David Atlee Phillips: Oswald never went to Mexico!

[Joe Bauer]

8 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

Thanks, Joe, for that very well-thought-out post. I agree with just about everything you said here. Except for one thing: your criticism of the DeMohrenschildts. They didn't move to Haiti after the assassination. It was in May of '63, IIRC, which was months before Marina's "nightmare" began. Isn't that right? Correct me on the timeline if I'm mistaken.

Bonus Marina Video From 1964 (with Marina being very self-conscious about that missing front tooth):

 

Wow!

She was so guarded.

Thinking, thinking, after each question, keeping her answers as short as possible, often one word.

Remember, she had her own self-interests to think about and that of her children.

One wrong answer could have really opened her up to self-incrimination and had Dan Rather jumping out of his chair even more than he did.

She is surrounded by older men. Not one female to make her feel a little more at ease?

When asked where her husband got the funds to go to Mexico City she seemed very hesitant. She looked down for the longest time of the interview. She eventually simply said..."he worked? or "he have job?"

When asked why she didn't do anything after her husband shot at Walker ( like reporting him? ) she said simply..."I his wife."

Notice in this interview as I mentioned, how Marina could not allow herself to smile enough to expose her missing tooth? Keeping this embarrassed self-consciousness constantly on her mind had to have been a heavy burden for her.

I will say for someone who stated she never practiced English, she did very well in expressing her thoughts and answers more often than not imo.

She still held back here. When asked if Lee were an angry person she said no.

As much as she and Lee argued and fought about so many things, one could conclude he was angry and frustrated more than the average person...again imo. 

When asked if she wanted to get married again Marina instantly and emphatically said..."no."

I noticed a long let down pause in that older male audience and their next questions.

 

In answer to many questions Marina did not give an answer except to say "I didn't know." I think this was a purposeful defensive safety measure on her part.

In this interview and the "Marina, what do you do all day" one I strongly sensed Marina was a very intelligent and thoughtful, thinking person. Her eyes seemed to reveal this in spades.

She seems like she could think three moves ahead and not be caught short with an impulsive thoughtless answer that could harm her.

Yes, George and Jeannie DeMohrenschildts did leave for Haiti many months before 11,22,1963.

I wonder though if Jeannie De M. may have felt at least some motherly instinct protectiveness toward this all alone 22 year old young mother from her and George's homeland during the firestorm she was thrust into from that day?

I could imagine Jeannie saying to George..." that poor girl...maybe I should go back and give her some support?" And George shouting back "Are you crazy?  They'll think we know something more about Lee that would really get us in trouble!"

Lastly, I must admit to a deep primal physical attraction bias toward Marina that to this day I can't seem to easily override intellectually in judging her objectively regards everything she said and was in the scheme of the entire story.

When I view Marina in this interview and the "What do you do all day?" one I am just smittenly mesmerized by every aspect of her. To this day I find her in that time frame irresistibly beautiful.

Excuse this silly off topic sharing...however, I think Marina effected so many in this same way that it effected how she was treated and viewed.

Even to give a little weight to the suggested theory that believing he lost his beautiful young and intriguing wife's affections for good, maybe Lee decided to throw everything to the winds and do the self-destructive unthinkable?

 

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by Joe Bauer

[Denny Zartman]

54 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

maybe Lee decided to throw everything to the winds and do the self-destructive unthinkable?

Go to the movies?

[James DiEugenio]

Nice one Denny. 😃

[Joe Bauer]

3 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

Go to the movies?

Denny, You don't really think Oswald went to the Texas theater because he actually wanted to see a film there?

[Ken Davies]

Well there was a war movie playing, and he had a gun so anything is possible if you are a LN person.😉

[Gene Kelly]

20 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

As you know, I agree with Steve and think Marina is the most likely candidate for both mailing the money order and picking the rifle up from the post office. Her testimony and statements on the rifle and the Hidell alias are sketchy as all hell, and the WC did not ask her a single question about P.O. Box 2915, how Oswald acquired the rifle, or even just how Oswald received his mail in Dallas, which is just insane.

Marina obviously didn’t have a car, but on March 12th she did have access to a ride to the Post Office because she was hanging out with Ruth Paine that day. 

One troubling implication of Marina ordering the rifle - if she really did - is the Walker note. The Walker note implies that as of the first week of April, Oswald thought that Marina had never been to the Post Office. The WC never followed up on this and avoided the topic of the Dallas Post Office with Marina like the plague, which considering the Walker note, Harry Holmes’ 12/17/63 report which stated that Oswald admitted he’d given Marina one of the keys to the box on occasion to pick up the mail, and the fact that Marina filed her own CoA from Box 2915 (that was never entered into evidence), is pretty telling, IMO. 

Both WC questioned document examiners did give the opinion that the handwriting on the money order was Oswald’s - except for the Hidell signature. A rarely discussed yet very interesting fact IMO is that neither Alwyn Cole nor James Cadigan gave any testimony whatsoever on the money order Hidell signature under oath. 

To tie this in to your question about Holmes, I think it’s very possible that Kelley and Holmes wanted to interrogate Oswald separately from the FBI and DPD. The cooperation between the SS and Postal Inspection Service in the first few days of the assassination is remarkably suspicious - all the missing postal records on Oswald and Marina that were provably discovered by Holmes and other Postal Inspectors look to have disappeared in Secret Service custody. 

That said, the evidence suggests that Holmes was perfectly willing to perjure himself to the point of turning over an almost certainly altered document to the WC - so I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to think that he’d make up the bit about Oswald admitting to being in MC.

Again, I have no problem with Oswald being in MC, or even with Oswald admitting to it. I just don’t think Holmes is credible enough of a sole source to use as evidence on this without some sort of corroboration. 

I’ll end with a bit of self-indulgence. If Marina had a hand in ordering the rifle, how should we interpret her first-day affidavit? What does the affidavit actually say? 

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338563/m1/1/

Of course, Marina later claimed that she initially lied, and, through a clusterf$!?* of contradictory statements, that Oswald owned a rifle throughout 1963. She even let slip in a Feb ‘64 FBI report that Oswald received the rifle through the mail - but there was no follow-up whatsoever on how she knew that by the FBI or WC. 

Tom

I can't see where Marina ordered the rifle or picked it up ... the same people who did the revolver (at the same time) orchestrated this entire weapons purchase, imho (under an alias, Hidell).   I don't think that a young Russian bride could/would be capable of that.  What makes you think she did this?

Gene

[Joe Bauer]

1 hour ago, Ken Davies said:

Well there was a war movie playing, and he had a gun so anything is possible if you are a LN person.😉

If LO had actually bought a box of buttered popcorn on his way in and/or was proven to be a true movie fan of Van Heflin I might have believed it. 

[Matt Allison]

8 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

Matt

For the record, I don't believe any of this. Gus Russo is not a credible source or researcher.   He has been involved in a number of prominent disinformation projects, and ranks up there with Gerald Posner, Phillip Shenon and other purveyors of bad information ... defenders of the Warren Commission and proponents of the ludicrous Castro-did-it theme. 

Gene  

Oh of course!  I know that, Gene. I certainly didn't mean to infer otherwise in any way; I should have phrased my post better.

[Gene Kelly]

1 hour ago, Matt Allison said:

Oh of course!  I know that, Gene. I certainly didn't mean to infer otherwise in any way; I should have phrased my post better.

No worries, Matt ... 

[James DiEugenio]

My piece on good ole Gus is coming up.  Probably a few days from now.

Gus has really gone over the rails I think.

I am glad Gene found that blog post of his at Mob Museum.

 

[Tom Gram]

5 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

Tom

I can't see where Marina ordered the rifle or picked it up ... the same people who did the revolver (at the same time) orchestrated this entire weapons purchase, imho (under an alias, Hidell).   I don't think that a young Russian bride could/would be capable of that.  What makes you think she did this?

Gene

I'd defer to Steve Thomas on this topic - but I'd suggest you read my essay on Oswald's mail to get an idea of why I think Marina was likely involved in ordering the rifle:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XvkmfIq44G8B-B_RV4L90f5AoXYdRTN4/view

The WC and FBI deliberately avoided the topic of the post office box and rifle order with Marina like it was Ebola, despite a mountain of evidence that she had access to the box - some of which vanished very early in the investigation - and her repeated contradictory statements about both the rifle and the Hidell alias. 

This was a very simple issue to clear up - and not at all suggestive of Oswald's innocence. Oswald the controlling, abusive husband supposedly forced Marina to sign the name Hidell on his behalf at least once; he allegedly said in his interrogations that he gave Marina one of the two keys to the box on occasion to pick up his mail; and not a single postal worker could remember handing over a large package to Oswald, despite so-called "exhaustive inquires" by the Postal Inspection Service. Marina received all her mail in P.O. Box 2915, the box remained open when Oswald went to New Orleans, and Marina filed her own change of address from the box to Ruth Paine's house on May 10th - the same day she drove to New Orleans with Paine. 

If you were an investigator in this situation, what would you do? You'd do the following: 1) ask Marina if she ever picked up any packages for Oswald at the Post Office; 2) show Marina the rifle purchase documents to see if she remembered/knew anything about them; 3) ask Marina if she knew how Oswald had acquired the rifle; 4) ask postal workers if they remembered Marina, who as an attractive young Russian woman would have been about the most memorable human being in Dallas; 5) ask both Marina and Ruth Paine about stopping at the Post Office on May 10th; 6) compare Marina's signature to the Hidell signature on the money order; 7) ask Marina if she'd ever been to the Post Office at all; etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. 

Guess how many of these things the FBI and WC actually did? Zero. The May 10th change of address disappeared and was never entered into evidence, despite crystal clear documentation of its discovery on the day of the assassination; Marina was never shown the rifle order documents - she was actually shown the pistol order form while David Belin misrepresented it as the form used to order the rifle; not a single postal worker was asked about Marina; and Marina was not asked a single question about the post office box or about how Oswald obtained the rifle.

It's actually much worse than that - but I think you get the picture. This doesn't mean that Marina was some mastermind conspirator out to frame Oswald, but it does suggest that the WC wanted to distance Marina, a Soviet citizen, as much as humanly possible from that P.O. Box and the rifle - even if she was just an unwitting participant on behalf of her husband - at the expense of conducting an an honest and thorough investigation. They didn't even give her a chance to deny that she knew anything or had anything to do with it. 

EDIT: Here is Steve’s excellent thread on this topic too: 

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by Tom Gram

[Sandy Larsen]

10 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

But to argue that Oswald never went to Mexico City strikes me as just off-the-charts goofy.

 

Tell that to J. Edgar Hoover.

 

[James DiEugenio]

44 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Tell that to J. Edgar Hoover.

 

Great one Sandy.

 

[Joseph McBride]

One of the silliest books on the assassination

(and that's saying a lot) is John Loken's

slender 2000 volume, OSWALD'S TRIGGER

FILMS, THE MANCHURIAN

CANDIDATE, WE WERE STRANGERS, SUDDENLY?.

Aside from the simplistic nature of this approach

to human behavior, the book suffers from

two fundamental problems: (1) there's no

proof Oswald saw those movies; and (2) he

didn't shoot President Kennedy. At least

the author puts a question mark at the end of

his title.

 

[James DiEugenio]

Joe, this is right out of PJM and Jean Davison right?

The whole thing about those movies being part of Oswald's alleged motivation.