Marina and Lee: The Tormented Love and Fatal Obsession Behind Lee Harvey Oswald's Assassination of John F. Kennedy

by Priscilla Johnson McMillan

The inside story of Lee Harvey Oswald's path to killing John. F. Kennedy. Reissued to mark the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, Marina and Lee is an indispensable account of one of America's most traumatic events, and a classic work of narrative history. In her meticulous, at times even moment by moment, account of Oswald's progress toward the assassination, Priscilla Johnson McMillan takes us inside Oswald's fevered mind and his manic marriage. When Marina, only a few weeks after giving birth to their second child, hears of Kennedy's death and discovers that Lee's rifle is missing from the garage where it was stored, she knows that her husband has killed the President.

McMillan came to the story with a unique knowledge of the two main characters. In the 1950s she had worked for Kennedy and had known him well for a time. Later, working in Moscow as a journalist, she interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald during his attempt to defect to the Soviet Union. When she heard his name again on November 22, 1963, she said, "My God! I know that boy!" Marina and Lee was written with the complete and exclusive cooperation of Oswald's Russian-born wife, Marina Prusakova, whom McMillan debriefed for seven months in the immediate aftermath of the President's assassination and her husband's nationally televised execution at the hands of Jack Ruby.

The truth is far more compelling, and unsettling, than the most imaginative conspiracy theory. Marina and Lee is a human drama that is outrageous, heartbreaking, tragic, fascinating. . . and real.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, The United States Of America, True Crime, American History, American

672 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 1977

About the author

Priscilla Johnson McMillan (born Priscilla Mary Post Johnson) was an American journalist, translator, author, and historian. She was a Center Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University.

Reviews

[Joseph Finder · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book you need to read in order to understand Lee Harvey Oswald. I had the privilege of writing a new foreword for its re-issue earlier this year, which you can read here, but Marina and Lee documents the unlikely series of events that had to occur exactly as they did for Oswald to take those fatal shots, in a way that defuses even the most explosive conspiracy theories. A classic.

[Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

This narrative tells of the respective childhoods of Marina Nikolayevna Prusakova and Lee Harvey Oswald and gives a very detailed (at some points a day by day account) of their marriage. While it is a re-issue of a 1977 publication, nothing, including the epilogue is brought up to date. The author feels that Oswald was acting alone, but the book is not about the assassination, it's about the lives of Marina and Lee.

Marina had such a horrible childhood it is hard to tell if her marriage, which had some moments of peace and fun, was better or not. One of the byproducts of the author's telling of Marina's early life is the wonderful description of the social life of teens in Russia during the "Khrushchev thaw". As a good looking, but physically and emotionally abused girl, she became a flirt to get love and acceptance. She had lots of dates, and sadly, picked Lee, the exotic American with an apartment.

Lee's childhood wasn't much better but to Americans the story, unlike Marina's, is all too common. Lee's decisions, though, are not. After a checkered career in the Marines, Oswald's defection to Russia was dramatic, particularly for 1959. His means to get Russia to accept him was even more astonishing. At this point in life he met the author, Priscilla Johnson McMillan, the only journalist to have ever interviewed Oswald, who was in Moscow as a correspondent for "The Progressive Magazine."

The detailed accounts of the Oswald marriage include dialog and speculation on the thoughts, feelings and motives of the two. The dialog is so specific you know that license has been taken. Some speculations on their feelings and motives are helpful in understanding the couple's dynamics. Others are thought provoking, but questionable: that Anatoly, one of Mariana's beaux in Minsk aroused jealousy in Oswald because he looked like JFK; or that Oswald welcomed the FBI's attention because the agency was a father figure inspiring love and fear; or that in an off-hand remark about wanting 9 children - a football team - was a Kennedy reference.

The book puts the characters associated with the Oswald's in context. Now I better understand the principal people in Oswald's life besides Marina Oswald such as his mother, Marguerite, brother Robert and friends such as Ruth Paine and di George di Mohrenschildt.

The author believes Lee, the loner, would never "join" a conspiracy. Her view is heavily influenced by the interviews with Marina, who was clearly over her head at the time, still reeling from her childhood, her relocation to a country where her own country is despised, being a new mother, coping her husband's emotional and physical abuse, living with strangers and having no opportunity to learn English. Marina felt Lee would never cooperate with or take orders from anyone so he could not be part of a conspiracy. Marina, reportedly, has since changed her mind.

Nothing McMillan writes, or Marina thinks, as reported here, invalidates the conspiracy theories; in fact, some of her reportage strengthens them.

McMillan shows a lot of private time for Lee in Dallas and New Orleans. How would Marina know if Oswald knew (for instance) Jack Ruby or David Ferrie? These associations, and others, have since been documented. If you re-cast George di Mohrenschildt, whom McMillan calls a "friend", as a CIA minder, the association makes more sense; particularly on p. 552 when McMillan calls him the "person for whose approval, above all else, Oswald had done the deed." McMillan writes of the Fair Play for Cuba leaflets, but doesn't discuss the suspicious address on the forms. Even information presented in footnotes squares with some conspiracy theories, such as the plight of FBI Agent Hosty, the one agent who had the foresight to look into Oswald, and was order to destroy the evidence he had gathered.

It is a serious omission that the footnotes cite sources for a chapter or groups of chapters but do not pinpoint the source of the individual facts or quotes. Also, this re-issue should have updates, at a minimum covering Marina's post 1979 life, the lives of her children (OK to spare specifics for June and Rachel if they want privacy), the Paine's, Marina's family in Russia and why Marina no longer believes Lee did it. While most of these 500+ pages are page turners, the omissions are serious, so I'm giving what might have been a 4 star book in 1977, 2 stars.

[Roger Dier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have been looking around for this book for a long time and I found it while furniture shopping in Appleton, Wisconsin. That's another story.

This is a terrific telling of a truly dysfunctional courtship and marriage. Two lost souls, Marina the Russian kicked-around orphan and Lee, the American defector shaped by a severely bent mother. Marina's early life in Soviet Russia is interesting, and the author's accounts of the people and culture that shaped Marina's growing life are fascinating. Lee, meanwhile, has his formative years fleshed out, and one can only wonder if Oswald's mother was any other than abrasive Marguerite Oswald would he have stuck a gun out of a window in the moment the President of the United States passed beneath it.

Viewed from the 21st Century, the emotional and physical punishment Lee dished out on Marina is shocking. She was a battered wife who did not speak the language of the country she was living in. Oswald kept her ignorant of the English language and dependent on him. Marina's husband was emotionally arid and mentally sick, drifting in and out of reality, and treated people in his world, in Ms. Johnson McMillan's words, "like cardboard cutouts." This book is about 550 pages long, and while the length is daunting, I found myself looking forward to the book every day I picked it up; it took me about 20 days to nibble my way through it. The author is probably the only person on earth who knew and interviewed Lee Oswald before he slid into permanent infamy. Ms. Johnson McMillan also worked for Senator John F. Kennedy for a time. She spent seven months interviewing freshly widowed Marina Oswald in 1964, and Marina's post-assassination life, including her wilder times, are included.

The author splices the narrative together with three or four chapters which felt like an intermission from the main course, but I found those analytical detours refreshing and insightful. Ms. Johnson McMillan tried a little too hard to connect the dots near the end of the book, when she went on about the why Oswald killed President Kennedy. To try to understand the mind of a mad man is a maddening exercise, and I was exhausted by what she asked us to consider to believe. Ruth Paine, the woman who took Marina in in the late summer of 1963, comes off as the kind of person you'd like to have as a friend. I've always admired Ms. Paine, and this book reminded me why I always have. Still, if Ruth Paine had not been living in Dallas in 1963, we might have never heard of Lee Harvey Oswald.

I confess to being a little torn at the outset to read a book about a twisted slug who used two bullets to graft his meaningless life onto John F. Kennedy's. From the moment I learned of John Kennedy's death as a third grader at Chappell Grade School in Green Bay, Wisconsin, it has been President Kennedy who has been missed. It has been John Kennedy's life that is worth remembering. To spend a part of my life reading about the life of small person who shot him in the back like a coward took some inner coaxing...but I'm glad I made the effort. It doesn't change what happened, nor does it excuse it, but it helped me understand why. Maybe.

[Lady Reezy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such an excellent book, a meticulously researched psychological portrait of a marriage and a killer. This book, in combination with the NOVA documentary "Cold Case: JFK," solidify my belief that Oswald acted alone, and this only makes the assassination that much more heartbreaking and extraordinary. Though the odds are inconceivable, sometimes one ordinary (but deranged) man can change the course of history. I read about this book that because it came out in the late 70s, by which point America was firmly entrenched in conspiracy theories, particularly this one, it did not get the attention it deserved, despite the exceptional case it makes. It's an excellent read. Oswald was just a ne'er do well with a personality disorder and a penchant for sophomoric politics, but he happened to be in the right place at the right time and broken in the right ways necessary to commit one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century.

[David Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's all about his mother.
At one point in this long, detailed and revealing story, which is what I concluded and said to my spouse. The author lays out a strong case for Lee Harvey Oswald’s disturbed, violent, selfish and insecure personality to be mainly the result of how his mother raised him. Which is of course one of the stereotypical bases for mental illness and social maladjustment. I am not qualified to judge if she (Priscilla Johnson McMillan) is correct, but the information she presents certainly presents the picture of a terrible home environment, and a resulting damaged personality.
Marina Oswald did not fare much better in her upbringing. The book portrays her as having low self-esteem and a craving for affection that shapes her choices in a negative way. Lee Harvey Oswald is her fatal choice when she meets him at a dance in Minsk.
Most of this book is a portrayal of the lives of Lee and Marina before they meet, why Lee travels to the Soviet Union and to Minsk, what attracts them to each other, how and why Lee convinces Marina to return with him to the USA, and of their lives together from then until November 24, 1963. McMillan builds a compelling case for how their individual and combined personalities, weaknesses and needs could have prepared and propelled Lee to kill. We can feel the inexorable push towards Lee’s date with history, dragging Marina and the children as well. Along the way, Lee is alternately loving and hateful, kind and violent, occasionally considerate, but mostly selfish and oblivious to Lee’s needs. With an astonishing level of detail, the reader sees the Oswalds daily life as mostly dreary, with barely enough food to feed themselves or their children, and miserable housing. They move repeatedly, cheating landlords out of rent, and often surviving on the hospitality and surprising generosity of friends. (I found the number of their friends who helped them to be astonishing, especially given what poor friends they were in return.)
Despite knowing the outcome, I was thoroughly engaged with the story, nearly as much as with a novel. I was, however, somewhat less engaged with the psychoanalytical interpretation of Lee’s behavior, writings, motives, and ultimately of the two murders (and one additional failed attempt). Because the truth is that – if the author’s research is accurate – Lee Harvey Oswald never said why he shot Kennedy, nor did he even hint to anyone that he might do so. This was different from his failed attempt on Maj. General Edwin A. Walker, spokesperson for the John Birch Society, which he discussed in advance and about which he wrote a manifesto to be shared with the public if he succeeded and was arrested.
In fact, the author builds a strong case for how much affection both Lee and Marina had for both John and Jackie Kennedy! They followed their activities in the news, read about their family life in magazines, and shared their grief when Patrick Kennedy died (coincidentally while Marina was carrying the Oswalds’ second baby). Oswald is said to have felt that Kennedy was about as good a president as the country could have at that time, so there seems to be little or no personal animus behind the assassination. McMillan makes a strong case that the assassination of Kennedy was largely a case of coincidences – the president’s motorcade was to pass by the Texas School Book Depository where Oswald worked (not long after he started working there). Oswald’s emotional and political landscape was certainly ripe for this situation to arise, as was his strained relationship with Marina. But the murder itself seems to have been nearly spontaneous, not planned well in advance as one might have expected.
The narrative shows how many “if only” elements there were. If only Kennedy had not insisted on removing the roof of the car. If only Marina had agreed the night before to Lee’s demand that she move to Dallas with him. If only someone had found the rifle hidden in the home of Ruth Paine, where Marina was living. If only the FBI agent Hosty had been more forceful, more inquisitive. If only Marina had been less loyal to Lee. If only Ruth or Michael Paine had been less generous or more intrusive. If only George S. de Mohrenschildt had not (inadvertently?) inspired Lee towards such violent political actions
As others have written in their reviews, the author devotes no time to the many other explanations around the assassination of Kennedy and the murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby. That is, she ignores all the conspiracy theories, and (apparently) ignores evidence and discussions of other possible versions of the story of how Kennedy’s assassination was planned and carried out, and Jack Ruby’s role in a possible cover-up. She is criticized by some for sticking with the official version of events from the Warren Commission. As for me, I am not familiar with (or particularly interested) in those alternate views. I think she does build a very vivid explanation of how Oswald was prepared by his life to do what he apparently did.
One thing that surprised me a bit was the tone of the Epilogue. My reading of the story was that the author was sympathetic to Marina and liked her. But she portrays Marina quite differently after Lee’s death. I had probably read something about Marina’s descent into alcohol, sex and neglect of her children at the time (I was in my 20s then) but was a bit shocked. But her world had been torn apart. She was nearly totally dependent on Lee. She spoke no English, had no job, had two babies to care for, and few if any marketable skills. If not for friends like Ruth Paine, she’d have been living on Skid Row long before. She benefitted from sympathetic, generous Americans who sent her money after the assassination – enough to support her for a while, and to buy a house! All of which I had forgotten. She also seems to have had a difficult time with the various Federal investigations and changed her statements at various times. She even has said in later life that she did not think Lee was guilty, contrary to what she had testified earlier.
McMillan is said to have been generous and helpful to Marina, and that may be the case. Her bibliography and footnotes suggest an enormous amount of research, in addition to the several months of interviews with Marina, and the degree of detail in this book is remarkable. I found the book to be extremely informative, thought-provoking and believable, but I still wish we knew why Lee did what he did. Did he really do it to impress George S. de Mohrenschildt? Or his mother? Despite McMillan’s best efforts, we can never know for certain…

[Laurie Hoppe · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title couple is the Oswalds, who blazed into American history via the trigger of a rifle. Marina is shallow, willful and immature. You can understand why: as an illegitimate child in Soviet Russia, she was unwanted and emotionally abused. Lee is secretive, self-important and entitled. You can understand why: his father died before he was born, leaving him alone with a mother who can best be described as a horror show. (Marguerite Oswald is the villain of this piece. The way she controlled and suffocated her son reminded me of Norman Bates' mother in Psycho.)

These two outsiders came together by chance at a dance in Minsk. He was lonely, alone in the country he had defected to but now no longer liked, and had to have Marina because she was prettier than the girl who broken his heart. Marina wanted him because he was a foreigner, which made him glamorous and if an exotic like Lee desired her, she had to have value. Oh yeah, and Lee had his own apartment. The uncle Marina had been living with was eager for her to move out.

The portrait that emerges is ridiculous, unpleasant, and ultimately tragic. Two damaged souls came together and the results were combustible and, improbably, changed the world for the worse.

Ms. McMillan is uniquely qualified to tell this story. She worked for Senator John F. Kennedy and was friendly enough with the boss to visit him in the hospital after his 1955 back surgery. He was buoyant despite the pain, sharing his hospital bed with a giant Howdy Doody Doll. His room was always filled with people, even though the nurses were under strict orders to limit his visitors to immediate family. Fortunately, he had eight siblings, so he could plausibly assure the staff that every woman who entered his room was a sister.

Then, in 1959, McMillan became a journalist assigned to the Moscow bureau. She spent five hours interviewing a young American defector named Lee Harvey Oswald. This makes her one of the few people -- perhaps the only one -- to have conversed at length with both the President and his assassin. Ms. McMillan prepared for the book with months of interviews with Marina.

The contrast between assassin and victim is unavoidable. Joseph Kennedy had myriad faults, but he was an involved father. Lee never knew his father. Kennedy made friends easily, Oswald had no real friends. Kennedy was a lion with the ladies, Lee had performance issues (which Marina reminded him of often). Kennedy was a good student, graduating cum laude from Harvard. A war hero. A Pulitzer Prize winning author. As a politician, he never lost an election. Oswald was a drop out, dishonorably discharged, and had failed at and lost blue collar jobs.

As thoughtful and well-written as it is, this is not a book I recommend. Marina and Lee are both intensely unlikable. It's hard to plow through more than 600 pages when there are no sympathetic characters. As their marriage deteriorated into an ugly cycle of workplace failure, financial strife, sexual dysfunction and beatings, Lee became more determined to be noticed by the world. To make history. God help us all, that was the one goal he achieved.

[Pete daPixie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was not looking forward to reading this book, it has been at the bottom of my 'to-read' list for a while. Being aware that this author was a Warren Commission apologist was what kept 'Marina and Lee' off my 'currently reading' selections.
Eventually, having bit the magic bullet, strained my old eyes reading the rather small type, I found myself enjoying Pricilla Johnson McMillan's dual biography. Particularly the first half of this work, which is throughout very well written, reads like some old Russian fictional novel. I pondered my rating of two stars, perhaps it was deserving of three.
Where my admiration for this book fell away was in the latter half. As this author held interviews with Marina Oswald in 1964, and finally published in 1978, she remained steadfastly committed to the guilty verdict proclaimed by the President's Commission, as is evident from her Notes that refer exclusively to W.C. exhibits, hearings and testimonies. Nowhere is there mention of Jim Garrison's investigations relating to Oswald's known New Orleans exploits with such as Banister, Ferrie, Shaw and Andrews. Harold Weisberg's 'Oswald in New Orleans' was published a decade before 'Marina and Lee' went to press. Rather than confront the copious Oswald mysteries, P.J.M. remains wedded to Earl Warren.
Instead of providing the reader with indisputable factual evidence to convict the alleged assassin, we are fed a psychological profile that strains belief even more than the official government verdicts. Please spare me the parricidal overtones of the Walker shooting as Edwin A. Walker had the same first name and initial as Oswald's stepfather Edwin A. Ekdahl. Whoever shot and missed the general, a witness saw a getaway car and the recovered ordinance was not a 6.5 bullet.
While this book tells us how much of a liar Oswald was, if anyone has read the sworn testimony of Marina Oswald in 1964, they would know that Marina was also very adept at that art.
On balance, two stars are about right.

[Jack Dermody · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've just started this book and am riveted. Can't give 5 stars because writing style seems awkward at times, but the content is riveting. This is a re-release of the 1977 book about the Oswalds -- a subject most people don't like to explore since JFK's assassination. I suggest reading it -- if only to understand that a creepy, deluded guy can really do damage to history without being part of a conspiracy. What's most amazing to me to learn so far is that the author, Priscilla Johnson McMillan, is the only person to have known both JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald. I look forward to reading the entire book.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heard the author on the radio on the anniversary of Kennedy's assassination. The author happened to know both Kennedy and Oswald. Incredibly detailed account of their marriage--like an intense soap opera whose end you know.
You leave the book with the feeling that Oswald couldn't have been part of a conspiracy. You really get into his mind, but the author's psychological analysis seems slightly dated.

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book and finding out what I didn't know about Lee H. Oswald and Marina and about LO himself. The book got really detailed (even to the point on how he liked his eggs), but at the end it was rushed. I realize the author doesn't know much about the exact details of the actual shooting but I felt as though at the end it sped up. It was sort of disconcerting, but, overall it was good.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE WIFE OF THE ASSASSIN TELLS HER STORY TO A WRITER

Priscilla Johnson McMillan wrote in the Prologue to this 1977 book (portions of which were originally published in the ‘Ladies’ Home Journal’), “The problem of guilt was always with her, and again and again she asked the question: Is it a sin to have loved a criminal? It was to be a long time before she could begin to come to terms with the fact that she had indeed loved Lee and yet at the same time accept what he had done. By the time I met Marina, she was out of protective custody and … living in the ranch house she had managed to buy… she had two tiny children to care for, business and legal headaches… I wondered why it was worth it to her to collaborate on a book that would dig even more deeply into her private life… she explained in a small, sad, tired voice that she was doing it to find out the truth… Marina was speaking… of the truth about Lee and the assassination. But she cares about another truth, too---the truth about herself. She has been asked thousands of questions about Lee…but… surprisingly little about herself and nothing at all about her feelings… Throughout our collaboration she spoke to me with complete honesty about herself… She for her part has been loyal. After having done everything she could to enable me to write truthfully, she has waited thirteen years for me to finish this book.” (Pg. 9-10)

After detailing Marina’s younger years in the Soviet Union, she turns to chronicling Lee Harvey Oswald: “Why was Lee Harvey Oswald permitted to remain in the Soviet Union? Was he the pitiful, slightly unbalanced boy Soviet officials had at first taken him for, or was he a single-minded individual who would go to any lengths to get what he wanted?... Oswald’s suicide attempt was proof that in order to get what he wanted he would stop at nothing… And his willingness to talk to reporters showed that he would not hesitate to embarrass either the Russians or the Americans publicly… Evidently they decided that it would be less harmful to their image abroad to accept this young American who claimed to be motivated by Marxist ideals, than to reject him with the risk that he might embarrass them with a very public suicide." (Pg. 72-73)

Oswald’s marriage proposal was turned down by “Ella Germann, a dark-haired Jewish girl… He no longer considered Russia a paradise… It was in such a mood of disappointment in love and with Russia that Lee Harvey Oswald met Marina Prusakova.” (Pg. 74) She adds, “Marina is the first to say that ‘I married Alik [or ‘Alka’; Oswald] because he was American. … He was neat and clean and better looking than Anatoly. I was more in love with him than with anybody else at the time.’ She also concedes that his [having his own] apartment played a role in her decision…” (Pg. 83)

She recounts, “Less than three weeks after his marriage … Lee Harvey Oswald wrote… to the American Embassy in Moscow… ‘I am asking not only for the right to return to the United States, but also for full guarantees that I shall not, under any circumstances, be persecuted for any act pertaining to this case…’” (Pg. 100) After Oswald falsely told the Embassy official that Marina had relatives in the U.S., [the official] filled out a visa petition for her to be allowed to enter the United States.” (Pg. 110) But she was now unwelcome in the USSR among her friends, and “For Marina to perceive, at the youthful age of nineteen, that her husband told lies as a matter of character rather than of necessity was a feat of mature intuition. Still, she trusted him---she had nobody else.” (Pg. 115) But “The truth was that the Oswalds were having difficulty in sex and they were worried about it. They could not reach a climax together…” (Pg. 120) Finally, they were granted exit visas. (Pg. 135)

McMillan observes, “For an American who was only twenty-two, Oswald’s experience was unique. He had… lived in each of the opposing world camps… Now, suspended between the two on the voyage home, he was … weighing both, trying to puzzle out a system that would combine the merits of each… the political solution he reached… [was] participatory democracy at the community level… Oswald had been disappointed by Russia… he came seeking and failed to find.” (Pg. 157) They settled in Texas.

Oswald was upset when he was interviewed by FBI agents, and he told Marina: “They asked about Russia… They wanted to know if Soviet agents had… asked me to work for them… I told them, ‘I will not be an informer for you.’ … Because I’ve been over there, they’ll never let me live in peace. They think anyone who’s been there is a Russian spy.” (Pg. 189)

Oswald began beating her: “The beatings were a humiliation… If [friends] suggested that she had brought the beatings on herself by talking too sharply to Lee when he was under strain, she agreed. In a way, Marina believed that she deserved to be beaten. She took the very Russian view that beatings are a private affair between man and wife, as private as sex.” (Pg. 192)

She notes, “[Oswald] always had help when he needed it without giving anything in return… he left behind two impressions: one, that of a poor, lost soul… the other, that of a cool manipulator who was pulling strings… nearly all the men and women whom Oswald met following his return from Russia [had] a clear sense of having been ill-used.” (Pg. 206)

McMillan observes about Marina, “Marriage to an American gave her a way of expressing her rebelliousness and her lack of conformity to Russian ways… [Oswald] wanted Marina dependent on him because it enhanced his control over her… He did not allow her to buy groceries and he no longer took her to the grocery store with him… For him there was no in between: either he controlled everything or he controlled nothing at all.” (Pg. 231-232)

In January 1963, Oswald “ordered the first of two weapons… [a] revolver… Lee did not order the gun in his own name. The form was signed by ‘A.J. Hidell.’ The order had to be witnessed … Experts later testified that the signatures … were in Oswald’s handwriting… he had also authorized ‘A.J. Hidell’ … to pick up mail.” (Pg. 253) He ordered a rifle in March, under the same alias. (Pg. 270) McMillan wonders, “Lee’s increasing inability to control himself both at home and at work suggests that emotionally he was in turmoil… Gradually… he was reaching a decision to use the gun.” (Pg. 258) She adds, “Marina survived Lee’s beatings… but what did not survive was her respect for Lee… she was beginning to see him as a sick man who needed help.” (Pg. 263)

FBI agent James P. Hosty interviewed the Oswald’s apartment manager, and noted, “‘they had considerable difficulty with Mr. Oswald who apparently drank to excess and beat his wife on numerous occasions. They had numerous complaints from the other tenants due to Oswald’s drinking and beating his wife.’ Lee’s suspicion that he was being watched was not altogether ill-founded.” (Pg. 266)

On March 31, “Marina got a huge surprise when Lee came up … and asked her to take his picture… he was wearing his revolver. In one hand he carried his rifle… and a couple of newspapers… She snapped the shutter… It was over in a minute… He explained that he was going to send the picture to ‘The Militant’ to show that he was ‘ready for anything.’ … Lee had special reason for sending his picture to ‘The Militant’… [whose current issue had] a letter from Dallas that was signed ‘L.H.’ Hoping to go down in history, Lee wanted ‘The Militant’ to know exactly whom it had had the honor of publishing.” (Pg. 273-274) “‘Look at that!’ Marina said. ‘We have barely enough to eat and my crazy husband goes and buys a rifle.’ She told Jeanne that Lee had been practicing with it.” (Pg. 280)

One evening Oswald “walked in, covered with sweat, his eyes glittering… ‘I shot Walker.’ [Army Major General Edwin A. Walker; Oswald’s shot missed.] ‘Did you kill him?’ ‘I don’t know.’” (Pg. 283) “A wife would have to hate her husband to inform on him… So Marina did not go to the police, or consider it for more than a moment or two… And this loyalty was to expose her to a crushing sense of guilt when many people told her that if only she had gone to the police ‘after Walker,’ a later, lethal event would not have happened.” (Pg. 283-285) Oswald began passing out pro-Castro leaflets (Pg. 326)

Oswald was briefly jailed for passing out ‘Viva Fidel!’ handbills. “Lee… had made an unusual request… that he wished to speak with someone from the FBI… In an hour and a half interview with [agent John] Quigley, Lee told a number of lies that was unprecedented even for him. But why… did Lee ask to see someone from the FBI? No one from the agency had been to see him in a year… perhaps, finding himself in jail for the first time, Lee needed to feel singular and important, summoning the FBI gave him that feeling.” (Pg. 346-347) FBI agent Hosty began contacting Marina, and monitoring Oswald.” (Pg. 407)

One day, she said to Oswald, “You have money for a gun. You have money for your Mexico. But for your own baby, no!... You never even think about our new baby. I have to ask Ruth to help because [you] has something more important on his mind… You imagine that you’re a great man. Nobody thought that up but you.” (Pg. 368)

McMillan suggests, “Lee learned of the [President’s] route … it was the most important day of Lee’s life. He now knew… that history, fate, blind accident… had placed him above the very route that John F. Kennedy would take two or three days hence. It is impossible to exaggerate the impact of this realization on Lee… an opportunity had now been vouchsafed to HIM, of all men, to deal capitalism that final, mortal blow… HE was history’s chosen instrument.” (Pg. 413)

On the fateful day of November 22, Marina and her friend Ruth heard the news that the President had been shot. “‘Is there really anyone on earth but my lunatic husband crazy enough to have fired that shot?’ she asked herself… six men [were] standing on her doorstep… ‘We have Lee Oswald in custody,’ one of the policemen said. ‘He is charged with shooting an officer.’ It was Ruth’s first clue that Lee might be linked in any way to the events of the day… ‘Does your husband have a rifle?’ ‘Yes,’ Marina said… and led them straight to the garage… [The rifle was missing, and] ‘So it WAS Lee,’ Marina thought. ‘THAT is why he came home last night.’… She now knew why Lee had told her to buy ‘everything’ she and the children needed.” (Pg. 428-430) Later, “Marina … made a terrible discovery. She happened to glance at the bureau… There lay Lee’s wedding ring. ‘Oh, no,’ she thought, and her heart sank again. Lee never took his wedding ring off… things were falling into place. Marina told no one about Lee’s ring.” (Pg. 433-434)

McMillan records, “I have often asked Marina whether Lee might have been capable of joining with an accomplice to kill the President. Never, she says. Lee was too secretive ever to have told anyone his plans. Nor could he have acted in concert, accepted orders, or obeyed any plan by anybody else… Those who knew Lee in Dallas agree with her… She has not heard all the conspiracy theories by any means, but she is … nearly always incredulous at those that do come her way.” (Pg. 453-454)

‘Conspiracy-minded’ people won’t like this book, but it has loads of insights into Oswald’s character.

[Dawn Fontaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe I've just found my new all-time favorite book. It's disappointing that this (albeit 40 year old) book is out of print. It's a very intimate description of Lee Harvey Oswald's life with his wife Marina. It goes into detail on both of their childhoods and backgrounds as well as daily life during their courtship and marriage up to the day of the assassination. The book also discusses the various friendships and family relationships both had and how that fed into their relationship. You also learn a lot about what Lee was reading and what he may have been thinking on that fateful day. It would be hard to believe in conspiracy theories after reading this book. He was a really troubled guy (no surprise there). I found it interesting to read the day to day and know how it all turns out in the end. I never thought I'd be sad to finish a 2" thick book with small type -- I didn't want it to end.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a joint biography of Marina Prusakova and her husband, alleged killer of President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, told from the perspective of Ms. Prusakova-Oswald. Unfortunately, given Marina's familial connection to the KGB, Lee's professional connections to the FBI and (probably) other governmental agencies and the author's connections with the CIA (note the link in the book's description), McMillan's general support of the Warren Commission's conclusions is suspect.

I found this book up at grandmother's cottage in Michigan and read it for want of anything better.

[Mark Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her portrait of Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife Marina Oswald is in-depth and seemingly comprehensive (and a little depressing). If I have a single complaint about the book, it's that, probably due to its publication in 1977, her psychological examination of Lee Harvey Oswald tends to be very Freudian and, to my skeptical mind anyway, deals with psychological symbols too much. Nonetheless, for anyone wanting to attempt to understand the mind of Oswald, this is ai must-read.

[Richard Peres · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must reading and a completely different, more realistic approach to understanding Oswald and deconstructing all those conspiracy theories. No one ever thought to ask the person who knew the most about him. Well-researched, objective, and clarifying (at least for me).

[Carole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent biography; thoroughly researched and beautifully written.

[Terri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book us certainly an eye opener. Another way of thinking about Oswald.

[Stephen Terrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Early in her career, author Priscilla Johnson McMillan worked in the office of young Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy. She got to know him casually -- enough to have conversations with him. A few years later, using her Russian language background, she was assigned the job of Moscow correspondent by the North American Newspaper Alliance. It was there that an American Embassy employee asked her to interview a young would-be American defector who was temporarily staying in the same hotel as McMillan, hoping that McMillan would encourage the young ex-Marine to reconsider. She did, spending several hours talking to the young man, and then writing an article about him.

The young ex-Marine was Lee Harvey Oswald.

Five years later, McMillan's shock at JFK's assassination was exceeded only when she heard the name of the suspected assassin. That same young man she had interviewed -- Lee Harvey Oswald.

When Marina Oswald sought someone to tell her story too, McMillan, with her fluent Russian and friendly style, became the choice. But this book is far more than a "tell all" from Oswald's widow. McMillan interviewed people who knew Oswald from his childhood, through his defection to Russia, his return, his attempt to travel to Cuba, and ultimately that dreadful day in Dallas.

What emerges is a deep portrait of the troubled, rudderless young man with an aloofness that kept him adrift from personal relationships. He was a liar, even when there was no need to lie. He created self-aggrandizing dream of being a key player in communist organizations, and created false identities when none was needed. While in real life, he was living friendless, scraping by from job to job with barely money to live on, he viewed his life as one of heroic delusions of importance.

Oswald escaped his domineering mother (who deposited his two brothers in orphanages) by joining the Marines. He was uneducated and a poor reader because of dyslexia, but he became obsessed with Communism and Marxism. After a dishonorable discharge, he became fixated on Russia, traveling there in 1958 with the intent to renounce his U.S. citizenship, and become a Russian citizen. Oswald had dreams of grandeur, picturing himself as studying at Russian universities and being welcomed as a hero. But the Russians quickly viewed him as mentally unstable and sent him to distant Mensk to work in a factory. It was there he met Marina Nikolayevna Prusakova, a 19-year-old pharmacist assistant with a troublesome family history who quickly looked as this American as glamorous
and sophisticated.

Once they were married, she found he was neither. Instead he was a vicious wife-beater.

McMIllan tells in detail the story of Oswald's life from his meeting with Marina to those awful days in Dallas. While she at times digresses into largely unsupported psychological speculation about what was motivating Oswald and those around him, her focus on the facts of Oswald's life and his self-delusions of importance, is laser focused.

This book provides the insight into Oswald that no other book captures. This book, plus Vincent Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History" and Gerald Posner's "Case Closed," establish far beyond a reasonable doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald was a puny man with grandiose delusions of how he could change history, and that on November 22, 1963, events coalesced to bring JFK's motorcade directly past the Texas School Depository where Oswald worked, and that Oswald, acting alone, assassinated President Kennedy.

[HKR · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a long book with some fascinating information and I appreciated the occasional eight dollar words nobody uses. I want to say the speculation by the author is both helpful and not. Decades later there's certainly a gap in things like knowing the general sentiments of the time while things were happening let alone an individual who by all accounts didn't really let others know what he was up to.
This actually makes me want to believe one little short self important man got this idea and did the thing and didn't have a great plan because that's how he lived but wow is that an interesting part that the people who knew him didn't believe in a conspiracy but after certain revelations about other things changed their opinions.The whole fated death thing is over played. He may have been a bit nihilistic or narcissistic to want the bubble off. It wasn't bullet proof but don't know the public would have known that and might not have gotten more than one shot. Fascinating as this was I felt like it was good points to ponder but not a great information dump.

[Davy Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author McMillan was CIA and was a lackey for them. Same with Ruth Paine (and her ex husband Michael a Bell Helicopter connection). The Paines were both CIA too.
They both portrayed themselves as sweet innocent ladies. Don't buy into the lies.
Check out video of Marina on Oprah about 1998. She understands that she was also a patsy.
Oprah did a poor job in the interview but Marina comes out with firm conviction that there was a conspiracy. Stand firm y'all!

[Helene Poppleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite some assumptions about what people were probably thinking and why, there are enough facts and details for me to lay any conspiracy theories to rest. Whatever else was going on in the country and the world, Lee Oswald was simply a sad, mentally unstable young man who killed the president. He needed psychological help that he did not receive. And that's it. The 60's were an incredibly heavy time.

[Amy Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really compelling book about two very compelling people from history. McMillan, a great choice to write this book as she knew Marina, Lee, and President Kennedy at one time during her life, is a reliable and credible source for information about them. Her writing is very well-researched and competent and, though it's a pretty long book, it manages to hold your attention and keep you reading despite everyone knowing the ending at the start.

[kathy Murdoch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read

The book delves into the lives of both Marina and Lee. It is lengthy and very detailed. I appreciated most of the detail but wanted to know more about Marina after the shooting.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

It boils down to: Lee Harvey Oswald was a dick and a liar and beat his wife and gahhh. I appreciated that the it was mostly about Marina, although 890 pages is far too much. I'm also offended that it was a female writer about a female and the audio narrator was male. But yeah. What a shitty human.

[Michael Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oswald did it

I love Marina
This story is great Marina Oswald is such a full character. I’m an African-American man, but this writer has really shown a female perspective. It is amazing.

[Jim Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good

Of all of the books I have read about the assassination of President Kennedy, this comes the closest to explaining Oswalds motive for killing the president.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely detailed and very long but a great biography of Oswald ans his wife. A story I did not know at all.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book by the woman who was perhaps the only person in the world who personally knew both John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald

[Howard Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is hard to put down. McMillan presents a compelling story that is a wonderful read.

[DG Hackney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Told from Marina's point of view but through the skills of a very fine writer.