That never happened. Now he is the author of The Oswalds: An Untold Account of Marina and Lee, out on Nov. 15 with Diversion Books. 2 Her mother died a few years after Marguerite was born leaving her and five other young children in the care of their father, a streetcar conductor.3 Although . I guess they decided we must be a certain way and then wrote it. Nice to see you over here. I move all the way up there, and his parents wouldn't even let us stay in his house because I was the daughter of Lee Harvey Oswald. I have a copy of an earlier interview with June from 1983. We send you our heartfelt sympathy, the message read. In September he went to Mexico City, where, according to the Warren Commission, he tried vainly to get a visa for Cuba and to get Soviet permission to return to the U.S.S.R. As America's obsession with her father goes on, a daughter tries to set the record straight. In conversation, Rachel could be both reserved and outgoing, and though she speaks with a slow drawl, her dark eyes, high cheeks, and thick, heavy eyebrows make it clear she is of Slavic descent. This image shows Oswald family members during the graveside funeral service for Lee Harvey Oswald at the Rose Hill Memorial Park in Fort Worth, Texas on Monday, November 25, 1963. According to a 2013 New York Post report, she and her family were good neighbors who kept to themselves. In October he returned to Dallas and secured a job at the Texas School Book Depository. Their son, Mark Porter, listened to my stories about his mothers arrival in Fort Worth in 1962 but declined to be interviewed. We support the idea of independent revolution in the Western Hemisphere, free from American intervention. Did Lee Harvey Oswald have any daughters? The scene at the Executive Inn was worse than my father had expected. After her testimony, she did, in fact, go to Michigan, although not everyone in the Wolverine State was happy to have her there. Oswald has three children, two daughters, and one son. There's a lot of genetic things you can't even control that are inborn in your kids. The daughters of Lee Harvey Oswald are living their lives as normal American citizens, their mother kept them as distant as possible from the JFK assassination pinned on their dad. Like she did a movie and it involved me and Rachel, and she didn't tell us first. 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. We are ashamed that such a thing could happen in our country. But she did. Just get out. Now, the word father does mean Lee to me, But dad is Dad. It was distributed by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. Q: On your relationship with her as well? On the car ride to the safe house, Marina pleaded with the agents to stop at the house of her friend, Ruth Paine, in Irving, Tex., to pick up extra childrens supplies. On other nights, the Oswalds would walk down the aisles of the inexpensive Leonard Brothers department store and whisper intently beside the produce section before a final selection was made. Q: If someone was to ask you today who your father is, what would you say? Do you think your father pulled the trigger?, Rachel was quiet for a moment. In the year 1980, Marina was convinced by conspiracy buffs that the body in Lees grave was of a Russian spy and not Lees. Do I need to be more compassionate' about it? MORE THAN 30 YEARS AFTER the Kennedy assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald is a name that will not go away. But I still have problems in that area, because I date a lot. The writers portray me as this traumatized, victimized kid - theres a scene of me having a birthday party that no one comes to - just me in my birthday hat all by myself. My secretary in my last job put two and two together based on one of those articles. The whole series of frustrations had now brought him to this final stage, Robert Oswald writes in his memoir. 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. Mostly I feel bad that Lee was never able to tell his story. Give directly to The Spokesman-Review's Northwest Passages community forums series -- which helps to offset the costs of several reporter and editor positions at the newspaper -- by using the easy options below. A: Well, there was a lot of misinformation being released related to a book, "Case Closed," by Gerald Posner. Days afterward, Lee Harvey Oswald was himself shot and killed by Jack Ruby, as History reports, setting into motion decades of conspiracy theories that maybe there was more to the narrative than meets the eye. Lee Harvey Oswald was a KGB associate who was personally instructed by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to assassinate President Kennedy. Later that month he left his wife with a friend in Dallas and went to New Orleans, where he set up a one-man branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and distributed pro-Castro leaflets. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. By age 17, he had already moved some 20 times. The other thing is, you just worry genealogically: Lee was illegitimate, and so was my mother. The Mind of Oswald, p.215, Trafford on Demand Pub, Diane Holloway, Lee Harvey Oswald (2000). The doctors advised Marina against viewing Oswalds body, which was yellow and pale, his face bruised, but Marina insisted; she wanted to see the wound that killed him. She didn't feel like Kenneth was her dad. I nodded that I appreciated the distinction. But imagine the life of a child fathered by a villain, a child cursed with the name like Booth or Oswald. Then he dropped out of high school and joined the Marines, before being released and traveling to Moscow. Their yard had a hardscrabble lawn burned yellow by the Texas summer sun, and the front door stood on a little porch, up a single concrete step. After I insisted, she said she had never had such a sum of money in her life and planned to go right to Montgomery Ward. Ive tried not to be make a big deal about things. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/magazine/lee-harvey-oswald-was-my-friend.html. They had so little in Minsk anyway, she said, why waste money on a faraway nation that offered her fellow citizens little besides expensive sugar? She remains protective of her privacy, distancing herself and her sons, ages 6 and 3, from the overall clique of assassination cultists who have dogged the Oswald women - Marina, now 53, June, and Rachel, 31 - ever since the events of Nov. 22, 1963. Seven months later, a far greater target would be scheduled to pass by the very building where he worked. Its discomfiting to think that history could have been altered by such a small player, but over the years, Ive realized that was part of Oswalds goal. I'm a strong woman, but I don't know if I could've kept myself together. The opening of formerly secret archives in Russia indicate that the K.G.B. I asked Marina whether she had followed Bouhes urgings and begun to learn English. 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. When my mother came on and this interview went so badly, I decided I really wanted to rebut. And there have been public hearings there and in Dallas and Boston. The next day, Monday morning, the Secret Service tried to keep the television set off, but Marina once again drinking coffee and chain-smoking, with tears streaming down her face insisted on watching the state funeral of John F. Kennedy. LEE HARVEY'S OLDEST. Thats what I hope my kids will never have to go through., Do you have any pictures of you and your father?, No. As a 21-year-old college student, I returned to my hometown of Ft. Worth for the summer of 1962. If they could prove somehow that he was innocent, he'd still not be a hero, he'd be a martyr. In October 1966 a Texas appeals court reversed the conviction, but, before a new trial could be held, Ruby died of a blood clot, complicated by cancer (January 3, 1967). 17 Copy quote. Marina, already thin, appeared extremely gaunt; she was having difficulty breast-feeding Rachel, her younger daughter, who was not yet 5 weeks old. If he allowed Marina to learn English, he said, his Russian would suffer, and it was very important that he retain his fluency. Especially Oswald. Obviously, if I'd wanted to share that I would have told everyone a long time ago. Where is your respect for President Kennedy?," wrote one angry resident. I felt they manipulated her and made her look foolish. The Mind of Oswald, p.164, Trafford on Demand Pub. I'm convinced that your mother and Priscilla had a sexual relationship." 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. "We have to get the Government to move before it's too late.". Since I hadn't gotten a response, I toyed with the idea that I might have to go public. 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. Oswald's wife Marina, two daughters, brother Robert and mother Marguerite were the only mourners. Lee, who controlled the budget, would then haggle over prices, particularly with meat. Marina answered most of the questions, speaking quietly and occasionally showing photographs. My biggest concern was that people at the office had my home address and phone number and I didn't want it leaked to The National Enquirer I have two small children, I'm divorced, I didn't want people to harass the kids. We are very close - except when these kinds of things come up. A competent sharpshooter but an indifferent marine, he began expressing pro-Soviet and politically radical views and, on a hardship plea, secured release from the corps on September 11, 1959. "Please get her away from Michigan. Take this, Lee told me. On the Saturday morning after Kennedy was killed, I was sitting in my small apartment in Norman when a Secret Service agent and the local chief of police arrived and took me some 20 miles down I-35 to Oklahoma City for questioning. Gifts processed in this system are not tax deductible, but are predominately used to help meet the local financial requirements needed to receive national matching-grant funds. He told the grave diggers that the piles of dirt they were moving were in . I drive a beat-up car. I was thus thrown into the life and troubled marriage of Lee and Marina Oswald, as Lee struggled to fulfill his dreams of fame and Marina . She continued watching the broadcast until the agents had to rush her out so she could attend her own husbands funeral at the Rose Hill Cemetery. Marina's daughter, June Oswald, spoke with NBC in 1993 about her family. Two days earlier, Marguerites son shot the president of the United States. Only later did I realize that Oswald was showing off in front of Marina, pointing out that he didnt need the dictionary but that I did. It was also clear why she needed his help. . 1:10 A.M. Back in Jail Cell. I do remember that our phones were tapped. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). A: The "second spirter," right. On the other hand, I would also just like to speak with an old friend. Are they looking at me that way because of me or because Im the daughter of Lee Harvey Oswald?. As the familys translator of choice, my father was now part of the plan to get the Oswald women out of the dingy hotel room and into a safe house that Robert had arranged at his in-laws farm, north of the city, so Marina could be questioned. A new book reveals Oswald was 'humiliated' by wife Marina who mocked him as 'sexually inadequate' and cheated on him with a handsome businessman. I never saw them again. One night at the end of her shift, she and I shared a bowl of queso, chips and $2 Bloody . I assumed she would appreciate the thought. Lee Harvey Oswald. Just out of the blue. The Secret Service first knocked on my parents door at 3 a.m. on the morning of Nov. 23, 1963. During college, Rachel supported herself at the Texas Chili Parlor in Austin. The people Ive worked with the longest know. Q: One can't help but notice that you address him as "Lee.". In the year 1965, the widow got married to a man named Kenneth Jess Porter. 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. I was certainly relieved to hear that the Oswalds were doing well, and I assumed, from the spelling and punctuation mistakes, that Marina had written the letter and was getting the hang of English. Two days later, according to the University of Michigan Heritage Project, Oswald was himself assassinated. "I am now convinced that he was an FBI informant and believe that he did not kill President Kennedy," she said. 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? He kept a journal, which he labeled Historic Diary. When he, Marina and little June touched down at Love Field, on June 14, 1962, he greeted his brother Robert by asking where the reporters were. Hey Dixie! She was a widow with two preschool children and limited English. Another car pulls up - and that's the parents and the little boy. Audrey was born after her family moved from Russia to the United States. The bartenders were closing up, and Rachel said she needed to call it a night. Is David Lifton still working on a book about Lee? thanks for posting that interview I had not read it before. What Happened To Lee Harvey Oswald's Wife? I know you were just a toddler, but do you have any recollections of turbulence in the household? He wasn't much of a husband, he wasn't much of a father. Moreover, Porter currently leads a private life and is afraid to go out in public. If she was led to LHO in Russia and then to his family after Dallas, what does that tell us? Marguerite Claverie, the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald, was born in New Orleans in 1907,1 into a family of French and German extraction. Lee, in his curt way, agreed. Oswald was born two months after his fathers death; his mother subsequently remarried for three years, but the family moved frequently between 1939 and 1956. A: Yes and no. Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 - November 24, 1963) was, according to five government investigations, the sniper who assassinated U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.. A former U.S. Marine who lived in the Soviet Union for almost 3 years, Oswald was first arrested for the murder of police officer J. D. Tippit (1924-1963), who had been shot on a Dallas . They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Lee did. Her tone told me all I needed to know; Lee had been deeply insulted and mortified by my response. What it boils down to is that every time I meet someone - every person at a party, every customer I wait on, every classmate, every teacher, every would-be friend - I ask myself: Do they know who I am? And then at one point, while hes asking my mother questions about Lee, he starts to cry. I read this intvu again and if there are two people I'd love to talk to, it's Rachel and June. My boyfriend would sneak down to Priscilla's basement and read all her old files. Omissions? 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. In her early years, grocery shopping with her mother, Marina, and sister, Rachel, took place amid stares and finger-pointing; hushed conversations ignited around them like flash fires as they walked the supermarket aisles. Smallpox vaccination card, dated June 8, 1963. "Now she's a widow, too," said newspaper headlines across the country. The first chapter opens with my family, and he goes way back to my great-grandmother in Russia. Oswald has three children, two daughters, and one son. The couple are pictured with their daughter. At the same time, she seemed to be tiring of her husbands radical ideas. Anyone can read what you share. As Priscilla Johnson McMillan writes in her book, Marina and Lee, the presidents route under Oswalds workplace might have convinced him that fate had provided a unique opportunity. Her husband answered and confirmed that Marina had received the package but said that she had not read my reflections and did not wish to speak. It was during these months after moving back to the U.S. that Marina, now known as Marina Oswald, learned of her husband's violent proclivities. There was more I wanted to ask, but it was clear from her face that she was wondering if she hadnt shared too much already. For the most part, folks were nice, but they were always whispering things. On the morning of November 24, while being transferred from a jail cell to an interrogation office, Oswald was shot by a distraught Dallas nightclub owner, Jack Ruby. "She and Ken are good people, the best neighbors you could ever have," said a neighbor, Fred McCurley. And I'll tell you why: It could come up at any minute. But a week and a half later, after I returned to my parents home for Thanksgiving, I answered our single phone at the bottom of the staircase. They both believe that the facts need to be revealed, all files opened and let the chips fall where they may. The director of the Miller Funeral Home was a man named Paul Groody. He said, I know who your father is, and then he just got up and shook his head and left. So he moved to Boston and wanted me to join him. If the truth can be found that shows Lee had nothing to do with the assassination, I would feel better in that there have been a lot of things said and done regarding my family that all proceeded from an erroneous perception of what he did or didn't do. As we drove, I began telling them about how I met Oswald, the evenings driving around Fort Worth, the Dallas Russians and how a college kid got caught up with an accused assassin. In 1963, according to Marina, her husband tried to assassinate General Edwin Walker, a far-right politician, while the family was living in New Orleans; the Warren Commission would later confirm that Oswald attempted to assassinate the general. At the time, I thought that Lee, who did not have a drivers license, seemed to recognize that I was doing his young family a favor. As of 2021, the widow is 80 years old and her zodiac sign is Cancer. I don't think that's true. So on Aug. 25, 1962, we invited the Oswalds to a small dinner party at our house. Investigators took Marina and her children to Dallas, essentially severing the friendship with. Lee, by contrast, was restrained. The next Tuesday, at around 6 p.m., Marina invited me in for my first lesson. See, this is the difference. A week and a half after his return, he went to the 15th floor of the Continental Life Building in downtown Fort Worth. She hadn't read it. Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Because that's mostly what I think of when I think of Lee. Texas. In October 1956 Oswald dropped out of high school and joined the U.S. Marines. Stuck in the no-mans land between the state capitol and the University of Texas campus, the Chili Parlor is so steeped in Austin tradition that its decision several years ago to begin offering chili with beans got coverage on the local TV news. When dinner was served, Bouhe kept things light by asking Lee and Marina about life in Minsk. If it is true that poetry is the silence between the words, then there is something genuinely poetic about the life Rachel Oswald is quietly leading between the headlines. Q: When were you actually told about your father and the assassination? 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. Americans are so spoiled. After all, they each grew up in what is now St. Petersburg. We were of interest to people. Marguerite, on the other hand, was having a fit; she refused to be sent out to the sticks, as she put it. After a couple of months of lessons, my parents Russian migr circle became curious about my new friends. Ive had assassination buffs send me roses and love letters. In June 1962, he, his wife, and their daughter were allowed to leave Russia, and they moved to Fort Worth, Texas. . Wish there were more, by the family of Lee. And it was there that my father told Marina, in Russian, that her husband just died. I accepted her gift gratefully and noticed that Bouhe and Meller seemed to have provided a playpen, used clothes and other amenities in the Oswald home. In my book she belongs where her husband is. 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. Hours after the Kennedy assassination, my parents and I experienced the shared horror of realizing that the Lee Oswald we knew, the one who had been in our house and sat at our dinner table, was the same man who had just been accused of killing the president. One would think they would be more anxious to try to, clear his name. But when he walked into the restaurant, he had come straight from rehearsal and seemed really tired - they were doing the scene where Lee was held in jail - and he was wearing the same white T-shirt and blue overshirt that Lee had been wearing, his hair was cut like Lees, and the way he walked - he looked exactly like him. Oh great!" 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. U.S. National Archives A young Marina Oswald during her years living in Minsk. John B. Connally in an open-car motorcade in Dealey Plaza. June is quieter about her own marriage, which ended in 1992. By Over the years, despite public-opinion polls, many others have agreed. I had a conversation like that with her in about 88. One of the latest authors to wade into the conspiracy waters is Norman Mailer, whose book "Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery" will be published next month. Oswald met Lee Harvey Oswald in March the year 1961 at a dance in Russia. And she's just welcoming them with open arms. Q: Your childhood doesn't sound like it was easy. We always had this really bad connection, and when you'd pick up the phone you'd hear that other click. Just in recent years; but yes. I had already written a we got to President Clinton to try to make sure he would appoint this review board from the Bush legislation to review assassination records, and to release those records. 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. Q: Where do you stand today as far as your perception of what really happened out there in Dealey Plaza? Q: Do you and Rachel argue much about this? We always used my stepfather's name, Porter, growing up, even though we were never legally adopted. 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. Further still, being attached to a world-shattering crime, however obliquely, is not the life everyone wants to live, and certainly not a widow with two young mouths to feed. That didn't set well with me. Mom accused me one day of being ashamed of who I was. Oswald, after all, fled the Texas School Book Depository by Dallass notably unreliable public-transportation system. I was sitting next to the daughter of a presidential assassin, an attractive and healthy woman who apparently wanted nothing more from life than to be a good nurse. In 2003 a reporter for The Independent drove to her home to talk to her, only to be told that she wasn't interested in talking. Some of you may not have read June (Oswald) Porter's 1995 interview and might find it of interest. . I was really supportive. Lee Harvey Oswald was killed in custody by nightclub owner Jack Ruby on 24 November 1963, two days after the assassination of JFK. From nearly the moment I met Lee Harvey Oswald, it seemed that he felt the world had sized him up wrong. For the time being, he was treating her better, but she did not know for how long. Listen as Dan Rather reports on the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby on November 24, 1963, assassination of John F. Kennedy: The capture and death of Oswald, Encounter Walter Cronkite through his CBS News special commentary on the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald and on the Warren Commission. I know some people can remember vividly like it was yesterday, but I don't do that - even about yesterday. As of May 2022, she was still living, according to All That's Interesting. Marina met Lee Harvey Oswald (a former U.S. Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union) at a dance on March 17, 1961. As the University of Michigan Heritage Project notes, she was only 22 years old, with two young children, when she was widowed. 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. "Their questioning left me only one way to go: guilty. I remember that helicopters flew over my mothers wedding to my stepfather, that it was sort of a big deal in the news.. First, however, the Warren Commission wanted to talk to her, and the feds, on learning that she was a Soviet, made it clear that she'd be on the first plane back to Minsk if she didn't tell them everything she knew, according to All That's Interesting. Q: Tell me about growing up in the aftermath of the assassination. 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. www.imdb.com. In every community across Washington, families are facing the challenge of accessing and affording long-term care. For example, right before the shooting someone asked my mother to take a picture of Lee holding a rifle, and then right after the shooting, the picture is confiscated, and everyone says, Look theres the gun, theres the guy who did it, case closed.. That kind of stuff makes you feel violated. By October, Oswald had found his own room and, with the help of Marina's landlady, had found work at the Texas School Book Depository. He avoided deportation by attempting suicide and was sent to Minsk, where he met Marina. She had long admired the first lady and asked her husband to translate any magazine articles she could find about the president. I went on a car trip up to the house I had lived in with Lee, Lee's boarding house, another house Mom had lived in with Lee that's still standing, the path of the motorcade, where the bullets hit. The caller said only that she had been a student in his Russian language course at our local library, and that he knew her son. As Van Morrisons Moondance started up on the radio, Rachel danced her shoulders a little and lit another cigarette. The Russian-American widow stands at a net worth that is approximately $1 Million $5 Million. My father talked her down, but as the men began packing the car, Agent Howard whispered that Lee Harvey Oswald had just been shot. Oswald told his wife about the assassination attempt, but she never told authorities before Kennedys death. I guess it was easier for him to believe that I was insane than that Lee was my father. Left: Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife, Marina, are seen aboard a train as they depart Russia in 1962. Who I am? she asked. Well, that's what Rachel wants to believe. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. assassination looming, I sent Marina a personal letter and a written recollection of our time together and followed up this fall with a phone call. As for what his exact role in the assassination was - well, he'll have to be judged for that before God. The way I finally woke up was, one night he said, "I'm gonna sell an article to Penthouse or Playboy"- I forget which - "and it's about your mother. Lee Harvey Oswald, (born October 18, 1939, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.died November 24, 1963, Dallas, Texas), accused assassin of U.S. Pres. In January 1963 Oswald bought a .38 revolver and, in March, a rifle and telescopic sight, through the mails. But it was still depressing, seeing my father shot every time I came to work.. Kate is a bit of a tomboy and a . On April 10 in Dallas he allegedly shot at but missed an ultrarightist, Edwin A. Walker, a former army general. Q: I'm sure there must have been a lot of unusual incidents as you were growing up.