Marina Prusakova
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Marina Prusakova was born in Molotovsk on July 17, 1941. She lived with her mother and stepfather until 1957 when she moved to Minsk where she lived with her uncle, Ilya Prusakova, who worked at the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD).
Marina worked as a pharmacy worker in a local hospital and in February, 1959, met Lee Harvey Oswald at the city dance hall. Six weeks later the couple got married. The following year the couple had a daughter.
Oswald soon became disillusioned with life in the Soviet Union and in June, 1962, he was given permission to take his wife and baby daughter to the United States.
The Oswald family settled in Fort Worth, Texas. Later the family lived in Dallas and New Orleans. Oswald also became active in left-wing politics and joined the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Marina later claimed that on 12th April, 1963, Oswald attempted to assassinate General Edwin Walker, a right-wing political leader. She reported that she "asked him what happened, and he said that he just tried to shoot General Walker. I asked him who General Walker was. I mean how dare you to go and claim somebody's life, and he said "Well, what would you say if somebody got rid of Hitler at the right time? So if you don't know about General Walker, how can you speak up on his behalf?." Because he told me... he was something equal to what he called him a fascist."[1]
In September, 1963, Marina Oswald moved to Dallas to have her second child. Lee Harvey Oswald apparently traveled to Mexico City where he visited the Cuban Embassy and attempted to get permission to travel to Cuba. His application was turned down and after trying to get a visa for the Soviet Union he arrived in Dallas in October, 1963. Marina and June were living with a woman called Ruth Paine. Oswald rented a room in Dallas and with the help of Paine, he found a job at the Texas School Book Depository.
After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy Marina was taken by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and kept at the Inn of the Six Flags Hotel. Threatened with deportation, she agreed to give the authorities all the information she had. Some of this was information was later used by the Warren Commission to suggest that her husband was the lone gunman.
In 1965 Marina married Dallas carpenter, Kenneth Porter and went to live in Richardson, Texas with her two daughters and her new husband. Later she gave birth to a son.
At first Marina accepted the truth of the Warren Commission but over the years she has began to question the role her husband played in the killing of John F. Kennedy. She was especially influenced by the House Select Committee on Assassinations report published in 1979.
In an interview she gave to the Ladies Home Journal in September 1988 she argued: I'm not saying that Lee is innocent, that he didn't know about the conspiracy or was not a part of it, but I am saying he's not necessarily guilty of murder. At first, I thought that Jack Ruby (who killed Oswald two days after the assassination) was swayed by passion; all of America was grieving. But later, we found that he had connections with the underworld. Now, I think Lee was killed to keep his mouth shut.
Marina added: I believe he worked for the American government... He was taught the Russian language when he was in the military. Do you think that is usual, that an ordinary soldier is taught Russian? Also, he got in and out of Russia quite easily, and he got me out quite easily.[2]
Marina later remarried and became known as Marina Oswald Porter. In the 1990s she became involved in a campaign to clear the name if her former husband. In April 1996 she wrote that : "At the time of the assassination of this great president whom I loved, I was misled by the "evidence" presented to me by government authorities and I assisted in the conviction of Lee Harvey Oswald as the assassin. From the new information now available, I am now convinced that he was an FBI informant and believe that he did not kill President Kennedy."
[edit] References
- Ladies Home Journal, September, 1988
- Priscilla Johnson McMillan: Marina and Lee (ISBN 0060129530)
- Thomas Mallon: Mrs. Paine's Garage and the Murder of John F. Kennedy (ISBN 0375421173)
