Former Chief Justice of the United States, There is a mistake in the text of this quote. 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. Two days earlier, Marguerites son shot the president of the United States. 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. The assassination has also been a constant in the life of June Oswald Porter, the 33-year-old daughter of Lee Harvey Oswald. There was always the question of whether I should tell the guy about Lee. She was an engaging young woman who had already overcome a great deal she was reared in a war-ravaged St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) littered with unmarked graves and he wanted to help her. She wanted to know Lee; she wants lee to be a saint. After an hour or so, I drove them downtown to the bus station for their ride back to Dallas. I have to remind Rachel that this is the man who beat our mother, who didn't provide for his children. A: I do. The Last Words of Lee Harvey Oswald - Statement Analysis 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. Lee Oswald and A.J. 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. The job, after all, could have made her the family breadwinner. Marguerite, on the other hand, was having a fit; she refused to be sent out to the sticks, as she put it. Original black and white photographic negative taken by an unidentified Dallas Times Herald staff photographer. Q: Do you and Rachel argue much about this? Thinking, Two, Feet. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Two days later, according to the University of Michigan Heritage Project, Oswald was himself assassinated. Book Haven readers will remember his earlier account of the events of 1963 in The New York Times Sunday Magazine here. Lee Harvey Oswald - Wife, Mother & Facts - Biography 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. Anna Meller could scarcely control her anger over his selfish behavior. Do I need to be more compassionate' about it? And there have been public hearings there and in Dallas and Boston. I'm sure he will respond. I usually end up telling people that I'm seeing very often. Lee did. Her tone told me all I needed to know; Lee had been deeply insulted and mortified by my response. Tippit, who believed that Oswald resembled the suspect already being described over the police radio. I always felt that the Cubans were being pushed into the Soviet Bloc by American policy. We are ashamed that such a thing could happen in our country. Seated from left to right are: Lee Harvey Oswald's wife, Marina, holding their daughter June; his . I read this intvu again and if there are two people I'd love to talk to, it's Rachel and June. And Allen Dulles (the former head of the . Lee Harvey Oswald's childhood did not take place in any one town or city. "We have to get the Government to move before it's too late.". Marina Oswald Porter Daughter | Children. Nonetheless, during several interviews over the past she reports being content. 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. He asked Marina if she would offer me Russian lessons. Lee Harvey Oswald Was My Friend - The New York Times I've wondered what my kids are going to turn out like. By Steve Salerno. See, this is the difference. Q: But are you comfortable with the fact that Lee Oswald played at least some role? He tried to after the arrest but everybody discounted it. Thank you for posting this excellent article. Lee Harvey Oswald was killed in custody by nightclub owner Jack Ruby on 24 November 1963, two days after the assassination of JFK. He never knew his father, Robert Edward Lee Oswald, who had died 2 months before his birth of a heart attack. "She and Ken are good people, the best neighbors you could ever have," said a neighbor, Fred McCurley. 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 . We always used my stepfather's name, Porter, growing up, even though we were never legally adopted. Every once in a while my mother would say that I looked like him, that I ate like him, that my legs looked like his legs, but for the most part we just didnt talk about it.. My father is Kenneth Porter, the man I grew up with, the man who was there for my mother and Rachel and me. Lee Harvey Oswald. 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. 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. Diane Holloway, Lee Harvey Oswald, Bob Cheney (2008). I actually once had a customer refuse to tip me. She shrugged. Just in recent years; but yes. She studied gymnastics and ballet, made good grades, was a varsity cheerleader, and was even voted most popular student by her classmates. The first car was The National Enquirer. John F Kennedy Lee Harvey Oswald mother Margaret Oswald signed about A few of the regulars.. So I ended up supporting him. It was Nov. 22, 1962. I have to admit that when I heard that he used to play with me all the time, that was a nice feeling. On November 22, 1963, Oswald shot and killed Kennedy from a room in the very building where he worked. So Lee Harvey Oswald the man who the Warren Commission Report concluded was JFK's pro-Communist, pro-Castro lone nut assassin had been an active-duty Marine who had volunteered to risk his life in a CIA program using fake defectors to infiltrate the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. Would Oswald, as Norman Mailer wrote, pushed to such an extreme, have the soul of a killer? As I pored back over those months, I realized that I was watching that soul take shape. 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. "The Mind of Oswald", p.171, Trafford on Demand Pub. 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. We were terribly moved by this. Texas. . I guess they decided we must be a certain way and then wrote it. Marina Oswald, the Russian beauty whom the JFK assassin wedded while living. One night at the end of her shift, she and I shared a bowl of queso, chips and $2 Bloody . ___________________________________________, Reminds me of Elvis Costello's song "Watching The Detectives.". A: Yes. They first met last April in Washington. I asked her what else she remembered about growing up. He was never in the same place for long. I just remember crying a lot because Mom was crying. The life and death of Lee Harvey Oswald - CBS News 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. Q: Was any of this an issue in your marriage? Bouhe was impressed that Marina spoke educated Russian and that her grandmother had attended an exclusive girls school. Thanks for this. 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. Nevertheless, Marina was not implicated in the assassination but testified against Lee Harvey during the Warren Commission hearings. Dinner ended abruptly. Later in the evening, Bouhe and Meller began to insist that Marina needed to learn English if she was to survive in America. A: Part of it was the big anniversary, the 30th. The following day, just 45 minutes after my father hung up with Marguerite, an agent named Mike Howard picked him up and drove him to a Howard Johnsons on the Fort Worth-Dallas Turnpike, where they met Robert Oswald, Lees brother. Most Texans resent this with a passion, and many of them blame Rachels father. Q: I assume you've seen the footage of Lee being shot by Jack Ruby. 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. 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. (Rachel went on to graduate from nursing school and find a job in the field.) She would get around to it one of these days, she said. Because Marina Oswald realized that she and her children could become the focus of attention at any time, she made sure June and Rachel were always neatly dressed - no matter how small the chore, and despite the fact that the family was often financially strapped. His voice rose, but what came out were canned slogans he left because capitalism was a terrible system, it exploited the workers, the poor got nothing and so forth. Mom accused me one day of being ashamed of who I was. Until I was 23, I didnt even know there were alternative theories. You know, its interesting if you think about it, Rachel said, lighting a cigarette. It also gives us information that helps explain Marina Oswalds comments about the assassination. 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. As they ordered their lunch, my father tried to engage Oswald about his wife and life in contemporary Russia, but the young man volunteered little about how a former Marine and Fort Worth resident could end up in Minsk other than to say enigmatically that he had gone to the Soviet Union on my own. Upon parting, Oswald offered the address and telephone number of his brother Robert, with whom he and his wife were staying, just in case anything came up. Why have you started to speak out? 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. . [3] They married six weeks later and had a daughter, June Lee, born the following year. The Mind of Oswald, p.171, Trafford on Demand Pub. I know you were just a toddler, but do you have any recollections of turbulence in the household? I do remember that our phones were tapped. Reporters came over and she would tell us, "shhhh, go in the other room". thanks for posting that interview I had not read it before. . Who was Lee Harvey Oswald? | Stanford News The Oswalds had been my friends. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Thanks for the video; I'd never seen it before. She kept herself together for us. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for John F Kennedy Lee Harvey Oswald mother Margaret Oswald signed about 6x9 Picture at the best online prices at eBay! Despite being attached to one of the most shocking crimes of its time, it seems that the people of America took pity on Marina. Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends, Diane Holloway, Lee Harvey Oswald (2000). Q: Over the years, you've kept a pretty low profile. From The New York Times Magazine April 30, 1995. But reporters were already camped out in front of Paines yard, so the group was diverted to the home of the citys police chief, C. J. Wirasnik. Wish there were more, by the family of Lee. Oswald told his wife about the assassination attempt, but she never told authorities before Kennedys death. Then he dropped out of high school and joined the Marines, before being released and traveling to Moscow. We would climb into my yellow Buick and drive by department stores or Montgomery Ward, and Id bring them back home by 10. His rifle, which fired the fatal bullet into the president, was found in the sniper's nest. Quickly, police swarmed Ruth Paine's home. As the University of Michigan Heritage Project notes, she was only 22 years old, with two young children, when she was widowed. He himself was fatally shot two days later by Jack Ruby (191167) in the Dallas County Jail. "She never knew when we'd run into someone, and she didn't want us to look like poor white trash"' June says simply. In June 1962, the family emigrated to the United States and settled in Dallas, Texas. Ive never even been to the Kennedy Memorial. And she said, "June Oswald?" These were lean times for the Oswalds, but they werent without hope. Soviets ordered Lee Harvey Oswald to kill JFK: ex-CIA chief - New York Post He told him to come in for a meeting. According to a 2013 New York Post report, she and her family were good neighbors who kept to themselves. At 1:30 am on November 23 he was formally arraigned for the murder of President Kennedy. They said it would depreciate the value of their home. 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. 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. 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. He argued that it would jeopardize his fluency in Russian, but more important, it was a way he leveraged control over her. He was short and wiry, his hairline noticeably receding, and he spoke with a Southern accent, not Texan, perhaps a relic of time spent in New Orleans during his youth. A: I've never publicly said one way or the other for sure. She needed a translator fast. For the time being, he was treating her better, but she did not know for how long. At about 1:45 pm Oswald was seized in the Texas Theatre by police officers responding to reports of a suspect. And they say: "Oh, we can take pictures? Audrey Marina Rachel Oswald - Everything You Wanted To Know About Lee Having dated for a while, they tied the knot on the 30th of April the year 1961. By age 17, he had already moved some 20 times. Oswald killed Tippit with his mail-order revolver (1:15 pm). I want to make sure they understand why I'm so matter-of-fact about it. Because that's mostly what I think of when I think of Lee. 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?