DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
In a rather bizarre and nebulous story involving Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife, Marina, there is some evidence (via Marina's Warren Commission testimony, beginning here at 5 H 387) indicating that Lee Oswald did, indeed, have some kind of a plan, in April of 1963, to take his revolver and shoot at former Vice President Richard Nixon.
Or, as an alternative (given the fact that Mr. Nixon wasn't even in Dallas on the day in question), maybe Oswald's target that day in April '63 was the current Vice President, Lyndon Johnson.
But, no, that alternate plan won't work either, since Johnson wasn't scheduled to visit Dallas for another two days.
But, it's kind of an interesting story nonetheless.
Here's how the strange "Nixon/Oswald" topic is covered in Vincent Bugliosi's book, Reclaiming History (pages 697-699):
And here is Marina Oswald's Warren Commission testimony concerning the
Nixon incident:
MARINA OSWALD -- It was early in the morning and my husband went out to get a newspaper, then he came in and sat reading the newspaper. I didn't pay any attention to him because I was occupied with the housework. Then he got dressed and put on a good suit. I saw that he took a pistol. I asked him where he was going, and why he was getting dressed. He answered, "Nixon is coming. I want to go and have a look." I said, "I know how you look," or rather, "I know how you customarily look, how you customarily take a look," because I saw he was taking the pistol with him rather than I know how you look in the sense that you are dressed, how you look at things is what I mean.
[...]
MRS. OSWALD -- ...I did not think up this incident with Nixon myself.
J. LEE RANKIN -- What do you mean by that, Mrs. Oswald?
MRS. OSWALD -- I had forgotten entirely about the incident with Vice President Nixon when I was here the first time. When you asked me the questions about it, then I remembered it. I wasn't trying to deceive you the first time.
[...]
MRS. OSWALD -- I didn't know what to do. I wanted to prevent him from going out.
MR. RANKIN -- Did you say anything to him?
MRS. OSWALD -- I called him into the bathroom and I closed the door and I wanted to prevent him and then I started to cry. And I told him that he shouldn't do this, that he had promised me.
MR. RANKIN -- Are you referring to his promise to you that you described in your prior testimony after the Walker incident?
MRS. OSWALD -- Yes; that was the promise.
MR. RANKIN -- Do you recall the bathroom, how the door closes? Does it close into the bathroom on Neely Street or from the outside in?
MRS. OSWALD -- I don't remember now. I don't remember. I only remember that it was something to do with the bathroom.
MR. RANKIN -- Did you lock him into the bathroom?
MRS. OSWALD -- I can't remember precisely.
MR. RANKIN -- Do you recall how the locks were on the bathroom door there?
MRS. OSWALD -- I can't recall. We had several apartments and I might be confusing one apartment with the other.
MR. RANKIN -- Is it your testimony that you made it impossible for him to get out if he wanted to?
MRS. OSWALD -- I don't remember.
GERALD FORD -- Did he try to get out of the bathroom?
MRS. OSWALD -- I remember that I held him. We actually struggled for several minutes and then he quieted down. I remember that I told him that if he goes out it would be better for him to kill me than to go out.
ALLEN DULLES -- He is quite a big man and you are a small woman.
MRS. OSWALD -- No; he is not a big man. He is not strong. .... When he is very upset, my husband is very upset he is not strong and when I want to and when I collect all my forces and want to do something very badly, I am stronger than he is.
[...]
MR. DULLES -- Do you think it was persuasion—your persuasion of him—or the physical force or both that prevented him from going?
MRS. OSWALD -- I don't think it was physically—physical prevention—because I couldn't keep him from going out if he really wanted to. It might have been that he was just trying to test me. He was the kind of person who could try and wound somebody in that way. Possibly he didn't want to go out at all but was just doing this all as a sort of joke, not really as a joke but rather to simply wound me, to make me feel bad.
[...]
MRS. OSWALD -- I might be mistaken about some of the details of this incident, but it is very definite he got dressed, took a gun, and then didn't go out. The reason why there might be some confusion in my mind about the details because it happened in other apartments in which we lived that we quarreled and then I would shut him in the bathroom, and in this particular case it may not have happened quite that way, but there is no doubt that he got dressed and had a gun.
[...]
MRS. OSWALD -- The FBI suggested that possibly I was confused between Johnson and Nixon, but there is no question that in this incident it was a question of Mr. Nixon. I remember distinctly the name Nixon because I read from the presidential elections that there was a choice between President Kennedy and Mr. Nixon.
[...]
MR. RANKIN -- What else happened about this incident beyond what you have told us?
MRS. OSWALD -- He took off his suit and stayed home all day reading a book. He gave me the pistol and I hid it under the mattress.
[...]
MR. DULLES -- As I recall, in your previous testimony there was some indication that you had said that if he did the Walker type of thing again you would notify the authorities. Did that conversation come up at this time with your husband?
MRS. OSWALD -- Yes; I said that. But he didn't go at that time and after all, he was my husband.
[...]
MR. FORD -- When you put the pistol under the mattress, what happened to the pistol from then on?
MRS. OSWALD -- That evening he asked for it and said that nothing was going to happen and that he said he wouldn't do anything and took the pistol back and put it into his room.
[...]
JOHN SHERMAN COOPER -- Did you ask him if he intended to use the pistol against Mr. Nixon?
MRS. OSWALD -- I told him that, "You have already promised me not to play any more with that thing." Not really play, but, you know—I didn't mean, of course, just playing but using the pistol. Then he said, "I am going to go out and find out if there will be an appropriate opportunity and if there is I will use the pistol." I just remembered this and maybe I didn't say this in my first testimony and now it just has occurred to me that he said this.
[...]
MRS. OSWALD -- I told him that I didn't want him to use his gun anymore. He said, "I will go out and have a look and perhaps I won't use my gun, but if there is a convenient opportunity perhaps I will." Strike "perhaps" please from that last sentence. I didn't have a lot of time to think of what we were actually saying. All I was trying to do was to prevent him from going out.
[...]
MR. DULLES -- The General Walker incident made a very strong impression on you, didn't it?
MRS. OSWALD -- Of course. I never thought that Lee had a gun in order to use it to shoot at somebody with.
MR. DULLES -- Didn't this statement that he made about Vice President Nixon make a strong impression on you also?
MRS. OSWALD -- I don't know. I was pregnant at the time. I had a lot of other things to worry about. I was getting pretty well tired of all of these escapades of his.
MR. DULLES -- Was there any reason why you didn't tell the Commission about this when you testified before?
MRS. OSWALD -- I had no—there is no particular reason. I just forgot. Very likely this incident didn't make a very great impression on me at that time.
[...]
MR. DULLES -- You thought that he might use his weapons against someone?
MRS. OSWALD -- After the incident with Nixon, I stopped believing him.
MR. DULLES -- Why?
MRS. OSWALD -- Because he wasn't obeying me any longer, because he promised and then he broke his promise.
[...]
MRS. OSWALD -- Perhaps I should be punished for not having said anything about all this, but I was just a wife and I was trying to keep the family together at that time. I am talking, of course, of the time before President Kennedy's death. And if I forget to say anything now, I am not doing it on purpose.
[...]
MR. RANKIN -- You said the FBI asked you whether you might have been mistaken about Mr. Nixon and whether it might have been Mr. Johnson instead of Mr. Nixon that your husband was interested in doing something to with his gun. Do you know what Mr. Johnson was being referred to?
MRS. OSWALD -- No; I didn't know who Johnson was. I am ashamed, but I never knew his name.
[...]
MR. RANKIN -- Did the FBI tell you that the reason they were asking about whether there was a mistake as to whether it was Mr. Nixon or Vice President Johnson was because there was a report in Dallas papers about Vice President Johnson going to Dallas around the 23rd of April?
MRS. OSWALD -- Yes; they did tell me this. They said that at this time there was only one announcement in the newspapers of anyone coming and that was Vice President Johnson.
MR. RANKIN -- But you still are certain it was Mr. Nixon and not Vice President Johnson?
MRS. OSWALD -- Yes, no. I am getting a little confused with so many questions. I was absolutely convinced it was Nixon and now after all these questions I wonder if I am right in my mind. I never heard about Johnson. I never heard about Johnson. I never knew anything about Johnson. I just don't think it was Johnson. I didn't know his name.
[...]
MR. RANKIN -- At the time of the Nixon incident, did you know who Mr. Nixon was?
MRS. OSWALD -- I didn't know what position he held. I thought he was Vice President.
MR. RANKIN -- Did you ever check to see whether Mr. Nixon was in fact in Dallas anytime around that date?
MRS. OSWALD -- No.
MR. RANKIN -- Did the Nixon incident have anything to do with your decision to go to New Orleans to live?
MRS. OSWALD -- After the incident with Walker, it became clear to me that it would be a good idea to go away from Dallas and after the incident with Nixon, I insisted on it.
[...]
MR. RANKIN -- Did you ever consider telling the police about the Walker and Nixon incidents?
MRS. OSWALD -- I thought of this, but then Lee was the only person who was supporting me in the United States, you see. I didn't have any friends, I didn't speak any English, and I couldn't work. And I didn't know what would happen if they locked him up and I didn't know what would happen to us. Of course, my reason told me that I should do it, but because of circumstances, I couldn't do it.
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David Von Pein
February 2023
