Marina Oswald Porter's Statement
to the ARRB - 09/96

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A Statement to the Assassination Records Review Board
from Marina Oswald Porter, September 17, 1996
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On April 19, 1996, I sent a letter to Mr. John Tunheim, chairman
of the Assassination Records Review Board.  I requested 
certain documents listed in the letter. I received a letter from
Mr. Thomas Samoluk, public relations director, in which he
more or less politely brushes me off.  He describes the opinion 
of the FBI, how they stand on the matter, which is nothing new
to me.  I took it as a refusal.  The letter did not indicate who
they talked to at the FBI, the reasons for the refusal, if the
documents exist or never existed, if they are destroyed and if
so, why.  I want to know the answer.

On May 15, 1996, the ARRB sent me a description of what powers 
they have under the law.  My assumption is that taxpayers are 
paying them, that they have power of subpoena for any record 
related to the assassination of President Kennedy.  In my opinion, 
the records I requested from them are assassination related.
They imply Lee Oswald's involvement with the FBI.  Until we 
see these records, we can only speculate. Beyond the release
of these documents, the ARRB should subpoena FBI employees
who have seen records on Lee Oswald and of a specific 
warning of an assassination attempt against President Kennedy 
in Dallas, and grant these FBI employees immunity from 
confidentiality agreements that we now know they signed.
These persons should be allowed and encouraged to tell
everything they know.

When I came to this country I came as a friend.  I was then and am
now.  When the assassination happened I believed it was my
obligation--anybody's obligation--to abide by the law of this land. 
I testified to the Warren Commission and I obliged any request the
government made of me.  I agreed with the findings of the Warren
Commission not because I really understood everything about it, but
because I had enough trust that they investigated honestly and that
the conclusions they came to were based on the highest form of
investigation.  So, with my blind faith, I accepted their conclusions.
Of course, at that time lots of people in this country who knew more
about what was going on questioned the findings of the commission.
 And I defended the commission against  those people, and I wanted all
those so-called conspiracy people to just go away.  Then there was a
second investigation because the people demanded it.  This was the
investigation of the U.S. House Select Committee.  And I testified for
them.  And their conclusion was possible conspiracy, meaning that the
assassination involved more than one person, and they stopped it at
that.  Even then, I wasn't very pleased.  I wasn't very pleased
because when I was testifying for them and I thought they were
honest--after so many years, and because the people demanded it--I
asked them questions that would be answered just for me, and I was
told that I was there only to answer questions, not to ask them.  
So I knew that that investigation was doomed.

And how can I respect the conclusions of the House Select Committee,
when they locked up their records?

I gave the two investigations everything I had.  Then later I found
out that the FBI knew more about me than I knew about myself.
Literally, even my underwear was investigated.  And I have no
problem--they didn't have to trust me, why should they?  I don't hold
anything against that.  But my private matters were investigated--even
when they had all the proof that I was nobody's "spy"--and 
I feel that this was FOR BLACKMAIL--my house was bugged, and I saw 
pictures of me which I knew nobody but the FBI could have done.  I've 
seen with my own eyes that any kind of gossip from people even re
motely related to me by name in Russia -- any kind of nonsense -- is 
in the record.  You cannot be more thorough than that.  And even so, 
I don't object.  But now I think, it's my turn to ask the questions and 
for the FBI to clean their own laundry.  I don't want to know everything 
about the FBI, but since they claim that I am wife of the assassin, and I have
to defend myself , only in that regard am I sticking my nose in their
business.  And I'm not begging for answers.  I think I've earned them,
and I think they should give them to me.

After the cold reply to my letter from the Review Board, a woman who
said she is with the ARRB left her number for me to call, which I
never did.  They want the tax records of Lee Harvey Oswald.  (The
Assassination Records Review Board does not have authority over IRS
law).  I did not sign the IRS release form the Review Board sent for
one simple reason.  Because I thought the priority should be the
release of the records which I had requested.  In my opinion, I think
the tax records are irrelevant to the assassination.  Mr . Jeremy Gunn
of the Review Board called me a week ago and said, "I'm so and
so, How come you didn't sign those papers?"  And I said, "I have no
problem with signing those forms, but I told you, I requested those
documents, and this is my priority.  So you do this job right now; put
your energy over there."  And Mr. Gunn said, yes, they did approach
the FBI and the FBI is stonewalling, and so we're approaching you and
you're not helping us.  And I said, "How is that related to what I'm
asking?"  I have no problem releasing my tax records, and I will agree
to have them released to journalists who will publish them.  This will
eliminate the problem of having them public.  But this is not related
to my request.  There will be no enlightenment there for me.  I will
not find anything there at all.  Then Mr. Gunn said, "Would you be
more comfortable if Mr. John Newman talked to you about this?"  And I
said, "I'm familiar with Mr. Newman, and I have talked with him, but I
don't want to talk to him anymore."

The Review Board is going to be closing soon.  The time is very
limited.  They should concentrate their priority on things that can
shed some light rather than on things that create more controversy,
more stupid books, leading away from the answers instead of giving the
answers, it seems to me.

My priority should be considered, not because I'm important, but
because I'm the one who has to live with this.  It's a very personal
agenda in my life.

If the records reveal an FBI informant in the assassination, I want to
know the name of that informant.  And I don't want to have one dead
man's name substituted for another.  I absolutely believe that Lee
Oswald was the informant on the arrest of Lawrence Miller and Donnell
Whitter on November 18, 1963.  After the assassination, the puzzle of
Lee Oswald did not fit for me.  But for Lee to be an informant makes
everything logical to me.  Specifically, the behavior of Lee
Oswald--all that strangeness  didn't come from a crazy lunatic.  That
was his mission, a secretive mission.  I would like to be wrong.  But
if I'm right, I want an apology to me and to the American people.

After twenty-seven years, I consciously made the choice to become an
American citizen.  Of course, my heritage was never betrayed when I
took alliance to the American constitution and tried to pronounce this
country as my home, only to find out that thirty-three years later I
have nothing but the address.  I lived in two systems which were
labeled differently.  Slowly and surely, the names are different but I
feel oppressed, when I have to struggle for every piece of paper.
Everytime I have asked for  documents, I have been intimidated.

And who gave the media the power to throw insults at me and my
children, when they don't have the facts?  Lee Oswald's face is on a
dart board, comedians make jokes so freely without knowing the facts,
that it is embedded in the people's psyches now.  And we have the
ex-president of the country, Gerald Ford, in front of millions of
people calling a man never convicted of the crime, "that looney, that
lunatic" with no facts to back it up.  I'm listening, and I KNOW.  But
who's going to believe me?  They're going to believe the authorities.
So many careers, including media careers, have been made hiding 
behind dead Lee Harvey Oswald.  If those people came forward and 
told the truth, they would never have those positions for one day.  
That's my bitter opinion.

It's my turn.  Whatever few years are left in my life, I want to live
it.  I'm tired of bare existence.  I want also to say I'm not
anti-government, I'm not revolutionary, I'm not communist.  I want to
believe in the government.  That entity should exist to help people
but not to abuse them.

Someone can try to restore the confidence of the people in the
government.  It has to start somewhere.  The government are servants
of the people, and they should be honorably served.  The public trust
should not be discarded that easily.

The Review Board has been empowered by the people, and I thought 
that was the government.  Apparently it's not.  So we don't have a
leadership, we just have a ruling.  Why bother with the constitution?
We should have stayed a colony of England.  I cannot empower that
Review Board.  I cannot make them not to act dishonestly or cowardly.
This is up to their conscience.  I want to quote something that I hope
will give them a little bit of strength and bravery.  It is from the
Declaration of Independence:

            And for the support of this declaration,
            with the firm reliance on the protection
            of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge
            to each other our life, our fortune, and
            our sacred honor.

I am sure that most Americans feel that way.  I think the same thing
is expected from the government.  Patriotism should not be used for
the gains of only a few.  That is when dishonorable things happen.

I definitely think that Lee Oswald did not kill President Kennedy.  I
think he was given up to pacify people as a patsy.  I don't think he
was the first one--only the first one we know about.  And he wasn't
crazy.  If he was crazy, how come I have normal intelligent children?
With very good convictions?  The thing that bothers me the most.  You
teach your children the difference between right and wrong, give to
the best of your abilities, how wonderful the country is, how
honorable it is to live right here, and yet I no longer believe this
myself; I'd be lying to you if I say that.  And if I don't believe it
I cannot tell it to my children or grandchildren.  I cannot disappoint
them.  I have to believe first.

I look at my grandchildren, I look at those eyes and say to myself,
what do I have to leave for you?  You can leave money, which I don't
have, you can leave fortune, but most of all, you can leave to your
children a decent society.  And I'm not one who thinks that everything
should be perfect tomorrow.  There will be stupid people, crazy
people, lazy people, crime will be there.  But the government and
ruling bodies are supposed not only to set up the standards for us,
but to set an example as well.  And then, maybe we'll have some kind
of balance in society so goodness can survive.

All documents which can expose that a man was accused wrongly 
should be opened.  I believe that the documents I have requested 
will be eye-openers.  After that, if time is still left, I think a law should 
be put on the books that if a man is accused of murder, and is dead
before a trial is held, that crime should never be closed, and the
family should be able to defend itself from accusations.

This case has never been OPENED.  The twenty-six volumes of the 
Warren Commission do not support its conclusions.  My final conclusion 
is that the man--Lee--was not on the sixth floor.  We're not even sure
about the rifle.  According to the local police chief, we never could
put the rifle and the person (Oswald) together.  Lee was charged with
the crime.  They showed him a picture, said this is a rifle, this is
you; he denied it.  But they never showed him the weapon for
identification.  I'm the one who was supposed to identify the rifle,
and I did, believing in the authorities' good intentions .  But I was
the worst of all.  I knew nothing of weapons or guns; I knew nothing.
Now I have to defend not just my honor but my life as well.  It is
impossible for me to put my time where it belongs, to be a normal wife
and mother.

But I finally know the documentary evidence and I have to demand, not
beg, that this information be released.  This evidence was itemized in
my letter to Mr. Tunheim and the ARRB.  Why has this evidence been
ignored?

Thank you, and please forgive my English.

Very sincerely,

Marina Oswald Porter

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