Question: Why isn’t the FBI spying on Marina Oswald better known?
Answer: Because much governmental effort has gone into making sure that it is not better known.
Why? Maybe because Marina Oswald and her children–alive and living in Texas–have solid grounds for a lawsuit.
Before my research, I knew vaguely about a 1975 New York Times report on how the FBI admitted tapping and bugging Marina’s conversations. “Electronic surveillance,” the Times reported, was “based upon written approval of the Attorney General of the United States. The Government contended then that in national security cases, court approval was not required“.
That was true. It wasn’t until 1972 that the Supreme Court ruled in the US v. Keith case that “national security” was not a sufficient basis to conduct a search without a warrant.
But no one has ever seen transcripts of the surveillance of the wife of the accused assassin of JFK, a fact first noted by author Lamar Waldron in his book Legacy of Secrecy .
Nor has anyone has ever heard the tapes of this surveillance.
But we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the U.S. government spied on Marina Oswald after the assassination of JFK.
The results were not reassuring to Hoover’s insistence that Lee Oswald was solely responsible for JFK’s murder.
Dallas FBI agent Jim Hosty confirmed in his book that Marina was surveilled and he added a convincing detail: His FBI fellow agent Anatole Boguslav translated the Russian comments into English.
The transcripts and the tapes are still missing — a scandal that needs to be addressed as the National Archives prepares to release 3,600 still-secret JFK documents by the legally-mandated deadline of October 2017.
Hosty’s account indicates that the Dallas FBI office initially had custody of the tapes, with orders not to erase them.
Where are the tapes now? No one knows. I suspect that at least the transcripts are hidden inside informant files that have never been turned over to any investigative agency.
What the tapes revealed
I unearthed some FBI documents that explain why these tapes and transcripts have not been turned over.
The surveillance of Marina recorded statements that went directly to the question of her husband’s guilt or innocence in the murder of JFK— yet the FBI halted the surveillance less than two weeks after it began, saying that the results were “insignificant”.
This evidence was not provided to the Warren Commission.
The documents also show that although Attorney General Robert Kennedy did provide approval to tap Marina’s phone, he never gave the FBI permission to plant microphones (“bugs”) inside her home.
This newly-discovered information gives Marina and her family the right to file a new suit against the FBI and certain officials for violation of their constitutional rights.
The contents of the newly-discovered files
On the Mary Ferrell Web site, I found three folders of FBI material that are highly relevant to the JFK story.
Folders U-10 and S-3 discuss the wiretapping and bugging of Marina Oswald’s home from February 27 to March 12, 1964. Folder O-11 is a file on Marina that begins during February 1964.
These three folders tell us that although the phone tap and bugs were revealing some important first-hand information–such as the doubts of Marina and Oswald’s brother Robert that Lee shot JFK– the surveillance was shut down based on the FBI’s inexplicable claim that nothing of significance was being learned.
On February 24, 1964, Warren Commission chief counsel J. Lee Rankin asked J. Edgar Hoover for a “stake-out” of Marina’s home with “discreet physical surveillance”. This memo, and others in this folder, are within Hoover’s famous “JUNE” mail file, conducted when he wanted to conduct technical surveillance.
(Note to researchers: See the second page of this FBI June mail file for “special storage”, and page 190 on “records management”).
On February 24 1963, field surveillance began, and agents surreptitiously monitored Marina’s movements.
RFK never gave the FBI permission to plant microphones inside her home .
The next day, February 25, we see Bobby Kennedy’s signature approving Hoover’s proposal for a wiretap on her home on 2/25/64.
Bill Sullivan, the head of domestic intelligence for the Bureau, wrote on the 25th that “the practical thing to do is to place the installation in her new home…and then give this coverage adequate time to see if anything relevant can be developed.”
However, for reasons unknown, the FBI exceeded the terms of RFK’s approval of the tapping of Marina’s phone. On February 27, the FBI obtained “internal approval” to plant bugs inside Marina’s home–without asking the Attorney General.
The microphones were planted throughout the house- – from the attic to the bedroom — on the night of February 28, hours before Marina was going to move in to her new home. The phone tap was installed on February 29 by Special Agent Nat Pinkston. The bugs became operational on March 2.
Although the plan was to conduct surveillance indefinitely, the whole operation was shut down for no plausible reason by March 12.
A decade later, an FBI memo admitted that the bugs installed by the FBI were never approved by RFK. The FBI justified its actions by citing “general authority then existing” for its action.
There was no such “general authority.” If he Bureau had no court order authorizing the planting of microphones inside Marina’s home, the bugging was clearly illegal.
If RFK had approved of the bugs, their legality would be a closer question. Without RFK’s approval, the FBI was clearly breaking the law as it was understood in 1964.
What was learned
A report by FBI special agent Milton Newsom discusses what was picked up on Marina’s phone and the microphones inside the house. The results were not reassuring to Hoover’s insistence that Lee Oswald was solely responsible for JFK”s murder.
Newsom’s report shows that:
–at that time Robert Oswald, Lee’s brother, was saying that he thought Lee was innocent. Later Robert Oswald would say he had no doubt about Lee’s guilt.
–Marina went back and forth on whether Lee was guilty.
–Marine said that she didn’t remember the package that Lee’s neighbor and co-worker Buell Wesley Frazier claimed Lee brought with him to the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) that fateful Friday morning.
On March 11, Marvin Gheesling, a senior FBI counterintelligence agent in Washington, tipped off Lee Rankin, chief counsel of the Warren Commission, about some of what was learned about the conversation in Marina’s house.
Gheesling did not tell Rankin that the tap and the bugs were the source.
Gheesling took pains to avoid letting Rankin know about a conversation between Marina’s business manager (and paramour) James Martin with the Russian translator Ilya Mamantov.
Mamantov was brought into the case by Army Intelligence on the afternoon that JFK was killed. Mamantov believed Oswald was a Soviet agent. He proceeded to obtain a questionable statement from Marina on the night of November 22, 1963 that she recognized the rifle found on the sixth floor of the TSBD as belonging to Lee.
Martin told Mamantov that “Marina understands English pretty well” and that she didn’t need a translator. That news would have caused shock waves at the Warren Commission, which had been given the impression that Marina had little comprehension of English-language conversations going on around her.
The FBI claim that ‘no significant results’ had been obtained was nonsense.
The FBI claimed there was a major problem with the surveillance: it was picking up attorney-client communications between Marina and her attorney William McKenzie.
In the past, the FBI had not considered that as a problem. McKenzie had already assured the FBI that he would assist them in “spot checking” her activities that were not direct attorney-client communications.
McKenzie also told Rankin that he would get a waiver of the attorney-client privilege from his clients about anything they knew about JFK’s assassination –and he had it in writing within days after the bugging began.
There is no denying that the information they were obtaining was of great importance. The FBI claim that “no significant results” had been obtained was nonsense.
What can be done today?
A lot.
I will take action to see if these tapes or transcripts of Marina Oswald remain in the possession of the FBI’s “informant files“, as indicated in the documents I reviewed. The FBI did not turn over any such material to the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) in the 1990s.
I will also challenge the FBI’s refusal to provide these documents and the rest of the informant files to the ARRB or the other investigative bodies that have demanded that all relevant evidence be turned over. This is part of a pattern that I will discuss in my follow-up article.
Warren Commission in the dark
Marina’s love life also was an area of potential embarrassment for all concerned. After her husband’s murder in policy custody, she became romantically involved with her business manager James Martin, with whom she discussed the pros and cons of marriage which might lessen the possibility of her deportation. Marina was vulnerable to pressure due to her immigration status.
Chief counsel Rankin was informed that the surveillance of Marina would be ended. The FBI recommended that Agent Newsom’s report not be given to the Warren Commission, in order to avoid public criticism of the Bureau for tapping Marina. Hoover wrote that the Commission was trying to embarrass his agency. The story remained hidden.
When the New York Times story broke the story a decade later, Warren Commission assistant counsel David Belin said that it was “horrible” that the Commission was not informed about the FBI’s actions.
Legal implications in 2015
Since the failure to obtain RFK’s permission to plant bugs in Marina’s home has been revealed for the first time, the argument can now be made that the FBI cannot claim reasonable belief of compliance with the law prior to the 1972 court decision that court approval is required in order to use hidden microphones.
The statute of limitations only begins to run in a setting where a reasonable person would learn about it. Media publication is considered to be such a setting.
The time to sue on the telephone tap would have begun with publication of the Times story in 1975, and the statute of limitations has long since run on that subject.
The time to sue on the bugging of Marina’s home, however, has arguably just begun with the publication of this story revealing RFK’s failure to provide permission.
Dick Russell has written about how Marina has expressed interested about filing suit to try to take effective action in reaching resolution in the JFK case. I wonder if she is still interested?
My legal opinion is that Marina Oswald – and maybe even her two children, who resided with her at the time – are now free to file a lawsuit against the FBI and certain officials for the planting of the bugs.
Gerry, I agree with you that oswald had a number of witting and unwitting babysitters. I have met Ernst turnovers and read his book, I can assure you he is not one of them. For more than 50 years he has taken
the unpopular position of standing up for oswald as a good friend. I think the bigger concern is not taking seriously the tapes and transcripts hidden from us all this time that reveal that oswald’s wife and brother had serious doubts about his guilt back then.
Gerry, give us a break on the Isralie and Soviet BS – as it is quite clear that they did not control Oswald the Patsy nor provide the psychwar angle to the assassination plot to blame what happened at Dealey Plaza on the Castro Cuban Communists. It’s not just compiling a list of those who had problems with JFK – and listing their credentials, its a matter of following the evidence from the ground up – and that includes the psychwar elements of the plan – a black prop op that exonerates Oswald, LBJ, the Mafia, Cubans and Soviets. Like Photon, there’s no sense in stopping to argue with you people when we are so close to really wrapping this whole case up and figuring out how JFK was killed – by a domestic covert intelligence operation that included the psyops twist to blame Castro. Who could have put that twist on the plan? Not many suspects.
At the urging of deMohrenschildt Oswald applied for a job with Sam Ballen at Ballen’s office in the same office building where Oswald is reported to have met with Antonio Veciana and David Atlee Phillips. Ballen met Glover through Lauriston Marshall of the Graduate Research Center, whose director at the time of the assassination was one of its founders – Arthur Collins, of Collins Radio, Cedar Rapids, Iowa and Richardson, Texas. JFK mentions the Graduate Research Center in the opening statement of JFK’s undelivered speech.
Leslie Sharp said “The atomic energy and weapons industry gets a pass in the investigation I think” In my opinion former head AEC chair Lewis Strauss and David Ben-Gurion Former Prime Minister of Israel were at loggerheads with JFK over Israel bomb,they had the motive to remove Kennedy and is one of balls in air but not the main one.
I attended in 1992 a JFK Symposium in Ontario, Canada.
Marina Oswald took some questions from the audience at one of the sessions. Her husband Ken Porter also attended.
I was struck Marina did not seem to be the poor immigrant woman wearing a babuska on her head.that we saw on tv the awful weekend after November 22.
Marina was very articulate and very well spoken. She was also very very beautiful although simply dressed.
She basically said she was interested in the truth about 22/11/63. She said she was no longer sure about what she had initially thought back in 63.
This was back in those days when we were told by the MSM and Warren Commission that a nobody, a lone nut had killed Kennedy.
Prof. John Newman, Jean Hill and Beverley Oliver also took part.
I thought Hill.told a very compelling story in her book The Last Dissenting Witness.
Hill was dating a Dallas cop at the time that was also at work in Dealey Plaza that day. Dallas Police had their lockers stripped that weekend of any notes pertaining to the murder.
Hill also told about fearing for her life for good reason for many many years after that. She maintained she was almost killed off numerous times.
Hill also felt she had been bullied by Arlen Spector during her Warren Commission Testimony.
Marina lying about her ability to read or speak English in 1964 is something that seems to get overlooked.
Marina’s background in the Soviet Union is one of the most under-investigated elements of the case…
It indeed would be a game changer if Marina Oswald sued for illegal surveillance.
More so, if she sued for slander.
It might be the only way to perhaps get out from under the very dark cloud she has lived under all these years.
The Mainstream Media would have to report on it.
A person who fears for her own life but also her children perhaps would never consider doing it.
It is no wonder the FBI ended the surveillance of Marina, as the information did not backup the FBI inspired lone nut fiction.
It is interesting that thoughts of the subjects were polar opposite to their representations made to the Warren Commission.
The FBI ditched the surveillance because the information yielded was indeed important to efforts to investigate the JFK’s assassination.
Closer scrutiny of the methods and means the FBI employed with witnesses, witness accounts , (especially with any evidence that ran counter to a lone nut theory) and the way evidence was submitted to the Warren Commission, the FBI served to obstruct the investigation of the assassination. If the subjects of surveillance did not provide information that supported the biased FBI perspective, then that information would be deemed unimportant.
The FBI had no intention to investigate the truth of JFK’s assassination, period.
Absolutely agree.
Couldn’t Marina also authorize the IRS to release all tax returns filed by Lee Harvey Oswald? This might resolve some longstanding theories about how much he was paid and by whom for certain tax years.
i would think Marina would loose that case,afterall she was suspect in crime of centry.We forget that she was silent on her husband building a pipe bomb in Russia,hi-jack a plane to Cuba in NO and assassinate Nixon in Dallas. The fact that she was certified White Russian and that community facilitated her and LHO to kill JFK made the decision of FBI to stop there surveillance easy.
Hi Gerry:
Are you sure you are using the appellative “White Russian” correctly?
The fact that Marina is White and Russian does not make her a “White Russian”…
Don’t you love semantics?
One of the puzzling aspects of this is precisely the contradiction of a poor nobody and his Red Russian wife rubbing elbows with la creme-de-la-creme White Russian community.
As Bill Murray said in “Ghostbusters”:
“Mass hysteria! Dogs and cats living together!!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfVcvyxLj-s
=======================
“Civil war erupted among the “Reds” (Bolsheviks), the “Whites” (anti-socialist factions), and non-Bolshevik socialists.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_nobility
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_%C3%A9migr%C3%A9
Ramon F Herrera She is White Russian because of her polished Russian speech,Paul Gregory would not recruit her to teach his son Czarist Russian if she was atheist and communist.
This story reemphasizes what a jerk RFK was.
He approved illegal wiretaps on Mrs. Oswald, just as he did on Martin Luther King. If one believes the Waldron scenario (“Ultimate Sacrifice”), then he was the intended target on 11/22.
Too much mamma, as JFK might have said.
“Lord, make me good…but not yet,” as JFK DID say.
“He approved illegal wiretaps […] on Martin Luther King.”
===========================
Bobby approved that wiretap, and you and I would have done the same.
If it is ordered by the AG, it is not illegal. That was specially true in the 60s.
JE Hoover abused his orders, like he did everything. Wanna talk despicable? Here’s your man!
http://patriot.net/~ramon/misc/Edgarina.jpg
No, Ramon, if the A.G. orders it, it is not necessarily legal.
The Fourth Amendment applies, now as 50 years ago, to unreasonable searches and seizures. If a prosecutor wants to tap your phone, he must apply for a warrant from a judge and persuade him or her that probable cause exists to believe a crime is being committed and that the subject of the wiretap is committing it.
I am afraid you are confusing RFK and Hoover with Nixon, who famously told David Frost,
“If the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.”
Nixon, Hoover and RFK were wrong, and the taps on Marina Oswald, MLK and who knows else were unauthorized by a court and therefore illegal.
Shame on our government! The rules of law every average Joe are expected and demanded to follow somehow do not apply to government agencies. These agencies make a mockery of our Founding Father’s brilliant Constitution! When I was a kid, my parents said that Communism was a theoretical ideal perfect government, but, would never work because people were not perfect and power would corrupt their leaders into doing what was best for them and not the people. They told me our government, was different, and was elected by the people, and were duty bound to act on behalf of the majority of people who elected them. Apparently, they and our Founding Fathers were wrong. As long as you let uneducated, ill-informed, government supported, people vote for proven liars and crooks, our democracy is no better than communism. And when OUR government lets politicians, like the Clintons, repeatedly break the campaign contribution laws(and others) for 20 years, and fine them paltry amounts of money, with no jail time, we will(and do), in effect, live in a Politician’s form of Communism, with the unaccountable Government agencies like the CIA, ONI,FBI, and NSA being the real Government and enforcer of THEIR law. After all, with a basically unlimited budget(CIA and NSA), they can buy anybody, anytime, they need to. If we cannot fix it, we need to think about a new revolution for our liberty. And no, I am not a Tea Party member. I am now an Independent Thinker as there is marginal differences now between the two established fake parties and their disregard for the Constitution and our rights.
“Since the failure to obtain RFK’s permission to plant bugs in Marina’s home has been revealed for the first time, the argument can now be made that the FBI cannot claim reasonable belief of compliance with the law prior to the 1972 court decision that court approval is required in order to use hidden microphones.”~Bill Simpich
I think there are far ranging implications to this information; that of how many other activities of both FBI & CIA were involved in that left RFK out of the loop? One thing that comes to mind is the assertion that Robert Kennedy was in on the continuing attempts on Castro during and after John was murdered — in the time when John was reaching out to Castro for a normalization of US – Cuban relations.
We know the lengths that CIA and the Joint Chiefs had gone to in order to keep the truth about the escalating mess in Vietnam now as well. It seems that both brothers were “left out of the loop” on many things concerning “National Security” during the Kennedy Administration.
. . . . .
Dulles, Kennan, Gladio
CIA was granted the power to engage in “propaganda; economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolitions, and evaluative measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation groups.” Paramilitary and terrorist methods were from the start acceptable as part of covert political warfare.
Years later, Kennan was contrite: Testifying before the Church committee, he said: “It did not work out at all the way I had conceived it…I regret to say operations of this nature are not in character for this country.” (Today, of course, they are the defining norm). In 1989 Kennan told a biographer that his authorship of 10/2 was “the greatest mistake I ever made.”
By the time George Kennan wrote up National Security Council directive 10/2, CIA had already begun OPERATION GLADIO subverting the elections in Italy, and seeing to it that the Christian Democrats defeated a coalition of socialists and Communists. GLADIO included paramilitary operations, “black bag” operations, and the enlistment of veterans of Mussolini’s secret police, joined by Mafia stalwarts.
CIA chief counsel Lawrence Houston told Admiral Hillenkoetter, who had raised questions about the legality of GLADIO, “You do not have the authority.” Although Allen Dulles was not employed officially by the Agency until 1951, we can see how influential he was in shaping the identity of CIA. In 1992 a CIA apologist named F. Mark Wyatt would justify Operation GLADIO as having “save[d]” the Italians even if it meant “going beyond our charter.” 10/2 rendered GLADIO legal.
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My expectation is that Marina had involvements and entanglements that would come to light with due process. I wonder how Ms. Paine rests all things considered….?
However, Marina couldn´t sue the FBI because her testimonies were manufactured for “proving” Oswald´s guilt, and it surely implied not only payment through some front company, but also an agreement NOT to claim in any may against the powers that be.
Arnaldo:
If The Powers That Be operated in such a crass way, the case would have been cracked open years ago.
Notice how, after getting him juicy contracts in Haiti, they abandoned de Mohrenschildt who became destitute, forced to crash at his ex and sell his story for a measly $4,000 to Epstein.
Marina was obviously handled using the old and tried “Good Cop, Bad Cop” techniques.
Today, she denies a lot, even the rifle.
“Would you sacrifice your children for the truth?” – Marina Oswald to Jesse Ventura in 2010 on his show “Conspiracy Theory.”
“(Marina had made a lot of statements incriminating her deceased husband in 1963-64. The Warren Commission had use her as its star witness in the posthumous frame up of patsy Oswald in 1964. Marina at the time was age 22, with a toddler and a baby, no money, did not speak English, was surrounded by US intelligence, had her phone illegally wiretapped in Feb. 1964, and feared being deported back to Russia or even possibly being indicted as a accomplice in the murder of President John Kennedy.”
Here is the episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW5_7dx-REw
Go to around the 24 minute mark for Ventura’s interview with Marina Oswald.
Thank you, Robert, for the link.
Marina’s comments are quite understandable, particularly in light of her “capture” after the “big event” by Priscilla McMillan, a CIA asset, who also, strangely enough, met with LHO in his hotel in Moscow in 1960. Small world.
Most interesting was Jesse Ventura’s encounter with Vince Bugliosi. Just another overblown prosecutor who ignores any fact contrary to his version of the case. I have met his type many times. Some of them even comment on this blog.
Real trial lawyers must account for contrary evidence and explain how it fits into the case. Amateurs simply ignore it.
Bugliosi is an amateur, and a bully.
“Priscilla McMillan, a CIA asset, who also, strangely enough, met with LHO in his hotel in Moscow in 1960.”
======================
She is the only individual who met both JFK and Lee in person (before the murder, obviously). She was an aide to Kennedy.
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2013/11/07/lee-harvey-oswald
If you want to explore coincidences really suspicious see Bradlee and Angleton who were part of the Georgetown Set.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/22/the-bizarre-tale-of-ben-bradlee-jfk-and-the-master-spy.html
Ramon Herrera, when considering additional facts involving Priscilla Johnson Macmillan, the term coincidence eventually challenges credulity.
(my apologies if you already have this information but I think it’s worth repeating regardless.) Priscilla was married for a period to journalist George McMillan who was alleged to be another writer sympathetic to the intelligence community and interested in assassinations, penning a ‘no conspiracy’ in the MLK assassination. A decade plus after the Kennedy assassination, Priscilla authored the popular ‘no conspiracy’ book, “Marina and Lee” drawing on her interviews with Lee while he was in Russia, and presenting an emotionally charged characterization of his personality, his marriage, and his instability that she alleges lead to the assassination.*
A little explored detail in Priscilla’s life is the relationship she shared with Sam Ballen, close personal friend to George deMohrenschildt in Dallas. In Ballen’s own recollection, “Without Reservations,” he indicates that he knew and was quite fond of both George and Priscilla. He also says that he arranged for deMohrenschildt’s interview with Edward Epstein / Readers Digest. Reading between the lines of his account, I suspect the publication knew from the records of the Warren Commission that Ballen had befriended deMohrenschildt years earlier and they contacted Ballen to act as conduit for the interview. By coincidence, Pricilla’s book “Marina and Lee” came out in 1977, the year deMohrenschildt died. By further coincidence, Ballen was in Austin, TX attending a meeting of the Texas Railroad Commission when he received a call directly from Epstein just hours after deMohrenschildt was declared dead in Manalpan, FL. For those unfamiliar with the Railroad Commission, it held the keys to the rules, regulations and pricing of the entire oil industry in the United States. A few months following the assassination, c. summer of 1964, Priscilla Johnson McMillan brought Marina Oswald to Santa Fe, NM for a brief respite; they visited her cousin Dave Davenport, a former businessman in Alaska and retired Central Intelligence agent then living in Santa Fe. Sam Ballen acknowledges he and Davenport were good friends. Ballen had been travelling to New Mexico for years and bought the world-renowned La Fonda Hotel. By coincidence, Ballen had befriended George deMohrenschildt’s step daughter and her new husband and hosted them when they were returning from a stint in Alaska.
(to be continued)
(cont.)
Ballen met Everett Glover, formerly with deGolyer McNaughton petroleum geologists, at a dinner in Garland, TX hosted by senior executive Lauriston Marshall with Graduate Research Center, a project of military contractor Texas Instruments’ founders that included members of Kennedy’s welcoming committee the following year. Glover began to play doubles with Ballen and George and Jeanne deMohrenschildt. Glover, recently divorced, rented a house with Volkmar Schmidt and another Magnolia employee. Contrary to conflicting versions, Everett Glover hosted the party where the deMohrenschildt’s met Ruth Paine (Michael declined and did not attend that party). Glover testified that he had befriended Ruth and Michael Paine years before having been in a chorale group with them; he knew of Ruth’s interest in the Russian language, he knew that George and Jeanne spoke Russian, so he invited Ruth. Separately, Glover had met Marina Oswald several times thru his relationship with the deMohrenschildts and invited her and Lee to this same party. There is no indication that Ballen attended that evening.
William Kelley has posted an interesting essay related to this particular party, recounting that {Glover’s housemate} Volkmar Schmidt has told him that he talked to Oswald that night about the merits of assassinating Gen. George Walker (paraphrasing). Schmidt was not directly involved in introducing Ruth Paine to George and Jeanne deMohrenschildt. Everett Glover testified that it was he who facilitated the introduction Caveat: it is possible of course that many of these individuals lied under oath; the Paines may well have known the deMohrenschildts prior to that evening. but Glover states they did not; and he states that Ruth first met Marina and Lee at that party. So Glover and Ballen appear to have been significant conduits in the positioning of the Oswalds in the Paine’s lives in spite of theories that deMohrenschildt alone was the handler.
(to be continued)
(cont.)
*A recent review of the research into Priscilla and George McMillan as contributors to the cover up of assassination conspiracies produced the following: (I’m not familiar with Miller’s work, but this particular section appears well researched.)
“The JFK Conspiracy” David Miller, The Writer’s Club Press, iUniverse 2002
https://books.google.com/books?id=RlW_J7V6Ey0C&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8&dq=george+mcmillan+journalist&source=bl&ots=Cdf1TU9U-C&sig=F8vNHG5uiYTvv3EdQ46bcIz9re0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=esFnVZvmA4b9yQSW54LADw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=george%20mcmillan%20journalist&f=false
excerpt: “The December, 1972 issue of The Realist, Paul Krassner’s iconoclastic magazine, printed a long article on “New York Times” coverage of alleged conspiracies by Jerry Policoff, an advertising executive with extensive knowledge of assassinations and the media. Policoff noted that the “Times” periodically printed “no conspiracy” pieces by Priscilla Johnson, a journalist who had met Lee Harvey Oswald and Marina Oswald years ago. Policoff noted several conflicts of interest regarding the “Times” and political assassinations, one being the use of Supreme Court correspondent Fred Graham to review books on the JFK assassination and the Warren Commission. Very pro-Earl Warren, Graham invariably defended the Warren Commission in his book reviews. . . .
. . . George McMillan wrote extensively about the Martin Luther King, Jr. killing, including a 1976 “no conspiracy” book (The Making of an Assassin) that was favourably reviewed in the “Times” by Anthony Lewis. Curiously, Lewis in 1965 wrote the introduction to “The Witnesses,” a compilation of testimony before the Warren Commission, produced by “The New York Times.” In early 1975 Jerry Policoff was invited to serve on a panel discussing the JFK assassination and the media at the annual A. J. Liebling Counter Convention sponsored by (MORE) magazine. At the last minute however, Policoff was replaced on the panel by Priscilla Johnson McMillan. Coincidence? Or Conspiracy?
Leslie Thanks for the update on Priscilla McMillan I see at least one connection of her to Boris Pash
The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer: And the Birth of the Modern Arms Race Hardcover – 21 Jul 2005
by Priscilla Johnson McMillan
Gerry, thanks for the heads up. Apparently she was very sympathetic to Pash’s target, Oppenheimer. I doubt she even interviewed Pash unless she had been working on the project for over a decade. I do wonder how much time she might have spent in Santa Fe, 45 minutes from LANL, and whether or not she caught up with Ballen; he claimed to have close relationships with a number of scientists at the lab who would have been involved with Manhattan.
When you can, would you provide a general synopsis of your theory about Pash’s involvement in the assassination conspiracy? He certainly has the credentials to have been at the very least on the periphery and/or sympathetic. The atomic energy and weapons industry gets a pass in the investigation I think.
I was struck by a quote from Marina (maybe I read it in James Douglas’ book) from some time not long after the assassination where she said “Would you sacrifice your children for the truth?”. That speaks volumes. However, perhaps the time has come for her or her children to take some new action. Really, it’s long past the time for the murderers in the US gov’t., military, and those private citizens who were involved, to be exposed at a national and very public level.
Perhaps she could also sue the government for slandering her late husband.