Erasing the Past to Protect a Fairytale

288   Colour photographs of the interior of the President’s chest


See also:
249 Admiral Burkley's information offered to the HSCA in 1977
286 Supplemental autopsy photographs of Kennedy's brain



Dr. Cyril Wecht

Further, we know from testimony of Commander James J. Humes of the government autopsy
team that color photographs were taken of the interior of the President’s chest. These photos are
crucial to a determination of the path of the bullet that purportedly entered. the President’s up-
per back. They are missing.

All these items were supposed to have been turned over to the National Archives on April 26,
1965, by Admiral George Burkley, but they are not included in the inventory of items officially
given by Mrs. John F. Kennedy to the United States government on October 29, 1966. There has
been no accounting for this discrepancy, and I have received no reply to my written inquiries ad-
dressed to the official representative of the Kennedy family.

(Cyril Wecht, Pathologist’s View of JFK Autopsy: An Unsolved Case, 1972)

290  Testimony of several Counter Intelligence agents


Related:
22  Oswald's pre-Dec 1960 CIA-File
153 Over 39,000 files from James Angleton's secret collection

Some information from the great British researcher Malcolm Blunt on the CIA and Oswald's time in Russia:
Before Oswald defected, Angleton ordered that all information on Oswald go ONLY to the Security office,
run by a close Angleton associate, Bruce Solie. The testimony of Solie and his aide Robert Gambino remain
classified. Testimony of John Dempsey, of their office, also remains classified. Testimony of Larson, from
the Records Division, which had been studied by Malcolm Blunt (over 200 pages) was withdrawn before
Blunt returned to the Archives in 2016. 

(Martin Shackelford‎, JFK Hands on Research, Facebook page, 21-2-19)

292 Marina's 5-page document outlining the history of Oswald's wedding ring



Continued from:
291 Records of Secret Service confiscation of Oswald's wedding ring


In July 2004, the Fort Worth law firm of Brackett & Ellis located the Marina Oswald file of retired lawyer Forrest Markward.

At 90 years old, Markward was long retired and by now in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, so the law firm instead, called in local JFK assassination expert, Dave Perry to go through the material.

Inside the file, Perry found an envelope containing a gold wedding ring and a receipt—allegedly from the Secret Service. This is suggested by the file reference at the top right which was the reference the Secret Service used for all JFK assassination related material. (Lost History episode, air date december 1, 2014). (...)



Forrest Markward died on November 30, 2009. It took until July 24, 2012 for Brackett & Ellis to formally write to Marina and advise of the ring’s discovery. That is about 30 months after the death of the lawyer and a full 8 years after it was discovered in his old files. By the same token, Marina was in no rush to obtain it; not picking it up from the law firm until early 2013. Then in May of that year, she wrote a 5-page document outlining the history of the ring for RR Auctions—a history she has constantly rewritten through questioning under oath and through numerous interviews with various law enforcement officials, authors and the media. In that light, it is unsurprising that she wrote this history on the proviso that certain parts of it would not be made public. Five months later, the ring sold for $108,000. As a 14k gold ring, it has an intrinsic value of about point one or two percent of that amount. (...)



Good afternoon Mr. Parker,

Thank you for your interest in the Museum’s Collection. As our educational and public programs have demonstrated over the years, there is rarely one way of exploring evidence in a case that remains controversial and fiercely debated around the world. We value your feedback regarding Lee Harvey Oswald’s wedding ring, and the resources that you cite are available to students, researchers and the general public via our Reading Room.

We do have the May 2013 letter from Marina Oswald that you referenced in your e-mail. In it, Marina indicates that she did not see the ring that morning but believes—based on records associated with the ring—that Ruth Paine gave it to the Secret Service. She assumed that the government had kept all of their personal belongings (including the ring) and did not learn that the ring had been returned until “receiving a letter from a Fort-Worth law firm in July 2012 stating that they had it in their files for past 49 years.” She recalled that Forrest Markward, the attorney who had possession of the ring, had provided her with some pro bono legal work following the assassination. Marina recognized the ring upon examining it.

The Museum is confident, based on available documentation and research, in the provenance of the ring we currently have on display.

Again, we appreciate your interest.

Sincerely,

Stephen Fagin | Curator

(Greg Parker, Was there a Wedding Ring?, 2019)

294 Lee Harvey Oswald's actual wedding ring



Continued from:
293 Document indicating Secret Service returned Oswald wedding ring to Marina


Before he leaves the bedroom, Lee kisses the children, as he always does, then walks
to the bedroom door. He stops and returns to the side of the bed. He has always kissed
his wife good-bye and Marina assumes he will do so now. But this time, she only hears
his voice.
"I've left some money on the bureau," he says in his odd, if fluent, Russian. "Take it
and buy everything you and Junie and Rachel need."
In the dark he has left $170 in bills, and something else-his wedding ring, quietly
placed in a little china teacup that had belonged to Marina's grandmother. She won't find
it until later that day.

(Vincent Bugliosi, Reclaiming history, p.5)

The wedding ring held and on exhibit through the Sixth Floor Museum as once having belonged to Lee Oswald, did not belong to him. It is most likely a Soviet era wedding ring of the type Oswald did indeed wear at his wedding—but as far as can be ascertained, never again thereafter. Leading to the conclusion that the ring he wore that day was borrowed for the occasion. (...)

After Lee’s death, undertaker Paul Groody was quoted in a newspaper account of Oswald’s funeral saying that the casket was open before burial and he had helped Marina place two rings on his finger but couldn’t get them “over the joint”. He described one as a “little ring with a red or black stone-maybe all they could get for an engagement ring in Russia.” (FBI 62-109060 JFK HQ File, Section A3, p12) The two rings placed on Oswald unquestionably belonged to Marina, with the second being her gold wedding ring. At the 2nd autopsy in 1981, the rings were taken from the little finger of the left hand. This confirms that the rings were too small to fit on Oswald’s ring finger—again indicating they had belonged to Marina. (...)



The day before leaving Minsk, Oswald offered his friend, Ernst Titovets “a large silver ring that he had bought in Japan and wore constantly. Titovets told Oswald he was touched but could not accept the ring. It was too expensive. Oswald, we’re told, complied with his friend’s wishes and put the ring back on his finger…”

Since Oswald was following local traditions and wearing any rings he had on his right hand, we will logically assume that this is the “large silver ring” he had tried to give his friend just the day before. We also now know, as a result of that quote from Titovets, that it was his Marine Corp ring that was worn constantly and not a wedding ring. (...)

Marina Oswald is the sole witness to a ring left on the dresser that morning and as we can see, her statements about the ring have little or no consistency. Nor were they made early on. The claims did not start emerging until at least a week after the assassination, during a period in the protective custody of the Secret Service. (...)

The closest statement to the truth made about this subject by Marina was possibly one made to Priscilla Johnson McMillan for her book, Marina & Lee. In this statement, she said that “by some miracle” the police missed seeing it in their search. Since the police took Marina, Ruth Paine and Michael Paine in for questioning immediately after the search, she most likely put her own ring there some time prior to leaving the Paine household for good. In short, it was not there at the time of the police search. This explains the police not taking it. It also explains why she did not lead them to it.

The sole purpose of the evolving ring story was simply to imply motive. Lee, it would be claimed, knew his marriage was over so he planned instead to make his mark in history. But the marriage was not over. The savings also found on the dresser—and often cited as another clue he was never coming back, had been an amount accumulating on that very dresser every pay day, not left all at once. It was money meant for an apartment to reunite the family. (...)

(Greg Parker, Was there a Wedding Ring?, 2019)