They All Lied About Oswald
By Staffan H Westerberg & Pete Engwall
"We were repeatedly amazed at the ease with which Marina left the
USSR which we, who know the setup on the other side, think is almost
incredible. American, British and other diplomats married Russian girls
and it took them years to get their wife's out."
George Bouhe of the White Russian Community in Dallas
According to the official version, this 20-year-old kid, Lee
Harvey Oswald, defected to one of the most horrific place on
earth, to the Soviet Union in the midst of the Cold War in
October of 1959. Supposedly, he met a Russian girl, Marina
Prusakova in Minsk, Belarus and within six weeks, he married
her. In June of 1962, Oswald with wife and a four months old
child returned to the United States. We all know the story; it is
almost carved in stone.
The question is, is it a true story? Is any of it true?
The official version of events does not include that CIA debriefed Lee
Oswald after he stepped off the boat in New York City in June of 1962.
As far as the story goes, Lee, Marina and daughter June simply boarded
a plane to Dallas-Fort Worth, where his brother Robert would be waiting.
However, there seems to have been a group of people ready for the
couple in Texas. This was an organization Lee got in contact with during
the first week while staying at his brother's house in Fort Worth.
Apparently, Lee went to a local library to get the phone number to a Fort
Worth lawyer, Max Clark, who according to the official story got Lee the
job at Leslie Welding Company, while Clark's wife, Gali Sherbatoff Clark,
took the Oswald couple under her wings.
Gali Sherbatoff Clark, or Princess Sherbatoff, had a high position in the
White Russian Community. She sent the word to several anti-communist
Russians to care for Lee and Marina. Soon Lee and Marina were
surrounded by a platoon of Russian speaking people eager to help the
young couple. Most researchers know of White Russians such as
George de Mohrenschildt and Abraham Zapruder, perhaps also of Ilya
Mamantov and Ruth Paine (with Russian connections). These people
have been covered in detail elsewhere so we will concentrate on the
lesser-known Russians in Texas.
The White Russians
The National Alliance of Russian Solidarists in Dallas, Fort Worth and
Houston - or as they were called, the White Russian Community (WRC)
were essentially a consequence of the Russian Revolution in 1917.
These people were not necessarily originating from Belarus (White
Russia) but were more of a group that in the beginning had fought with
the Czar against the Bolsheviks. White's against Red's from that the
name White Russians. After the revolution, in the 1920s and 1930s, over
two million of the White's emigrated to the West, of those, circa 30 000 to
the U.S. Then after World War II, several hundreds more came to the
States. Come 1962 in Dallas/Fort Worth many of them belonged to a
cohesive group organized through the Russian Orthodox Church outside
Russia and the old Orthodox Catholic Church of North America. Today
we know that the WRC in Texas was funded by the CIA through the
Philadelphia based Catherwood Foundation and the Tolstoy Foundation.
It was Alexandra Tolstoy, the daughter of the great novelist Leo Tolstoy,
who organized the latter foundation, which took care of Russian refugees
throughout the world.
From the book The JFK Conspiracy by David Miller:
"Most of the Russians had come to Dallas through the auspices of the
Tolstoy Foundation, a right-wing lobby; which, for a time, received yearly
subsidies from the U.S. government (read: CIA) of 400,000 dollars. Life
centered around the Orthodox Church, another recipient of the CIA's
largesse."
Strange Churches
These Orthodox Churches would resemble some sort of civilian
regiments. Over time they would become part of a clandestine
substructure developed to serve the intelligence community's concept of
national security. Totally beyond suspicion, groups of clandestine
operateurs, priests and bishops, could be active in full view without ever
being questioned. But how did it all begin? In addition, when did the U.S.
intelligence forces start to use Catholic Churches as a cover of their
covert activities?
Researcher Peter Lavenda holds the idea that "it started a hundred years
ago as a kind of hobby with people breaking off from the traditional
church, especially the Orthodox Catholic Church, and then quickly during
the Cold War became the playground for the intelligence community".
We are somewhat skeptical of that theory. Instead, we believe that it
goes back to the Russian Revolution and before. The Russian Orthodox
Church had close ties to the Czars up until 1917. After the Soviet Union
was established in 1922 the nations former State Church was forbidden
to engage in charity work or be present in schools or prisons. This was
the time when the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia was
established. Then, when Stalin seized power, many Christians were
persecuted and killed; in 1939, only four bishops remained alive and less
than a hundred churches were open to the public.
Since religion was now on the brink of extinction in the Soviet Union, and
the bishops and priests stood on common ground with the White Czarists,
one can assume that the churches became the infrastructure that the
resistance needed to be able to organize for perhaps a counterrevolution,
or simply just to get help to escape to the West.
The concept of using churches and false clergymen as covert operators
was adopted by the U.S. intelligence. For example, in 1960, a senior CIA
officer from the Directorate of Plans was dispatched to the Congo to aid
in the assassination attempt against Patrice Lumumba, according to
researcher Lisa Pease. Justin O'Donnell, referred to in the Church
Committee records as "Father Michael Mulroney", planned to lure
Lumumba away from the U.N. protection and then turn Lumumba over to
his enemies, who would surely kill him, which is what happened. In New
Orleans, two years later, we had rogue agents like David Ferrie (priest)
and Jack Martin (bishop).
Imported Nazi's
We have identified well over twenty Russian individuals in the Dallas-Fort
Worth area who were in some way connected to Lee and Marina from
1962 and onward. Many of these people were survivors from World War
II and had ended up in German prison camps before they came to the
States. We can assume that the hatred towards Stalin and the totalitarian
regime had led several of the White's to work for the Nazis, acting as
spies inside the Soviet Union. This fact leads to another group of
immigrants that more or less secretly came to America after the war. All
under the supervision of OSS Chief Allen Dulles a man with a long and
deep history with the European aristocracy and ditto economic power
elite. Besides Hitler's intelligence chief Reinhard Gehlen and his staff,
Dulles brought several hundred Nazi scientists to the U.S. (Operation
Paperclip). After the war The Gehlen Organization was used by the U.S.
in the Cold War; Adolph Hitler's former chief intelligence officer still had a
vast underground network in place inside Russian frontiers.
Gehlen and a handful of close associates came to the U.S. on
September 20, 1945. The Nazi Intel Chief stayed in America long
enough to watch a baseball game or two and perhaps attend some
discrete cocktail parties before Dulles sent him back to West Germany in
July 1946 to continue the spying business towards the Communist Block.
Between the church going anti-communist Russians, the Nazi
intelligence people and the weird Nazi scientists arriving to the States
after the war, we believe one man could have had a pivotal role, namely
a U.S. Army Colonel by the name of Boris Pash.
Boris Theodore Pashkovsky was born on June 20, 1900 in San
Francisco. His father, Theodore Pashkovsky, was an Orthodox priest
who was sent to California by the Russian Church in 1894. In 1912 the
family moved back to Russia. During the Russian Revolution Boris
Pashkovsky served in the White Russian Navy. In 1920 he married Lydia
Ivanova and would immigrate to the United States. In 1940 he was called
to active duty; to act as a security officer for the Manhattan Project in Los
Alamos; towards the end of the war he was the military leader of the
Operation Alsos; among other duties, Pash had the task of capturing the
scientists working on the Nazi atomic project. After the war, the Colonel
was in charge of Operation Bloodstone, which involved recruiting former
German officers and diplomats who would be used in the covert war
against the Soviet Union.
Mae Brussel, 1973 in The Realist:
"The Gehlen Organization, master spy outfit for Hitler's hot war against
Eastern Europe and the USSR, moved many of their agents via Allen
Dulles CIA into the Dallas-Fort Worth-Houston area."
Several researchers also mention "British intelligence reportedly told the
U.S. government that they suspected George de Mohrenschildt was
working for German intelligence".
We would also imagine that it was from this flood of German and
Russian immigrants that CIA and Allen Dulles created the sinister
program MK/ULTRA.
Russians in the background
Before we get to Lee and Marina, we have to take a closer look at the
team of high-class women and well-educated and seemingly rich men in
the Dallas-Fort Worth White Russian Community. Who were they, why
did they rush to assist Lee and Marina in various situations, and what
was their verdict of Oswald after the assassination?
We will start with the supposed leader of this secretive group Paul
Raigorodsky. This 64-year old Russian expatriate was a Chemical
Engineer and millionaire oilman who had served both in the White
Russian Army and the U.S. Army; he was in fact the first White Russian
immigrant to settle in Dallas (1920). "Czar" Raigorodsky was also
prominent board member of the Tolstoy Foundation.
On the female side, we have the Princess Gali Sherbatoff Clark. She
was the daughter of Prince and Princess Mikhail Mikhaïlovitch Sherbatoff,
exiled from Russia after the 1917 Revolution. Gali met her husband Max
Clark, a pilot in the US Army, during the war. Gali's cousin Kyril
Scherbatow, who lived in New York and Jamaica, had invested with Paul
Raigorodsky in the Tryall Resort on Jamaica in 1957, where also the
head of British Security Coordination (BSC), William Stephenson had a
residence. Gali's husband, Max Clark, became a Fort Worth lawyer and
former industrial security supervisor at General Dynamics as well as a
mentor for George de Mohrenschildt and the White Russian Community.
Max Clark was supposedly the first person Lee Harvey Oswald reached
out to after the long journey from the Soviet Union.
Another central figure was George Alexandrovich Bouhe from St
Petersburg, Russia. Besides working as an accountant, Bouhe was also
a self-appointed "nursemaid" in the community, as well as the secretarytreasurer
at the St. Nicholas Parish even called 'Bouhe's Parish'.
Countryman Igor Voshinin did not care much for George Bouhe.
"Bouhe is known to be a little aggressive and stick his nose into people's
personal affairs", Voshinin told the Warren Commission.
Money coming into St. Nicholas Parish went through Bouhe. This was
also the same church where outspoken atheist George De Mohrenschildt
sang in the church choir. Actually, it was George Bouhe who brought
Oswald to meet de Mohrenschildt. Strangely enough, Bouhe also lived
next door to Jack Ruby - another person with a Russian background,
who was a business associate with not only Paul Raigorodsky, but also
Baron Jean DeMenil.
Perhaps Ruby should be viewed as an errand boy for the CIA via the
White Russian Community, instead of someone who worked for the
Mob?
Houston banker with Russian ties, Baron Jean DeMenil, was married to
Dominique Schlumberger. He definitely tied Jack Ruby to the rogue outfit
in New Orleans; DeMenil acted through the New Orleans office of the
Swiss-based company Permindex. The Baron had used the company's
organization in 1960 and 1961 to smuggle rifle grenades, land mines,
missiles and other arms to the forces invading Cuba. DeMenil had these
arms boxed and transported by Schlumberger with the company name
and false labeling on the huge number of containers. Gordon Novel, Guy
Bannister, David Ferrie, Sergio Arcacha Smith and others were all part of
DeMenil's network and worked closely with Schlumberger in transporting
these arms and ammunition. Further more, researcher Peter Lavenda
writes that Guy Banister was a man who had so many bishops working
for him he might as well have been the Pope: David Ferrie, Jack Martin,
Fred Crisman, Thomas Beckham, Raymond Broshears and Thomas
Jude Baumler shared the same apostolic succession and had ties to
Russian émigré Bishop Walter Propheta, a man who had formed his own
American Orthodox Catholic Church in New York City.
A side note: The idea of DeMenil running the show in New Orleans could
mean that when Lee and Marina separated in late winter of 1963,
George de Mohrenschildt turned over the responsibility of controlling the
couple to Russian speaking Quaker Ruth Paine and White Russian Jean
DeMenil? While Paine oversaw and kept Marina company, Baron
DeMenil had Guy Banister and David Ferrie making sure Oswald
camouflaged himself as a communist with the fake task of rooting out
commies in New Orleans.
The White Russian women in Fort Worth and Dallas were all eager to
help the Oswald family, especially to attend to Marina. Besides inviting
Lee and Marina to a number of dinner parties and luncheon's during the
summer and fall of 1962, they also let Marina and her child stay at their
homes when Lee allegedly had mistreated her or was out looking for low
paying jobs. Marina stayed with Elena Hall in Fort Worth through the
month of October of 1962; Elena bought clothes for Marina and June
since she felt they were very poor. Gali Sherbatoff Clark also made a
point of shopping for the Oswald family and providing material support
and brought groceries to Marina. Then on November 5, Marina moved to
Anna Meller, only to move to Katya Ford on the 10th of the same month
and then on to Valentina Ray on the 17th. Lydia Dymitruk also helped
Marina with her English and drove her with her sick daughter to Parkland
Hospital.
During this period, Lee had two jobs: In July of 1962, he got a job to cut
sheet metal at the Leslie Welding Company in Fort Worth. This position
had supposedly come via Virginia Hale (wife of FBI man IB Hale) at the
Texas Employment Commission and Princess Sherbatoff's husband,
Max Clark. This situation was however not clear to the foreman on
the job site, Tommy Bargas, who thought that Oswald was a good
employee. Then one day in late September, or early October, Oswald did
not show up for work. Bargas never knew why. Oswald was not let go or
fired; he just did not show up, according to Bargas.
For some reason Oswald started a new job on October 12 at Jaggars-
Chiles-Stovall, a graphic arts company in Dallas, where he would learn a
simple photoprint process; he operated a Photostat camera, which was a
1960s version of a copy machine.
The man who got him this position was Teofil "George" Meller, a packer
at the department store Sangers Harris in Dallas. Apparently, Meller had
called a friend of his, a Mrs. Cunningham, to help get Oswald the job.
George Meller was married to Russian émigré Anna Meller, who was
very much involved with Marina and Lee.
However, on April 6, 1963 Oswald was told by his boss John Graef that
he (Lee) had made too many mistakes and he was not particularly liked
by his co-workers therefore he would have to go. Oswald went to New
Orleans instead, where he would seek another low paying job.
It is interesting to follow Oswald and his "job hunting" for low paying jobs.
Perhaps he had a short concentration span or poor social skills and
could not hold a job? Or maybe this was all a front and that in reality he
was directed and redirected to different jobs by people in the White
Russian Community? After all, many low paying jobs gives a much
worse impression than one low paying job does.
Supposedly, a relative told Lee about a job advertised at Standard
Coffee for a Maintenance Man. This was on April 28. Two weeks later,
he was hired as a machine greaser.
If Jean DeMenil's network in New Orleans (Guy Banister) in reality had
something to do with Oswald ending up at the Reily's Coffee Company,
where several intelligence people allegedly worked, this would of course
be pure speculation on our part. In any case, Lee was allegedly fired on
July 19 from Reily's but hung around with Guy Banister and the Cubans
in New Orleans. Then it was Ruth Paine who got him his final low paying
job. He was hired at the Texas School Book Depository on October 15,
1963.
One way or another, all four low paying jobs that Lee Harvey Oswald had
held after coming home from the Soviet Union had been enabled through
someone in the White Russian Community, or someone close to the
WRC. We believe that switching jobs was part of the recoloring of Lee
to become the lone, deranged communist that eventually would have the
right profile to kill the President.
The idea that young "Marxist" Lee Harvey Oswald would have gotten this
much help from people who more or less hated the communists and the
totalitarian system is ludicrous, even on the face of it. In fact, these
people were very right-wing-anti-Kennedy and would likely support a
removal of a president who would engage in peace talks with a Soviet
president.
A peculiar detail is that according to the official story, Lee allegedly spent
several days at Ruth Paine's house the week before the assassination.
Either there with his wife and Mrs. Paine in Irving or in the rooming
house at 1026 North Beckley Avenue. However, that was not what Mr.
and Mrs. Ray explained in a written statement to Jack Revill with the
Dallas Police on February 10, 1964. Thomas and Natalie Ray claimed
that Lee Harvey Oswald in fact had stayed at their home on Farm Road
1502 in Blossom, Texas for a few days prior to the assassination. This
fact was not mentioned during the Warren Commission hearings and
certainly does not fit with the official Oswald-chronology.
Natalie was born in Stalingrad, Russia in May of 1922. She was taken
(prisoner) to Germany by the German Army in 1943. Natalie married an
American soldier, Thomas M Ray, and moved to the United States in
1946. In the fall of 1962 she met Lee and Marina at a party and felt Lee
spoke "just perfect Russian". Lee had also told her that he learned to
speak Russian in Russia… Really?
Fluent in Russian
This is the kind of backdrop that is needed when we view the story of
Lee Harvey Oswald going to the USSR and back. Let's start with the one
thing he definitely needed in order to travel to the Soviet Union in 1959
namely to be able to communicate, to speak Russian.
They all said it. Every single one in the Dallas-Fort Worth crowd of White
Russians that talked to the Warren Commission said it Lee Harvey
Oswald spoke a nearly perfect Russian.
If that really was the case, did he learn the language in the United States
as he grew up, or did he manage that in the Civil Air Patrol, or perhaps in
the Marines? If he was an all-American boy, he certainly could not be
fluent in the very difficult Russian language just by going to Military
Language School for a year or so that would not do it by a long shot.
JFK researcher Walt Brown have made up his mind:
"It seems damn peculiar that Oswald, while in the U.S. Marine Corps,
(and at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall) would entertain himself reading Russian
newspapers, yet when he got to Minsk, the only way he could fully
comprehend what was going on was to read English language
newspapers."
Walt Brown is not the only one doubting that Lee could speak the
language; many researchers believe he could not speak Russian at all.
However, if that was a fact, how could he have made it into Soviet-
Russia? How would he have landed a job? How would he have talked
with Marina, who could not speak a word of English?
However, as we have mentioned, in testimonies to the Warren
Commission in the spring of 1964 all of the individuals with Russian
background testified to his formidable touch with the Russian language.
Here is Russian born Mrs. Helen Leslie, who remember attending a
dinner party at Mrs. Anna Meller in the fall of 1962:
"I was introduced to Oswald, he didn't impress me, you know, but the
only thing - the only one thing impressed me - he was talking quite
fluently Russian language. He was making some mistakes, grammar
mistakes, in very good Russian language, because I was born there and
raised there, but he was talking fluently. Everything he was talking in
Russian language, but sometimes he was - he didn't use grammar things
or something, he wasn't quite good in grammar. I think he was doing
some mistakes, not in pronunciation but in grammar."
Mrs. Leslie was not the only one - they all appreciated Lee's fine Russian.
But, they sure did not appreciate Lee, because he was not treating his
wife right. All of them would offer a nasty scene of Lee cussing out his
wife, beating her, ignoring her etc. Lee was a very dislikable person, but
who spoke Russian impeccably.
White Russian Peter Gregory in Fort Worth had a special encounter with
Oswald. Besides being a petroleum engineer, like many of the men in
the White Russian Community, he also worked as a Russian language
teacher in Fort Worth. Gregory rather strangely told the Warren
Commission that he was "approached by Lee Harvey Oswald, who was
looking for a job as a translator or interpreter in the Russian and English
languages; Oswald had asked if Gregory could give him a letter testifying
to that effect. Gregory thought that Oswald spoke Russian well but with a
Polish accent, and had asked him if he were of Polish origin. Oswald had
then stated that he was not, that he was raised in Fort Worth, Texas, but
that he had learned Russian in the Soviet Union where he lived for 2 1/2
or 3 years."
Here we have it again; Lee told people he learned Russian in Russia.
Now, if that was the case… no, that is just silly. Honey, I'm going to
Greece to learn Greek! No way. We also feel unsure of how lucrative that
line of work would have been in Texas in 1962. What Texan would need
to translate, to or from, Russian at all, much less with Oswald's help,
when they had the entire White Russian Community available?
Then there was Anita Zeger or Zieger in Argentina, an alleged co-worker
from Minsk, who told researcher John Armstrong in 1998 that Lee did not
speak Russian at all. Not much, anyway. If that were true, then how
would he have communicated with Marina who could not speak English?
Reading through many WC-testimonies by members of the White
Russian Community, almost all of them would point out Oswald's
excellent Russian language skills. On the other hand, when asked what
they talked with Oswald about, many of them would offer the image of a
loner that did not say very much. If Oswald did not say very much, how
would they know he spoke such good Russian?
Oswald in Soviet
"Could the Mob get Oswald into the Soviet Union? Could the Mob get
him back?" If Jim Garrison ever really made these statements, perhaps
he ended his line of thought too quickly? The answer is of course: No,
the Mob could not do any such thing. Nor could anyone else beside the
Soviet authorities.
What makes anybody (in the research community) believe that the
leaders and intelligence forces within the Soviet Union were not aware
that living conditions inside their empire was close to hell in comparison
with living in the West? We bet this is a thought that seldom or never
enters any American minds.
Coming from Sweden, we know more than a little bit about the Soviet
Union. Our country has fought this neighboring nation on numerous
occasions throughout history. In my family, way back in the early 1920s,
there was a young man who believed in the then new communist system.
He was a very naïve idealist that for some strange reason believed
Stalin's empire was the new frontier, a paradise of sorts. Of course he
was a crazy, other members of my family tried to tell him, but it was a
futile cause. He immigrated to the Soviet Union and was more or less
arrested upon arrival and immediately sent to a labor camp. One of his
friends managed to come back. He was full of regrets and told anyone
who would listen that the rest of his Swedish "comrades" had been part
of a work force that dug the Stalin White Sea-Baltic Canal. They had all
been killed with shovels in their hands…
Getting back to our point: The USSR was hardly a place anyone in his or
her right mind would want to emigrate to. The power in Moscow was
certainly fully aware of this fact.
Today we are more or less certain that Oswald was not a real communist,
only sheep-dipped as one. So, unless he was an agent on a mission,
why would he want to defect?
Had he really defected, the KGB would have been all over him, worse
than any Russian defector to the USA would have been treated. In
addition, to get an entry visa to the USSR was not an easy thing to
accomplish. Oswald wasn't a Kim Philby type with lots of knowledge and
experience that he could use as currency. Oswald was only 20 years old.
Most likely he would have been tortured and tortured to death not been
given a nice apartment and a cushy job in a radio/radar factory.
This part of the Oswald legend have so many faults piled on top of each
other it is silly. Then to top it off, getting a visa to get out from the Iron
Curtain during the hottest period of the Cold War - that is simply crazy to
believe. Even more unbelievable to get a Russian wife to tag along.
The official narrative will have us believe that young Lee, only 19, soon
20 years old, would leave the U.S. on a ship to Europe and somehow
know where the easiest entry into the Soviet Union was, namely via
Helsinki, Finland. We have been told that Lee checked in at the Savoy in
the Finnish capital, an expensive hotel. For information: there were
several points of entry to the Soviet Union around Europe and Asia that
Oswald could have tried, so how would he have known about the
Helsinki port of entry?
Then he defected, so to speak, to Stalin's kingdom and got in! Allegedly,
the Soviet authorities sent Lee to Minsk in Belarus, halfway to Poland
from Moscow. No KGB in sight. This young fellow just moseyed on in
and got a job at a radio factory in Minsk. Nowadays we also know that
was a factory that manufactured radars. Then they supposedly gave him
an apartment. A cozy apartment. First of all, apartments were not easy to
come by 1959 in the USSR. It was not like in the States. Still, Lee was
given a fine apartment in the middle of Minsk. No KGB in sight. He then,
allegedly, met Marina Prusakova and married her after he had, all in all,
spent six days with her during a period of six weeks. When the HSCA
asked Marina what she knew about Lee, she was hard pressed for
answers; for one thing, she didn't know if he was a spy or not.
The notion that Marina would marry a foreigner she knew virtually
nothing about, a person who she suspected could be a spy, and this only
after spending six whole days together, is far beyond unrealistic unless
of course she was trying to get to the United States at any cost. But that
would on the other hand suggest that she knew beforehand that they
would get a Visa out of the Soviet Union, something unheard of outside
of diplomatic circles. Was she a spy for the KGB?
The Oswald we know most likely never went to the Soviet Union, at least
not in the way the story has been told, despite the fact that he on the eve
of the assassination told the U.S. press "they have taken me in for the
fact that I have lived in the Soviet Union".
If the arrested Lee was coached, then he could have maintained the role
of being an agent who knows.
But had he really defected to Soviet Russia then he would not have been
able to travel back in the way the official narrative will have us believe.
In 1945 when the Russian Army captured Swedish diplomat Raoul
Wallenberg in Budapest, they thought he was a spy. Hours of
interrogation later they would have known he wasn't; his mission was
clearly only to save as many Jews as possible. Still they tortured
Wallenberg to death. And that was what one could expect from the
Soviets.
So what is wrong with the Oswald saga? We imagine just about
everything.
The fact is, Lee, 19, would not have succeed in this kind of defection
operation even if the target had been France, let alone the Soviet Union.
World famous author Norman Mailer, who wrote Oswald's Tale: An
American Mystery suggested very naively that Lee wore out the
Soviet authorities with persistent visits and complaints etc. We say that is
pure hogwash; there is no way a 20-year old boy could win over the
communist hardliners in the USSR - just impossible. Or as White
Russian Paul Raigorodsky would put it:
"There are just so many things that are unbelievable, that a person like
Oswald was running around in Russia, marrying a Russian woman, that
she was allowed to go out of Russia. I know several cases where they
wouldn't allow a person whom Americans marry to come for several
years. Here, everything was (snapping his fingers) so - just like that. It
just reads too much like a fairy tale. I mean, as much as they claim they
don't trust him, they surely didn't show it by the action in granting him
different things which he received in Russia and in this country."
Marina an Enigma
Very little of what we know of Lee Harvey Oswald's life comes from Lee
Harvey Oswald himself. The bulk of information was told to us after his
death. All information we really have of Lee comes from other people,
many with ill intent. Consequently, what can we really know about his life
and what he did or did not do? For this reason, Marina Oswald's
testimonies at the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee
on Assassinations becomes the foundation of how Lee is to be viewed;
in there lays also innumerable inconsistencies and irregularities that
eventually will give us a hint of where the truth might reside.
Let's take a closer look at Marina Oswald. Who is she? Where does she
really come from? And when did she come from where?
As far as we are concerned nothing pertaining to her story seems
trustworthy. On the one hand: Many JFK researchers don´t trust Marina
Oswald's statements. On the other hand: Very few researchers think
there is something wrong with the Oswald in the Soviet Union saga.
Picture this: Remember when you were a young man or woman and
made your first trip to another country, or anywhere significant inside the
United States. Maybe you were 17, 18 or 19 years old when you did your
first trip without your parents. Perhaps you went to New York, London or
Saigon. We bet you remember this trip almost minute by minute.
In September of 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations,
HSCA, questioned Marina Porter Oswald for almost six hours. When she
was asked to recapitulate the journey from Minsk to the West she had a
hard time remembering any specific details. She remembered that she,
Lee and the baby traveled from Minsk by train, crossed the border to
Poland at Brest and then went straight to Rotterdam in Holland, where
they stayed at some house, unclear if it was one day or three.
This was the first time allegedly that she entered a Western country.
That in it self would have made her remember the episode, especially
since it was far from a common sort of journey for the average Soviet
citizen to embark on.
As for me, I went to New York when I was 21 years old, and I remember
every damn thing!
But Marina doesn't remember.
The HSCA wanted to know who got the room at the boardinghouse in
Rotterdam. Marina couldn't answer. However, she thought that Lee
perhaps could have arranged this with somebody. She explained she
knew nothing because she spoke no English. Apparently she couldn't
ask Lee in Russian what was going on.
Reading through her testimony with the Warren Commission in
Washington on February 3, 1964 the following strange dialogue took
place:
Mr. Rankin: "Do you recall the date that you arrived in the United States
with your husband, Lee Harvey Oswald?"
Mrs. OSWALD: "On the 13th of June, 1962. I am not quite certain as to
the year - '61 or '62, I think '62."
Mr. RANKIN: "How did you come to this country?"
Mrs. OSWALD: "From Moscow via Poland, Germany, and Holland we
came to Amsterdam by train. And from Amsterdam to New York by ship,
and New York to Dallas by air."
Mr. RANKIN: "Do you recall the name of the ship on which you came?"
Mrs. OSWALD: "I think it was the SS Rotterdam but I am not sure."
Mr. RANKIN: "What time of the day did you arrive in New York?"
Mrs. OSWALD: "It was---about noon or 1 p.m., thereabouts. It is hard to
remember the exact time."
Mr. RANKIN: "How long did you stay in New York at that time?"
Mrs. OSWALD: "We stayed that evening and the next 24 hours in a hotel
in New York, and then we left the following day by air."
Mr. RANKIN: "Do you recall the name of the hotel where you stayed?"
Mrs. OSWALD: "I don't know the name of the hotel but it is in the Times
Square area, not far from the publishing offices of the New York Times."
First, she did not know what year she arrived in the U.S. Secondly, she
did not think of noticing the difference between East- and West Germany,
which was major. Then she, for some strange reason, thought that she
and Lee came to Amsterdam instead of Rotterdam. That is like saying
we arrived at the harbor in New York when we really had arrived in
Boston. The Oswald couple had to pass through four borders that
required clearing customs; still Marina did not mention it. Finally, she did
not remember passing through Europe or how long she stayed at the first
stop in Holland, but for some weird reason she remembers the
publishing offices of the New York Times!
We are sorry, but it sure seems as if she tried to remember a manuscript,
and she was really bad at it.
Amnesia and language skills
Through Black Op Radio we could listen to six hours of Marina's HSCA
testimony. What is apparent is how strange her English was (in 1978).
She claimed not to understand some fairly simple words, while she on
the other hand used very unusual and complicated words and sentences.
She did not know the word "devious", but used words like "hostility",
"privileges", "customary", "political asylum" and "habitual" etc.
Who the heck uses the word habitual in daily language?
JFK researcher George W. Bailey writes on his blog that Marina Porter
Oswald stated numerous times in her testimony that she didn't speak
English at all in her first years in America. She also said in a Grand Jury
testimony back in 1963 that she was taking English lessons from Jack
Ruby's next-door neighbor George Bouhe. However, her statements of
not being able to speak and understand English is at odds with the facts
as we now know them.
Here is a list of points that dispel this myth:
* In 1961 while still in Russia, Lee mails Marina a letter written in English.
* Robert Webster, another American defector, said he knew Marina and
she spoke good English with a heavy accent.
* Descriptions on the back of photos taken in Russia are in Marina's
handwriting in Russian and English.
* Warren Commission, CE-100. Marina's stenographic notebook found
by the Dallas Police written in English. They also found a second
notebook with Marina's handwriting in English. There are other
notebooks with her English writing in the National Archives.
* Business manager James Martin testified that she understood
everything said to her in English.
* Robert Oswald in an FBI affidavit said Marina spoke to him in English,
without a translator, in regards to a business contract with James Martin.
A contract written only in English.
* Marguerite Oswald in Warren Commission testimony mentions
numerous conversations with Marinaall in English.
* Marina gets trapped in Garrison Grand Jury testimony saying she
called Reilly Coffee Company looking for Lee. She was asked how could
do that, she replied she knew "a few words.
Bailey indicates that he does not believe Marina Oswald when she
claimed not to be able to speak English prior to arriving in the States.
This shines through in small details, such as Lee's alleged rifle. Marina
explained (1978) that she could not tell the difference between a rifle and
a shotgun, meaning she did not know the first thing about weapons.
Then, when the HSCA asked her whether she saw a scope or not… did
she even know what a scope was?
Yes, she said it was "an attachment to make the target more visible".
Again, a very precise and advanced sentence for someone who even in
1978 spoke poor English.
Getting back to Marina's equally poor sense of memory. When the HSCA
wanted to know what Lee and Marina had talked about as a married
couple she could not really remember. This whole line of questioning
from the HSCA panel leads her straight into some form of amnesia.
Did Lee talk politics with her? No, she being a woman - what would a
woman know about politics? In Dallas-Fort Worth what did Lee work
with, what did he do at work? She did not know. They never talked about
work or politics. In Russia Marina had not known if Lee had a mother or
not, she did not really trust him; she thought he could be a spy.
Again, why marry a guy you knew nothing about and did not trust?
According to pure mathematics (and Mae Brussel) Marina and Lee only
spent six whole days together before they got married and she knew
nothing of him?
HSCA: "How come you (and Lee) were living under better living
conditions than the average Soviet citizen? You were only 19 and 21?"
Marina could not tell how come they could get such a fine apartment;
perhaps it had to do with Lee being a foreigner, she didn't know.
HSCA: "Before departure to the USA, did the KGB ever question you?"
Marina: "No."
Marina did not know if the KGB ever questioned Lee. Marina knew
nothing.
Memory Returns
All of a sudden Marina's lack of memory ceased. When the HSCA
brought up Oswald's rifle she suddenly woke up.
HSCA: "When did you see his weapon' for the first time, and where did
you see it?"
Marina: "I don't remember when, but I wasn't pleased of having the rifle
in the house."
Marina explained that Lee hid the rifle in a closet. This was apparently on
Neely Street. She said that Lee used to clean his weapon once a week
and that he liked to do it alone by himself. In New Orleans he would sit
on the porch in the dark occupied with cleaning the weapon. Marina
would also tell the Committee that when they lived in Dallas, Lee would
go to target practice once a week somewhere in the Love Field area. For
those occasions he would put on a raincoat and hide the rifle underneath,
then take the bus to the rifle range. Marina thought it was ridiculous that
he would use the raincoat even on sunny days.
This whole rifle story cannot be anything but bogus, in our opinion.
Researcher John Armstrong, among others, have proven that the
weapon allegedly found on the 6th floor at the Texas School Book
Depository, CE 139, never belonged to Lee Oswald. But since Marina
could not tell the difference between weapons, or whether CE 139 was
Lee's rifle or not, there is always a possibility she saw a different rifle.
To us, this is the first concrete lie on Marina's behalf. Talking about
details that makes Lee look very bad seems very well remembered by
Marina. She remembered a lot when it came to the rifle, she saw the
scope, and she did not forget the revolver. Remember Lee never told her
about his jobs, what he did etc; he kept much to himself and lived a
secret life. However, when it came to the alleged Walker shooting,
Marina suddenly seemed to know an awful lot of what Lee supposedly
did, what went through his mind and so fort. It was almost like he had
gone on a mission and reported back to her afterwards.
Here are a few examples from her testimony:
Mr. RANKIN: "Did you ever observe your husband taking the rifle away
from the apartment on Neely Street?"
Mrs. OSWALD: "He (Lee) would say, Well, today I will take the rifle
along for practice.' Therefore, I don't know whether he took it from the
house or whether perhaps he even kept the rifle somewhere outside.
There was a little square, sort of a little courtyard where he might have
kept it. When you asked me about the rifle, I said that Lee didn't have a
rifle, but he also had a gun, a revolver."
Mr. RANKIN: "Do you recall seeing the rifle when the telescopic lens was
on it?"
Mrs. OSWALD: "I hadn't paid any attention initially. I know a rifle was a
rifle. I didn't know whether or not it had a telescope attached to it. But the
first time I remember seeing it was in New Orleans, where I recognized
the telescope."
Mrs. OSWALD: "When he fired, he did not know whether he had hit
Walker or not. He didn't take the bus from there. He ran several
kilometers and then took the bus. And he turned on the radio and
listened, but there were no reports. The next day he bought a paper and
there he read it was only chance that saved Walker's life. If he had not
moved, he might have been killed."
Read the statement about the Walker shooting again. Does that seem
like something Lee would have told his wife? Several kilometers? Hardly.
Marina continued telling the Committee that Lee (after the Walker
shooting) had turned up white in the face and had acted nervous. This
behavior was of course contrary to his behavior after killing Kennedy.
Today most of us do not think Lee had anything to do with firing at the
General either.
Still, Marina really buried Lee: She told the HSCA that Lee had planned
to highjack a plane to Cuba. She said Lee had asked her to help him.
With what exactly? She didn't remember. But he wanted her to hold the
weapon. Marina added that it would look ridiculous with a pregnant
woman high jacking a plane. Even if Marina didn't remember anything
that would explain just about anything, she remembered things that
made Lee out to a lone nut:
Lee went to Mexico City
Lee had a rifle
Lee had a revolver
Lee shot at General Walker
Lee planned to shoot Richard Nixon
Lee planned to highjack a plane to Cuba
Lee practiced at a rifle range
Lee liked to be alone by himself
Lee mistreated her
After the assassination of President Kennedy, Marina allegedly
destroyed incriminating photos of Lee. However, she does not know
when she destroyed them, where she destroyed them or even how she
destroyed them. Again, she had some sort of amnesia or was drunk out
of her mind. We would say that a human brain cannot function this way;
no image or memory of something you did whatsoever, but still
remember remember what?
The entire Modus Operandi (by the HSCA) seemed to confirm and
establish the Lone Nut. Actually, the Committee only stepped in the
preexisting footsteps of the Warren Commission with the purpose of
making them deeper and wider, because that is what it really looks like.
HSCA: "Can you see him working with an accomplice?"
Marina: "No I cant. He wasn't a very trustworthy and open person. Lee
had no friends in Dallas during October and November (1963)."
Even if Lee acted secretive and did not talk to Marina about things, he
seemed to talk to her about anything that made him look bad, criminal
actions. And how would she know if he had any friends if he was so
secretive?
Marina was asked if Lee had any Cuban friends. First she said no,
seconds later she corrected her self and said that Lee got these Fair
Play For Cuba-leaflets from a Cuban in the streets of New Orleans. But
she did not know who it was.
Now, why would Lee tell her something like that? And why would she
remember it? Lee did a lot of things during the day most that he did not
tell Marina about. But apparently he felt the need to inform her of having
met a random Cuban person that had given him flyers to spread around.
(This is another apparent lie on her part, since we know the leaflets
came from Banister's office.)
Lee certainly had a lot on his plate - if Marina is to be believed. While he
planned and executed the attack on General Walker, planned to
assassinate Richard Nixon and highjack a plane to Cuba with a wife
ready to give birth to a child, he was also taking typewriting lessons
every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings. If we are to understand
Marina correctly, a week could entail this for Lee: He worked through the
day, went home to eat, then between 7-9 PM he went away to learn how
to use a typewriter, then home to continue studying a book about
typewriting, then on perhaps Wednesdays he would dress up in a
raincoat, come rain or shine, and take the bus to Love Field somewhere,
where he would practice with his Carcano rifle for a few hours, only to
return and sit by himself on the porch (on Nealy Street) and clean his rifle.
Going through 120 pages of Marina's WC testimony and six hours of her
HSCA testimony almost makes one mad. We dont know what is worse,
Marina's lies or HSCAs cover-up-questions? It sure can be viewed as a
sort of rape on the American people.
We don't know why Lee told the Press that he had lived in the Soviet
Union, when it really does not look like he had - at least not in the way
the story has been told. Perhaps he was part of a U.S. diplomat
contingent in the USSR; perhaps he followed a deceitful script that was
part of his fake persona? The pattern is so obvious: Almost all of the
people in the White Russian Community testified that he was a secretive
loner that treated his wife bad - but he did speak excellent Russian.
Marina remembered nothing about Lee's everyday life, what was on his
mind, what political views he held, besides liking Kennedy, what he did at
work, where he got money from - but she sure remembered anything that
would incriminate her husband. That becomes even clearer when the
HSCA and Marina started talking about a possible motive, Lee's motive
for killing Kennedy. Talk about speculating to Lee's disadvantage!
HSCA: "Oswald wanted to make himself a hero to the American left?"
Marina: "I think it was a mental reason, not a political reason."
HSCA: "Lee just wanted to kill the man at the top?"
Marina: "I think you are right."
However, when Lee supposedly tried to kill General Walker and planned
to kill Richard Nixon, it was for political reasons, but then he supposedly
became mentally instable before killing Kennedy?
Years later Marina would come on TV and tell Tom Brokaw that she no
longer believed Lee was guilty. Does this mean that Lee never shot at
General Walker, didn't have a rifle with a scope, didn't practice shooting
out at Love Field, or what? Actually, those statements to the WC and
HSCA disqualified her from ever retracting her story. The only way for
Marina to begin to clear her name is to explain why she told all the lies
she did about Oswald in the first place. Because that is just it: The only
thing Marina really did with the 1993 NBC interview was to reinforce the
uncertainty of her guilt and make the listener rethink her precarious
position in 1963. It was simply another lie.
Speculation
So what was the truth about Lee and Marina? What was the truth about
the White Russians and their churches? The latter had intricate ties to
the Kennedy assassination: George de Mohrenschildt befriended and
controlled Oswald, Abraham Zapruder allegedly filmed the murder and
Ilya Mamantov sat in as a translator in the first questioning of Marina
Oswald. Max Clark, George Meller and Ruth Paine helped Oswald get
jobs, perhaps also Jean DeMenil. Ruth Paine further more made sure
Marina and Lee were living apart. They all contributed to the profile of the
Lone Assassin. The other side of this coin is that de Mohrenschildt was
connected to George Bush and J. Walton Moore of the CIA, Zapruder
belonged to the Dallas Petroleum Club (where also Bush, Atlee Phillips
and de Mohrenschildt were members) and also had worked with George
de Mohrenschildt's wife Jeanne, while Ilya Mamantov was called in by
George Bush's colleague Jack Crichton to translate for Marina to Dallas
detective Rose. In Jean DeMenil's network of people we find Guy
Banister, David Ferrie, Jack Ruby and Jack Martin. If de Mohrenschildt
and his Russian friends in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in fact had some
form of ties to Gehlen's network and Boris Pash then we certainly have
to view the story of Lee and Marina differently, perhaps something out of
MK/ULTRA or a weird James Angleton-operation?
It all ties back to Allen Dulles, who was a friend of Ruth Paine's father in
law, Arthur Young, and thus had an affair with Michael Paine's mother's
best friend. We also know that Ruth Paine's own family had ties to the
CIA; her sister worked there and lived next door to CIA Headquarters
and her father worked for a company supposedly controlled by the CIA.
Further more, in December of 1963 the FBI interviewed Fred and Nancy
Osborn, two friends of Ruth and Michael Paine, who vouched for their
innocence. Fred's father was a friend and associate of Allen Dulles. The
Paine's were equally involved with the White Russians and the catholic
church; Ruth was allegedly devoted to the Quaker religion and Michael
attended a Unitarian Church.
Oswald in Russia or not?
So, did Oswald really travel to the Soviet Union in 1959, and did he leave
to return to the USA in the summer of 1962? Did Marina really come to
the States with him?
We don't know the answer to this, but if that really happened, it sure was
some kind of world record in venturing outside the box. Marina would tell
the HSCA that it was hard for her to leave her country:
"To leave everything behind was quite hard", she said.
What "everything" meant was of no apparent interest to the HSCA.
Whatever she left behind it was clearly not enough for her to contemplate
returning to Russia after the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the Cold
War. Russia has been open for 25 years now and we have never heard
anything pointing to Marina traveling back to reconnect with her relatives.
(Perhaps they all came to the U.S. long before Kennedy was killed?)
Actually, we know very little about Marinas past in the USSR. The HSCA
and the WC before them didn't ask her too many questions of her past.
That is not what we see in the questioning of Larry Crafard, who had to
answer almost 4 000 questions about everything under the sun.
If Marina was an agent working for the KGB, then that could certainly
explain why she would be allowed to leave. She told the HSCA that the
KGB never questioned her prior to leaving Russia. Actually, an ordinary
Soviet citizen like her getting a visa to travel abroad from the Soviet
Union had seldom or never happened before.
JFK researcher Greg Parker:
"Now in a sense, it should be noted that Marina Oswald was a White
Russian, too. According to the testimony of George Bouhe, she spoke a
very grammatically correct Russian, probably learned from her
grandmother who was a graduate of the Smolny Institute, a school for
noble girls. In other words, Marina may well have had aristocratic
roots. So one interpretation of Marina might be that she was a member
of some noble family "smuggled" out of Russia by the White Russian
community, assisted by Lee Harvey Oswald."
When it comes to Lee Oswald… well, we just don't know who he really
was. One statement sticks out:
"Everybody will know who I am now!"
What laid behind that statement? Was Oswald afraid of being outed as
a… what exactly? As an agent or asset for the FBI, or the CIA, or the
ONI? Why would that be a problem when none of these entities would
have the least bit of problem suppressing information like that?
To our mind, this cannot be what Lee was worried about. It has to be
something else. Actually, we sense there is something much bigger
behind the man. Was he really 24 years old? He looks much older,
perhaps even ten years older, around Michael Paine's age. How could a
20-year old boy defect to the worst place on earth and walk between the
raindrops as far as the KGB was concerned? Get a well payed job and a
cushy apartment; get out with a Russian wife and child with no
interrogation whatsoever?
That is unheard of.
No, we believe that there must be something we don't see in this
scenario, something well hidden. The statement he made to Captain
Fritz and Roger Craigh has the wrong proportions. Maybe Oswald from
the beginning was some sort of Concept/Project? Coming back to the
States he was not debriefed by the CIA but he was getting assistance
from the White Russian Community. These Russians had ties to CIA and
to the old Nazi spy network from World War II, people like Boris Pash,
Reinhard Gehlen, Arthur Young, Allen Dulles, George de Mohrenschildt,
George Bouhe, "Czar" Raigorodsky, Peter Gregory, Princess Sherbatoff,
Baron DeMenil, Guy Banister, Ruth Paine, David Ferrie, Jack Ruby and
perhaps even Abraham Zapruder.
They were all connected some way or another. It is when you take a
hard look at the people around Oswald, and what they all had to say in
their testimonies; it becomes obvious that they all lied about him. Marina
lied on so many accounts that she cannot possibly start talking about
Lee's innocence. Think if Oswald could have heard her, how would he
have reacted? Her endless talk about the weapon here and the weapon
there, and the utterly stupid story which nobody buys - about Lee
dressing up in a raincoat and take the bus to target practicing. This
should expel her from any respect and trust whatsoever. Remember, first
she told the Dallas Police that Lee didn't have a rifle, then he not only
had a rifle but also a revolver and Marina saw him with that rifle all the
time almost, and he fired it at General Walker, then she suddenly voiced
the opinion that he could have been innocent. No, sorry, there is no way
for her to ever become trustworthy. The truth is, she turned her husband
over to a wolf pack that tore him to pieces. The argument is that she did
that because the U.S. could deport expel and send her back to the
Soviet Union. On what legal ground would that take place, when she had
not committed a crime? The Warren Commission did not conduct a
murder investigation, as part of any justice system, there was no District
Attorney and no Court waiting at the end.
No, they all lied. The Russians around Lee lured and herded him right
into a vicious trap - that we can see a mile away. They all not only had
the exact same opinion about Lee, being a loner who hit his wife, but
spoke excellent Russian, the words they used were too similar not to
follow a pattern; as if they had gotten instructions, or a script to follow.
George de Mohrenschildt lied, that becomes equally clear when he said
he saw Oswald with the rifle. The same goes double for Ruth Paine; we
do not think she was a nickel-and-dime person in all of this. Not in a
million years. We would bet she was briefed by Allen Dulles himself, or at
least someone high up in the murder organization. The people in New
Orleans, Banister, Ferrie and Martin - they all lied too.
We will end this essay with something White Russian Alexander
Kleinlerer made clear to the Warren Commission: He could not
understand how Oswald had been able to go to Russia and return with
seeming ease, especially since he had attempted to defect and because
Kleinlerer was aware that his cousin had not been able to get his wife
and child out of Russia although he now lives in Poland.
Only one problem remain: Why did the Soviets never questioned or
contradicted the official story of Lee Harvey Oswald in the Soviet Union?
White Russians and people connected to the WRC that I some way
or another had ties to the JFK assassination
Lee Harvey Oswald
Marina Oswald
Paul Raigorodsky
George Alexandrovich Bouhe
George de Mohrenschildt
Jeanne de Mohrenschildt
Ruth Paine
Michael Paine
Abraham Zapruder
Ilya Mamantov
Anna Meller
Teofil "George" Meller
Katya Ford
Declan Ford
Lydia Dymitruk
Peter Paul Gregory
Valentina Anna Ray
Frank Ray
Natalie Ray
Thomas M Ray
Elena Hall
John Hall
Gali Clark Sherbatoff
Max Clark
Baron Jean Marie Joseph Menu DeMenil
Dominique Schlumberger
Dmitri Robert R Royster
Lev Aronson (Aronov)
Jacob Rubenstein (Jack Ruby)
Boris T Pash (Pashkovsky)
Walter Propheta
Alexander Kleinlerer
Igor Vladimir Voshinin
Helen Leslie
Samuel B. Ballen
William Dalzell
Names not researched
William Dalzell
Count Orloff
Warren C. De Brueys
Basil Zavoiko
Vlassov
Henry Rogatz
Vonsiatsky
Baron Charles Wrangel
Paquita de Shishmareff, big money White Russian financiers
Gary Taylor
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Lavenda talking about the strange churches with Jim Fetzer:
http://nwopodcast.com/fetz/media/jim%20f...dealpeter%
20lavenda.mp3
Black Op Radio interview with John Armstrong:
http://www.blackopradio.com/pod/black752b.mp3
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
