Warren Commission (01 of 26): Hearings Vol. I (of 15)United States. Warren Commission
History
Warren Commission (01 of 26): Hearings Vol. I (of 15)
United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Oswald, Lee Harvey
Mrs. OSWALD. Now, I will start----
The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Oswald, may I introduce Congressman Ford, also a
member of the Commission.
Now, Mrs. Oswald--Mr. Lee Rankin will be in charge of the hearing from
this point on. He is our General Counsel, as you know.
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Mrs. Oswald, will you proceed to produce the papers and
tell us about them, and then I will ask the Commission after we get
them, to permit us to substitute copies, and in accordance with your
request we will let you be present at the time we make the photostats.
The CHAIRMAN. You may start to tell your story in your own way.
Mrs. OSWALD. I have three different stories. I understand from Mr.
Rankin's letter that my life is to be told from the very start, and so
is Lee's life, from the very start. So which will I start first?
I believe it would be easier for me and of more benefit to the counsel
if I would continue with one life, the whole story, and then continue
with the--whichever way you would suggest I do it.
Mr. RANKIN. If you could start out and tell us within the period that
Lee Oswald returned from the Soviet Union on, whatever you know about
it, in your own way, and then we will go back to the other matters
later.
Is that all right?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes, sir--anything is just fine. I am willing to help in
any way possible.
I wanted to state it clearly in the beginning.
I received a speedletter from the State Department stating that Lee
would leave Moscow, and how he would leave and arrive in New York--on
June 13, 1962. I was on a case in Crowell, Tex. I am a practical nurse.
And I was taking care of a very elderly woman, whose daughter lived in
Fort Worth, Tex.
So I was not able to leave and meet Lee.
Robert, his brother, met him, and Lee went to Robert's home.
Approximately about a week later--I could not stand it any more--I
called the daughter and had her come to take care of her mother, and
took 3 days off, and went to Fort Worth to see Lee and Marina.
Marina is a beautiful girl. And I said to Lee, "Marina, she doesn't
look Russian. She is beautiful."
He says, "Of course not. That is why I married her, because she looks
like an American girl."
I asked her where he had met her, and he said he met her at a social
function, a community function.
I said, "You know, Lee, I am getting ready--I was getting ready to
write a book on your so-called defection.
"I had researched it and came to Washington in 1961, and, by the way,
asked to see President Kennedy, because I had a lot of extenuating
circumstances at the time because of the defection."
He said, "Mother, you are not going to write a book."
I said, "Lee, don't tell me what to do. I cannot write the book now,
because, Honey, you are alive and back."
But, at the time, I had no way of knowing whether my son was living or
dead, and I planned to write the book.
"But don't tell me what to do. It has nothing to do with you and
Marina. It is my life, because of your defection."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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