Nine days later he left for the Soviet Union, where he tried unsuccessfully to become a citizen. My father is Kenneth Porter, the man I grew up with, the man who was there for my mother and Rachel and me. ", I said I appreciate it, but I really don't get involved in that. In truth, Rachel was a healthy, active teenager. The widow is approximately 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 meters). Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. After her husband was killed, Marina married Kenneth Porter. He sold an article for an astronomical amount back then - I think it was $25,000. 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. Q: When were you actually told about your father and the assassination? 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. I didnt know my family was any different until I was about 7. Marina and Lee Oswald had two children, Rachel and June. The Mind of Oswald, p.164, Trafford on Demand Pub. Ive listened to customers talk about Lee and the shooting, especially after JFK came out, without them knowing who I was. Are they going to take after some ancestor we don't even know? Where is your respect for President Kennedy?," wrote one angry resident. campus so Lee could talk to a school official. Lee Harvey Oswald (1939-1963) was the assassin of John F. Kennedy, unless even if you believe the claims of the conspiracy theorists. So I said, O.K, this is it. So this little boy she was going with, his parents were going to come get her and they were going to go to the dance. During a trip to the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, Oswald exuded an air of optimism. Gregory, a woman said as my father picked up, I need your help. Who are you? As America's obsession with her father goes on, a daughter tries to set the record straight. 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. 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. The Soviet Union was a miserable place to live, she continued, so why had he left a country that was so wonderful and hospitable? We beg you not to think ill of us.. It's not a matter of being ashamed, it's a matter of wanting to be judged as June Oswald and not "the daughter of Lee Harvey Oswald.". See, this is the difference. 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. Two years after the Kennedy assassination, Marina married Kenneth Porter, an electronics technician who has effectively protected her from the media. A year later the Warren Commission, headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, reported that Oswald was the lone assassin of President Kennedy. Q: I'm sure there must have been a lot of unusual incidents as you were growing up. You know, its interesting if you think about it, Rachel said, lighting a cigarette. During college, Rachel supported herself at the Texas Chili Parlor in Austin. This story appears in the March issue of Texas Monthly. 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. She looks a bit like Helena Bonham Carter, who, coincidentally played her mother, Marina in a 1993 TV movie about the Oswald family. Until I was 23, I didnt even know there were alternative theories. When my mother came on and this interview went so badly, I decided I really wanted to rebut. poll, only a quarter of Americans believe that one man acted alone to kill Kennedy. 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. I believe he's the first writer-researcher to get interviews with sources in the Russian Government and so this is an opportunity to shed new light on the subject from an area that has never been explored in any meaningful depth. Mom accused me one day of being ashamed of who I was. When I read the script, I was really angry. Priscilla was a CIA asset, IMHO, as was June Cobb in Cuba. Nevertheless, Marina was not implicated in the assassination but testified against Lee Harvey during the Warren Commission hearings. I wrote her a response telling her as much, politely suggesting a few points about punctuation. Im just a regular person. Connie Chung Bio, Age, Husband, Net worth, Daughter, Younger. We are ashamed that such a thing could happen in our country. Q: Give me an example of what you'd consider harassment, A: When I was pregnant with my first, some lady got my phone number and called in the middle of the night. My friendship with him was perhaps the longest hed ever had. Fifty years later, I would love to ask Marina Oswald Porter why that Time magazine never moved, what happened when Lee received my letter in Dallas and why she has continued to make her home so near the place where tragedy struck. A: The first time l saw it l was very upset, but it gets to the point where it almost becomes unreal, this movie you're watching that has very little to do with you as a person. One day, my mother sat my sister and me down on our big green couch and told us that the man who had raised us as our father - our stepfather, Kenneth - was not, you know, our real father, that our real fathers name was Lee Oswald and that he had, well, that he had been accused of killing the president of the United States., Rachel smiled. He avoided deportation by attempting suicide and was sent to Minsk, where he met Marina. Marina Prusakova was born in 1941, in the Russian city of Molotovsk, according to Spartacus Educational. agent or two, Mafia bosses and even C.I.A. In 1982, a national tabloid newspaper ran an unauthorized cover story on Rachel and her sister claiming, OSWALD KIDS DONT HAVE DOGS OR DATES. The word Oswald was stamped in red ink over photographs of the two girls. Later on, Marina went to Minsk to stay with her uncle named Ilya Prusakov, a colonel in the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs. They first met last April in Washington. I want to make sure they understand why I'm so matter-of-fact about it. 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. 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. We've also written about his account of Lenin's brain here. When I was reading the interview with June and she made the comment abouty getting the, call from someone who had written a song at first I was a little jarred. This was before wiretapping got more sophisticated. They spoke for a while, but when Lee rejoined us, he was sullen and quiet. From The New York Times Magazine April 30, 1995. Lee, who had been on his best behavior and even wore a sports jacket to dinner, suddenly became agitated and defensive. And Allen Dulles (the former head of the . Later in the evening, Bouhe and Meller began to insist that Marina needed to learn English if she was to survive in America. To soften the blow, he invited Oswald to lunch at the Hotel Texas, a block from his office, with its bustling dining room filled with deal-making oilmen, bankers and lawyers gnawing on Melba toast, a specialty. Oswald, after all, fled the Texas School Book Depository by Dallass notably unreliable public-transportation system. Like she did a movie and it involved me and Rachel, and she didn't tell us first. 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. With Oswald dead, Marinas testimony became even more important, and the Secret Service immediately diverted the group to the nearby Inn of the Six Flags, ushering everyone into adjoining rooms 423 and 424. And they got my mother on television in a live interview - she still doesn't have a good grasp of the language - and they were asking her specific questions about this book. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 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. I guess they decided we must be a certain way and then wrote it. As virtually the only American living in Minsk, he became something of a celebrity in that provincial capital. And she's just welcoming them with open arms. Oswald met Lee Harvey Oswald in March the year 1961 at a dance in Russia. A: Not until recently. 1:10 A.M. Back in Jail Cell. 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. They think you always have to have a car, whereas I got away on my own two feet. Since I hadn't gotten a response, I toyed with the idea that I might have to go public. At the bottom of the Oswalds conflict, I thought, was Lees refusal to let Marina learn English. Oswald currently lives a private life and is afraid to go out in public. My secretary in my last job put two and two together based on one of those articles. I nodded that I appreciated the distinction. Rachel thought for a moment. A: I've always called him that. The first chapter opens with my family, and he goes way back to my great-grandmother in Russia. We do not support the individual. People sent us money following the assassination, because Mom was young with two small children and didn't speak the language. The Texas Chili Parlor is a neighborhood bar without a neighborhood. What do I tell them? Then he sat down. 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. By age 17, he had already moved some 20 times. 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. A good person. It's a little bit like opening a family album you didn't know existed before. Oswald took a bus and a taxi to his rooming house, departed, and about a mile away was stopped by Patrolman J.D. It was in Minsk that, in 1959, she met an American, Lee Harvey Oswald, who had defected to the USSR at the height of the Cold War, when tensions between the U.S. and the Soviets were running high. I didn't really want to be the center of gossip in this whole building. 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. It also gives us information that helps explain Marina Oswalds comments about the assassination. Nonetheless, during several interviews over the past she reports being content. I listened uncomfortably, sensing his hostility at me for suggesting that he, a self-styled intellectual keeping a Historic Diary, could not write or punctuate any better than someone just learning English. The director of the Miller Funeral Home was a man named Paul Groody. They both believe that the facts need to be revealed, all files opened and let the chips fall where they may. Early that summer, Lee brought home a catalog and class schedule from Texas Christian University, and we eventually decided to drive to the T.C.U. Meller would not let him off the hook, though. Even at 29, she had a tomboyish quality, and when she laughed, she seemed to be all elbows and collarbones. It sounds as if most people are not aware you're Lee Oswald's daughter. 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. Most Americans believe that Oswald shot Kennedy. Looking at her, I was struck again by the peculiarity of the moment. The couple wed within a few weeks, and eventually had a daughter. Especially Oswald. It was usually the parents who did the weird stuff.. She told me that there was going to be a movie made about the assassination and asked if I wanted to have lunch that afternoon with Oliver Stone and Kevin Costner - my mother didnt even know who they were - and I was thinking to myself, Oh, my gosh, Im going to have lunch with Oliver Stone and Kevin Costner! So we meet them at a Chinese restaurant. After a short while, he concluded that he would do whatever he could for this young woman, even if that meant helping her husband, who had sulked off to the den, waiting to be called to the table. Mr. And his account of Women of the Gulag here and here. Aaron Gilchrist Bio, NBC News, Age, Height, Wife, Salary, Twitter. "Their questioning left me only one way to go: guilty. 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. 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. Additionally, after two days of Lees arrest, he was shot and killed by Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner while still in police custody. It was just kind of eerie. Marina, who was calling from Robert Oswalds house in Fort Worth, said immediately: I did not write that letter. And it was there that my father told Marina, in Russian, that her husband just died. Lee Harvey Oswald (1939-1963) had an unexceptional life until the fateful day of November 22, 1963 when he allegedly assassinated President John F. Kennedy. We always used my stepfather's name, Porter, growing up, even though we were never legally adopted. He was never in the same place for long. She wore a purple dress from a vintage clothing store, platform shoes, and a black string choker. Lee responded defensively that, yes, he did not think that the party faithful believed in Communism anymore but that this did not make America a great place. The opening of formerly secret archives in Russia indicate that the K.G.B. (The issue, which would curiously remain in the same place during all my visits, was dated Jan. 5, five months before the Oswalds arrival in the U.S.) We sat there uncomfortably for some 20 to 30 minutes until Lee burst in the door, dressed in his customary simple slacks, a plaid shirt with open collar and sleeves rolled up to the elbows, carrying a stack of weighty books from the Fort Worth public library. 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. As a 21-year-old college student, I returned to my hometown of Ft. Worth for the summer of 1962. A doctor pulled up the sheet to reveal the area in his torso where Jack Ruby shot him. Do I need to be more compassionate' about it? Mom would smoke all the time. 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. She would get around to it one of these days, she said. A: I would make a difference in the sense of justice being served. It was hilarious. My father was taken by Marina. My father talked her down, but as the men began packing the car, Agent Howard whispered that Lee Harvey Oswald had just been shot. Having dated for a while, they tied the knot on the 30th of April the year 1961. So l never connected it as a big negative or anything. I have to admit that when I heard that he used to play with me all the time, that was a nice feeling. He beat my mother. At the same time, she seemed to be tiring of her husbands radical ideas. 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. www.imdb.com. Why have you started to speak out? On these shopping trips, I soon realized, Marina couldnt help noticing that other mothers were buying more, dressing better and even driving their own cars. 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. I didn't break down and cry or anything. She kept herself together for us. As of 2021, the widow is 80 years old and her zodiac sign is Cancer. 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. Although disillusioned with the Soviet Union, Lee Harvey Oswald remained "Marxist," even . As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. I'm a strong woman, but I don't know if I could've kept myself together. The job, after all, could have made her the family breadwinner. We usually left with only one bag of groceries, which kept the Oswalds going for a week. I felt they manipulated her and made her look foolish. 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. One night at the end of her shift, she and I shared a bowl of queso, chips and $2 Bloody Marys. Well, that's what Rachel wants to believe. 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. 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. Its set in 1978, when I was 15 and my sister was 17. Watch on. 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. 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. Get breaking news delivered to your inbox as it happens. For seven years Rachel was a waitress at the Chili Parlor while she put herself through nursing school. On 22nd November 1963, Marina told the commission that she believed her husband was guilty of shooting President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. 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. Their son, Mark Porter, listened to my stories about his mothers arrival in Fort Worth in 1962 but declined to be interviewed. _________________________________________. I remember that helicopters flew over my mothers wedding to my stepfather, that it was sort of a big deal in the news.. So eventually the group headed to Parkland Hospital, where Oswald had been taken and where a belligerent crowd was already growing outside. He argued that it would jeopardize his fluency in Russian, but more important, it was a way he leveraged control over her. I did not call in the middle of the night however and I did not say I wished to sing my song to her. Aside from Carey, Bader is the only cast member to appear in every episode of the series. Rachel loved listening to that. We were studying the Presidents. A: Yes and no. Alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, son of Marguerite Frances Claverie Oswald. Q: I guess you must be encouraged that the review board was finally sworn in last year. 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. Whom do you really think of as dad? Though pressured to change her name, she declined, saying she wanted to "face reality, not dodge it," according to a church newsletter. But I don't remember that. New book by Hoover fellow recounts his experiences knowing JFK's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. But over the course of those months, it became harder for him to convince her of his exceptionalism. After getting married to her second husband Kenneth Jess Porter, Marina gave birth to a son known as Mark Porter. At about 1:45 pm Oswald was seized in the Texas Theatre by police officers responding to reports of a suspect. By 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 whole series of frustrations had now brought him to this final stage, Robert Oswald writes in his memoir. Q: Do you and Rachel argue much about this? My first serious boyfriend -that's what he was fascinated about. 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'm convinced that your mother and Priscilla had a sexual relationship." Anyway, the only person I knew up there was Priscilla Johnson McMillan, who wrote my mother's book. 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. Americans are so spoiled. Oswald told his wife about the assassination attempt, but she never told authorities before Kennedys death. Q: Tell me about growing up in the aftermath of the assassination. he asked in his Texas-Russian accent, still half-asleep. A: Part of it was the big anniversary, the 30th. Q: What is the status of your present-day identity? Lee Harvey Oswald's childhood did not take place in any one town or city. 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. A: It has put certain strain on it. For the time being, he was treating her better, but she did not know for how long. 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. She looks just like her father, with her mother's eyes. Here are eight things about Oswald you might not have known: 1. He said, I know who your father is, and then he just got up and shook his head and left. 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. Brigit Mahoney Bio, Age, FOX Weather, Married, Ryan, Salary. Audrey Marina Rachel Oswald was 33 days old when President Kennedy was killed, 35 days old when Jack Ruby killed her father. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. 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. In October 1956 Oswald dropped out of high school and joined the U.S. Marines. A: I don't have any real memories of those ages. Marina met Lee Harvey Oswald (a former U.S. Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union) at a dance on March 17, 1961. She was born in Dallas Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where both Kennedy and her father were transported after being shot. Rather than tell him that there wasnt much of a market for a Russian translator in 1960s Texas, my father, who fled Siberia during the civil war, welcomed the chance to meet this fellow Russian speaker in person. Who I am? she asked. He tracked me down. According to the story, Rachel was a miserable, lonely child - her dogs had been poisoned, she had never been asked out on a date, she had no friends, her family couldnt even afford to buy albums for her record player. For all I know it's still tapped. But I still have problems in that area, because I date a lot. She shrugged. Oswald is convinced that her mobile phones are tapped by the Secret Service and the Secret Service wants to assassinate her. Oswald assumed his experience as an American living in the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War would be tremendously valuable, and he was already drafting a memoir. 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. After returning to the U.S., Oswald quit or was fired from several jobs in Fort Worth and . 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 . So she became a sort of tourist attraction. By 1964,Marina Oswald Porter had put the Warren Commission behind her and was willing to take up Michigan's offer to learn English while receiving help from a local church, according to the University of Michigan Heritage Project. 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 . MORE THAN 30 YEARS AFTER the Kennedy assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald is a name that will not go away. Janet Parshall Bio, Husband, Podcast, Books, Net worth, Twitter. The evidence has remained highly debatable. Some of you may not have read June (Oswald) Porter's 1995 interview and might find it of interest. Lost in the shuffle was Oswald's widow, Marina Oswald. We were of interest to people. But during those months, his assertion was rapidly losing credibility. Well, we're all waiting and a car pulls up in the driveway, and Mom rushes out to greet these parents, and they happen to be a man and a woman, and they've got a camera and she says, "Oh, you're gonna take pictures! One guy I told actually thought I was crazy. After all, they each grew up in what is now St. Petersburg. I assumed she would appreciate the thought. But there are still people who refuse to believe that I could be normal. 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. Then I find out he's been doing some quote-unquote assassination research. 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. Tho I have been told that both daughters have been burned. The pair hit it off immediately, marrying only six weeks later. 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. She was a widow with two preschool children and limited English. Believe it or not, a couple of guys at UT refused to ask me out again after I told them about my dad. I would have liked for him to have his day in court. Lee Harvey Oswald's 'reclusive' widow Marina pictured for first time in 25 years No-one gives the 72-year-old gran a second glance as she slowly walks across a Walmart car park in a small town in . If she was led to LHO in Russia and then to his family after Dallas, what does that tell us? I mean, things werent completely normal. I tell her, "Rachel, for all we know, we could have been living in the streets." Within this morass of facts, however, there is a central actor: Lee Harvey Oswald. A: I remember Rachel's seventh grade dance. It's right across from the Capitol, and she was a waitress. She his always felt really bogged down by it. Her family eventually wound up in Minsk, at the time a part of the Soviet Union, but now part of the fully-independent Belarus. I got really embarrassed, but every time I looked up we would catch each others eye. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/magazine/lee-harvey-oswald-was-my-friend.html. She stays with her second husband who is called Kenneth Jess Porter. 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. Additionally, Marina learned English and became a citizen of the United States by naturalization in the year 1989. The scene at the Executive Inn was worse than my father had expected. He tried to after the arrest but everybody discounted it.
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