I arrived at Roberts house as the guests were leaving and then drove Lee, Marina and June back to our house. There was a bill passed at the end of the Bush Administration that required all Government agencies to review their files for any information related to the assassination and to release it - unless they felt there were matters of national security or a couple of other issues. Moreover, Marina is convinced that her mobile phones are tapped by the Secret Service and the Secret Service wants to assassinate her. "Biography/Personal Quotes". Who was Lee Harvey Oswald? Marguerite, on the other hand, was having a fit; she refused to be sent out to the sticks, as she put it. Nonetheless, during several interviews over the past she reports being content. The opening of formerly secret archives in Russia indicate that the K.G.B. Marina asked her husband why he would attempt to murder someone: "I mean how dare you to go and claim somebody's life," she reportedly said. Sometimes when the cheerleading squad went to football games in different towns, people in the stands would shout stuff at me - you know, Your daddy shot Kennedy or Good thing your daddys dead and buried. But mostly things were pretty normal. She said, "I can never forget or forgive what he did, to me and to my children, to the president and his family, to the whole world," according to The Washington Post. 17 Copy quote. I guess they decided we must be a certain way and then wrote it. ", I said I appreciate it, but I really don't get involved in that. 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. A: I remember what I did during that time-out was, I plotted how I could run for class president and win! During one of Lees lectures about Castros Cuba, Marina, who had lived her whole life under Communism, interrupted to say that the Soviet Union was foolishly spending its precious resources to prop up Cuba. He wasn't much of a husband, he wasn't much of a father. I drive a beat-up car. Even an intended compliment could hold hidden barbs - as when a male co-worker remarked on June's resemblance to "a young Marina Oswald," then immediately apologized, saying he "didn't mean to insult her" by invoking the infamous name. I felt they manipulated her and made her look foolish. The thud was so loud that I feared she might be seriously injured; Lee, however, screamed at her for her clumsiness as she lay curled on the ground clutching for her baby. Q: How did you feel about being singled out? We didn't use the Oswald name, and it didn't come, up a lot around the house except when reporters would call It was always a big deal in November, when it was very stressful in the house. In addition, Marina lived there together with her mother and stepfather until the year 1957. 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. The first time I met Gary, she said, I was visiting my mother in Dallas. Lee and Robert invited us in to meet Marina, who was slender, almost fragile, with a natural beauty. As I was leaving their house, he raced to the bedroom and returned with a faded pocket English-Russian dictionary that he used during his time in Minsk. Why have you started to speak out? Ive never even been to the Kennedy Memorial. This helped explain why our school bus was sometimes followed by news teams, why our mailbox got shot at, why kids at school would ask, Did your daddy shoot the president? At home we rarely discussed Lee. Perhaps a visit might remind them of better times. Book Haven readers will remember his earlier account of the events of 1963 in The New York Times Sunday Magazine here. . By So eventually the group headed to Parkland Hospital, where Oswald had been taken and where a belligerent crowd was already growing outside. Did Lee Harvey Oswald have any daughters? The couple got married during Lees temporary defection to the Soviet Union and migrated with him to the United States. Or who my father was?. Why are 40+ guests suddenly reading this very old thread, as well as a smaller but still significant number reading an old thread on Marina? It was just too big of a deal. During a trip to the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, Oswald exuded an air of optimism. Marina, who never knew her father, said that she couldnt bear that her two children would also grow up without one. Robert Oswald left for the hospital, but Howard and my father agreed not to mention the news to Marina or Marguerite yet. I got really embarrassed, but every time I looked up we would catch each others eye. Oswald is convinced that her mobile phones are tapped by the Secret Service and the Secret Service wants to assassinate her. The evidence has remained highly debatable. Ive had assassination buffs send me roses and love letters. Mr. Marina waved goodbye from the steps. 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. I know that in my life, Lee wasn't a good man. You are now the manager of this memorial. She was pretty strong. Great!" She didn't feel like Kenneth was her dad. Q: How are things between you and your mom these days? Over a final round of drinks we started talking about the movie JFK. I asked her what she thought of Gary Oldmans portrayal of her father. I remember that helicopters flew over my mothers wedding to my stepfather, that it was sort of a big deal in the news.. I didn't really want to be the center of gossip in this whole building. Quickly, police swarmed Ruth Paine's home. As a 21-year-old college student, I returned to my hometown of Ft. Worth for the summer of 1962. Nine days later he left for the Soviet Union, where he tried unsuccessfully to become a citizen. Reporters came over and she would tell us, "shhhh, go in the other room". Anyway, the only person I knew up there was Priscilla Johnson McMillan, who wrote my mother's book. In the final scene they have my sister and me walking hand in hand to the Kennedy Memorial singing We Shall Overcome. That never happened either. Another car pulls up - and that's the parents and the little boy. Marina would later tell the Warren Commission, through a translator, about his imagination, his fantasy, which was quite unfounded, as to the fact that he was an outstanding man. Perhaps he chose what seemed like the only remaining shortcut to going down in history. On a typical lesson evening, I would show up around 6:30, when Lee got home from his welders job. That never happened. Q: What are your thoughts on Norman Mailer's new book? So he moved to Boston and wanted me to join him. 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. Lee Oswald Harvey allegedly assassinated former U.S. President John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963. I try to hold that in the back of my head. John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963. I think he was checking me out because I look very much like my father, and think he was trying to feel for my dad by looking at me. I don't think it's relevant to anything we do here and I appreciate you keeping it to yourself." The discouragements and disappointments beginning in his childhood, continuing through the school years and the years in the Marines, the death of his dream of a new life in Russia, the boring jobs back in the United States, which made it impossible to support Marina adequately and gain some recognition as a man . But we all knew it would also greatly benefit their ability to run errands. A: It has put certain strain on it. The widow is approximately 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 meters). Marina met Lee Harvey Oswald (a former U.S. Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union) at a dance on March 17, 1961. During one visit to a Rexall drugstore that August, Lee became visibly angry when a pharmacist offered to hire Marina, who had worked at a hospital pharmacy in Minsk, once her language skills improved. By all accounts, she was a devoted mom to her two daughters by Oswald - June (now 51) and Rachel (now 50), who told The ENQUIRER: "Yes," when asked if she believes her father was innocent. I remember that my mother was very beautiful, that she had been written up in Life magazine. She looks a bit like Helena Bonham Carter, who, coincidentally played her mother, Marina in a 1993 TV movie about the Oswald family. A: Part of it was the big anniversary, the 30th. A year later the Warren Commission, headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, reported that Oswald was the lone assassin of President Kennedy. I tell her, "Rachel, for all we know, we could have been living in the streets." Hey Dixie! At the bottom of the Oswalds conflict, I thought, was Lees refusal to let Marina learn English. But she was not too happy that I had found her and at that moment in time was not interested in. There are a lot of assassination buffs who have analyzed all the technical data and the other available material and even they don't agree about what happened. From The New York Times Magazine April 30, 1995. So I ended up supporting him. Omissions? Weeping uncontrollably, Marguerite shouted that, as an American citizen, she had as much right to see her sons body as Jackie Kennedy had to see her husbands. Q: Was any of this an issue in your marriage? But I still have problems in that area, because I date a lot. She studied gymnastics and ballet, made good grades, was a varsity cheerleader, and was even voted most popular student by her classmates. He was always provided for, but he was also, in a way, homeless--without a stable backdrop of buildings or even. I have to remind Rachel that this is the man who beat our mother, who didn't provide for his children. You know, its interesting if you think about it, Rachel said, lighting a cigarette. A: I think there definitely is circumstantial evidence that could imply he had something to do with it because of the characters he was hanging out with in New Orleans. A single armed detective patrolled the grounds as Marina chain-smoked and drank coffee and was asked questions about Lees rifle, a photo of him holding the assassination weapon and his various associates. As far as his portrayal in the movie, let me tell you - Gary Oldman is an actor. Mom would smoke all the time. We were studying the Presidents. Lost in the shuffle was Oswald's widow, Marina Oswald. For example, this TV movie about my family. One night at the end of her shift, she and I shared a bowl of queso, chips and $2 Bloody Marys. But you know, just because you're hanging out with a weird group - they could have set him up, and he could have had no idea what was going on that day. I've never seen her act like that, like she needed to become more of a crusader, and it's taking its toll. Lee Harvey Oswald was a KGB associate who was personally instructed by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to assassinate President Kennedy. In a bar filed with pretty women, Rachel was striking enough to turn heads. Where is your respect for President Kennedy?," wrote one angry resident. It also gives us information that helps explain Marina Oswalds comments about the assassination. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. An analysis by Mark McClishPosted January 3, 2013. Marina and Lee Oswald had two children, Rachel and June. Marina took a step backward and fell, thumping her head on the hard, dry ground and dropping June. "I am now convinced that he was an FBI informant and believe that he did not kill President Kennedy," she said. 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. I know some people can remember vividly like it was yesterday, but I don't do that - even about yesterday. Fifty years is a long time. 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. Oh great!" Moreover, the widow was under Secret Service protection until she finished giving her testimony before the Warren Commission.