CHICAGO, Nov. 22 -- The wife of alleged Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald said on the 33rd anniversary of the president's death Friday that the Warren Commission lied about her husband's involvement. Marina Oswald Porter, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, said she believed for 20 years that Oswald, acting alone, was guilty of firing the bullets that killed President John F. Kennedy but has found evidence in the 26 volumes of material collected by the Warren Commission that exonerates her husband. It was not immediately clear whether Porter's statements bolster claims by an Illinois prison inmate who claims he was one of the gunmen who shot at Kennedy that day in Dallas. Porter said Oswald approved of Kennedy and even defended him while they still lived in Russia. 'He thought Kennedy was good for the country,' she said. Porter said about a decade ago she began looking at the assassination evidence again, looking at the 26 volumes of evidence released by the Warren Commission along with its conclusions. 'I dealt with it for 20 years,' Porter said. 'I would feel much better and happier if that (Oswald's guilt) was true....The Warren Commission lied about the conclusion....They sifted (the evidence) to get the things to prove (a theory it was told to prove). Anything different they discarded and put away.' Porter, however, did not specify which evidence discarded by investigators actually proves Oswald's innocence. 'I want people to know for sure that Lee Harvey Osward didn't kill the president,' Porter said.
Author Mary LaFontaine said she has uncovered evidence Oswald was acquainted with Jack Ruby, the man who shot Oswald to death as police were transferring him from the Dallas city jail. She said Oswald actually was an FBI informant who helped train exiled Cubans for a hoped-for invasion that would oust Fidel Castro. LaFontaine, author of 'Oswald Talked,' said Ruby killed Oswald to keep him from revealing an assassination conspiracy. In an interview released earlier this year, James Files, who is serving time at Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, Ill., said he and reputed mob assassin Charles Nicoletti shot at Kennedy and that Ruby provided them with government identification to help them get through police lines. An FBI agent, who asked not to be identified, told UPI Files boasted in 1978 or 1979 to an FBI informant, 'If the public knew what hppened, they wouldn't be able to handle it.' Files has said he had no idea who ordered the hit but that he was paid $30,000 for his role. He also has said Oswald did not shoot and kill the Dallas police for whose death he was arrested. 'I think his (Oswald's) part was to plant evidence to confuse everybody,' Files has said. 'Lee Harvey Oswald never fired a shot.' Former Rep. Richardson Preyer of North Carolina, chairman of a committee that reviewed the Warren Commission Report, said panel members were convinced a second shooter was involved in the assassination, possible a member of the Mafia or an anti-Castro group. Preyer said, however, it is unlikely we'll ever know the truth because too much time has passed.
