With regard to his return home from Russia in June 1962 with his family what did he tell you about reporters meeting him, and what do you think it really meant? He was in control. What do you say to people who are so convinced or are trying to believe in his innocence? What Lee missed from his childhood in comparison to me was the whole family being together all the time. It was wall-to-wall reporters, police officers, FBI, Secret Service. FRONTLINE+wgbh+pbsi, web site copyright 1995-2014 But he had said he was going to give the Russians any information he had, and it seemed like he did. With each failure to settle in, with each failure to secure a job or hold onto that job, with each failure to secure an apartment or placate his wife, to build any kind of life with each failure, his internal pressure mounts. You dont think that there was any possibility that he was on some mission when he went to Russia? How would he have reacted to that? So he thought he'd get a post office box that would be a permanent-type thing. He's already tried living with Mother for about a week to 10 days, and that went the way it usually goes. I wrote him back that, to my knowledge, nothing he has done warrants any charges, because they did not let him accomplish anything over there, i.e., the U.S. Embassy did not accept his citizenship rejection. That influence was just tremendous on him. She had certain characteristics that were so much like Lee: the time and circumstances always seemed to be against her; the world owed her a living; she wanted to be somebody. I wasnt real sure what the explanation was. He was using his own imagination. This was unsettling. He was making fun of how inept they were, and he was making fun of them all the time. Of course, we can't extricate ourselves permanently or perfectly from wherever it is we come from, no matter how much we try, and we are always functions of our place, even if we wish not to be. We talked about this at a great length during that first week. It's about escaping the status quo and achieving some kind of greatness, as it were. [37]Within hours of Ruby's arrest for shooting Oswald, a telegram was received at the Dallas city jail in support of Ruby, under the names of Hal and Pauline Collins. He wasn't present when they took a head count [at the Texas School Book Depository]. They didnt know for sure if he was an agent or not. Marina had gone over there to live with somebody until he got established over there. Oswald lacked the historical or political consciousness of a genuine radical. LEGEND: THE SECRET WORLD OF LEE HARVEY OSWALD : Epstein, Edward Jay: Amazon.com.mx: Libros. The fact that he could put on a facade and pretend to be somebody he wasn't -- to me, it gets down to what happened later on. I recently spoke with Mr. Savodnik over the phone about his book. Visitors can watch a large bank of television sets recalling the Kennedy assassination and Lee Harvey Oswald's capture. He was toying with them. . In this interview, Posner talks . Walker and, still chewing his cigar, Detective Paul Bentley, on Nov. 22, 1963. But my goodness, this is completely out of the ballpark. He was making fun of how inept they were, and he was making fun of them all the time. New York City. Among his nine books is the bestseller, Case Closed (1993), which concludes that Lee Harvey Oswald acted . Arriving in Moscow on October 16, he declared that he wished to renounce his U.S. citizenship and become a Soviet national. After obtaining a hardship discharge from the Marines, Lee Harvey Oswald left the United States for the Soviet . You've got the backyard picture. LEE HARVEY OSWALD'S COMPLETE AUGUST 1963 WDSU-TV INTERVIEW David Von Pein's JFK Channel 44.3K subscribers Subscribe 415 71K views 9 years ago Three months before he assassinated President. As this realization deepens and becomes more omnipresent and more unavoidable, he feels a greater and greater need to get out, to escape. Marina had gone over there to live with somebody until he got established over there. Lees fantasy life, to me, became apparent in the 1948, 1949, 1950 period. This was something all his own. At every step of the way, what leads Oswald to trying to remove himself from the Soviet Union is not anything intellectual or ideological -- nothing substantive in that respect. How can you explain one without the other? [He wanted to] get established and start the American life, live the American dream. "I Led Three Lives" -- he became really engrossed in that particular TV show, and he was still watching it when I left to go in the Marine Corps in 1952. He planned by himself, he executed by himself, he failed by himself. For this 2003 publication of the interview, Mr. Blakey has added a notation to those questions touching on the CIA, and refers the reader to a long addendum at the end of the interview that reflects his opinion on the CIA in light of current revelations. If we go and get right down to the bottom line, we have to say, really and truly, in all candor, [she did] a lousy job, a lousy job. I'm talking about the police officer being shot and the president. I said, "If you told me everything you've done, it seems to me you have a case that you could perhaps get a reversal on that, that you did not do anything that they anticipated you done." Finally, I guess, I couldn't stand it anymore. I think that Marina's a very complicated character, and I think it's fair to say in Oswald she saw a very good opportunity. I asked him about this lawyer in New York and I told him I would get him one down here, meaning in Texas. Nothing illustrates the thinness, the superficiality of Oswald's ideology as his growing disillusionment with the Soviet Union. And that's all it was. He was, in fact, an American citizen all the time, and still had the rights of the American citizen. One in this documentary series. That's where he started doing a lot of reading and everything. Show more Comments are turned off. But he became disgusted with it and started rebelling against it, because he wanted to go back to a more independent attitude. Living in Fort Worth, TV was making its debut. It just didn't fit. It's good that people raise questions and say, "Wait a minute, let's take a second look at this." I dont know how you want to express it, but thats the way he characterized her at the time. But the diminutive nineteen-year-old Marine was serious. The Dallas Police Department was utter chaos. David Austin Walsh is the editor of the History News Network. Hed actually applied for Albert Schweitzers school in Switzerland, and been accepted for that summertime or fall semester. I wasn't real sure what the explanation was. She shared her viewpoints as to whether Oswald was guilty, whether he was a government agent and, whether he was pro or against Castro among others. They're not progressing at the speed I think he wants to progress. People ought to take note of this, that he should be interesting. It seemed like we were never in a location [more than] six or seven months, maybe a year at the most. That to me is very plausible for him to do. Hallo, inloggen. Our mother was Lees most important person in his life. ** = At least this version is the most \"complete\" version I have ever seen, although a little bit of editing has certainly been done at the very beginning, because we don't hear the interviewer's first question to Oswald. So he's very upbeat up on it. Lee Harvey Oswald speaks to the press - YouTube 0:00 / 1:08 Lee Harvey Oswald speaks to the press CNN 14.7M subscribers Subscribe 7.3K Share 1.4M views 9 years ago Lee Harvey. Youve got all the physical evidence that ties together. What was going on there? Lee's fantasy life, to me, became apparent in the 1948, 1949, 1950 period. I asked him about this lawyer in New York and I told him I would get him one down here, meaning in Texas. But then, Oct. 31, we hear that he's in Russia. He wasn't political. I dont know at what age Mother verbalized the effect that she felt he was a burden to her. My first lawyer Tom Howard told me to say that I shot Oswald so that Caroline and Mrs. Kennedy wouldn't have to come to Dallas to testify. Historian Priscilla Johnson McMillan was a reporter in Moscow in the 1950s and interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald shortly after his defection to the Soviet Union. However, Bolinas author Josiah Thompson says he has answered one very important question. Then he joins the Marines, and then he has a lot of people barking at him, a lot of discipline. Theyve gone to the extreme measures to prove that he owned that rifle. You see him for a few days when he gets out [of the Marines]. FRONTLINE reports from Iraq on the miscalculations and mistakes behind the brutal rise of ISIS. He was assuming everything was being recorded, and, unfortunately, it wasn't. Cuenta y Listas Devoluciones . When I returned home from work that evening, I asked him about it, and he said, Well, everything went all right. He knew something they didnt know, and he would keep it to himself. In November, 1959, as a reporter in Moscow, she had interviewed a twenty-year-old ex-Marine at the Metropole Hotel in Moscow named Lee Harvey Oswald, who'd announced he wanted to defect to. But this had nothing to do with an intellectual or ideological coming to terms with some kind of intellectual maturation, although Oswald tried to explain it that way. In his interview with FRONTLINE, Blakey calls the prosecution case against Lee Harvey Oswald "open and shut." This is mind over heart. We talked about family matters. There is no question in my mind that Lee was responsible for the three shots fired, two of the shots hitting the president and killing him. I don't know how you want to express it, but that's the way he characterized her at the time. " I'm just a patsy!"Lee Harvey Oswald Oswald the Assassin? Or he just walked the streets, ride the subways. He's getting a better opportunity, he thinks, in Dallas, because it's a bigger job market over there than what Fort Worth was at the time. But my goodness, this is completely out of the ballpark. The appeal to Lee of something like that Marxism, communism, socialism, would be something unique, something different not [an] everyday occurrence. Everything is deteriorating. He just wanted to see what he could do about getting it done. Saltar al contenido principal.com.mx. Among his nine books is the bestseller, Case Closed (1993), which concludes that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. That was it. Explore FRONTLINEs collected and ongoing reporting on Russia's war on Ukraine. What kind of a Marxist was he? Zoeken Amazon.nl. The Most Risky Job Ever. Reporting on ISIS in Afghanistan. We're talking seven, eight, nine, 10 years old. It seemed like we were never in a location [more than] six or seven months, maybe a year at the most. You cant set that aside just because he is saying, Im a patsy. Id love to do that, but you cannot. She clearly saw in Oswald a ticket to ride, an opportunity to leave Russia. This interview was conducted in 1993 in conjunction with Frontline's first broadcast of "Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?" Or he just walked the streets, ride the subways. I mean, youre his brother; you would want to believe more than anyone. He seemed to really get involved with it. Marina repeated to McMillan what she told the Warren Commission in 1964--that her husband was not capable of being recruited as a conspirator, and that he most likely acted alone in killing President Kennedy. He was whats convenient to be. The jobs not doing that good. Did he evince any sort of sophisticated understanding of Marxism or communism, or of the Soviet Union in general, before he left for Russia? So hes very upbeat up on it. He seemed to really get involved with it and hang onto it after the programs were over. I think he just liked the atmosphere that you could do anything that you wanted to do, that you could imagine you could do. During the conversation, Hoffa claimed that Ruby was assigned the task of coordinating police officers who were loyal to Ruby to murder Oswald while he was in their custody. All these ups and downs he's having, he keeps trying to get up and make it at some level, but he's not succeeding. Once again, its just a continual cycle, and it starts downhill. This would have to be at the federal level. He indicated that, if reporters were asking about when he's coming back, to say nothing He wanted not to be bothered by the reporters. Why do you think that so many Americans still cannot accept that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of John F. Kennedy. The Most Risky Job Ever. Reporting on ISIS in Afghanistan. NARRATOR: Within two hours, the police had arrested 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald. I think that's an understatement. I've managed to keep it quiet." Then he joins the Marines, and then he has a lot of people barking at him, a lot of discipline. That was a training ground [for] his imagination. What prompts him to take the first concrete steps to extricate himself from the Soviet Union is his break with Ella German. Gerald Hill.. He toyed with the interrogators down at the Dallas police station, all that weekend [after the assassination]. Lee and Marina were having difficulties, just by being together -- I guess by being put in new circumstances and everything. He started becoming more and more independent and out on his own because Mother was working all the time, no brothers around, no father figure around, no adult that he was acquainted with that he could rely on to and talk to. If Ukrainian intelligence did penetrate Putin's inner circle, Budanov would have never publicly blurted it out. He wanted to get his manuscript published if anybody was interested. You've talked about Lee's character -- trying to do something, getting frustrated, doing something dramatic. As opposed to seeing the Kennedy assassination as the way we ought to see it: as one of the great public tragedies of the twentieth century. What do you do with his rifle? Maybe the next time he went to the library, he would follow up on it, and say "Well, let's really see what this is about." Somehow, somebody never realized what the Sam Hill was going on. home+introduction+interviews+forum+twenty-four years+conspiracy Hes going to fit in to where he needs to fit in to accomplish what he needs to accomplish what is very essential to get by with, to be somebody. In fact, she is quick to get moving on the bureaucratic process involved in that to emigrate. What he did after he left the building is known: bus ride, taxi ride, boardinghouse, pick up the pistol, leave, shoot the police officer. After getting some help with the Secret Service as far as getting a pass up to see Lee, I was allowed to visit with him approximately eight to 10 minutes. Skip to main content Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. How would he have reacted to that? In many respects, once he got beyond the superficialities, he found the actual substance, the content, the experience of communism and the Soviet Union very difficult to navigate. Two, Jack Ruby did inestimable harm to the whole process of America coming to terms with what happened. He toyed with the interrogators down at the Dallas police station, all that weekend [after the assassination]. We spent some time together. One was he wanted to get his manuscript typed up and written. At 11:21 am CST while authorities were escorting Oswald through the police basement to an armored car that was to take him to the nearby county jail Ruby stepped out from a crowd of reporters and fired his .38 revolver into Oswald's abdomen, fatally wounding him. Describe a typical day in Oswald's Minsk. You had said that he had very much been on his own in New York. None took him seriously. . Buscar Amazon.es. Tell me about his interest in the television show I Led Three Lives and what that says about him and his imagination. Why did he turn to Marxism as a salve, as opposed to another form of religion? Be the first one to, Reporter That Interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald In Moscow, ReporterThatInterviewedLeeHarveyOswaldInMoscow, Advanced embedding details, examples, and help, ALINE MOSBY SPEAKING IN PARIS ABOUT INTERVIEWING LEE HARVEY OSWALD IN MOSCOW IN 1959.mp4, Reporter That Interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald in Moscow.mp4, ALINE MOSBY SPEAKING IN PARIS ABOUT INTERVIEWING LEE HARVEY OSWALD IN MOSCOW IN 1959.ogv, Reporter That Interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald in Moscow.ogv, Terms of Service (last updated 12/31/2014). Could you describe Oswald's relationships with women? He always enjoyed books, but then he started exploring other areas. And why it wasnt stopped sooner. The main thing was getting a job and a manuscript. He says he got that at the theater, and they hadn't been mistreating him since then. This is a lawyer well known for being involved in left-wing causes. What do you do with his general opportunity? I anticipated, and I said to the family, "He'll be back within a year." He was relaxed, but at about the second day, he starts talking about where he's going. Hed made some contacts within the Russian community in Fort Worth and in Dallas. His fellow Marines called him Oswaldskovich, because he never shut up about his admiration for communism or the Soviet Union. I think it's fair to say the Kennedy assassination had very little to do with John F. Kennedy. When Lee came back to Fort Worth, what kind of spirits was he in, and what kind of hopes did he have for his new life here? Sending Out Veterans' Benefits, The Executive Branchs Response to the Flood of 1927, The Case For Calling the Language "American", America Fought Its Own Battle Over Books Before it Fought the Nazis. While he does not see Oswald as a Soviet, CIA or FBI recruit, he is careful to point out many of the unanswered questions regarding Oswald's mysterious associations and possible ties to the mob. He is the author of the 1981 book, The Plot To Kill the President, and in the late 1960s he campaigned for and helped write much of the anti-racketeering legislation that would usher in the demise of the Mafia. He pressed the lieutenants, he pressed the platoon leaders. There is no question in my mind that he also shot Officer Tippit. The two girls grew up in a small Texas town, sheltered . FRONTLINE reports from Iraq on the miscalculations and mistakes behind the brutal rise of ISIS. If they didnt know who worked for them, he could always say he worked for them; he was in control of the FBI then. He was using his own imagination. When you learned he had defected, did you have any explanation? It was a game to him. Although that was Marguerite Oswald's first network television interview in many years, we were not the first journalists to speak with her. Lee. Here was a start. FRONTLINE+wgbh+pbsi, web site copyright 1995-2014 What's the best answer you come to for yourself regarding his motive? Those are the indications that say he took some thought, some planning over a long period of time. If you had to take a guess about when he got his political beliefs, how he was introduced to Marxism, what would you guess? He finally got a job that wasn't exactly what he really wanted, but it was a start. And in this place, he would join this much larger-than-life cause, and he would break permanently with the United States, and he would live happily every after in the Soviet Union. So consequently, he calls me up and he tells me that they're moving to Dallas. He indicated that, if reporters were asking about when hes coming back, to say nothing He wanted not to be bothered by the reporters. . He failed at both. And this opened up certain avenues or possibilities that would not have been available to him otherwise. Marguerite Oswald, mother of slain accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, is shown in New York with attorney Mark Lane on February 17, 1964, after testifying in Washington before. LEGEND: THE SECRET WORLD OF LEE HARVEY OSWALD : Epstein, Edward Jay: Amazon.nl: Boeken. If it didn't work for Russia, he was going to stay in Europe anyway. Providing exclusive original content and interviews with some of the best known voices in the world of economics and precious metals. The main thing was getting a job and a manuscript. The third thing was he wanted to look into his dishonorable discharge from the Marine Corps, because he felt like that was unwarranted because, i.e., he was released with honorable conditions. Can you summarize what the atmosphere was like there that Saturday, and what you made of it? There is a power that comes from Marxist doctrine, a sense of belonging to something right now that is on the cusp of doing something very, very important. 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. But certainly by age three, he had the sense, "I need to be someplace else." Lee Harvey Oswald lived just a few minutes away from Walker in Dallas in a rented duplex that he shared with his wife Marina and their baby girl. LEGEND: THE SECRET WORLD OF LEE HARVEY OSWALD : Epstein, Edward Jay: Amazon.es: Libros. Tracked down in 1977, Marguerite demanded a payday before talking about her son and showed off her 'library' of JFK assassination books. Usually, it has to do with a man, sometimes it has to do with a job, but the threat that courses through his childhood and adolescence is a frenetic, harried, peripatetic that is entirely his mother's concoction. He gave it to me either the first or second night to read. What would have been the appeal to him about something like Marxism? So, to me, that was his back-up plan if everything else failed. What Lee missed from his childhood in comparison to me was the whole family being together all the time. If somebody passed out a leaflet on the street that contained a political statement for Marxism or communism or what have you, and if Lee had not run across that before, I could envision him looking at it, keeping it and saying, "Well, I wonder what this is all about." She has no control over him. What would it be? He toyed with people like that. He said, "I don't know what they're talking about." Anytime they brought anything up that pertained to the assassination of the president and the shooting of the police officer, he knew nothing about it. It sounds like Oswald's disillusionment stemmed as much from personal as political reasons. After getting some help with the Secret Service as far as getting a pass up to see Lee, I was allowed to visit with him approximately eight to 10 minutes. As chief counsel to the 1977 House Select Committee on Assassinations, Blakey led the investigation into President John F. Kennedy's assassination, reexamining the evidence with a new forensics panel. Also, he was put into an apartment that was a short walk from the Institute for Foreign Languages in Minsk, where one would meet girls who were studying English and were interested in foreigners, and were probably more adventurous, you might say. Posner also discusses the actions, motivations and mob connections of Jack Ruby, who murdered Oswald. With John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, Nigel Barber, Raymond Burns. You could tell by the tone of the language, not that we could understand the Russian language, but the tone and the facial expressions that they were having an argument. Even fifty years later, Oswald's Minsk period remains understudied, despite the fact that Oswald's time in the Soviet Union was the longest period of stability in his life. He was on his own in libraries. It wasn't uncommon, after all, for American communists to experience disillusionment with the Soviet Union. Photographs and documents also are on display. I think the way Lee learned New York was just apply himself to it. Web Site Copyright 1995-2023 WGBH Educational Foundation. And so the Marines, and then later the Soviet Union, should be viewed as an attempt by Oswald to find structure, to find place. It didnt seem like a big deal. We also talked about her time as a reporter in Moscow in 1959 when she met 20-year-old American defector Lee Harvey Oswald in her hotel. What he did after he left the building is known: bus ride, taxi ride, boardinghouse, pick up the pistol, leave, shoot the police officer.