JFK Assassination Forum
JFK Assassination Discussion & Debate => JFK Assassination Discussion & Debate => Topic started by: Charles Collins on March 31, 2023, 12:23:45 AM
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During her HSCA testimony, Marina Oswald was having obvious difficulty remembering details from 15-years earlier. Here is her sworn testimony regarding the accuracy of Priscilla Johnson McMillan's book "Marina and Lee":
Mr. McDONALD - What happened the next morning?
Mrs. PORTER - I am sorry, it is very hard for me to remember right now details, so whatever I told Priscilla, that was the truth. My memory was much fresher then, and you can take the statements in the book as a true fact.
8)
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"Marina and Lee" wasn't published until 1977, and it's written in narrative form with McMillan "recreating" word-for-word conversations. We don't know what words Marina actually said to McMillan, and what is dramatic license. In any case, those conversations post-date Marina's direct WC testimony for sure.
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"Marina and Lee" wasn't published until 1977, and it's written in narrative form with McMillan "recreating" word-for-word conversations. We don't know what words Marina actually said to McMillan, and what is dramatic license. In any case, those conversations post-date Marina's direct WC testimony for sure.
In any case, those conversations post-date Marina's direct WC testimony for sure.
Marina’s second testimony to the WC was taken on July 24, 1964. Here is an excerpt from the forward (by Joseph Finder) of the reissue (2013) of “Marina and Lee.”
From July 1964 until the end of the year, McMillan all but moved in with Oswald’s young widow and her two small children in her ranch house outside Dallas. They cooked meals and traveled together. McMillan babysat Marina and Lee’s kids. They traded confidences. The terrible event was less than a year old, and its details were still fresh. This was about as close as we could get to asking questions of Oswald himself.
He doesn’t say what day in July that McMillan “all but moved in.” If all of the conversations between Marina and McMillan actually did post-date her testimony (as you claim), they didn’t post-date it by very long.
For someone who tries to insinuate that others do not care about the truth, you really ought to look in the mirror and ask yourself whether or not you care about the truth.
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It says in the original printing of “Marina and Lee” that their first interview session for the book was in August.
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It says in the original printing of “Marina and Lee” that their first interview session for the book was in August.
From page 797 of my Kindle copy of “Marina and Lee”:
Information concerning the childhood and youth of Marina Nikolayevna Prusakova in Russia (Part One); her marriage to Lee Harvey Oswald, and their life together in Minsk (Part Two); and their life together in the United States, as well as her experiences after her husband’s death (Parts Three and Four), is derived from her own recollections as Marina Oswald in personal interviews with the author in Russian from June 1964 through December 1964, and as Marina Oswald and Marina Oswald Porter in subsequent telephone conversations and correspondence in Russian and English; from Warren Commission testimony by Marina Oswald in Vols. 1, 5, and 11 (see below); from an account of her life by Marina Oswald dated January 4, 1964, written for the FBI and published in Vol. 18, pp. 596–642; and from reports on FBI and Secret Service interviews with Marina Oswald appearing in the Warren Commission Exhibits.
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Another excerpt from Marina Oswald’s HSCA deposition concerning the book “Marina and Lee” by Priscilla Johnson McMillan:
By Mr. CORNWELL:
Q. And following that then, after you saw the book in its final form, did you read it in its entirety?
A. Yes; I did.
Q. With respect to the matters in the book that you have per- sonal knowledge about, and I take it there are some things in there you simply have no personal knowledge about, but with respect to the things that you do, did you find inaccuracies in the book or things that did not comport with your memory?
A. Well, as far as the facts that came from me or---
Q. Yes, ma'am.
A. That is true but some conclusion that she has to come to on her own, maybe even analyzing my character, that was up to her to decide but the facts were not twisted.
Q. OK, So the facts then that you have knowledge of as portrayed in the book are accurate to the best of your memory?
A. Only the facts that concern my and Lee's life. I am not responsible for other characters, I don't know how true that is.
Q. I understand. At least the facts that concern you and Lee and that you had personal knowledge of after reading the book seemed accurate?
A. Yes.
Q. And it would only be the conclusions or the inferences drawn from that that might be Priscilla's and might differ from yours, is that correct?
A. Yes; that is true.
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Q. If you have a different view on those subjects because you wets one of the closest people to Lee, that is what we would like to know.,;
A. Well, I would buy Priscilla's conclusions. From my own personal experience I did not come up with anything different. Priscilla did not have the attitude to condemn or pronounce guilty from the first page, she was just working through the dark as well as I was and everybody else, so I would still, in my mind agree with that conclusion more than: the conspiracy theory because I do not know anything about the other matters. I do not know anything about ballistics, you know, to dis- prove that Lee didn't do it. I would like that very much but I know so little. Do you understand me?
Q. Yes.
A. Make a perfect picture.
Q. I think so. As I understand what you are stating it is that the. conclusions that were drawn in the book, even though Priscilla drew them on her own, you agree with them.
A. Well, She didn't just dream them up.
Q. I understand, but it was her right to draw the conclusions.
A. Yes.
Q. And she of course wrote the book.
A. I did not give her the right but I respect her for doing a good job, too, and she was very honest. Some things were not very meaningful.
Q. Your opinions on the subjects are the same as hers?
A. Yes.
Q. As set forth in the book?
A. No; not my opinions because she made some opinions from a psychology point of view. I don't know enough about that to make an opinion.
Q. Is there any aspect of the book which you have a different opinion on?
A. Like, for example, Priscilla was in a position to analyze. Maybe somebody will criticize her for being an immature psychiatrist but she tried to draw some kind of picture to compare me being without par- ents and him being without a father that might motivate us to be mar- ried to each other, but those traits of character it is not up to me to say she is right or wrong. I cannot assume that is correct.
Q. The reason I am asking the question again is we are trying to get an insight.
A. The facts were not twisted to meet somebody's theory.
While we do not have every exact word that Marina said to Priscilla, we do have Marina’s testimony regarding the accuracy of the book. And Marina’s (qualified) agreement with Priscilla’s opinions, etc.
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McMillan was outed as a lifelong CIA collaborator shortly before her death...
“I think that Miss Johnson can be encouraged to write pretty much the articles we want. It will require a little more contact and discussion, but I think she could come around…. Basically, if approached with sympathy in the cause she considers most vital, I believe she would be interested in helping us in many ways. It would be important to avoid making her think that she was being used as a propaganda tool and expected to write what she is told.” - 1962 CIA memo
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McMillan was outed as a lifelong CIA collaborator shortly before her death...
“I think that Miss Johnson can be encouraged to write pretty much the articles we want. It will require a little more contact and discussion, but I think she could come around…. Basically, if approached with sympathy in the cause she considers most vital, I believe she would be interested in helping us in many ways. It would be important to avoid making her think that she was being used as a propaganda tool and expected to write what she is told.” - 1962 CIA memo
Just because someone in the CIA was apparently interested in “trying to encourage” McMillan at one point in time doesn’t meant that they even followed up on the suggestion, much less that they were successful. The point is that Marina testified that what McMillan wrote in that book was accurate and was not twisted. If the CIA was controlling what McMillan wrote, then why did McMillan wait so long to publish the book?
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McMillan was outed as a lifelong CIA collaborator shortly before her death...
“I think that Miss Johnson can be encouraged to write pretty much the articles we want. It will require a little more contact and discussion, but I think she could come around…. Basically, if approached with sympathy in the cause she considers most vital, I believe she would be interested in helping us in many ways. It would be important to avoid making her think that she was being used as a propaganda tool and expected to write what she is told.” - 1962 CIA memo
How is that evidence much less proof of her being a "CIA collaborator"? Someone suggests that she "can be encouraged" is not evidence of anything other than someones opinion.
C'mon Jon that's pretty sloppy thinking.
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How is that evidence much less proof of her being a "CIA collaborator"? Someone suggests that she "can be encouraged" is not evidence of anything other than someones opinion.
C'mon Jon that's pretty sloppy thinking.
You've been exposed to the following details. Shame on you.
https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/19058-questions-for-peter-janney-on-his-book-mary%E2%80%99s-mosaic/page/4/#comment-257705
"...One new lead comes from a heretofore unconnected recollection of Priscilla's. It concerns a neighbor, who was a close friend and regular tennis partner of Stuart Johnson's, Priscilla's father. Sometime soon after her return from the Soviet Union, this friend asked Stuart if he might speak with Priscilla about her experiences in Moscow. The meeting took place, and Priscilla told the man what she could remember about her stay in Moscow. That man, who had known her since she was a small child, was F. Trubee Davidson. He worked for the CIA.9
Looking back on her experience now, Priscilla believes it is possi ble that Davidson "was waiting for me to grow up to recruit me." It is an intriguing thought, and one that she has had about one other person too. "The other person who was waiting for me to grow up," she recalls, "was Cord Meyer." While we do not know the extent of Cord Meyer's knowledge or interest in Johnson up to the time that the CIA closed out its interest in her in January 1957, he does show up the next time they become interested..."
https://alt.assassination.jfk.narkive.com/exwnALMK/was-clark-clifford-containing-marina-oswald-in-1964
Was Clark Clifford containing Marina Oswald in 1964?
TJ Scully
Without Reservations: From Harlem to the End of the Santa Fe ...
books.google.com › books (https://www.google.com/books/edition/Without_Reservations/Yix6AAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=harlem+ballen+%22cia+man%22&dq=harlem+ballen+%22cia+man%22&printsec=frontcover)
Samuel B. Ballen · 2001 · Snippet view
Found inside – Page 265
From Harlem to the End of the Santa Fe Trail Samuel B. Ballen. > a Lilienthal ( no connection to the AEC ... David Davenport was a former CIA man who had become disenchanted and was now semi - retired to his youthful locus of Santa Fe .
"His career encompassed a number of fields, from intelligence to law..."
(http://jfkforum.com/images/DavenportObit2OCT2001.jpg)
At the time the photo below was taken, the report of the lawsuit at the bottom of this post by presidential advisor Clark Clifford's first cousin, Joanne McAdams, describes the man in the center of the photo as the husband of Clark Clifford's aunt, Marguerite Bowman McAdams.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/162587029/marguerite-a-mcadams
https://jfkfacts.org/comment-of-the-week-10/#comment-845835
In autumn, 1964, David Coit Davenport snapped this photo.:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/author-85-knew-jfk-killer-oswald-article-1.1525293
Marina Oswald (left), widow of Lee Harvey Oswald, with friend Jerre Hastings (center) and Priscilla Johnson McMillan. McMillan befriended Oswald after the assassination of JFK.
https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/20170-do-marina-oswalds-autumn-1964-travels-have-any-connection-with-dr-arthur-m-sackler/#comment-273011
....
1940 U.S. Census snippet of a household in New Trier (Winnetka)Illinois:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-tXbbdVGZ0gk/UYOxgcMPHSI/AAAAAAAABB8/3vCZ7manKpc/s1280/PriscillaHastyMcAdams1940CensusNewTrierILL.jpg)
https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/journalist-who-wrote-acclaimed-work-on-oswald-jfk-worked-in-santa-fe/article_df69caf4-f94c-11eb-a3d3-b75d1a38ada6.html
By Robert Nott rnott@sfnewmexican.com Aug 21, 2021 Updated Sep 26, 2022
(https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/santafenewmexican.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/b/f2/bf2edd52-02a1-11ec-bd4f-a37e7f9c130b/612131f23569b.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C692)
Priscilla Johnson McMillan, left, with Marina Oswald, right, in Santa Fe in 1964.
Courtesy photo
McMillan brought Marina to Santa Fe, where McMillan’s cousin, David C. Davenport, lived. They were here for two months in 1964.
“Undoubtably there was all sorts of craziness going on after the assassination, and I think Priscilla’s instinct would have been, ‘Let’s go someplace where we can be alone and not be bothered by other people knocking on the door,’ ” said Davenport’s son, Dave Davenport.
McMillan and Marina Oswald likely stayed at his father’s home on Brownell-Howland Road off Bishops Lodge Road during that time, he said. He described the house as a “rambling old place” that offered glorious views of the surrounding mountains and a backyard full of piñon trees that seemed to creep up to the back porch.
In her acknowledgements section of Marina and Lee, McMillan thanked her cousin for providing “a haven during the unquiet weeks of September and October of 1964, just after the Warren Report [on the Kennedy assassination] was issued.”
Dave Davenport, who still lives in Santa Fe, said he was attending college when McMillan brought Marina to Santa Fe in 1964. But he often met McMillan at family dinners during her other visits to the city. He recalled her as “a person who was very, very curious about the world and about people..."
The Case Against Congree - Page 309
books.google.com › books (https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=clark+clifford+douglas+mcadams+founded+by+his+uncle)
Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson · 1968 · Snippet view
Found inside – Page 309
with his cronies , he'll boast that Clark Clifford charged him $ 25,000 . ... It was a duty that Clifford could not shirk -his client , the William Douglas McAdams drug advertising firm , was founded by his uncle .
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/35602601/
Monday, July 31, 1967
"Huge suit filed BULLETIN A suit has been filed in the First Judicial District court by Miss Joanne McAdams of Santa Fe asking for damages in the amount of 390,000,000. The suit is based upon alleged wrongful arrest resulting from an emergency court order which itself was based, the plaintiff asserts in her complaint, on "the false and malicious medical reports of Beregere Kenney and Gene Roscnbaum two Santa Fe physicians. Named as defendants in the suit arc Kenney, Rosenbaum, Rudolph Bramanli, M. D., Dan Palmer, M. D... Lcc R. Chutnow, M. D., Jerome Hasty, Marguerite McAdams Hasty, James M. Scarborough, Samuel Z. Mo.n- toya, Alfonso G. Sanchez, Norman M. Neel, Leon Kare- lilz, James B. Thomson, Robert Elder, Frances Clark, Laura Mac Naylor, David Davenport. Diana Kerner, Perez Roybal, New Mexico Slate Hospital, and the Santa Fc County Grand Jury of Jan. 4, 1967. Miss Me Adams, who is not represented by an attorney in the suit relates in the complaint that she had come to Santa Fe to visit her mother, Mrs. Marguerite McAdams Hasty, and her mother's husband, Jerome Hasty, and David Davenport, a friend of Hasty, induced her to consult Dr. Roscnbaum. As a result, she claims, the sheriff of Sazita Fc County, Perez Roybal, arrested her without a warrant and she was transported lo the-State Hospital at Las- Vegas, where she \vas incaceratcd from July 28, 1965 to August 15, J.%5. The p l a i n t i f f states in her complaint that Dr. Bramanti issued a false and malcious medical report "accusing the plaintiff of buing mentally ill," and recommended that "judicial proceedings be instituted against the plaintiff." Further, the complaint states, UK- ulaintift was held "incommunicado" five days; was refused a lawyer which she had requested: and that medication was "forced on her" against her will. . Leon KareliU, the complaint says "was induced by t h e other dcfcndenls and conspired with them to trick the plaintiff into signing a voluntary commitment paper on Aug. 12." A hearing was held before Judge James M. Scarborough, Ihe coiTiplainUnt says, without her knowledge or presence. When she left (V» hospital Aug. 15, 19G5 t h e release form stated die h--; been "admitted lo the hospital on July 28, as .n vr.'iifitary patient." The woman stated in her complaint ^hc was not able to obtain legal counsel; dial certain records and dockets wort missing; thai James E. Thomson gave her false and misleading information on the recommendation of Norman M. Ncel, assistant district attorney. Finally, when Ihe plaintiff went to the Grand Jury... to obtain criminal indictments against Dr. Palmer and Dr. Uramanti and Judges Scarborough and Monloya, District Attorney Sanchez and Ncel and others, the 'Giymd J u r y ignored ihe charges.
http://jfkdebate.com/index.php/node/1
...
(http://jfkdebate.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/aarc-fbi211-07_0001_0146.jpg)
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How is that evidence much less proof of her being a "CIA collaborator"? Someone suggests that she "can be encouraged" is not evidence of anything other than someones opinion.
She was confirmed to be a CIA asset.
See below:
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS FROM AARC CIA COLLECTION, BOX 113
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=54212#relPageId=289
Priscilla Johnson and the CIA
After graduating from Harvard with a master's degree in 1952 she applied to join the Central Intelligence Agency. On 3rd October, 1952, a request was submitted for a security clearance as an "Intelligence Officer, GS-7" in Operations to work in the Soviet Realities Division of the CIA. On 21 January, 1953, this was changed to a request for a security clearance for Johnson (CIA number as 71589) to work as an Intelligence Officer. On the same day, Bruce L. Solie responded that Johnson had "declined employment on 21 January 1953". A formal cancellation was put in her file on 10 February and it was said "it is not believed there is any CE interest in subject case."
https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKjohnsonPR.htm
While she was rejected for employment at the CIA due to her association with Leftist organizations, she was confirmed (in the 1970s) to be a “witting collaborator” who worked with or did favors for the CIA…
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She was confirmed to be a CIA asset.
See below:
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS FROM AARC CIA COLLECTION, BOX 113
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=54212#relPageId=289
Priscilla Johnson and the CIA
After graduating from Harvard with a master's degree in 1952 she applied to join the Central Intelligence Agency. On 3rd October, 1952, a request was submitted for a security clearance as an "Intelligence Officer, GS-7" in Operations to work in the Soviet Realities Division of the CIA. On 21 January, 1953, this was changed to a request for a security clearance for Johnson (CIA number as 71589) to work as an Intelligence Officer. On the same day, Bruce L. Solie responded that Johnson had "declined employment on 21 January 1953". A formal cancellation was put in her file on 10 February and it was said "it is not believed there is any CE interest in subject case."
https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKjohnsonPR.htm
While she was rejected for employment at the CIA due to her association with Leftist organizations, she was confirmed (in the 1970s) to be a “witting collaborator” who worked with or did favors for the CIA…
Tom Devine lived in an M.I.T. frat house in 1944 with Priscilla's future CIA contact, Gary Coit. Two weeks after Demohrenschildt left Dallas in April, 1963, Devine, as CIA Wubriny/1, met with and was investigating DeMohrenschildt within a day or two of his close friend from Rochester, Joseph Dryer, doing the same. I had found that Dryer's brother Peter was a classmate of Devine's from grades K - 9....
From "Our Man in Haiti," by Joan Mellen,
Dryer meeting with DeMohrenschildt,
http://jfkforum.com/images/DryerMeetsDeMohrenschildtClemardCharles.jpg
Mellen: "(Joseph) Dryer revealed to me that his best friend when he was growing up in Rochester was Thomas Devine."
http://jfkforum.com/images/MellenDryer.jpg
The China Diary of George H. W. Bush: The Making of a Global ...books.google.com › books
Jeffrey A. Engel · 2011
FOUND INSIDE – PAGE 311
The Making of a Global President Jeffrey A. Engel. I brought home a picture for Bar from ... Bemis, Lias and Devine had a meeting regarding my political future—very thoughtful of them.5 All I know now is to do the best job one can here.
"Bemis" is the guy described by Billy Joe Lord in his complaint letter to President Carter.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=9963#relPageId=270
Fitzgerald Bemiss was GW Bush's best friend, summering neighbors, from boyhood in Kennebunkport and was a cousin of Henry Hurt's wife. Her father was the brother of Freeport Sulphur's Langbourne Williams.
The obituary of Lord's Midland employer, Allison, former Bush campaign manager, who Bemiss advised Hurt could pressure Billy Joe Lord into cooperating with Hurt,
Click on image at this link, to magnify
http://jfkforum.com/images/BillyLordAllison.jpg
Henry Hurt's father-in-law and his brother, Langbourne, were nephews of Bemis's grandmother....
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/88953152/george-dandridge-williams
George Dandridge Williams
Bemiss grandmother,
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/88850510/cyane-dandridge-bemiss
Cyane Dandridge Williams Bemiss
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/65388323/fitzgerald-bemiss
FitzGerald Bemiss
Henry Hurt's 1968 wedding announcement describes Hurt as "of Kennebunkport" where he was employed as a teacher.
His future bride's father's name is included in the announcement.
http://jfkforum.com/images/HenryHurtKennebunkport.jpg