steve Thomas]

2 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

Steve:

I'm not sure how the FBI would have an accurate count of Soviet spouses allowed to defect to the West.  As Marina's legend goes, her father had been killed in the war and she lived with her stepfather and mother in Archangel, in the far north of Russia.  She then moved to Moldova as a small child and then to Leningrad at age 12.  Her Mother, Klavdia, died in 1957 and she moved to Minsk to live with her Uncle Ilya (and his wife Valya), a colonel in the MVD, the Soviet Interior Ministry security service.  The notion of no father or mother invokes the imaginative portrait of an orphan being crafted into a deep-cover sleeper agent (and parallels that of Lee Harvey himself).  Her testimony over the years contains contradictions and inconsistencies (e.g. she entered a pharmacy school -  Pharmacy Technikum - for what the Warren Report later characterized “special training” when she was 14 years old).  According to certain authors, Young Marina Prusakova's  job in the health sector was a cover; she was actually a personal office clerk in the GRU.  Marina is said to have associated with diplomats and high government bureaucrats in Leningrad, and her "clientele" allegedly was foreigners (she would later vaguely admit to being raped by an Afghan ambassador). The CIA purportedly wrote a 29-point report suspecting her of being an intelligence agent.  At the beginning of the ARRB (during the 30th anniversary of the assassination), Marina was briefly open to discussion about her early Leningrad experiences.  She was somehow involved with the LaFontaine’s and their 1996 book, "Oswald Talked".  She also appeared on Oprah and refuted her original testimony about the rifle (she has since refused to make appearances). The INS in Dallas, Texas, have a file (A12530645) on Marina Nikolaevna Oswald, nee Prusakova.

Gene

Gene,

 

It's obvious that you have studied this case a whole lot more than I have.

 

As far as the FBI getting a count of Soviet spouses, they would be working with the State Department on visas, etc. especially on cases involving American defectors. For example:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=57690#relPageId=69&tab=page

Memo from John Noonan, Chief, Records and Service Branch, Office of Security, Department of State

To: J. Edgar Hoover, Director FBI May 17, 1962

 

Subject: American Defectors, Status of in the U.S.S. R.

lists five individuals

“Copies of the despatches(sic) on blank and blank were furnished to your Bureau and CIA via liason. If additional information is desired on any of the individuals, please advise, and we will endeavor to obtain it.”

 

With LHO, it was even more so:

 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=57690#relPageId=55&tab=page

 

FLASH BY BUREAU: Lee Harvey Oswald (maybe indent)

Any information or inquiry received, Notify Espionage Section, Div 5, Bu. (Ref. Memo. Dated 11-4-59 captioned Lee Harvey Oswald IS-R)

 

As far as Marina's occupation:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=57690#relPageId=85&tab=page

 

This a report by John Fain of the FBI dated July 10, 1962.

 

“A review of the files of the Passport Office” show that Oswald appeared at the American Embassy in Moscow on July 8, 1961. Among other things, he told the Embassy that “he was married on April 30, 1961 to Marian Nickolaevna Pusakova, a dental technician.”

 

I am not sure why the misspelling of her name. I don't know if that is Fain's mistake or not. I'll have to see if I can dig out the original July 8, 1961 State Department cable.

 

In his June 26, interview with John Fain, Oswald told Fain that , “By occupation his wife is a pharmacist.”

 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=57690#relPageId=49&tab=page

 

From: Department of State, Division of Security 9/12/61

To: The Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Subject: Oswald, Marina N_cholaevna (garbled)

Visa Security Case

Occupation: laboratory assistant in Klinin _ _ _ skaya, Minsk (hospital)

 

I know she wrote a letter to John Tunheim saying that she believed LHO was the informant in the Miller/Whitter gunrunning case.

 

Steve Thomas

 

 

 

[Paul Trejo]

On 2/1/2018 at 11:32 AM, Steve Thomas said:

...As far as Marina's occupation: 

This a report by John Fain of the FBI dated July 10, 1962.

“A review of the files of the Passport Office” show that Oswald appeared at the American Embassy in Moscow on July 8, 1961. Among other things, he told the Embassy that “he was married on April 30, 1961 to Marian Nickolaevna Pusakova, a dental technician.”

...In his June 26, interview with John Fain, Oswald told Fain that , “By occupation his wife is a pharmacist.”

From: Department of State, Division of Security 9/12/61

To: The Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Subject: Oswald, Marina...

Visa Security Case

Occupation: laboratory assistant in Klinin _ _ _ skaya, Minsk (hospital)

Steve Thomas

Steve,

Thanks for these FBI documents.    One thing they show is that the American male in 1961 was hard-pressed to recognize any woman who was anything other than a housewife, a schoolteacher, a secretary or a nurse.    A "professional woman" simply made no sense -- so there was no need for accuracy, anyway.   

Your three sources give three descriptions of Marina Oswald: (1) a dental technician; (2) a pharmacist; and (3) a laboratory assistant.   

The confusion is answered by the fact that these descriptions have three common threads: (i) they all require college degrees; (ii) they are all in the medical field; and (iii) they are all above the heads of John Fain and Lee Harvey Oswald.

Whatever Lee Harvey Oswald said about Marina Oswald -- in the USA, Lee never wanted Marina to learn English, much less get a good job.

The 1960 facts are these: (1) Marina Oswald's college degree was in pharmacology; and (2) Marina worked in a Soviet hospital, in which she might be called upon to do many different tasks on any given day.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited February 3, 2018 by Paul Trejo
Pusakova

[Steve Thomas]

5 hours ago, Paul Trejo said:

Steve,

Thanks for these FBI documents.   

Mr. Trejo,

 

 I wrote, "Among other things, he told the Embassy that “he was married on April 30, 1961 to Marian Nickolaevna Pusakova, a dental technician.”

 

You changed that to read, " “Among other things, he told the Embassy that “he was married on April 30, 1961 to Marian Nickolaevna P(r)usakova, a dental technician.”

 

I do not appreciate you altering my words. Do not do that again.

 

Steve Thomas

[Steve Thomas]

22 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

 

Joe,

 

You had asked about the 100 dresses. You might be interested in this interview with George and Jeanne DeMohrenschildt.

I had never seen it before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqySTi0-1YY

 

Steve Thomas

[Robert Harper]

Thanks Steve, I hadn't either.

I am still somewhat chilled every time I recall reading the chapter from The incubus of intervention by Greg Poulgrain,  called " Dulles, de Mohrenschildt and Oil."

I kept thinking that during his WC testimony, Dulles and he looked at each other and said to themselves "I know that you know that I know..."

[Joe Bauer]

On 2/2/2018 at 7:38 AM, Steve Thomas said:

Joe,

 

You had asked about the 100 dresses. You might be interested in this interview with George and Jeanne DeMohrenschildt.

I had never seen it before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqySTi0-1YY

 

Steve Thomas

Steve, I have viewed this You Tube posted video many times.

It is very intriguing.

One has to decide for themselves what to make of it and how much of the DeM comments they choose to believe as true versus less true.

The part about the 100 dresses indicates Marina was given many items of clothing from sympathetic White Russian community women. But how much did this honestly improve Marina's life with Lee for the next year and a half?

Marina obviously discarded most of these dresses by the time she was sleeping at other people's homes and finally moved in full time with Ruth Paine.

The interview actually bolsters my take on the stresses Marina went through all during her time with Lee point after point.

George DeM talks about the "tenement" housing Marina and Lee were living in when they first met them all the way back to mid-1962.

Jeanne DeM mentions Marina being helped out with basic needs for baby June such as a simple crib.

Marina and Lee's time together in the U.S. was one continuous basic needs stressful dependency on others. This had to be extremely degrading, humiliating and depressing for Marina.

As I speculated earlier, if Marina was "assigned" some type of covert role in this whole affair, the unlucky straw she pulled before hand must have been the absolute shortest.

Making Marina and her baby live all that time ( 1 and 1/2 years ) one step above humiliating homelessness alongside a depressive man who was talking about taking violent risks (or perhaps even carrying them out)  and that would terrify the average young mother, seems a spy assignment too depriving and sacrificing to believe.
 

 

 

 

Edited February 3, 2018 by Joe Bauer

[Steve Thomas]

38 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

Steve, I have viewed this You Tube posted video many times.

It is very intriguing.

One has to decide for themselves what to make of it and how much of the DeM comments they choose to believe as true versus less true.

The part about the 100 dresses indicates Marina was given many items of clothing from sympathetic White Russian community women. But how much did this honestly improve Marina's life with Lee for the next year and a half?

Marina obviously discarded most of these dresses by the time she was sleeping at other people's homes and finally moved in full time with Ruth Paine.

The interview actually bolsters my take on the stresses Marina went through all during her time with Lee point after point.

George DeM talks about the "tenement" housing Marina and Lee were living in when they first met them all the way back to mid-1962.

Jeanne DeM mentions Marina being helped out with basic needs for baby June such as a simple crib.

Marina and Lee's time together in the U.S. was one continuous basic needs stressful dependency on others. This had to be extremely degrading, humiliating and depressing for Marina.

As I speculated earlier, if Marina was "assigned" some type of covert role in this whole affair, the unlucky straw she pulled before hand must have been the absolute shortest.

Making Marina and her baby live all that time ( 1 and 1/2 years ) one step above humiliating homelessness alongside a depressive man who was talking about taking violent risks (or perhaps even carrying them out)  and that would terrify the average young mother, seems a spy assignment to depriving and sacrificing to believe.
 

 

 

 

Joe,

 

You wrote, "As I speculated earlier, if Marina was "assigned" some type of covert role in this whole affair, the unlucky straw she pulled before hand must have been the absolute shortest."

 

I agree.

 

I don't know if she was "assigned" here or not, or if she was "assigned", who "assigned" her and for what purpose.

Nor do I know if the people who possibly "assigned" her, had any inkling what her life was going to be like.

I've just been thinking out loud.

Somebody, and I can't remember who, wrote that the Mercedes St. address was in a really crappy part of town.

 

Steve Thomas

[Paul Trejo]

16 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Mr. Trejo,

 I wrote, "Among other things, he told the Embassy that “he was married on April 30, 1961 to Marian Nickolaevna Pusakova, a dental technician.”

You changed that to read, " “Among other things, he told the Embassy that “he was married on April 30, 1961 to Marian Nickolaevna P(r)usakova, a dental technician.”

I do not appreciate you altering my words. Do not do that again.

Steve Thomas

Steve,

I have set your account to IGNORE in my Forum settings.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited February 3, 2018 by Paul Trejo

[Ron Bulman]

13 hours ago, Robert Harper said:

Thanks Steve, I hadn't either.

I am still somewhat chilled every time I recall reading the chapter from The incubus of intervention by Greg Poulgrain,  called " Dulles, de Mohrenschildt and Oil."

I kept thinking that during his WC testimony, Dulles and he looked at each other and said to themselves "I know that you know that I know..."

By Dulles and he you mean de Mohrenschildt?

I wonder if they had ever met previously?