Maybe she wasn't religious. Maybe she felt that since Lee was dead, and wasn't going to feel any more pain regardless of what happened, that it was a practical matter. And surely Lee, if he desired anything, it was the welfare of his children, right?
Marina, reportedly, was a pharmacy tech in Russia, but she surely would have had get credentialed here and fluent in English before she could work in that field. And, pharmacy techs aren't paid like brain surgeons. The amount of money that they were dangling in front of her was more than she could have accumulated working as a pharmacy tech in a whole lifetime; in two lifetimes. How do you say no to that kind of money?
So, I don't question whether Marina's morality would have prevented her from lying about Lee. And remember, we're not talking about petty lies here; we are talking about monster lies. Still, I think she could have told them- unaided.
But, the question is: could she have told them convincingly unaided? Just because her morals would allow her to do it didn't necessarily mean that she had the acting ability to do it- to sell it.
When I think about her exchange with Lee Rankin of the Warren Commission, it's bizarre to think about. In the bright light of day, in a hearing of transparent investigation and fact-finding, there they were going back and forth- about complete nonsense, complete fiction, an exercise of complete lunacy. And the lunacy was theirs- not Oswald's.
But, what about Rankin? Did he know? I doubt it. I'm sure no one tapped him on the shoulder and said, "You know we put Marina up to this, don't you? She's lying her head off."
But, just think: Allen Dulles was there. And he knew. He knew all. Allen Dulles was the father of MK-ULTRA. Brainwashing and mind control was his personal baby. He balked about how much the Soviets were spending on such programs at a time when he was spending 10X as much. And if he couldn't get enough funding from Congress, he went to the Rockefeller brothers, and they always obliged him. With a perfectly straight face, he sat there and listened to all that made-up bull shit. Now, there you had one cold, moe-foe, son of a bitch.
But, getting back to Marina, they were never going to rely on her acting ability. They needed to take control of her mind. I suspect it went down like this:
"Marina, you're having trouble remembering these things, and we know the reason why. It's because you're in shock. It's because you've been traumatized. But, we can help you get those memories back. We can show you things that will jar your memory. And we can give you things that will help unblock your mind. And, it will all come back to you."
One thing I think they did was separate her from anyone and everyone who knew the real Oswald and who might be a bad influence. For instance, I have to wonder if they allowed her to receive mail from anyone in Russia during the time of her detention. I bet you they didn't. Because, Russians would not be likely to encourage her to believe the US government about "Alec," would they? All the interviews I've heard of Russians who knew Oswald in Russia, said that he couldn't do it. That the Oswald they knew could never have done such a thing. And they would be naturally suspicious of the US government, right? Think about how we recoil at the term "KGB". It's like "the Gestapo," isn't it? Well, don't you think "FBI" is like that to them? Don't you think they would have been a very disruptive influence on the mental flipping of Marina?
We know that Marina has never gone back to Russia after the assassination, and I wouldn't be surprised if she broke ties with everybody she knew over there once she started cooperating with U.S. authorities.
The overall process of rewriting her memories was undoubtedly very much like a cult indoctrination. We've heard a lot of cult indoctrination, and it's also been a popular subject to dramatize. I've mentioned Patty Hearst before, who is a good example. And Patty, obviously, made the round-trip, mentally. Not so for Marina.
This is from the HOW STUFF WORKS website, and the author is Julia Layton.
A destructive cult uses countless techniques to get its members to stay, commit themselves and take part in what may be harmful activities. The sum of these techniques constitutes what some people call "mind control." It's also known as "thought reform," "brainwashing" and "coercive persuasion," and it involves the systematic breakdown of a person's sense of self.
Patty Hearst, heiress to the Hearst publishing fortune, became famous in the 1970s after she was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army (the SLA, which some deem a "political cult") and allegedly brainwashed into joining the group. There are reports that Hearst was locked in a dark closet for several days after her kidnapping and was kept hungry, tired, sleep-deprived, brutalized and afraid for her life while SLA members bombarded her with their anti-capitalist political ideology. Within two months of her kidnapping, Patty had changed her name, issued a statement in which she referred to her family as the "pig-Hearsts" and appeared on a security tape robbing a bank with her kidnappers.
Thought reform is an umbrella term for any number of manipulative techniques used to get people to think differently and do things they wouldn't normally do. Most psychologists believe that cult brainwashing techniques, which are similar to techniques used in prisoner interrogation, do change a person's thought processes. These techniques include:
Deception - Cults trick new recruits into joining the group and committing themselves to a cause or lifestyle they don't fully understand. Cults mislead new recruits/members as to the true nature and activities of the group.
- Cults may hide any signs of illegal, immoral or hyper-controlling practices
- A cult leader may use members' altered consciousness, induced by activities like meditation, chanting or DRUG USE, to increase vulnerability to suggestion.
Isolation - Cults cut off members from the outside world to produce intense introspection, confusion, loss of perspective and a distorted sense of reality. The members of the cult become the person's only social contact and feedback mechanism.
- Cults may not allow unsupervised contact with the "outside world." In this way, there is no chance for a "reality check" or validation of a new member's concerns regarding the group.
- Cults typically instill the belief that "outsiders" (non-cult members) are dangerous and wrong.
Induced Dependency - Cults demand absolute, unquestioning devotion, loyalty and submission. A cult member's sense of self is systematically destroyed. Ultimately, feelings of worthlessness and "evil" become associated with independence and critical thinking, and feelings of warmth and love become associated with unquestioning acceptance of and submission to the cult's teachings.
- The cult typically controls every minute of a member's waking time. There is no free time to think or analyze.
- Members are told what to eat, what to wear, how to feed their children, when to sleep ...
- Any doubts, assertiveness or remaining ties to the outside world are punished by the group through criticism, guilt and alienation. Questions and doubts are systematically "turned around" so that the doubter feels wrong, worthless, "evil" for questioning. The member is loved again when he renounces those doubts and submits to the will of the cult.
- The member may be deprived of adequate sustenance and/or sleep so the mind becomes muddled.
- The leader may randomly alternate praise and love with scorn and punishment to keep the member off-balance and confused and instill immense self-doubt. The leader may offer occasional gifts and special privileges to encourage continued submission.
Dread - Once complete dependence is established, the member must retain the cult's good favor or else her life falls apart.
- The cult may punish doubt or insubordination with physical or emotional trauma.
- Once all ties to the outside world have been cut, the member feels like his only family is the group, and he has nowhere else to go.
- Access to necessities depends on the cult's favor. The member must "behave" or he may not get food, water, social interaction or protection from the outside world.
- The member may believe that only group members are "saved," so if he leaves, he will face eternal damnation.
Indoctrination, or thought reform, is a long process that never really ends. Members are continually subjected to these techniques -- it's part of daily life in a cult. Some adjust well to it after a period of time, embracing their new role as "group member" and casting aside their old sense of independence. For others, it's a perpetually stressful existence. In the next section, we'll take a look at what it's like to live within the confines of a destructive cult.
RC: It's not an exact comparison, so not all those things apply. For instance, in Marina's case, there was no charismatic cult leader. And in cults, they don't throw money at you; but, they threw money at Marina. And that was big. But, they also surrounded her exclusively with people who wholeheartedly accepted the Oswald-as-monster story. And I bet you they talked up Oswald as an evil man constantly, expressing sympathy and compassion to her for having to live with that monster.
Then, the other thing was: REPETITION. Telling the stories over and over again, and perhaps from different angles. But really, it was the repetition, the mental process of going over the same territory again and again and again- facilitating the circuits, as neurologists say.
Rankin announced at the beginning of her testimony that he had records (reports) of 45 interviews that the FBI did with her, and he joked that it may have been more than that, and she said she had no idea how many there were.
But, if it was about OBTAINING information from her, how could they possibly need so many interviews?
This was a woman who barely spoke English and gave very terse answers to whatever she was asked. And, her life with Oswald, that is, her REAL life, was pretty simple and straight-forward. They came here. He rifled through various jobs. They got connected with the White Russian community in Dallas. He went down to New Orleans, and she followed him. She came back with Ruth Paine, and he followed her. He got a job at the TSBD and visited on weekends. He watched June when she gave birth to Rachel. And that's about it. What else did she have to tell? Not much.
I just told the story of their lives in one paragraph, and it's not a particularly long one. So again, how could they need 45+ interviews?
So, those numerous and intense sessions were not about obtaining information, they were about instilling information, and making that information seem like her own memories.
If someone has the time, rifling through the newly released documents for memos about Marina's conversion would be extremely valuable. It's full of FBI memos. So, who is to say that there isn't one or more there concerning Marina's conversion and the methods used to transform her from being Oswald's wife to the FBI's Stepford wife.
There she is testifying. My God, look how thin she was. She was always thin, but she wasn't that thin. From 11/23:
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