www.mattkprovideo.com/2025/08/25/delusion-episode-21-the-marina-oswald-tapes/

On the Trail of Delusion, Episode 021, The Marina Oswald Tapes

After her Warren Commission testimony in 1964, many felt Marina Oswald had not been completely forthcoming.

Bobby Kennedy and J Edgar Hoover asked The FBI to wiretap Marina Oswalds phone in an attempt to discover any new information about her late husbands assassination of President Kennedy.

Host Fred Litwin hears these rare audio recordings and his guests Paul Gregory, Denis Moricett, Steve Roe and Marianna Yarovskaya discuss the implications of what Marina Oswald thought about conspiracy theories.

Fred Litwins website: http://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com

Music by: Power Music Factory Channel URL : / powermusicfactory

TRANSCRIPT:

I want to thank everybody for coming this afternoon. My name is Fred Litwin.
Noted author Fred Litwin. And of course, Fred is also the author of I was a teenage JFK conspiracy freak,
on the trail of delusion and Oliver Stone’s film Flam. The demagogue of Dealey Plaza. Fred Litwin is here. He’s a longtime author and certainly watcher of politics.
Joining us, Fred Litwin, great to have you here.
Thank you very much.

Welcome to another edition of On the Trail of Delusion, the podcast where I try to separate the wheat from the chaff and try to give you something substantial on the JFK assassination as opposed to some of the nonsense you’ll find on the internet and on YouTube.

Well, today we have a really special edition.

We’ve got my friend Steve Roe back to give us some incredible information along with Denny Moricet who is a a fantastic researcher on the photographs and videos of the assassination. And we have a filmmaker by the name of marianna.yarovskaya who are going to give us a little story about some newly discovered tapes um of Marina Oswald back in 1964. S

o, let’s go to Steve Roe and he could kick this off with some background information on what we’re going to discuss today. Hi everybody. Good to see you. Here’s a story of how JFK assassination researcher Denise Moriceet obtained the audio files of wiretap operation on Marina Oswald back roughly in March of 1964 from the National Archives.

But now for the first time we can hear those audio files and surprisingly they’re very very clear.

Now there’s been a lot of commentary on these tapes and that they were somehow evidence of Lee Harvey Oswald’s innocence of the assassination of President Kennedy because we hear recordings of Marina discussing her doubts about the official story. But a group of us have listened to these tapes intensely and we think it’s more a matter of Marina Oswald expressing hope that the father of her children might be innocent. That’s very important rather than any reason to think he was innocent. So let me give a little short background story on this leading up to it. After the Kennedy assassination, uh, Marina Oswald was taken under guard by the Secret Service to the end of Six Flags in Arlington. Later on this episode, we’re going to have a brief drop in visit from Paul Gregory, uh, the acclaimed offer of the Oswalds to talk about erroneous rumors that his father was a part of a plot to make Oswald look like a leftist. Uh Paul Gregory’s father, Pete, was a native Russian speaker and helped translate Marine Oswald’s interviews with the Secret Service. While under guard there, uh she made contact with a man named James Martin and uh he was a business manager.

he worked at the Inn of Six Flags and somehow Mr. Martin convinced her to be a business manager for her.

https://sixflags.fandom.com/wiki/The_Inn_of_the_Six_Flags

And a lot of stuff in the tape is Marina talking about this business manager agreement with uh James Martin. Uh Marina ended up signing a written contract for 10 years with Mr. Martin as as is her business manager. And after the Inn of Six Flags, when she was released by Russ uh secret service, she ended up in Dallas with several different families of the Russian immigrant community over there. Uh there were some, but but mainly she was the ones that really helped her out were uh uh Russian-American uh native native Russian named Katya Ford and her husband Declan Ford.

They were trying to help her get out of this written contract with Martin cuz she was not very happy with it. So they helped get a lawyer named Bill McKenzie out of Dallas and he got involved with it and he was trying to negotiate out the written contract that eventually eventually he did get settled uh somewhere I believe in May of 1964. So, I’m going to have to file a lawsuit on it and uh just proceed from there. And I’ve talked to a bunch of prominent attorneys here in town and they’re going to testify as to the reasonableness of a fee.

I hope to get it filed tomorrow afternoon depending on whether or not I have a secretary in the office. Uh she’s not wanting to sign some contracts. And I said, “What?” Said what now? Said that she was not uh wanting to sign any some contracts. They had some business contracts. and he started talking, said that she needed an agent to handle her business and so forth like that. And I and he asked me, “Did I know anybody that spoke Russian that could interpret?” I said, “Well, Mr. Gregory over in Fort Worth, the only one I knew.” And he said, “Well, uh, he thought maybe it might be not be best to bring in somebody else on that.” That was out in Martin’s house, right? Uh-huh. But there was no one there to speak Russian men, was there? No, it sure wasn’t. Now, was there a notary public there? No, was not. Okay. Well, they’re just holding out for something. They want $40,000 for Thor and Leech, and they want $20,000 for Martin. Really? Yeah. Oh, God. and they wanted $40,000 to get out of that written contract in uh uh they settled I think in May sometime or about $12,000.

Meanwhile, Marina got a lot of donations from well-wishers, kindhearted people throughout the nation and probably some from the world to help support her. I think the estimate I saw somewhere in the neighborhood of around $65,000 in 1964.

So, uh decision was made uh that Marina wanted to get her own home and the Fords uh assisted with her on that to help her locate a rental home over there uh not too far away from the Ford house in Richardson, Texas. That’s a suburb just north of Dallas. Uh Hat Marie’s warrant commission testimony in January 64. There were some people that were skeptical of her that she wasn’t forthcoming. The message got over to the FBI. The Warner Commission wanted to do some surveillance on her. So there’s two types of surveillance that were available. Of course, uh, one’s the old physical surveillance where FBI would go out there and watch, uh, her home, all the people coming in and out of their home, watch her movements. Uh, so they did stakeouts on her coming and going and the people she was seeing. Now, the second type of surveillance was a wiretap monitor, electronic surveillance. and Robert Kennedy, the attorney general, signed off on the wiretap and electronic surveillance. So, we have the uh uh document showing that. So, this operation eventually went down to the local Dallas FBI office, one of the special agents there, Nat King Pinkson, supposedly well acquainted with these wiretapping. He was the one that placed the wire taps on the the phone at the rental home in Richardson. And I believe it was on February 29th, which was a leap year that year, right before Marina moved into the new place, which a rental home. All right. Once they got this set up, Marina moved in 29 Belt Line Roads where she had her home. And they set up an operation uh listing post over there at 614 Beltline Road, not that far away. And in that place uh the listening post was uh a Russian speaking FBI agent named Anatoll Bogus and this went on for about 2 weeks and it was pretty short duration but it finally got discontinued. So, uh, getting back to all this, we had all these tapes and Denise and I and another researcher, uh, sort of trying to use Google translation, try to get, you know, translate these these things and we we were able to get some of that, but they’re they’re not all that clear. I mean, something gets lost in the translation. So, we thought it might be better to have a native Russian speaker listen to them. and uh uh help translate and uh we did find one and her name is Mariana Yvasaya. Sorry if I mispronounced her name. Mariana Mariana made a film called The Woman of the Gulog with Arthur Paul Gregory who will be on here a little later. Of course, she’s a native Russian speaker and it’s important because you can get all the inflections that go into how the people talk. You know, you get a better feeling talking live than just sitting on a piece of paper from Google Translate. Here’s the audio of the FBI call to Marina as they were trying to trick her into leaving her home. Are you going to be busy today? A little bit. Well, the reason I ask is uh Mr. Boguslav and I would like to take you for a ride and show you a couple of things and ask uh about them. Okay. Mhm. In the afternoon. Here’s Mr. Do you want to take me? I want to take you. Yeah. In a car. Where? Over to Neie Street. And you know to show us about the where y’all walked that night. And then you told me that you had never seen Beckley Street. Mhm. Maybe you would like to see it and we would uh why you want to show me get uh well to get an idea of exactly where you went and everything. Mariana, uh, how would you like to what’s your impression of these tapes when you first listen to Well, um, uh, first of, thank you, Steve. Um, I’m not a professional interpreter. I’m actually a filmmaker. And I was looking at it from the standpoint of a Russian speaker, former Russian journalist who became a filmmaker. And uh, um, to my opinion, it could make um, an interesting short film called The Widow. um for the whole um you know these five tapes. But um this is just my personal view um of you know it it could make an interesting story of a situation of a young girl 22 23 who um became involved in in probably the most significant murder in in American history as as the widow of the murderer. Um um these tapes uh to me say a lot about her character about who she was as a as a person as a human being. I do believe at 22 you are a formed human being. You can say what’s judging by what your interests are. You are pretty formed in my opinion especially back then. 22 was a mature age to my degree to my to my opinion. But as questions maybe I could um shed the light. I I wanted to add that she wasn’t just talking to women. She was talking to George Bouhair. I think there was an interesting dynamic between them because George was unmarried and 60 and she was 23 and uh she was bored out of her mind stuck in that house and she wanted to cook for him as many Russian housewives wanted like to to make a fish or to you know and he would say look I’m unmarried that would look strange. I don’t want to you know compromise myself. I don’t want to compromise you. I can talk to Katya who is married. I can’t talk to you after hours or I can’t come to you after hours. A lot of very interesting details like that. But ask questions. Your parents were alive in 1963 when this happened. Um have they ever talked to you about the JFK assassination? What their impressions? Did they believe in a conspiracy? Oh uh I grew up in Moscow. I was born and raised in Moscow and uh I must say that in in an in a family of Russian intelligencia, right? You know my father was a rocket scientist, my mother was a playwright and honestly um I was born, you know, I was born in the 70s. So, um I think it wasn’t um uh it wasn’t very much of an agenda in the 70s in the in or especially the 80s in u um in the Soviet Union. I think one of the biggest things was that it you know this was not connected of course from their standpoint with the KGB. That was the main point that this had no connection. uh but my parents never discussed it and in fact you know any kind of his American historical milestones were not big in the 70s and 80s um uh in a family um you know in in the family circle what what did uh what’s your impression did she say did she give any information about what she thought about Oswald her husband yes I think that I was a little bit surprised that there was not in the private conversation between her and Katya and they were very very personal. It just didn’t seem like she was um in love in any way of form. You know, that was not it didn’t sound to me like she was um you know a young woman in love. It w it sounded she was a mother of her children and it seemed like she had the duty uh to him. Uh, for example, there was a long conversation about the grave. You know, she would say things like, um, I want to make sure that his grave looks decent, that, uh, it’s not just a little hill like Americans do, but it’s a decent Russian type grave with a little fence and a cross. Because then she ended her speech to Ka that they even bury dogs with um some decency and he deserves it. Even though many people think he’s a dog, but he was a human being.

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So, So that was an interesting dialogue that I remember and that touched me because you know as a filmmaker I thought you know you take this dialogue and only at the end you revealed who that is that it’s the widow of you know the biggest murderer sort of you know that that that could be an interesting that could be an interesting scene. Another um uh impression that I received from listening to her is that she wants to hope that it wasn’t him or wasn’t just him. That maybe he took the gun, maybe he took the gun but didn’t shoot. Maybe there was someone else. Maybe, you know, what if there was this uh uh can of coke? How could he run so quickly? And then very quickly his um conversation partner Carter says, “It’s none of your business to speculate. Let them deal with it. It’s none of your business.” And she keeps saying, “But I want to hope, but I understand, but I don’t but I want to. I understand.” So to me, it it the impression was she understands he was a killer, but she wants to hope that maybe he isn’t.

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It’s it’s I mean it’s fascinating and I think it’s it’s you know I’ve seen this in other posts that I’ve in other interviews where Marina uh was always looking for some angle that maybe in fact she said I want to help. It’s for the children. She said in another interview I posted on my blog. It’s for the children. I want the children to feel better about things. If I could find some evidence that it wasn’t Lee or it was somebody else, it’s be psychologically better for the children. Do you get a sense of her concern for her children about what had happened? Obviously, it does seem despite the yelling, it does seem like she’s a good mother. You know, she she says things like, “How can I even go studies somewhere to, you know, they don’t understand I have those two kids and isn’t it full happiness to be a mother?

When somebody tells her, “Oh, she got knocked up again.” and you know when she was still married to Lee she says don’t they understand by saying so you know rudely that being a mother is happiness um yes I think that she she had children’s interest in mind all the time so that she had you know yes she was saying that if Lee w were to to be found innocent it it would be of course better for her for her and for the kids yes yeah that’s that’s very very natural uh thing for for her mother to feel. Sure. And she was a young mother. By today’s standards, she was a young mother, but um so was Katya and you know, I don’t think that that was such a big age difference um for Kaiser to call her immature. I think that Marina was pretty mature for her age dealing with two kids and and being at the center of media attention with journalists basically showing up um at her door morning and night and the fact that she went through the you know, immigrating to another country. I mean that’s that’s a very very big step as well right so she was under a huge huge amount of stress that that’s that’s for sure and so I would I would not call her immature she was calm through all these five tapes you know aside from few segments she was calm and quiet and very composed so you know she was never kind of losing it um as except for like I said did the Warren Commission get the transcripts and tapes. Did the Warren Commission get the the transcript and tapes? Uh, well, I would say they they got a summary of what was on the tapes. Uh, they certainly knew there was a wiretap operation going on. Uh, they probably didn’t want that to be public knowledge. But uh anyway, the the one that the person that did the summary was uh uh FBI agent Bogus and he he listened to the tapes and he wrote down like a summary of what Marina said. Most, you know, most important stuff, I mean, there’s a lot of details that she goes into and uh but you know, he makes a general summary. Uh they didn’t make it sound like somebody who told them somebody had overheard a conversation about naming that person, but they were trying very careful not to mention any wire tap. So Mariana, how would you describe Katcha Ford? I don’t know if I would describe as a mother figure to Marina, but you know, she was certainly uh I don’t know, somewhere about 15 years older than her. I’ve been in the country here now for, you know, well over 10 years for sure. Uh maybe she’s an older type sister or more of a mentor. Uh what was your impression of her? She was a I don’t know much about her background. She seems like um older older generation immigrant. So she’s much more integrated into the American society. Her Russian is much worse than Marina’s. She also mixes Russian and English. So creative this ring English rose English sort of um a hybrid language like you know they would say the word lawyer and then they would conjugate it like the like it would be a Russian word. Um she seems like a yes like an older friend. Um and they discuss very intimate things from women’s sexual desire to cheating to other women. And there is so much gossip going on.

Denny, you you’ve gone through the transcripts or is there anything that sticks out in your mind from the the transcripts? My favorite parts are when Katya and Marina discuss the assassination of President Kennedy. Those discussions come up after that Katya has given Marina information that she has found in newspapers and it’s very interesting to get Marina’s reactions to that information. Uh guys, let me give you a few examples. Here in the tapes, I found two examples of Marina thinking of the possibility of another man involved in a shooting. The first example is when Marina says that a man was seen running across the yard across the Texas school book depository. Marina believes that this man who was running had a role in the shooting.

Mhm.

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Mhm.

The second example of this is the fingerprint found on Lee’s raffle. Marina is not convinced that it proves that Lee did the shooting. Marina says, “Yeah, but Lee could have hold the raffle and his fingerprint stayed on it and then gave the raffle to somebody else.

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If I could redirect the conversation to another tape that I got from from you guys and that’s the tape of the first interrogation um done by Mike Howard And um I forget the other guy’s name, the other secret service guy with my father translating. Uh there’s been a whole theory developed and it it emerged out of Moscow, I believe. Uh there’s a whole theory uh that um Oswald did it, but Oswald was really a right-winger of the worst sort uh which prevalent in in Dallas. and uh that the uh white Russians in the area, including my father, had combined to create this story uh that my father deliberately mistransated uh the interrogation to uh to say that Lee was not a communist. The worst thing in the world would be if for them if Lee uh proved to be a communist. He’s not a communist. He’s actually a right-winger. And this Gregory guy who was translating mistransated to to create that impression. uh and they focus on one word and I’ve not talked to Mariana about this and that was her whether she was able to describe the rifle and they say he deliberately my father deliberately um mischaracterized it as as a a dark weapon and I thought that was maybe chney. Uh, but I want Mariana to listen carefully to that tape because you could hardly hear her speaking. Um, and see what she says when she describes the weapon. As I, as I say, they say that’s that’s the key to explaining uh this uh Oswald was actually a right-winger story. But we’re not talking about the FBI wiretaps. We’re talking about something else. This is agent Mike Howard, US Secret Service, Dallas. This recording made in regards to the assassination of President John Kennedy. Investigation being made by the Dallas office. This recording is being made at the end of the Six Flags in Arlington, Texas. Uh where Mrs. Oswald is is being held by Agent Howard at Charles Couple the Dallas office. This recording is being uh made in Russian. Our translator is Mr. Peter Gregory, interpreter from Fort Worth, Texas. Okay. All right. Mr. Gregory, would you ask her what her name is?

She does not know if Lee brought a gun from Russia.

No, she does not know of her knowledge. Did Lee purchase uh any type of a gun uh while uh while living in the United States?

Uh-huh. Uh, she says uh she knew that that there was a rifle in the house. Gun or rifle? What else now?

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New Orleans. Sorry. She says that uh uh she saw the gun in the house in in New Orleans and in Dallas. All right. Now, this gun, was it a a rifle or a pistol? Or just what type of gun can she

It was a gun.

Uh she said she cannot describe. It was sort of a dark uh rifle just like any other common rifle. She says

a baby needs to be fed.

Uh Mariana, would you uh would you know what a rifle looks like? May you know the difference between a rifle and a pistol?

Yeah.

about how uh can you describe this rifle that you saw?

Uh she says that the rifle of the approximately the same length as you’re showing her. However, the the the stock is this what you call stock, but the stock will need uh but the stock was longer and of course that that story of of Oswald being a right-winger was picked up by Jim Garrison who that I see I’ve not read any of that stuff. I I don’t want to waste my time on it. Yeah. So he he made a big deal of the fact that Oswald was not a lefty, that he was a right-winger, that in fact Garrison wrote that Oswald would have been more comfortable reading mine comp than Das Capidal. Mhm. Which was just ridiculous. But that’s that’s Jim Garrison. That’s been picked up by a lot of conspiracy theorists. Well, you can add to that in that I I think this order came directly out of Moscow, right, to change the the narrative and Gus Hall um I think also repeated that narrative. I’m sure being the head of the Communist Party of the US. Yep. and and this this translation of the appearance of the rifle is extremely important in these narratives. Going back to um Oswald being a right-winger story, I think where there are big returns and and that’s that’s to have a thorough examination of the Soviet documents, you know, which are proliferous. I’ve not spent a lot of time with them. You you need to know the Russian to to spend time. Uh, and I thought that would be something that really needs to be to be done. And I’m learning for the first time that one can perhaps go from Moscow to Gust Hall to Jim Garrison. Yes. And in fact, I’ve written about a a possible KGB operation involving Jim Garrison where he accu where there was an article in an Italian communist newspaper about Klay Shaw and I think that sort of was part of a KGB operation. Do you have the date of it? That was March. That was March of 1967. Okay. So, wasn’t in the immediate aftermath? No. The Soviets had a couple of operations to try and convince Americans that the CIA was behind the assassination or or other right-wingers. Uh but I’m and in fact, that’s that’s why I really want to see the uh the Russian files that are still in Moscow to see what other operations they were running. I can’t really recall the sources I used. you know, they were readily accessible as as I recall. Um, you know, I I do have to run. It’s a pleasure to meet uh the two of you. Yeah, it was great meeting you. There’s no reason we can’t do this in the in the near future, but I I I don’t want to be late for my appointment. Yeah, I’d love to have another podcast with you to talk about this in more detail because uh I I I liked your book. Thank you very much.

Marina says maybe Lee didn’t hit the president. He knew better who he was shooting at. Maybe she was talking about Lee shooting at Governor Connelly, but he missed him and hit GFK instead. Is it possible? Do you think it’s possible? Well, I don’t I don’t think it’s possible that’s what he was aiming for, but a lot of people have said that, and in fact, there’s a couple of books out there saying that his real target was Connelly because of uh the refusal to change his undesirable discharge. Yes. But I don’t buy it because I think I think that if he really wanted to hit Connelly, he would have then shot while he was uh coming up Hston Street, you know, where he would have gotten a much better view of Connelly as opposed to Shaney Kennedy was in front of, you know, who was uh I just don’t think it’s that don’t think it works very well. Uh we hear a discussion of writer Patricia McMillan Johnson who later wrote Marina Oswwell’s memoirs Marina and Lee back in 1977 and on the tapes we we hear discussion of Patrician McMillan Johnson. So, you know, we hear of her. Of course, she was trying to persuade Marina to write a book back in the early. I had a telegram today from Harper’s magazine and Oh, I’m glad you brought that up. I got one, too. Good. From Harpers. And what did they say to you? Just a second, Bill. Let me get it. I have it in my coat here. Says, “Hope you will consider possibility of Harper’s publishing Marina Oswel memoirs in a Priscilla Johnson writing them.” Stop. Harper, one of oldest publishers in US whose distinguished authors include both John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. Robert Kennedy. Yeah, that’s the same that’s the same telegram they sent me. Well, I thought I’ll write them a nice letter tomorrow and send you a copy of it. You and I talked about how interesting it was on tape number nine to hear Marina and Katchcha talk about the newspaper stories of Lee allegedly being seen drinking a Coca-Cola right after the assassination.

Oh, yeah.

Well, Denise and I were talking about this time travel reporter who was Darwin Payne. And Dennis, you want to go on about that? It’s pretty interesting. Darwin Payne um entered the house. I think he didn’t even knock or maybe Marina didn’t hear the knocking. And um and in a case she let Marina let Darwin Payne, he was um a reporter for the Dallas Times Herald and she thought he was an FBI agent and she just let him in. I think she called Decline Ford and Decline Ford asked her to um kick him out that he should not be there and she was very worried that she she lets anybody in come in and you never know somebody could be somebody who could do harm to her. Darwin Payne is still alive. I will ask him if he remembers that part. Uh there’s an article in the paper this morning by the reporter that came out there yesterday. Mhm. And he says that he just walked in. Mhm. So, I want you to be real careful about about that cuz I’m very concerned about it. I’m worried about it. So, don’t let anyone come in the house while I’m gone. Okay. Okay. Enough. Um Marina was only 23 when when these conversations took place and uh I moved to America 23. you know, it’s it’s a it’s quite a shock to to end up in another country and she ended up completely alone. So, and her husband ended up being a murderer. Um, and she believed it. She she knew it and she just maybe hoped that he didn’t shoot at the president, but um, you know, she believed for sure that he shot the cop and um, she didn’t doubt that, you know, he was preparing to take the guns and so forth. And uh when she was alone surrounded by uh people who wanted something from her and she she unders she was aware of it. She was aware of it. You know we discussed that Katya mentioned at one point that Marina was immature. I think she was mature for her age just completely in a very strainous circumstance and having to mother two kids. So um yeah and she was also in a very tumultuous marriage where she was being beaten and and so yeah there’s a lot she went through an awful lot coming to America in that whole situation when she ended up living in a in a um house of a married couple Martin and his um wife and I forgot the wife’s name um when the wife seemed to be aware of the fact that Martin was hitting on Marina and then Later they they started having an affair but the white wife seemed to not have said anything because uh they wanted to get paid. I think they were getting considerable sum of uh thousands of dollars to host Marina and um because you know they also had children and Martin was unemployed. Um, and I think, you know, they didn’t kick her out and they didn’t even let her go when when uh uh people were trying to say, you know, she has another she can she can leave separately. You know, both the wife and Martin said no. So it it looked like to me that she felt completely trapped in that very very unhealthy situation when um you know a man much older than she is was was hitting on her and then ended up in an affair and the wife knew it but because of money didn’t want to um um to act on it for the time being.

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from. Well, look, I’d like to thank Marianaa and Denis and Paul for joining us on this episode of On the Trail of Delusion. Hopefully, we can come back soon to discuss Marina’s Warren Commission testimony. I think that would be another ery interesting session. So, thank you very much.

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