As one of Greg Doudna's biggest critics re Ruth Paine...

Greg is absolutely wrong that Marina got the CIA and ACLU confused. 

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27734-the-secret-service-never-told-marina-that-ruth-paine-was-cia-never-happened/

What he should have said is that she got the initials of the two orgs confused.

He is being taken to task on the grounds that no one could confuse the CIA with the ACLU. And that is true. One is a secretive intel agency and the other is a group formed to defend the constitutional rights of citizens.

But someone - particularly a foreigner - could certainly confuse the initials by which the two orgs are known.  That is not the same as confusing the nature and work of either. 

But the possibility of confusion by Marina is not enough to swing it that way. What does swing it that way is that Greg Olds of the DCLU (the local ACLU affiliate) had tried to contact Marina by phone more than once to make sure she was being properly represented and had due access to legal advice. She initally wanted to do this, but was talked out of it.

Mr. REDLICH. And you also related the Ruth Paine, second Ruth Paine, visit to your home to something which you referred to as the American Civil Liberties Union business.
Mr. MARTIN. It was right after--these incidents happened rather closely. The letter from the Civil Liberties Union--well, first we received a telephone call from the Civil Liberties Union wanting to see Marina Oswald.
Representative FORD. Telephone call from Dallas or New York, or what?
Mr. MARTIN. From Richardson, the same person who wrote the letter which you have there. Do you have that?
Mr. REDLICH. We do have. We are inventorying many of these documents of which the American Civil Liberties letter is one and we will introduce it at an appropriate time.
Mr. MARTIN. Richardson is a suburb of Dallas.
This gentleman called, what was his name?
Mr. LEECH. I can't remember it.
Mr. REDLICH. Would it refresh your recollection if I mentioned the name Olds?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes, Greg Olds. He called on the phone and wanted to see Marina Oswald, wanted to. make sure she was being properly represented, that she knew her rights, and so on and so forth. John Thorne talked to him, and told him that he represented Marina Oswald, and that he was definitely sure that all her rights were being observed. Then I think there was another phone call from them still wanting to see Marina Oswald, and I talked to Marina and she said well, she would talk to him. So they arranged a meeting with a third party, I can't remember his name, who was a minister of some kind, and then Marina changed her mind and said no, she didn't want to go at all, she didn't want to talk to any of them. So then they wrote the letter. They wrote a letter to her in Russian and sent one to me in English, one to John Thorne in English, and I believe one to the Secret Service and one to the FBI.


When Greg Olds was called to testify, he volunteered what had happened in regard to this.

Mr. STERN. Mr. Olds, I think that covers the matters that I am interested in. Is there anything further that you would like to tell us? Anything that you----
Mr. OLDS. Possibly later after this matter was disposed of, we became interested in the legal status of Oswald's wife, Marina, and a story in the New York Times, I believe December 19, said something to the effect that perhaps she was being held incommunicado and in some way illegally detained. Anyway, her status was not clear as far as the reporter was concerned, and our national office in New York City got a number of inquiries both by phone and personal calls and letters, telegrams, and they asked us in turn then, to see what we could find out about it. After a certain amount of negotiations with the Secret Service and FBI and so on, we sent a letter to Mrs. Oswald and she later wrote us that 'she was content with her situation, and was very happy with her status, in fact, it was for her interest.

What annoys me about Olds' testmony is that he got no questions at all  about Oswald being at the ACLU meeting with Mike Paine where the Birchers were discussed. Buts that's a whole other discussion. The point here is that as much as it sickens me to be on the same side of an issue as Speer and Roe, it is what it is. Everyone gets some things right now and then.

The point here is that as much as it sickens me to be on the same side of an issue as Speer and Roe, it is what it is. Everyone gets some things right now and then.

As the saying goes Even a broken clock is right twice a day.