The Walker Case

[Martin Weidmann]

No, they were in Ruth Paine's garage.

Ruth Paine's garage was a real treasure trove. What would the investigators have done without it?

[John Iacoletti]

Not completely true, but I doubt a prosecutor would have called her to testify even if she agreed to it.

Yes, it is completely true. By Texas statute (Texas Code of Criminal Procedures) at the time, a wife was not permitted to testify against her husband in a criminal matter, even if she wanted to.

[John Mytton]

Marina said a lot of things.
"We cannot ignore, however, that Marina Oswald has repeatedly lied to the Service, the FBI, and this Commission on matters which are of vital concern to the people of this country and the world.” - Norman Redlich to Lee Rankin

Yet it should be noted that Redlich made his observation about Marina near the start of the Commission’s investigation in February of 1964, and even Redlich would later conclude that “based upon everything that I knew,” by “the time we were finished with our investigation, I would find her a credible witness.”
RHVB

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The overwhelming consensus in the conspiracy community is that Marina Oswald was not a truthful witness. This perception started mostly because of a very ill-advised statement by one of the Commission’s most distinguished assistant counsels, Norman Redlich, who said in a February 28, 1964, memorandum to General Counsel Rankin, “We cannot ignore, however, that Marina Oswald has repeatedly lied to the [Secret] Service, the FBI, and this Commission on matters which are of vital concern to the people of this country and the world.”141 These loose and incorrect words have been seized upon by Warren Commission critics to rebut Marina’s devastating testimony against Oswald. The Warren Commission staff, as indicated, consisted of very bright lawyers who graduated from the nation’s finest law schools. Most of them, however, did not have trial lawyer backgrounds* and, hence, were unaware how extremely common it is for even truthful witnesses to give inconsistent, contradictory, and incorrect testimony. And witnesses, of course, flat-out lie all the time on the witness stand. The late Francis L. Wellman, a distinguished member of the New York Bar, once observed, “Scarcely a trial is conducted in which perjury does not appear in more or less flagrant form.” In fact, perjury is so common that instead of being surprised by it, seasoned prosecutors expect it.

Redlich was a very bright and highly respected professor at New York University School of Law at the time he was appointed to the Warren Commission staff, but he had never been inside a courtroom, at least as a trial lawyer,† and therefore didn’t have any framework of reference for the inconsistencies in some of Marina’s testimony; hence, he erroneously concluded she had “repeatedly lied.” Yet it should be noted that Redlich made his observation about Marina near the start of the Commission’s investigation in February of 1964, and even Redlich would later conclude that “based upon everything that I knew,” by “the time we were finished with our investigation, I would find her a credible witness.”142
RHVB

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Additional clarification.

I am very familiar with Marina’s testimony, and I can say that based on the known record, she was every bit as consistent and truthful in her testimony as ninety-eight or ninety-nine out of a hundred witnesses during a trial. In fact, in view of her circumstances, she was surprisingly consistent and truthful. Here’s someone who, in 1964, testified for more than six days before the Warren Commission, her testimony in the Commission volumes consuming 215 pages. The pages are small print, so this translates to at least 500 pages of typical courtroom transcript. In addition, she was interviewed in depth, over and over again (an unbelievable forty-six times before her Warren Commission testimony) by the FBI and Secret Service. In 1978, she gave an additional 201 pages of testimony to the HSCA, and was interviewed in great depth by HSCA investigators. When you couple this prodigious, virtually unprecedented amount of interviews and testimony with the fact that at the time of her Warren Commission testimony she was but twenty-two years old, had a natural and instinctive desire to protect her husband as much as she reasonably could, was highly insecure living as an expatriate in a foreign country whose popular president had been murdered by her late husband,* and was operating under the substantial handicap of not speaking or understanding English and had to communicate through an interpreter (Chief Justice Warren describing her testimony as “laborious because of the interpreter”), it’s absolutely remarkable she did as well as she did.143 With typical witnesses at a trial giving just one-tenth of the vast amount of testimony Marina gave, I can guarantee you I normally would find many, many more examples of inconsistencies and discrepancies in their testimony than were present in Marina’s.

When I first read Redlich’s remark, I asked myself what was he referring to specifically? Such a question apparently also entered the mind of HSCA counsel Kenneth Klein, and when he asked Redlich, the latter answered, “Now, I have tried to recollect any specific matter that I may have had in my mind, and I have to say that I do not recall anything specific. It may have been, and one would have to go back into the investigatory report, it may have been that at first she may not have told the truth in connection with the attempted killing of General Walker. I am really just surmising she may have been asked if Oswald ever engaged in violence, and she may have at first said, ‘No,’ and then [she] brought out the fact about the General Walker shooting.”144 Although Redlich is unclear in his memory, what is very clear is that the first time Marina was asked, under oath, about the attempted murder of General Walker, she readily acknowledged her husband’s attempt to kill Walker.145†

The following represent the type of inconsistencies in Marina Oswald’s statements and testimony, as set forth by the HSCA: “Marina Oswald was subsequently questioned by the FBI about the [backyard] photos. She said they were taken at the Oswald home on Neely Street in Dallas, in the backyard. But Marina gave two different versions of when the pictures were taken. She first told the FBI it was in late February or in early March 1963…Nevertheless, in an FBI interview made after her initial appearance before the Warren Commission she said that the first time she ever saw the rifle was toward the end of March. She recalled taking the photos seven to ten days thereafter, in late March or early April. [Boy, that’s serious stuff. But I don’t remember what tie I wore yesterday, and am sometimes off by more than an entire year in trying to recollect the date of an event.] Other evidence available to the Warren Commission supported her later version.” And: “Marina Oswald, in addition to giving two different versions of when the backyard pictures were taken, gave different versions of the number of pictures taken. At first she testified that she took one picture. She later testified that she took two pictures.”146 (Wow. Again, this is serious stuff.)

The late Sylvia Meagher, who usually had absolutely no trouble with the hundreds upon hundreds of deliberate, flat-out lies told by her colleagues in the conspiracy theory community in their books, had no tolerance or understanding at all for someone like Marina, who, as indicated, answered literally thousands of questions by the authorities on and off the witness stand and didn’t even speak English. Meagher, nitpicking over minutia, did her best to gather up all the examples she could muster of the contradictions in Marina’s testimony, but failed miserably, only citing a small handful—all, I believe, while Marina was not under oath.147

The very few times Marina was caught in a lie were when she understandably was trying to protect her husband shortly after the assassination. An example is her lie (not under oath) to the FBI, which she subsequently admitted to the Warren Commission, that she had no knowledge that Oswald had taken a trip to Mexico,148 probably thinking this would somehow be incriminating to him in view of his having instructed her not to tell anyone.149 (She told the Warren Commission that she did “not like [the FBI] too much. I didn’t want to be too sincere with them.”)150 But when someone does the opposite and incriminates a loved one (as Marina’s testimony before the Warren Commission did concerning the night before, and the morning of, the assassination), there’s hardly any reason to disbelieve what that person says. In fact, it could be said that if someone’s lies are almost always in favor of another individual, this only increases the former’s credibility when he or she says something damaging about that person.
RHVB

And here's Redlich comments on the "Single Bullet Theory"

Warren Commission staff lawyer Norman Redlich was asked by author Vincent Bugliosi in 2005 whether Specter was the sole author of the single-bullet theory and he said "no, we all came to this conclusion simultaneously." When asked whom he meant by "we", he said "Arlen, myself, Howard Willens, David Belin, and Mel Eisenberg." Specter did not respond to Bugliosi's request for a clarification on the issue. Reclaiming history: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Vincent Bugliosi (W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2007) Endnotes, pp. 301-6.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-bullet_theory

JohnM

[Martin Weidmann]

Yet it should be noted that Redlich made his observation about Marina near the start of the Commission’s investigation in February of 1964, and even Redlich would later conclude that “based upon everything that I knew,” by “the time we were finished with our investigation, I would find her a credible witness.”
RHVB

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The overwhelming consensus in the conspiracy community is that Marina Oswald was not a truthful witness. This perception started mostly because of a very ill-advised statement by one of the Commission’s most distinguished assistant counsels, Norman Redlich, who said in a February 28, 1964, memorandum to General Counsel Rankin, “We cannot ignore, however, that Marina Oswald has repeatedly lied to the [Secret] Service, the FBI, and this Commission on matters which are of vital concern to the people of this country and the world.”141 These loose and incorrect words have been seized upon by Warren Commission critics to rebut Marina’s devastating testimony against Oswald. The Warren Commission staff, as indicated, consisted of very bright lawyers who graduated from the nation’s finest law schools. Most of them, however, did not have trial lawyer backgrounds* and, hence, were unaware how extremely common it is for even truthful witnesses to give inconsistent, contradictory, and incorrect testimony. And witnesses, of course, flat-out lie all the time on the witness stand. The late Francis L. Wellman, a distinguished member of the New York Bar, once observed, “Scarcely a trial is conducted in which perjury does not appear in more or less flagrant form.” In fact, perjury is so common that instead of being surprised by it, seasoned prosecutors expect it.

Redlich was a very bright and highly respected professor at New York University School of Law at the time he was appointed to the Warren Commission staff, but he had never been inside a courtroom, at least as a trial lawyer,† and therefore didn’t have any framework of reference for the inconsistencies in some of Marina’s testimony; hence, he erroneously concluded she had “repeatedly lied.” Yet it should be noted that Redlich made his observation about Marina near the start of the Commission’s investigation in February of 1964, and even Redlich would later conclude that “based upon everything that I knew,” by “the time we were finished with our investigation, I would find her a credible witness.”142
RHVB

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Additional clarification.

I am very familiar with Marina’s testimony, and I can say that based on the known record, she was every bit as consistent and truthful in her testimony as ninety-eight or ninety-nine out of a hundred witnesses during a trial. In fact, in view of her circumstances, she was surprisingly consistent and truthful. Here’s someone who, in 1964, testified for more than six days before the Warren Commission, her testimony in the Commission volumes consuming 215 pages. The pages are small print, so this translates to at least 500 pages of typical courtroom transcript. In addition, she was interviewed in depth, over and over again (an unbelievable forty-six times before her Warren Commission testimony) by the FBI and Secret Service. In 1978, she gave an additional 201 pages of testimony to the HSCA, and was interviewed in great depth by HSCA investigators. When you couple this prodigious, virtually unprecedented amount of interviews and testimony with the fact that at the time of her Warren Commission testimony she was but twenty-two years old, had a natural and instinctive desire to protect her husband as much as she reasonably could, was highly insecure living as an expatriate in a foreign country whose popular president had been murdered by her late husband,* and was operating under the substantial handicap of not speaking or understanding English and had to communicate through an interpreter (Chief Justice Warren describing her testimony as “laborious because of the interpreter”), it’s absolutely remarkable she did as well as she did.143 With typical witnesses at a trial giving just one-tenth of the vast amount of testimony Marina gave, I can guarantee you I normally would find many, many more examples of inconsistencies and discrepancies in their testimony than were present in Marina’s.

When I first read Redlich’s remark, I asked myself what was he referring to specifically? Such a question apparently also entered the mind of HSCA counsel Kenneth Klein, and when he asked Redlich, the latter answered, “Now, I have tried to recollect any specific matter that I may have had in my mind, and I have to say that I do not recall anything specific. It may have been, and one would have to go back into the investigatory report, it may have been that at first she may not have told the truth in connection with the attempted killing of General Walker. I am really just surmising she may have been asked if Oswald ever engaged in violence, and she may have at first said, ‘No,’ and then [she] brought out the fact about the General Walker shooting.”144 Although Redlich is unclear in his memory, what is very clear is that the first time Marina was asked, under oath, about the attempted murder of General Walker, she readily acknowledged her husband’s attempt to kill Walker.145†

The following represent the type of inconsistencies in Marina Oswald’s statements and testimony, as set forth by the HSCA: “Marina Oswald was subsequently questioned by the FBI about the [backyard] photos. She said they were taken at the Oswald home on Neely Street in Dallas, in the backyard. But Marina gave two different versions of when the pictures were taken. She first told the FBI it was in late February or in early March 1963…Nevertheless, in an FBI interview made after her initial appearance before the Warren Commission she said that the first time she ever saw the rifle was toward the end of March. She recalled taking the photos seven to ten days thereafter, in late March or early April. [Boy, that’s serious stuff. But I don’t remember what tie I wore yesterday, and am sometimes off by more than an entire year in trying to recollect the date of an event.] Other evidence available to the Warren Commission supported her later version.” And: “Marina Oswald, in addition to giving two different versions of when the backyard pictures were taken, gave different versions of the number of pictures taken. At first she testified that she took one picture. She later testified that she took two pictures.”146 (Wow. Again, this is serious stuff.)

The late Sylvia Meagher, who usually had absolutely no trouble with the hundreds upon hundreds of deliberate, flat-out lies told by her colleagues in the conspiracy theory community in their books, had no tolerance or understanding at all for someone like Marina, who, as indicated, answered literally thousands of questions by the authorities on and off the witness stand and didn’t even speak English. Meagher, nitpicking over minutia, did her best to gather up all the examples she could muster of the contradictions in Marina’s testimony, but failed miserably, only citing a small handful—all, I believe, while Marina was not under oath.147

The very few times Marina was caught in a lie were when she understandably was trying to protect her husband shortly after the assassination. An example is her lie (not under oath) to the FBI, which she subsequently admitted to the Warren Commission, that she had no knowledge that Oswald had taken a trip to Mexico,148 probably thinking this would somehow be incriminating to him in view of his having instructed her not to tell anyone.149 (She told the Warren Commission that she did “not like [the FBI] too much. I didn’t want to be too sincere with them.”)150 But when someone does the opposite and incriminates a loved one (as Marina’s testimony before the Warren Commission did concerning the night before, and the morning of, the assassination), there’s hardly any reason to disbelieve what that person says. In fact, it could be said that if someone’s lies are almost always in favor of another individual, this only increases the former’s credibility when he or she says something damaging about that person.
RHVB

And here's Redlich comments on the "Single Bullet Theory"

Warren Commission staff lawyer Norman Redlich was asked by author Vincent Bugliosi in 2005 whether Specter was the sole author of the single-bullet theory and he said "no, we all came to this conclusion simultaneously." When asked whom he meant by "we", he said "Arlen, myself, Howard Willens, David Belin, and Mel Eisenberg." Specter did not respond to Bugliosi's request for a clarification on the issue. Reclaiming history: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Vincent Bugliosi (W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2007) Endnotes, pp. 301-6.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-bullet_theory

JohnM

What a load of self-serving BS.

Without Marina's testimony, the WC wouldn't have been able to make any kind of case against Oswald at all, so of course they considered her to be credible.
The same goes for Markham, who they called a screwball, yet still relied on her as their key witness.

It's pathethic.

[John Mytton]

What a load of self-serving BS.

Without Marina's testimony, the WC wouldn't have been able to make any kind of case against Oswald at all, so of course they considered her to be credible.
The same goes for Markham, who they called a screwball, yet still relied on her as their key witness.

It's pathethic.

\

Golly Gosh Martin, isn't that a bit of an overreaction? All I was doing was putting Redlich's early naïve comment into perspective as compared to his later conclusions.

As for the "screwball" comment by not "they" but the singular Ball, I think in context of his debate with Mark Lane, Ball was just being sarcastic.

JohnM

[Martin Weidmann]

\

Golly Gosh Martin, isn't that a bit of an overreaction? All I was doing was putting Redlich's early naïve comment into perspective as compared to his later conclusions.

As for the "screwball" comment by not "they" but the singular Ball, I think in context of his debate with Mark Lane, Ball was just being sarcastic.

JohnM

More BS

[Charles Collins]

Howard Willens, in his book “History Will Prove Us Right” pp 88-89 sheds more light on the context of Redlich’s memo:

We had another witness on the stand later in the month whose testimony involved Marina Oswald. After the assassination, she had hired James Martin as her business manager to deal with her extraordinary situation. By February, our lawyers had some concern that he was taking advantage of her—both financially and personally. The FBI and the Secret Service provided the commission with evidence that they were sleeping together.10 Within the staff, we debated whether the commission needed to delve into that relationship. As he had done with Marina Oswald, Redlich had prepared for Martin’s appearance. The commission had requested Martin to bring all documents relating to “any conversations and advice, instructions and other material of that kind concerning the testimony of Mrs. Marina Oswald or preparation of articles by her, or other things of that character.”11 Warren severely restricted Redlich’s interrogation of Martin. He “stated very definitely he believed that neither the character of Marina Oswald nor the business relationships” between her and Martin “were of interest to the Commission.” Redlich strongly disagreed with the chief justice’s decision. In a memo to Rankin the next day, he said bluntly: “We cannot ignore, however, that Marina Oswald has repeatedly lied to the Secret Service, the FBI, and this Commission on matters which are of vital concern to the people of this country and the world.” He believed that the commission had an obligation to pursue all possible motives that might have prompted Oswald’s assassination of the president. One of those motives might have resulted from his wife’s actions. For this reason Redlich thought that Marina Oswald’s character, her moral fiber, fell well within the reach of our investigation.12

[John Iacoletti]

What a load of self-serving BS.

Indeed. Vince in his characteristically verbose way uses up a lot of words to make a ridiculous argument: prosecutors expect perjury, therefore Marina is credible. But if she makes contradictory statements, which one is the “credible” one? The one Vince likes the best?

The weaker his argument, the more words he uses to try to dance around it. If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS.