Though he constantly toted volumes about politics and eagerly name-checked The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, it soon became clear to me that Oswald had no real understanding of Communism beyond Marxs appeal for workers to unite. He never knew his father, Robert Edward Lee Oswald, who had died 2 months before his birth of a heart attack. She stays with her second husband who is called Kenneth Jess Porter. Another car pulls up - and that's the parents and the little boy. Apparently on good terms with police officers as a result of legal run-ins at nightclubs he worked at, Ruby was able to access the basement area of Dallas City Hall. "Now she's a widow, too," said newspaper headlines across the country. Lee Harvey Oswald was alleged to have murdered the 35th president of the United States of America, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. _________________________________________. Nevertheless, Marina was not implicated in the assassination but testified against Lee Harvey during the Warren Commission hearings. The other thing is, you just worry genealogically: Lee was illegitimate, and so was my mother. I have a bachelors degree in natural sciences. Is David Lifton still working on a book about Lee? In the 1970s, Mae Brussell, an authority on the Kennedy assassination, compiled every statement she could find made by Lee Harvey Oswald between the time of his arrest for the shooting of President John F. Kennedy and Officer Tippit and the time of his death. Marina Oswald Porter is a Russian-American widow of Lee Harvey Oswald. I told them simply that, if I were organizing a conspiracy, he would have been the last person I would recruit. And then at one point, while hes asking my mother questions about Lee, he starts to cry. And his account of Women of the Gulag here and here. And apparently there were police recordings of someone saying Jack Ruby was planning to kill Lee, and sure enough, the next day Jack Ruby makes his way through all the police and kills Lee live on national TV. Oswald's wife Marina, two daughters, brother Robert and mother Marguerite were the only mourners. He himself was fatally shot two days later by Jack Ruby (1911-67) in the Dallas County Jail. Rachel thought for a moment. It also gives us information that helps explain Marina Oswalds comments about the assassination. Lee was intelligent, but he was no genius. Every day we present the best quotes! Meller would not let him off the hook, though. It sounds as if most people are not aware you're Lee Oswald's daughter. Two months later, I peered into the mailbox of my student walk-up in Norman and extracted a penny postcard, which had been handwritten and posted two days earlier from 602 Elsbeth Street, Dallas. Though her testimony was enough to convince the Warren Commission that her deceased husband had acted alone, later in her life Marina expressed her doubts about her husband's guilt. Fight over Lee Harvey Oswald's crumbling casket USA TODAY 2.45M subscribers Subscribe 458 94K views 8 years ago Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney, testifies publicly for the first time. A good person. Despite being attached to one of the most shocking crimes of its time, it seems that the people of America took pity on Marina. By He dressed for the occasion, as I remember it, in dark slacks and a white shirt, but when we arrived, he motioned for Marina and me to wait at a distance while he had a whispered consultation with the woman at a desk. Great!" Nothing did, of course, but there were so few migrs in the area that the Dallas Russians, as my family called a group of their friends, felt protective of their own. (He often did so, almost humorously, with a smile on his face.) Copyright 2023, The Spokesman-Review | Community Guidelines | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy, 'There's not much doubt': Families of UI students react to suspect's initial court appearance and new details released, Former Gonzaga guard Kyle Bankhead crafts game plan against alma mater, Rasir Bolton rescues No. That kind of stuff makes you feel violated. At 1:30 am on November 23 he was formally arraigned for the murder of President Kennedy. She was pretty strong. Obviously, if I'd wanted to share that I would have told everyone a long time ago. When we pulled up to the house on Davenport Street, we were greeted warmly by Robert Oswald, a tall and well-spoken man, who had served in the Marines and was working his way up to management at Acme Brick Company. After they escorted me into a nondescript conference room in a downtown building, the agents homed in on the question of the day, which, of course, has lingered over the past 50 years: Did I think Oswald worked alone or was part of a larger conspiracy? Stevie Ray Vaughan was turned up loud on the radio. There were a lot of things leading up to that that they wanted Mom to do, and Mom in recent years has gotten more and more involved, I guess because she's getting older and trying to rectify some of the things she may have done unintentionally - like stating publicly that Lee did it. As for what his exact role in the assassination was - well, he'll have to be judged for that before God. A special Presidents Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, better known as the Warren Commission because it was headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, investigated from November 29, 1963, to September 24, 1964, and concluded that Oswald alone had fired the shots killing Kennedy and that there was no evidence that either Oswald or Ruby had been part of any conspiracy. And they say: "Oh, we can take pictures? Within this morass of facts, however, there is a central actor: Lee Harvey Oswald. All the while, Marguerite insisted that her son should be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, and Robert patiently set out to find a funeral home that would bury the man accused of being the presidents assassin. While Lee Harvey Oswald was sitting in a Dallas jail cell, his wife and mother and two young daughters were hiding out at the Executive Inn, a commuter hotel near the airport, where they were taken and then abandoned by a team of Life magazine staff members. He asked his secretary to type out a to whom it may concern letter stating that one Lee Harvey Oswald was qualified to work as a translator, but he also told him that he knew of no jobs in the area that required knowledge of Russian. JUNE OSWALD . Lee and Robert invited us in to meet Marina, who was slender, almost fragile, with a natural beauty. officers (including, supposedly, members of Nixons plumbers team) have somehow been tied to Oswalds actions that day, but its difficult to understand how these conspiracy theories would have worked. A: Yes and no. He served in the Marines, where his nickname was "Osvaldovich." Oswald took an early interest in socialism after picking up a. Revolutions require work, revolutions require sacrifice, revolutions, and our own included, require a certain amount of rationing, a certain amount of calluses, a certain amount of sacrifice. We always used my stepfather's name, Porter, growing up, even though we were never legally adopted. 1:10 A.M. Back in Jail Cell. So I sat across the hall in a time-out room. Nevertheless, Marina was not implicated in the assassination but testified against Lee Harvey during the Warren Commission hearings. Lost in the shuffle was Oswald's widow, Marina Oswald. My father asked Oswald to translate passages from a Russian book he chose at random, and he was surprised at how well the young man performed. (At the time, I didnt realize he hadnt graduated from high school.) The first car was The National Enquirer. He brought along maps of St. Petersburg at various stages of its history, and they spread them out on the floor and huddled together, pointing at various landmarks. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lee-Harvey-Oswald, Spartacus Educational - Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald, Academia - Timeline of the Life of Lee Harvey Oswald, National Archives - Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald, Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The conversation segued to the Time cover; Marina ventured that the president appeared to be a nice man and that the first lady, at least from the pictures she had seen, appeared quite glamorous. Two years after the Kennedy assassination, Marina married Kenneth Porter, an electronics technician who has effectively protected her from the media. I will be glad to discuss this proposition with my attorney, and that after I talk with one, we could either discuss it with him or discuss it with my attorney, if the attorney thinks it is a wise thing to do, but at the present time I have nothing more to say to you. You are now the manager of this memorial. And it was there that my father told Marina, in Russian, that her husband just died. Book Haven readers will remember his earlier account of the events of 1963 in The New York Times Sunday Magazine here. Alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, son of Marguerite Frances Claverie Oswald. Anna Meller could scarcely control her anger over his selfish behavior. Marina would understand what kind of man he really was. Marina then told me she was unhappy. He was too difficult and unreliable. Lee explained to his wife in Russian that he had invited over a pair of fellow Russian speakers as a favor. By Melissa De Witte Those alive when John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news the president had been shot. Now, the word father does mean Lee to me, But dad is Dad. Q: Where do you stand today as far as your perception of what really happened out there in Dealey Plaza? Ruby was tried and found guilty of murder (March 14, 1964) and sentenced to death. Both interviews I found in the JFK collection at the Dallas Public Library last November. But she was not too happy that I had found her and at that moment in time was not interested in. Investigators took Marina and her children to Dallas, essentially severing the friendship with. MORE THAN 30 YEARS AFTER the Kennedy assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald is a name that will not go away. Nine days later he left for the Soviet Union, where he tried unsuccessfully to become a citizen. Rachel loved listening to that. Q: Over the years, you've kept a pretty low profile. Additionally, Marina learned English and became a citizen of the United States by naturalization in the year 1989. My father now understood that the woman on the other end of the line, Marguerite Oswald, must have taken his class to communicate with her daughter-in-law, Marina, who spoke little English. So if I'm able to be detached or seem cold and unemotional about it, it's because I look at Lee in those terms. And she's just welcoming them with open arms. I dont know who else was involved, but clearly it was too big of a deal for one 24-year-old kid to do by himself. Original black and white photographic negative taken by an unidentified Dallas Times Herald staff photographer. However, a decade later, she told Ladies Home Journal that she believed the Warren Commission pressured her at the time a widow with two children and facing deportation to the Soviet Union to implicate her husband. Mom was always overprotective of us. I want to make sure they understand why I'm so matter-of-fact about it. In January 1979 a special U.S. House of Representatives Assassinations Committee, after a two-year investigation, reported that a second assassin may also have fired a shot and that there may have been a conspiracy. didnt want to recruit Oswald. A postcard to Paul Gregory from the Oswalds, November 1962. Lee Harvey Oswald, (born October 18, 1939, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.died November 24, 1963, Dallas, Texas), accused assassin of U.S. Pres. Perhaps a visit might remind them of better times. On November 22, 1963, Oswald shot and killed Kennedy from a room in the very building where he worked. He was back in America with a beautiful wife and an adorable daughter; his life ahead promised more study and a possible university degree; a publisher would surely understand the value of his memoir, and he could use it as a platform to further the socialist causes in which he believed. Autobiography of Lee Harvey Oswald: My Life in My Words, p.194, iUniverse, Diane Holloway, Lee Harvey Oswald (2000). Bouhe was impressed that Marina spoke educated Russian and that her grandmother had attended an exclusive girls school. MORE THAN 30 YEARS AFTER the Kennedy assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald is a name that will not go away. I didn't really want to be the center of gossip in this whole building. The Soviet Union was a miserable place to live, she continued, so why had he left a country that was so wonderful and hospitable? The Oswald living room was extraordinarily bare; there was a shabby sofa and chair and a worn coffee table where a copy of Time magazine featuring John F. Kennedy as its Man of the Year was prominently displayed. Ive listened to customers talk about Lee and the shooting, especially after JFK came out, without them knowing who I was. While staying with her uncle she also studied pharmacy. He sold an article for an astronomical amount back then - I think it was $25,000. A: The "second spirter," right. And so my father, Pete, led the discussion by asking her questions about their voyage to the U.S., life in Minsk and what it was like to be a young person in the Soviet Union. I don't know if I could've done it and kept my sanity: two small children, don't speak the language, dirt poor, everybody in the country pointing their finger at you -hating you in some cases. Because some people have called me and said, "I knew your father and he really loved you." On April 10, 1963, Oswald used a rifle with a telescopic sight to fire a bullet into the Dallas home of Maj. Gen. Edwin Walker, the conservative war hero, narrowly missing his head. Yes he had June and Rachel, they stayed with Marina Oswald, who remarried around 1966, so they grew up with a stepfather who by all accounts was a decent man, raising the girls in a protective environment. After her testimony, she did, in fact, go to Michigan, although not everyone in the Wolverine State was happy to have her there. Marguerite, on the other hand, was having a fit; she refused to be sent out to the sticks, as she put it. Did Lee Harvey Oswald have any daughters? Marguerite Claverie, the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald, was born in New Orleans in 1907,1 into a family of French and German extraction. Two days earlier, Marguerites son shot the president of the United States. Q: On your relationship with her as well? At the time, Oswald was traveling here and there in his attempts to advance his political goals, although whether that led to estrangement or if the couple just lived in separate domiciles for the sake of convenience, isn't clear. Q: And if someone were to show scientifically that Lee Oswald was or wasn't involved, that wouldn't make a difference to you? A: It has put certain strain on it. Corrections? I didn't shoot anybody, no sir . The next memory I actually have is in second grade. Ive never even been to the Kennedy Memorial. He got really scared and wanted to take me to a hospital. The couple got married during Lees temporary defection to the Soviet Union and migrated with him to the United States. She also said that she seemed to be a good mother. A: It was unusual. However, Marinas husband Lee Harvey was later arrested in 1963 after the 35th president of the United States of America, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was murdered. However, he was arrested for the same by denying the allegations. Would I mind coming over? His cartridge cases were also found a few feet away from the body of a murdered policeman on the route of his flight. Lee Harvey Oswald was a former U.S. Marine who was accused of killing President John F. Kennedy. Im sorry for my fathers pain, but basically I just want it to be over, one way or another, especially by the time I have kids. They think you always have to have a car, whereas I got away on my own two feet. John B. Connally in an open-car motorcade in Dealey Plaza. A year later the Warren Commission, headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, reported that Oswald was the lone assassin of President Kennedy. Appendix 13: Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald. I do remember that our phones were tapped. Lee Harvey Oswald, (born October 18, 1939, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.died November 24, 1963, Dallas, Texas), accused assassin of U.S. Pres. Q: How are things between you and your mom these days? Anyone can read what you share. I'm just a patsy. He told him to come in for a meeting. I don't think it's relevant to anything we do here and I appreciate you keeping it to yourself." [1] He was not, despite whatever you might have heard, a patsy for the CIA / KGB / FBI / LBJ . Marina Oswald and her mother-in-law, Marguerite Claverie Oswald, are seen through a window at the Dallas police station where her husband, Lee Harvey Oswald was being held in the. People sent us money following the assassination, because Mom was young with two small children and didn't speak the language. Walt Cisco, Dallas Morning News/Wikimedia Commons. So l never connected it as a big negative or anything. A: The last two years have been very stressful, because she started doing things that she hasn't let us know about, then all of a sudden I hear about it or see it on TV. While in police custody, Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby. Pete Gregory, the authors father, seated center left, translating as Secret Service agents questioned Marina Oswald days after the Kennedy assassination. At about 1:45 pm Oswald was seized in the Texas Theatre by police officers responding to reports of a suspect. A: I've never publicly said one way or the other for sure. Lee Harvey Oswald was an American Marine who defected to the Soviet Union because he supported communism. The wall build around Oswald's family women was intense after Dallas. In 1965, according to All That's Interesting, Marina married a carpenter named Kenneth Porter. I would have liked for him to have his day in court. A: Well, there was a lot of misinformation being released related to a book, "Case Closed," by Gerald Posner. At 12:30 pm on November 22, 1963, from a window on the sixth floor of the depository building, Oswald, using his mail-order rifle, allegedly fired three shots that killed President Kennedy and wounded Texas Gov. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Oswald is convinced that her mobile phones are tapped by the Secret Service and the Secret Service wants to assassinate her. But you have to understand that, aside from what role he had in the assassination, there's the issue of what role he had in our family. Even now, three decades after President Kennedys death, the name still stirs up strong emotions - particularly in Texas. Richard Rodrigues Author has 3.4K answers and 465.8K answer views Oct 2 My father was taken by Marina. Audrey was born after her family moved from Russia to the United States. . It was usually the parents who did the weird stuff.. Their son, Mark Porter, listened to my stories about his mothers arrival in Fort Worth in 1962 but declined to be interviewed. Take this, Lee told me. After a couple of months of lessons, my parents Russian migr circle became curious about my new friends.