Huge Ruth Paine news or not?

[Lawrence Schnapf]

@Greg Doudna It is well documented that Marina was afraid of being deported. she was told that if she cooperated, she would not be deported. The Russian translator worked for the CIA. She was pushed to tell the story the government wanted. 

Former WC staff attorney Burt Griffin told me that they did trust Marina and so they took the testimony of Ruth Paine and used that to keep Marina within the guardrails. If she said anything that contradicted what Paine said, she would be reminded of her need to tell the "truth". 

and Marina denied Lee's involvement with the Walker shooting until the so-called Oswald note mysteriously showed up just days before the FBI had to prepare its final report on the assassination. 

I remain surprised at how creduolus you as a historian can be at how government investigations are conducted, at the ways that witnesses can be intimidated and that there would be a paper trail supporting these accusations. As a lawyer, i know how this can be done in civil matters. The signs and hints of the tactics that smart lawyers can use to shape the desired testimony are all there.

One simple example. Have you ever read the deposition of McCone and Helms by the Warren Commission? The deposition was conducted by Gerry Ford and Alan Dulles. The principle topic of the deposition was what the CIA knew about Oswald in the Soviet Union.  In case the absurdity of this does not jump out to you, Dulles was asking questions of his successor, McCone, and Helms about events that occurred on his (Dulles') watch. In other words, Dulles was asking questions about events he knew the answers. And he asked leading questions so that McCone and Helms would protect the CIA and blame the State Department. 

You really need to take a more critical look at the evidence and be more realistic about how high-stake investigations are managed and how witnesses can be manipulated.         

[Lawrence Schnapf]

@Greg Doudna Are you aware that Marina had 46 interviews by government agents without the benefit of counsel while she was held under house arrest at the motel before she testified before the WC. 

on the 3rd page of the transcript she has the following exchange with Rankin:

Mr. RANKIN. Since your husband's death and even back to the time of the assassination of President Kennedy, you have had a number of interviews with people from the Secret Service and the FBI, have you not?
Mrs. OswALD. Yes, I did.
Mr. RANKIN. We hav·e a record of more than 46 such interviews, and I assume you cannot remember the exact number or all that was said in those interviews, is that true?

Mrs. OSWALD. I don't know how many there were.
Mr. RANKIN. As far as you can recall now, do you know of anything that is not true in those interviews that you would like to correct or add to?
Mrs. OswALD. Yes, I would like to correct some things because not everything was true.

later on page 14

Mr RANIKIN: Did you ever see him clean the rifle?
Mrs OSWALD Yes I said before I had never seen it before But I think you understand I want to help you and that is why there is no reason for concealing anything I will not be charged with anything
Mr GOPADZE She says she was not sworn in before But now inasmuch as she is sworn in she is goingto tell the truth

later on page 18 

Mr RANKIN Did you tell the authorities anything about this Walker incident when you learned about it
Mrs OSWALD No
Mr RANKIN You have told the Secret Service or the FBI peoplereasons why you didn't Will you tell us
Mrs OSWALD Why I did not tell about it?
First because it was my husband As far as I know according to the local laws here a wife cannot be a witness against her husband But of course if I had known that Lee intended to repeat something like that I would have told

another example of admitting to lying is on page 28 and hardly comes across as some innocent babe in the woods but quite capable of manipulaition

Mr RANKIN When you were asked before about the trip to Mexico you did not say that you knew anything about it Do you want to explain to the Commissionhow that happened
Mrs OSWALD Most of these questions were put to me by the FBI I do not like them too much I didn't want to be too sincere with them Though I was quite sincere and answered most of their questions They questionedme a great deal and I was very tired of them and I thought that well whether I knew about it or didn't know about it didn't change matters at all it didn't help anything because the fact that Lee had been there was already known and whether or not I knew about it didn't make any difference
Mr RANKINWas that the only reason that you did not tell about what you knew of the MexicoCity trip before
Mrs OswALD Yes becausethe first time that they asked me I said no I didn't know anything about it And in all succeedingdiscussions I couldn't very well have said I did There is nothing special in that It wasn't because this was
connectedwith somesort of secret

on page 34, she asks out of the blue:

"AmI giving sufficient answers to your questions?"

on page 80 

Mr RANKIN Is there anything else about your treatment by law enforcement officials during this period that you would like to tell the Commission about
Mrs OSWALD I think that the FBI agents knew that I was afraid that after everything that had happened I could not remain to live in this country and they somewhat exploited that for their own purposes in a very polite form so that you could not say anything after that They cannot be accused of any thing They approached it in a very clever contrivedway

she was brought before the WC three more times b/c of their frustration with her testimony. 

[Greg Doudna]

58 minutes ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

@Greg Doudna It is well documented that Marina was afraid of being deported. she was told that if she cooperated, she would not be deported. The Russian translator worked for the CIA. She was pushed to tell the story the government wanted. 

Former WC staff attorney Burt Griffin told me that they did trust Marina and so they took the testimony of Ruth Paine and used that to keep Marina within the guardrails. If she said anything that contradicted what Paine said, she would be reminded of her need to tell the "truth". 

and Marina denied Lee's involvement with the Walker shooting until the so-called Oswald note mysteriously showed up just days before the FBI had to prepare its final report on the assassination. 

I remain surprised at how creduolus you as a historian can be at how government investigations are conducted, at the ways that witnesses can be intimidated and that there would be a paper trail supporting these accusations. As a lawyer, i know how this can be done in civil matters. The signs and hints of the tactics that smart lawyers can use to shape the desired testimony are all there.

One simple example. Have you ever read the deposition of McCone and Helms by the Warren Commission? The deposition was conducted by Gerry Ford and Alan Dulles. The principle topic of the deposition was what the CIA knew about Oswald in the Soviet Union.  In case the absurdity of this does not jump out to you, Dulles was asking questions of his successor, McCone, and Helms about events that occurred on his (Dulles') watch. In other words, Dulles was asking questions about events he knew the answers. And he asked leading questions so that McCone and Helms would protect the CIA and blame the State Department. 

You really need to take a more critical look at the evidence and be more realistic about how high-stake investigations are managed and how witnesses can be manipulated.         

I don't dispute how prosecutions can railroad innocent people, the issue concerns cases and this specific case of Marina's story of the Walker shooting. Naturally Marina is not going to admit Lee shot Walker until forced to do so, because it was something she was ashamed of that she believed Lee had done and because she had been caught up in it too in certain ways. Then that changed with the "Walker Note", which made denial untenable. You are aware that the handwriting of the Walker Note was testified by expert handwriting/document authentication testimony to have been Oswald's handwriting (one highly qualified expert) and that no counterargument from any expert authority to the contrary has ever appeared in all the years since? Isn't it a bit arbitrary to say it was forged?

Back to Marina, you mention witness intimidation and Marina's immigration residency status and so on, all of which is true, but to be specific: can you answer the question, are you suggesting Marina was suborned to perjury, or threatened and "told" what to say on the Walker shooting? Or do you think it was a case of Marina figured out what was wanted of her and created the entire story by herself? I asked, but you didn't really answer that question.

 I know you are knowledgeable of prosecutorial and government investigative malfeasance, but is it realistic in this instance, of Marina and the Walker shooting, that all of the physical evidence (the photos found in Oswald's belongings, the Walker Note) was forged, and Marina would be suborned and/or come up with on her own the elaborate story in agreement with the physical evidence?

I'm not even really interested in whether in court reasonable doubt could be established. I am going by a criteria here not of beyond reasonable doubt but preponderance of evidence to try to judge what most likely happened. Why would it be more likely in your judgment, for example, that the Walker Note was forged, when there is absolutely zero evidence for that in the sense of expert testimony from questioned-document experts (handwriting authentication), against the expert testimony that it is authentic Oswald handwriting? 

Again, don't say that one expert could be wrong. Hypothetically, of course, yes. The question is why would you think that is so rather than that that expert in that particular case was correct?

What's the block to considering that Oswald was part of the Walker shooting in a staged-shot scenario? 

[Tom Gram]

4 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

I don't dispute how prosecutions can railroad innocent people, the issue concerns cases and this specific case of Marina's story of the Walker shooting. Naturally Marina is not going to admit Lee shot Walker until forced to do so, because it was something she was ashamed of that she believed Lee had done and because she had been caught up in it too in certain ways. Then that changed with the "Walker Note", which made denial untenable. You are aware that the handwriting of the Walker Note was testified by expert handwriting/document authentication testimony to have been Oswald's handwriting (one highly qualified expert) and that no counterargument from any expert authority to the contrary has ever appeared in all the years since? Isn't it a bit arbitrary to say it was forged?

Back to Marina, you mention witness intimidation and Marina's immigration residency status and so on, all of which is true, but to be specific: can you answer the question, are you suggesting Marina was suborned to perjury, or threatened and "told" what to say on the Walker shooting? Or do you think it was a case of Marina figured out what was wanted of her and created the entire story by herself? I asked, but you didn't really answer that question.

 I know you are knowledgeable of prosecutorial and government investigative malfeasance, but is it realistic in this instance, of Marina and the Walker shooting, that all of the physical evidence (the photos found in Oswald's belongings, the Walker Note) was forged, and Marina would be suborned and/or come up with on her own the elaborate story in agreement with the physical evidence?

I'm not even really interested in whether in court reasonable doubt could be established. I am going by a criteria here not of beyond reasonable doubt but preponderance of evidence to try to judge what most likely happened. Why would it be more likely in your judgment, for example, that the Walker Note was forged, when there is absolutely zero evidence for that in the sense of expert testimony from questioned-document experts (handwriting authentication), against the expert testimony that it is authentic Oswald handwriting? 

Again, don't say that one expert could be wrong. Hypothetically, of course, yes. The question is why would you think that is so rather than that that expert in that particular case was correct?

What's the block to considering that Oswald was part of the Walker shooting in a staged-shot scenario? 

The WC staff attorneys concluded that Marina just flat out fabricated the whole Nixon in the bathroom thing. They thought that she did it for money: 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10392#relPageId=3

So it is an official conclusion of the government that Marina made up elaborate stories under oath about Oswald attempting assassinations. 

I’m not sure it’s the best approach to attempt to psychoanalyze Marina and claim to know with certainty why she would or would not lie about something. Marina had already crucified Oswald for the JFKA by the time the Walker note showed up and  agreed to cooperate fully. 

The handwriting analysis on the Walker note is not exactly conclusive either. Only one of the three HSCA experts, Joseph McNally, was willing to render an opinion that the handwriting was Oswald’s, and another expert David Purtell cast doubt on McNally’s analysis:

The Russian language writing on documents 23, 56, and 57 is by the same person. Although there are a few letter design forms which appear to be in the Cyrillic alphabet, the bulk are in the Latin alphabet and correspond to their counterparts in the script and handprint in the documents listed in sections I, II, III, and IV above. (40) 

With regard to the Russian writing on items 23, 56, and 57, this examiner is not familiar with this language and the characteristics of the various writing systems used. (64) It is almost impossible to distinguish between class characteristics and individual characteristics unless the writing styles of a language are known. (65) This examiner is, therefore, unable to render definite opinion, but can point out that there are similarities between the writing in items 23, 56, and 57 and the handwriting on the items listed in A, B, and C above. (66)

Was McNally at all familiar with the Russian language? There’s nothing in his HSCA bio about it, and his comments about Latin alphabet design forms suggest that he based his opinion on an approach that was basically worthless, according to Purtell. 

[Greg Doudna]

4 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

The WC staff attorneys concluded that Marina just flat out fabricated the whole Nixon in the bathroom thing. They thought that she did it for money: 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10392#relPageId=3

So it is an official conclusion of the government that Marina made up elaborate stories under oath about Oswald attempting assassinations. 

I think there are some misunderstandings here. The WC staff attorneys did not conclude Marina fabricated an allegation that Oswald was intent on shooting Nixon, because Marina never said that herself and Jenner said he doubted Robert Oswald's claim that Marina had said that. And it was Robert Oswald Jenner suspected of hyping a story for money, not Marina. There is no charge in the link that Marina said that story for money. Jenner was saying he suspected Robert falsely represented Marina out of financial interest.

Did Marina accuse Oswald of intending to shoot Nixon? Taking her story in her words (not the hearsay of her words), it sounds like there was an argument over him carrying his pistol with him, with fears on Marina's part of what Lee might do, but no claim from Marina of knowledge of what he was going to do or that Lee told her he was going to shoot anyone. As the story stands it is basically an argument, one of their marital fights, and she talked him out of going out that day due to the argument. I don't think Marina ever claimed Oswald said he was going to shoot anyone, as opposed to fearing he might. Lee could be carrying that day for self-defense or out of fear on his own part like a lot of people in Texas were doing at the time and was that even illegal. 

Marina's fuller version in her own words of the argument over the pistol that day does not sound obviously unbelievable (as opposed to the secondhand version Robert told), when looking at what exactly she said in her own words, apart from some confusion of ex-VP Nixon (who wasn't in Dallas that month) with current VP LBJ who was.

Of course its possible Marina made up the whole thing--that there had been a fight, some shouting and screaming and shoving of a bathroom door, etc., Lee backing down and capitulating due to the strength of Marina's objections, etc. Who knows. But the story rings like the kind of thing that could have happened between Lee and Marina, given how much else they fought at times.

Marina also said Lee wanted her to help him hijack a plane to Cuba, which might be an additional example. 

[Lawrence Schnapf]

@Greg Doudna Marina had 46 interviews without the benefit of counsel. 46!!! i believe her required script was prepared during these 46 sessions though Q/A and suggested answers.  

[Lawrence Schnapf]

@Greg Doudna I dont have a block about oswald being involved in a shooting setup of Walker.  we all know that LHO could be manipulated to do alot of things in his desire to be a spy wannabe. I just think that given LHO's poor shooting performance in the Marines and generally lack of coordination, I cant see anyone giving him a gun to take a potshot at Walker hoping that he would miss. There was too much danger that he could accidentally actuall kill the man. 

On an unrelated point, while posting is interesting there is no substitute for having an actual discussion. I co-host Jeff Morley's Thursday night podcast. would you like to participate one thursday where perhaps some of us on this thread could talk through these issues? who knows, we might reach agreement or some clarity on some of the issues

  

[Paul Cummings]

11 minutes ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

@Greg Doudna I dont have a block about oswald being involved in a shooting setup of Walker.  we all know that LHO could be manipulated to do alot of things in his desire to be a spy wannabe. I just think that given LHO's poor shooting performance in the Marines and generally lack of coordination, I cant see anyone giving him a gun to take a potshot at Walker hoping that he would miss. There was too much danger that he could accidentally actuall kill the man. 

On an unrelated point, while posting is interesting there is no substitute for having an actual discussion. I co-host Jeff Morley's Thursday night podcast. would you like to participate one thursday where perhaps some of us on this thread could talk through these issues? who knows, we might reach agreement or some clarity on some of the issues

  

Cuban Exiles aren't looked into enough with Gen. Walker shooting. 

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

@Greg Doudna I dont have a block about oswald being involved in a shooting setup of Walker.  we all know that LHO could be manipulated to do alot of things in his desire to be a spy wannabe. I just think that given LHO's poor shooting performance in the Marines and generally lack of coordination, I cant see anyone giving him a gun to take a potshot at Walker hoping that he would miss. There was too much danger that he could accidentally actuall kill the man. 

On an unrelated point, while posting is interesting there is no substitute for having an actual discussion. I co-host Jeff Morley's Thursday night podcast. would you like to participate one thursday where perhaps some of us on this thread could talk through these issues? who knows, we might reach agreement or some clarity on some of the issues  

I’d be up for the Thursday night Morley podcast you cohost, thanks! And on the staged shot, if the shot was staged who says walker was in the room when the shot was fired dependent upon the shooters good aim to narrowly miss? That’s not my argument in my paper. The only evidence walker was in that room when the shot was fired is walkers sayso, some easily faked and almost painless scratches breaking skin on the back of a forearm and plaster dust in the hair, and the hearsay of that’s what marina says lee told her. Against that, the key smoking-gun indicator that the shot was faked, not brought out prior to my paper: walker aide Robert Surrey was witnessed walking toward and then getting into Robert Surrey’s car parked next to the Walker house, ca. 20-25 seconds after the shot, after which he drove away before returning again to meet police arriving there. Robert Surrey was at or in the walker house at the time of the shot, both walker and surrey withheld that information from police, and surrey absolutely was not party to wanting to kill walker, who was not seriously injured. Q.e.d. That’s the short version of my paper. 🙂