Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

Amy and the Wizard and I have been discussing Marina Oswald. It is a widely known and undisputed that Marina started having a sexual affair with Jim Martin soon after the assassination. But, how soon? Amy has found evidence that from the day that Marina was moved into the Inn of the Six Flags in Arlington, where Jim Martin was the manager, that he took the room adjoining hers- for himself. 

What did he need a room for? He had house. He had a wife. He had kids. He didn't live there. He only worked there. He didn't sleep there. Or did he make an exception in this case?

And, he soon became Marina Oswald's business manager. What business was she in? The business of being the suffering widow of Lee Harvey Oswald.  

But, what makes a hotel manager qualified to be a business manager for a nascent celebrity? Nothing that I can think of.

So, the question is: exactly how soon after Oswald was killed did she start having sex with Jim Martin? I think it's a fair question to ask- in this case- because Marina's loyalty to Lee is very much an issue since she became the most damaging witness against Oswald -by far. By leaps and bounds. Nobody else even came close to damaging and impugning him the way she did. 

If I had to put it in percentage terms, I would say that Marina provided 3/4 of the dirt on Oswald presented by the Warren Commission, and all remaining witnesses provided the other fourth. 

We know she spent the night of the 22nd in Ruth Paine's house; but police surrounded the house and stayed there all night. She was, in effect, in detention from the very beginning. 

Then, the very next day, they moved her into the Inn of the Six Flags. But, Oswald was still alive. She visited Oswald from 1:00 to 1:30 on Saturday, time which she had to share with his (cough, cough) mother. 

Now, was that before or after she was moved into the Inn of the Sixth Flags? I suspect it was before because people don't typically check into motels that early in the day. But, did they tell her, prior to her visiting Oswald, that she would be living elsewhere starting that day? I don't know, but if they did, then I presume she did not tell Oswald.  And that's because I would have expected him to rage against it. Imagine if you were in jail, being held and charged for a crime you didn't commit, and you found out that authorities had confiscated your wife, taken possession of her? Do you remember how angry he got when he found out that an FBI agent went and TALKED to his wife? Well, if he got mad about that, imagine how he would have felt if he knew that they grabbed her and took her and were now in complete control of her?  How many times did Oswald complain publicly that he was being denied legal representation? Well, I would think that if he knew that his wife was being detained, confined, restricted, and controlled, that he would have been mad as Hell and let the world know.   

So, she was moved into the Inn of the Six Flags on Saturday, November 23- for her own safety, of course. And Jim Martin took the adjoining room for himself- naturally. 

So, did she consort with him that very night? While Oswald was still living? Frankly, I have to wonder. He's in the next room, right? She was very attractive, wasn't she? He wants to console her. He wants to help her, doesn't he? Because, you see, he knows what she's going through, and what she needs now is a friend- someone who will listen and understand. Let the headlines of the last few weeks, starting with Harvey Weinstein and most recently Senator Al Franken, shape your thinking on this.   

She moved in with him (and his wife and kids) on November 29th, which was exactly one week after the assassination. But, before he proposed the idea to the Secret Service, don't you think he ran it by her and got her consent? 

I'll give you a woman's perspective on this, and the woman is Amy Joyce:

 "It's becoming obvious to me that Marina didn't really love Lee."

Well, if that's true, that she didn't love him, it changes everything. Don't you think? I mean everything pertaining to the FBI getting her to say the things about Oswald that they wanted her to say, and to "remember" the things that happened according to their playbook. 

The point is that if she didn't love Lee, then the work the FBI had in flipping her wasn't quite as daunting as I previously assumed. 

It is an undisputed fact that Marina first denied any knowledge of Oswald going to Mexico City. It's in the Secret Service report about Marina. Harold Weisberg wrote about it in Whitewash2.  She said that Lee stayed behind to look for work, and she knew nothing and heard nothing about a trip to Mexico City. She said the same thing to the FBI on November 29. 

Did you know that in early February, Marina Oswald signed a deal with an Italian film company called Tex-Italia for the rights to her story for $132,000? Adjusted for inflation, that is equivalent to over one million dollars today. 

Tex-Italia? Tex-Italia?????? There just happened to be an Italian film company with that name? And guess what? After paying her all that money, they never did make any films about her or have her fulfill any duties whatsoever. She never had to do anything for them. The company quickly dissolved to nothing. You can't track the names of the individuals who ran the company. There are names, but they are untrackable. They were probably aliases. 

It is apparent to me that this was just a way to buy Marina off. They were paying for her allegiance: to the story of Lee the monster, which they wanted her reciting. That's what they paid her for. They didn't pay her the equivalent of a million dollars to tell a story of Lee the victim, Lee the innocent man, Lee the wronged man. She wouldn't have gotten a dime for that. 

Do you have any idea how poor she was before the assassination and how rich she was after the assassination?

And, it was right after that in February that she testified to the WC, singing the CIA's tune that she knew all about Oswald's trip to Mexico City, and that the purpose of it was to get him or them to Cuba. And as a flourish, she even added the part about him wanting to hijack a plane to Cuba. 

By the way, there are plenty of people besides me and John Armstrong who deny that Oswald ever went to Mexico City. Jim DiEugenio is one. David Josephs is another.  Mark Lane was the first. He declared on December 7 in his A Lawyer's Brief that Oswald never went to Mexico City. 

So, the carrot they waved at Marina was HUGE. It was almost unspeakable, the amount of money. But, I don't believe that money alone could have done it. No way! And that's because there is no reason to think she could have been that good of a liar and that good of an actress. Read her testimony. And it's a shame it wasn't filmed because I'd love to see it. But, as I read it, it sounds like she put on quite a show. She said some things that were flat-out ridiculous, such as that Oswald would go out and shoot at leaves to practice. Leaves. She said the Backyard photos were taken in February, but they were taken in April. She claimed that she had to stop him from shooting Nixon in Dallas in April when Nixon wasn't there then. But, notwithstanding things like that, she told the stories fluidly and apparently without mental discomfort or strain. Practically everything she said was a lie, and not just a lie, but a grotesque lie. Yet, she did it with ease. And that is just not natural. 

So, I still think that she must have been subjected to specific techniques of mind-control, including pharmaceutical treatment, perhaps sodium pentathal.  But, it must have helped a lot that she was willing and cooperative. And it sounds like she was willing and cooperative. More than anything else, what I would like to know is: what drug or drugs did Marina Oswald receive?