New Dallas Morning News Interview with Ruth Paine

[John Cotter]

2 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Only on Planet Sandy Larsen™ do multiple, first-hand accounts of Oswald's treatment of Marina, including from Marina herself, get dismissed as "gossip." But please, do continue believing in doppelgangers and Oswald "face masks" in Altgens 6 ...

Why not simply cite the evidence which you believe supports your assertion and be civil about it? This ad hominem nonsense undermines your own credibility.

[Sandy Larsen]

6 minutes ago, John Cotter said:

Why not simply cite the evidence which you believe supports your assertion and be civil about it? This ad hominem nonsense undermines your own credibility.

 

I agree, of course, John. Though admittedly I was a little snarky with my "gossip" remark.

On the other hand, I'm only that way with Jonathan because of his never-ending ad hominems against me.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

2 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

If I had witnessed that Marina falling incident and Lee's cruel and humiliating response to it like Gregory...I would have hated LHO from that point on.

 

But then, you are assuming that Oswald's treatment of Marina was as bad as Gregory says. Maybe it was, but he has little credibility in my opinion given much of the other stuff he has said about Oswald.

 

2 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

I can't believe Gregory didn't feel the same way towards Lee.

 

As I said, maybe it wasn't that bad.

 

[Gene Kelly]

Jonathan

I don't think young Peter Gregory was that familiar with Lee and Marina to be able to make the claims he offers ... but we must take his word for it (60 years later).  He was the same age as Oswald at the time and visited them ostensibly to learn Russian from Marina ... which was also Ruth's "excuse" (which is dubious to say the least). He stated in a recent interview that he and his father visited the couple in their duplex and took language lessons in regular meetings that summer until mid-September.  It's difficult for me to imagine Lee abusing Marina in his presence. Gregory proclaims that Oswald had all the characteristics to "kill a major political figure – the means, the motive, and the soul of a killer", and even psychoanalyzes their marriage:

In the period from Oswald’s return to Texas with his wife Marina to their move to Dallas, I was the only one who broke through the cocoon in which Lee had Marina living. I saw them on a regular basis for conversation, shopping, and driving around Fort Worth. I observed Lee as a manipulative loner who concealed himself from others and guarded the strict boundaries he erected around his troubled marriage with Marina. 

Gregory defends the Warren report and insults anyone who dares to disagree with its conclusions - from his throne at the Hoover Insitute (the same place that the duplicitous Tom Bethell hung his hat):  

Instead, critics glom onto bits and pieces, and minor contradictions to build mountains out of molehills. Among the multitude of conspiracy theories is even one that places my father and me among the conspirators. 

At that point, he lost all credibility in my eyes. And yes ... this rumor that Lee abused Marina was in fact gossip among the White Russian community.  I don't put much stock in it.

Gene

[Jonathan Cohen]

18 minutes ago, Gene Kelly said:

I don't think young Peter Gregory was that familiar with Lee and Marina to be able to make the claims he offers ... but we must take his word for it (60 years later). 

Gene, I'm not just talking about Peter Gregory. Oswald's treatment of Marina was well-known to several people in the Dallas White Russian community, as well as Oswald's own mother. And as mentioned, Marina is on record about Oswald's violence towards her. What's more, Oliver Stone depicts these episodes in "JFK." Are you and others here now retrospectively claiming he did so without evidence that they actually happened?

[Jonathan Cohen]

1 hour ago, John Cotter said:

Why not simply cite the evidence which you believe supports your assertion and be civil about it? This ad hominem nonsense undermines your own credibility.

If Sandy is the kind of researcher he claims to be, he is more than familiar with the evidence that Oswald was physically abusive to Marina. In this case he is just choosing to pretend it doesn't exist, while simultaneously hitching his wagon to absurd theories involving Oswald doppelgangers and nearly every piece of evidence in this case being falsified.

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

But please, do continue believing in doppelgangers and Oswald "face masks" in Altgens 6 ...

 

Speaking of gossip...

Jonathan accuses me of believing in "Oswald face masks" in Altgens 6. This is a falsehood.

 

[David Von Pein]

I don't see how anyone—even a conspiracy theorist—can deny the fact that Lee Oswald definitely did physically abuse Marina Oswald during the course of their marriage. There is ample evidence to indicate that Lee smacked Marina around on numerous occasions.

From Vincent Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History", page 646 (main text):

"The beatings also resumed, sometimes to the point of leaving obvious bruises. When Marguerite, on a visit one day, saw that Marina, who was nursing Junie, kept her head down, she came around to Marina's front and noticed she had "a black eye." Marguerite called her son on it: "Lee, what do you mean by striking Marina?" He told her to mind her own business, and she did. As she [Marguerite Oswald] told the Warren Commission, there were occasions when her son would come home from work and there would be no supper waiting for him, and "there may be times that a woman needs a black eye."

Marina hoped that Robert [Oswald] might intervene, and Robert did see her at least once when she had an obvious black eye, but he said nothing. The beatings became routine—as frequent as twice a week after Marguerite's first visit. What followed was the by-now-familiar, dreary pattern of wife battering. Each time Lee physically abused Marina, he would offer an abject apology and assure her of his love, and Marina would eagerly seize on the assurance of his love, forgiving and no doubt to some extent accepting the blame for the incident herself.

With the progressive loss of her self-esteem, she lost more and more of the will to resist. She began to collaborate in fabricating the excuses offered to others for increasingly serious injuries. Underlying it all was Lee's need to control Marina, with alternating abuse and tantalizing offers of affection." --Page 646 of "Reclaiming History"

Bugliosi's sources for the above paragraphs:

1 H 139–140, Warren Commission Testimony of Marguerite Oswald.

and

Priscilla McMillan, Marina And Lee, p.236.

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

Edited November 21, 2022 by David Von Pein

[Guest]

Would Marina lie to her daughter June about the beatings ?

Quote from June in a 1995 interview (New York Times, 4/30) :

"I do blame him for having beat my mother" 

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

12 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

If Sandy is the kind of researcher he claims to be, he is more than familiar with the evidence that Oswald was physically abusive to Marina. In this case he is just choosing to pretend it doesn't exist, while simultaneously hitching his wagon to absurd theories involving Oswald doppelgangers and nearly every piece of evidence in this case being falsified.

 

I am more familiar with this topic than you think I am, Jonathan.

You claimed that there were multiple first-hand accounts of Oswald physically abusing Marina. This is not true. There were multiple first-hand accounts that Marina  had a black eye, not that she was beaten.

Marina herself said that the bruise was caused by her running into a door in the dark. It was only when she discovered she could get sympathy and gifts from the White Russians who took her in that she claimed that her husband did it.

There is only one person who claimed that he saw Oswald hit Marina. Not just one time, but twice! This guy is an outlier with no corroboration to back up what he said.

Paul Gregory said that he saw Marina slip and fall, drop the baby, and land on her head with a great thump. He said the thump was so great that he thought Marina must have seriously injured herself. On another occasion he noticed that Marina had the black eye. Yet he said he has no reason to believe that Oswald hit her. Yeah, probably because he knows where the black eye came from... Marina's fall.

 

[David Von Pein]

 

1 H 140 (Full Page):

https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh1/html/WC_Vol1_0076b.htm

 

[Sandy Larsen]

8 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

I don't see how anyone—even a conspiracy theorist—can deny the fact that Lee Oswald definitely did physically abuse Marina Oswald during the course of their marriage. There is ample evidence to indicate that Lee smacked Marina around on numerous occasions.

From Vincent Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History", page 646 (main text):

"The beatings also resumed, sometimes to the point of leaving obvious bruises. When Marguerite, on a visit one day, saw that Marina, who was nursing Junie, kept her head down, she came around to Marina's front and noticed she had "a black eye." Marguerite called her son on it: "Lee, what do you mean by striking Marina?" He told her to mind her own business, and she did. As she [Marguerite Oswald] told the Warren Commission, there were occasions when her son would come home from work and there would be no supper waiting for him, and "there may be times that a woman needs a black eye."

Marina hoped that Robert [Oswald] might intervene, and Robert did see her at least once when she had an obvious black eye, but he said nothing. The beatings became routine—as frequent as twice a week after Marguerite's first visit. What followed was the by-now-familiar, dreary pattern of wife battering. Each time Lee physically abused Marina, he would offer an abject apology and assure her of his love, and Marina would eagerly seize on the assurance of his love, forgiving and no doubt to some extent accepting the blame for the incident herself.

With the progressive loss of her self-esteem, she lost more and more of the will to resist. She began to collaborate in fabricating the excuses offered to others for increasingly serious injuries. Underlying it all was Lee's need to control Marina, with alternating abuse and tantalizing offers of affection." --Page 646 of "Reclaiming History"

Bugliosi's sources for the above paragraphs:

1 H 139–140, Warren Commission Testimony of Marguerite Oswald.

and

Priscilla McMillan, Marina And Lee, p.236.

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

 

Dave, I'll bet you can find no evidence of a bruise on Marina's face other than the one she got in late August 1962 when she fell on her head. (BTW, black eyes can take quite a while to clear up.)

As for Oswald telling his mother that the bruise wasn't her business, I think that he was protecting Marina from the embarrassment of having dropped the baby. They probably should have gone back to the old "hit the door in the dark" story to accomplish that.

Bugliosi is just making stuff up, when he writes things like "Each time Lee physically abused Marina, he would offer an abject apology and assure her of his love, and Marina would eagerly seize on the assurance of his love, forgiving and no doubt to some extent accepting the blame for the incident herself. Or maybe it's Priscilla McMillan who made it up.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

29 minutes ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

Would Marina lie to her daughter June about the beatings ?

Quote from June in a 1995 interview (New York Times, 4/30) :

"I do blame him for having beat my mother"

 

Maybe June got that from Priscilla McMillan's book, Marina and Lee.

 

[David Von Pein]

41 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Bugliosi is just making stuff up, when he writes things like "Each time Lee physically abused Marina, he would offer an abject apology and assure her of his love, and Marina would eagerly seize on the assurance of his love, forgiving and no doubt to some extent accepting the blame for the incident herself. Or maybe it's Priscilla McMillan who made it up.

You really believe that Vince or Priscilla or maybe MARINA herself (as told to Priscilla) were "just making stuff up" regarding LHO's abusive treatment of Marina, Sandy?

You're sounding more like DiEugenio all the time. (And that's certainly not a good thing.)

And do you think Marguerite was "making stuff up" too, when she said (at 1 H 140) that Marina told her it was "Lee" who had caused the black eye?

Why on Earth would MARGUERITE, of all people, want to falsely paint her son as a wife abuser?

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by David Von Pein

[Sandy Larsen]

8 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

Why on Earth would MARGUERITE, of all people, want to falsely paint her son as a wife abuser?

 

All Marguerite knew is what Marina privately told her.