The Marine Corps ring
Who would think that a wedding ring could cause so many issues?
This started with an inquiry at the JFK Education Forum which posed the simple question: "What was the ring Lee Oswald was wearing when arrested?"
The Dallas Police recorded it as a USMC ring. It was allegedly purchased while he was stationed in Japan.
It is being worn on the left hand ring finger, which was the custom at that time, though now it is worn mainly on the right ring finger so it is not "competing" with other rings traditionally worn on the left. So far, so good... the ring is not a traditional wedding band, which was the underlying original query.
So what is the problem?
Let's start by looking at the wedding ring time-line as published in several newspapers during July 2013. My comments follow in brackets.
Wedding ring time-line
1961: Lee Harvey Oswald buys a gold wedding band in Minsk, Belarus. (one ring - not two. Who bought Marina's ring? Most likely, this ring was for Marina. If Lee exchanged rings, his Marine Corps ring was used)
April 30, 1961: Oswald marries Marina Prusakova. Nov. 22, 1963: Oswald leaves the ring and money in a cup on a night table next to Marina Oswald’s bed at Ruth Paine’s home in Irving, where his wife and their two children were staying at the time. (the only evidence of this is Marina's say-so, which has included versions where she found it that morning, where the police found it, where she never saw it again after the police search ,and where she still had it in her possession at the time of the Garrison inquiry)
Dec. 2, 1963: The Secret Service confiscates the ring from Paine. (the only evidence of this is an alleged Secret Service receipt of unknown provenance, which bears no letterhead, signature or date. Ruth Paine testified in 1964 that she recalled FBI agent Lee Odum picking it up on behalf of Marina. It appears a strong possibility that this story was changed to the Secret Service confiscating it, because this version allows for the ring not being returned to Marina at the time. In 2004, Ruth Paine's memory is more fuzzy as she allegedly tells Hugh Aynesworth for a story in the Washington Times that she may have given the ring to the Secret Service. But she sticks to the bit about it being done at Marina's request)
Dec. 30, 1964: The Secret Service returns the ring to a Dallas lawyer who once represented Marina Oswald; that lawyer included it in files transferred to a Fort Worth attorney, Forrest Markward of Bracket & Ellis, who represented Marina Oswald from late 1963 to early 1965. (Where is this precise date coming from? And why would the Secret Service give it to a lawyer when the Secret Service previously had Marina in Protective Custody after Dec 2, 1963? The answer to the date is found in a blog post by Dale Myers dated Oct 27, 2007 where he reproduces a Hugh Aynesworth story from the Dallas Morning News from that same year stating that " A Secret Service document that Marina signed Dec. 30, 1964, indicates that federal agents returned the wedding ring to her on that date. The Secret Service had been given the ring, the memo said, on Dec. 2, 1963, by Ruth Paine, the Irving woman who had provided a home for Marina" . In the article by Aynesworth written three years earlier on the same subject and linked to above, there is no mention of any Secret Service document signed by Marina acknowledging the return of the ring. Now, in the official timeline, the only part left of that claim is the date. The alleged document signed by Marina acknowledging return of the ring on Dec 30, 1964 has been changed to " December 30, the Secret Service returns the ring to a Dallas lawyer..." Since the document has not been produced as evidence for the chain of possession, neither version of the story should be believed)
2004: The ring surfaces in old files at the law office of Brackett & Ellis. July 24, 2012: A letter from Luke Ellis of Brackett & Ellis informs Marina Oswald/Porter of the ring’s discovery in Markward’s files.(why has it taken 8 years to contact the most logical legal owner?)
Early 2013: Porter goes to Fort Worth and gets the ring back from Ellis. May 5, 2013: Porter writes a five-page letter for RR Auctions documenting the ring’s history.
To the above, we can add:
Oct 24, 2013: The ring sells at auction for $108,000 (as a 14 karat gold ring, its intrinsic value would be in the vicinity of $80.00 to $120.00)
Oct, 2015: The ring is acquired by the Sixth Floor Museum, Dallas.
Dave Perry's mystery involvement
as indicated, Marina, over all these years, has given many different versions regarding the disposition of the alleged wedding ring owned by her deceased husband. This was picked up on by researcher David Perry who has an online (undated) article, Is This Lee Oswald's Wedding Ring? in which he cites a number of Marina's various statements. Ultimately, he finds that the ring currently in possession of the Sixth Floor Museum did belong to Lee Oswald . In doing so, he failed to take into account all of the evidence and failed to apply any skepticism or logic to some of the evidence he did use. He also failed to explain his very early involvement in the resurfacing of the ring. Following is a list of the evidence amassed by Perry. Unlike Perry, I will attempt to put it in at least rough chronological order.
Tom Bargas (Superintendent of Leslie Welding Co. in Fort Worth, TX.) told the FBI: "...he knew Oswald was married only because he noticed this fact on Oswald 's employment application." [FBI DL 89-43]
In one FBI interview Marina Oswald stated that "the following day (Friday) when she got up from bed, after the departure of her husband, she noticed his wedding ring laying on the top of their bedroom dresser." [WCE 1787] In another FBI interview, she stated "that she had not discovered Oswald's wedding ring on the dresser in her room at the Ruth Paine home the morning of November 22, 1963, upon getting up that morning. She said she had not seen it until the police came to her house to search it, following the arrest of Oswald on November 22, 1963." [WCE 1820]
From Marina's Warren Commission Testimony:
MARINA: At one time, while he was still in Fort Worth, it was inconvenient for him to work with his wedding ring on and he would remove it, but at work - he would not leave it at home. His wedding ring was rather wide and it bothered him. I don't know now, he would take it off at work.
RANKIN: Then this is the first time in your married life that he had ever left it at home where you live?
MARINA: Yes.
"The lid was raised. Forty reporters peered over the (police) officers' shoulders. Marina, who had been following TV and was learning about images, kissed her husband and put her ring on his finger." [Manchester, William. The Death of a President, New York: Harper & Row, 1967 Pg. 568] "Marina later made a terrible discovery. She happened to glance at the bureau and saw that, again by a miracle of oversight, the police had left another of her possessions behind. It was a delicate little demitasse cup of pale blue-green with violets and a slender golden rim that belonged to her grandmother. It was so thin that the light glowed though it as if it were parchment. Marina looked inside. There lay Lee's wedding ring."McMillan, Priscilla Johnson. Marina and Lee, New York: Harper & Row, 1977 Pg. 544
From Linda E. Norton, MD who conducted the exhumation autopsy."A gold wedding band and a red stone ring were removed from the fifth digit of the left hand (subsequently identified by Mrs. Porter as representative of items placed upon the body at the time of initial burial)." [The Journal of Forensic Sciences, V. 29, N. 1, January 1984, Pg. 24]
From a receipt found with the ring in in the Fort Worth law office of Brackett & Ellis in 2004: "Receipt is hereby acknowledged of a gold wedding band which had been turned over to the United States Secret Service on December 2, 1963 by Mrs. Ruth Paine." Perry stated in his article that, "originally I believed the ring in the possession of Attorney Luke Ellis of Brackett & Ellis of Fort Worth, TX was the wedding ring removed by Dr. Norton. I thought a member of the firm, Attorney Forrest Marquart [sic], had appeared with Marina at the exhumation autopsy."
Perry goes on to explain that he changed his views when he visited the law form and discovered that the work performed for Marina was in 1964 - after the internment, but prior to the exhumation. He further assumed that the notation on the receipt was a direct transcription of what Marina had told them, and that the ring was payment for services rendered. Oddly, Perry does not cite the evidence for this, but there is a document in the Warren Commission files by the Secret Service showing that Forrest Markward and a Mr. Louis Saunders met with Marina in the office of John Thorne at 6:10 pm on December 23rd, 1963. The purpose of this meeting is not given, however, "Mr. Louis Saunders" is referred to in other documents as "Dr" and "Rev" in others. He was Executive Secretary of the Fort Worth Council of Churches and had provided services at Lee's funeral when two Lutheran ministers failed to show up. Another document shows Marina meeting with Mr/Dr/Rev Saunders on February 25, 1964 in Saunders' office - this time accompanied by attorney William McKenzie. Again, the purpose of the meeting is not given. But we can surmises, since both meetings were conducted with a lawyer representing Marina, that the meetings entailed legal matters, and since Saunders had provided a service on behalf of Marina, it may have entailed financial matters. The funeral itself cost $710.00 and was paid for by Lee's brother, Robert. But since Saunders was not part of the original arrangements, he may have been looking to be paid separately. If so, it begs the question of just how much an Executive Secretary of a council of churches charges to mutter a couple of quotes from the Bible? Or was there some other, possibly unrelated service Saunders provided? Interestingly, with the 2004 finding of the ring, Marina had no memory at all of Forrest Markward, just as he would have no memory of the ring. Perhaps the legal papers that Markward did recall regarding Marina could shed some light on these meetings? According to Perry's article, those legal papers concerned, among others things, signing contracts for the book with Priscilla McMillan. Seems unlikely that Saunders would have any role in that. It also seems unlikely that Marina would not recall the lawyer used for such an important contractual arrangement. The final piece of the puzzle, insofar as Perry was concerned, was Manchester's noting of Marina placing her own ring on Lee's finger just before burial, thus ruling it out as being the ring found among the legal files. On that basis, he believed the ring which is now with the Sixth Floor Museum was the one given by Mrs. Paine to the Secret Service before apparently being delivered to Markward. According to Perry, this could not be any other ring than Oswald's wedding ring.
Case solved.
At least for those willing to suspend disbelief in order to profit in some way, or to help maintain the "leaving behind the ring" story so pivotal to the Lone Nut fiction. Whatever the case with Perry, he makes no attempt to resolve any of the issues with his own findings. Nor does he explain how, why or when he became involved.
Here is the evidence omitted by Perry:
From Ruth Paine's testimony: Mr. JENNER - Do you recall an incident involving Lee Oswald's wedding ring?
Mrs. PAINE - I do.
Mr. JENNER - Would you relate that, please?
Mrs. PAINE - One or two FBI agents came to my home, I think, Odum was one of them, and said that Marina had inquired after and wanted Lee's wedding ring, and he asked me if I had any idea where to look for it. I said I'll look first in the little tea cup that is from her grandmother, and on top of the chest of drawers in the bedroom where she had stayed. I looked and it was there.
Mr. JENNER - Calling on your recollection of this man, was he in the habit of wearing his wedding ring?
Mrs. PAINE - Yes.
Mr. JENNER - Did this strike you as unusual that the wedding ring should be back in this cup on the dresser in their room?
Mrs. PAINE - Yes, quite.
Mr. JENNER - Elaborate as to why it struck you as unusual?
Mrs. PAINE - I do not wear my wedding ring. Marina has on several occasions said to me she considers that bad luck, not a good thing to do.I would suspect that she would certainly have wanted Lee to wear his wedding ring, and encouraged him to do it.
My comments: Ruth Paine had an elephantine memory, was friends with FBI agent Odum and this was not a long distant memory. There is no way that Ruth Paine would mistake a Secret Service Agent for Bob Odum, or misremember that it was Marina who requested the ring and that it was Odum who collected it.
From Marina's New Orleans Grand Jury Testimony:
My comments: In this version, she found it - and thought she still had it "somewhere". This was only a few years after the assassination. If she had it then, why did she put her own ill-fitting ring on Oswald at burial , instead of his own? Or if at that time, it was still at the Paine's, why didn't she ask for it to be collected in time for the funeral? Why could she not even recall if it was inscribed?
From Marina's HSCA testimony:
Chairman STOKES - Now in addition to it, you told Miss Johnson, did you not, about the police coming and taking away many possessions, and one of the possessions that they left was a small demitasse cup, and when you looked and discovered the fact that they had not taken the cup, you also found in there Lee's wedding ring. Did you tell her about that?
Mrs. PORTER - Well, I do not--I remember the demitasse, but it is missed. I don't know where it is. Are you asking me did I find Lee's ring?
Chairman STOKES - Did you find his ring?
Mrs. PORTER - Yes, sir.
Chairman STOKES - And then did you tell Miss Johnson this: "Oh, no," she. thought, and her heart sank again, "Lee never took his ring off, not even on his grimiest manual jobs. She had seen him wearing it the night before. Marina suddenly realized what it meant. Lee had not just gone out and shot the President spontaneously. He had intended to do it when he left for work that day. Again things were falling into place. Marina told no one about Lee's ring." Did you tell Miss Johnson that?
Mrs. PORTER - Yes.
My comments: Told no one about the ring? Well, no one except the FBI, the Warren Commission, and if we believe the official version, also the Secret Service. But even if there had been secrecy, one would have to ask why? We are expected to believe that she was protecting her husband, but she had already posthumously hung him out to swing six ways to Sunday, so what did it really matter? Or to be fair, she is perhaps only referring to people outside of the investigation - friends and acquaintances. But another reason she may not have mentioned it to them is that it never existed. Her comment that Lee "would never take the ring off even on his grimiest manual jobs." is contradicted by her Warren Commission statement that "he would take it off at work" but never leave it at home. On another note, if the ring was the big clue that Oswald had murder on his mind when he left for work, what in blue blazes did she think he took his rifle for? Her statements on many things regarding her husband are ill-considered, poorly thought out, and often contradictory attempts to imply guilt, even as she is defending him. A living man has the presumption of innocence - a dead man has the presumption of guilt where a peppering of unproven/evidence-free implications is suffice. JFK suffers the same fate regarding his alleged infidelities. But back to the ring - there was indeed a ring that he wore "constantly". We learn about this from Ernst Titovets, Oswald's good friend on Minsk.
From The Interloper: Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union by Peter Savodnik.
My comments: As we see, according to Titovets, it was Lee's Marines ring that he wore constantly. We can surmise then that it was the Marines ring Lee took off only at work per Marina's Warren Commission testimony because there is no evidence he wore both the Marines ring and a wedding ring. In further support of this, we go back to what the Superintendent of Leslie Welding told the FBI - that is that he only knew Lee was married because it was in the job application. In other words, not only did he see no wedding ring while Lee was at work, he never noticed any wedding ring during the job interview which he conducted, either!
Problems concerning the Secret Service receipt
In the official version, the receipt just exists without any provable history or context - we are simple left to presume it was made by the Secret Service for either Ruth Paine when they allegedly received the ring from her on 2 December, 1963, or made for the unknown lawyer who allegedly received it from the Secret Service on December 30, 1964
The receipt is unsigned and undated
There is no letterhead
It looks more modern than the 1963-64 era
Neither Marina nor Ruth Paine has produced or even indicated they ever had a copy of any paperwork concerning the transfer of the ring, either to them or from them, to any agency or law firm
Why would Marina give a ring as payment and refer to it as the band "which had been turned over to the United States Secret Service on December 2, 1963 by Mrs. Ruth Paine."? Why wouldn't she just say, "this was Lee's wedding ring. It should be worth enough to cover your services."
If the ring was given to the law firm as payment, why would they return it, or claim, as they did originally, that they were having trouble establishing who the owner was? If it was given to them in lieu of payment - they owned it. If it was not given to them for that reason, and it was indeed, the wedding ring of Lee Oswald, it should be clearcut that Marina Oswald was the legal owner, unless they had reason to believe she had given it away or sold it to someone else prior to them receiving it. In any event, the ring as payment scenario should also have a paper trail
Neither Perry nor this writer has found any document among official records confirming that the Secret Service or the FBI received the ring from anyone at any time
Here is the receipt in question:
All of the above establishes that it unlikely to be an official receipt of the Secret Service issued in 1963 or 1964. The appearance of the identifier number, top right, also rules out Perry's initial belief that it was a receipt made by the law firm for Marina at the time of the exhumation. This number was used by the Secret Service on all of its JFK assassination-related documentation. At this point in time, it appears possible that this is a forgery by someone who knew the identifier number but had no access to Secret Service stationary, and for obvious reasons, was not prepared to put any name to it, let alone date. Someone correctly guessed that these anomalies would be ignored because of the stakes involved.
But there are more twists in this tale, yet. Here are some quotes from the 2004 Hugh Aynesworth news article discussed earlier. All highlighting is mine.
Hugh Aynesworth's 2 cents worth
FORT WORTH, Texas - A small gold wedding band believed to have been worn by Lee Harvey Oswald until just a few hours before he purportedly assassinated President John F. Kennedy has been locked in a safe at a law firm here for more than a generation.Oswald's friends and family, and lawyers and doctors involved in the case, say that the ring may be the one that the suspected assassin wore.
JFK investigator Dave Perry, of Grapevine, Texas, believes that the ring was Oswald's and might have been given to federal authorities in December 1963 either by Oswald's widow, Marina, or by Ruth Paine, the Irving, Texas, woman who let Mrs. Oswald and her two young children live with her during the fall of 1963.
Most of the documents relate to legal representation of Mrs. Oswald by Forrest Marquart [sic], leading Fort Worth lawyer of that era and once president of the local bar association. Mr. Ellis said that Mr. Marquart had joined the firm in the late 1970s and just recently mentioned the materials in the firm's safe.'
Mr. Marquart, retired for many years, did not return numerous phone calls from The Times. Mr. Ellis said last week that he had not been able to reach Mr. Marquart, either.
"We don't know who owns it. We just think it should be preserved, along with these other materials," Mr. Ellis said
Scrawled on a file folder in Mr. Marquart's handwriting is a notation that material inside has "historical significance."
Mr. Perry, a retired insurance investigator who has spent years debunking some of the more fanciful conspiracy theories concerning the JFK assassination, said that the newly discovered ring probably was Oswald's and was the one he placed in a small cup on Marina's bedroom dresser the morning he left for the Texas School Book Depository building.
Last week, Mrs. Oswald, who now lives with her husband, Ken Porter, in a small community east of Dallas, told The Times that she did not recall ever seeing the wedding ring after the raid on the Paine home.
"It's possible that I gave the ring to the Secret Service," she [Ruth Paine] said last week. "I believe that someone, probably from the Secret Service, came to my house and said Marina had asked for the ring. My best memory is that I went with them to the room and we found the ring in the cup."
Though the ring's having been stored along with several legal documents might appear to indicate that Mrs. Oswald had given the ring to Mr. Marquart as payment for legal services, Mrs. Oswald did not recognize the lawyer's name and said that she could not recall having the ring at any time after the Kennedy assassination.
Originally, Mr. Perry and another investigator, David Murph of Grapevine, Texas, conjectured that the ring might have been removed from the casket when the body of Oswald, who was killed by Jack Ruby two days after Kennedy's death, was exhumed in 1981.
But Mrs. Oswald and the doctor who led the team that exhumed the body dispute that theory.
Dr. Linda Norton, a forensics specialist from Dallas, said last week that there was no male wedding band on Oswald when he was disinterred to confirm that the body buried under his name was indeed him.
"There were two rings, one small wedding band and a ring with a small red stone in it," she said. "The wedding band was too small even for his little finger - so that couldn't have been his.
"Afterward, I replaced both on his fingers before they closed the casket and reburied him," she added.
Mrs. Oswald last week confirmed that she had slipped her ring partially onto her husband's little finger before his casket was closed at his Fort Worth funeral, but recalled nothing about his ring.
"I don't have it. If somebody has it, let them have it. I don't care," she said.
Isn't that an extraordinary story? So full of positive memories masquerading as conjecture and maybes and possibilities that I don't know how anyone could possibility doubt any of it.
Yes, that was sarcasm.
The third ring
So what was this other ring placed on Lee's pinky?
Ella was his true love in Minsk before Marina. He is trying to find out if the customs are the same - a silver engagement ring followed by a gold wedding ring. Note that there is no discussion on the local custom for a groom's ring. The second ring was indeed, Marina's engagement ring.
Of note here is that Marguerite is not mentioning anything about Lee's alleged wedding ring, which should be the one he is buried with. Maybe she was filled in that it was left at the Paine's, maybe not. But if she was, it must have been very late notice because there is zero doubt that the indomitable Marguerite would have moved mountains to get it, had there been time. Let us also consider that the only intention was to use Marina's wedding and engagement ring. After all, if Marina's ring was simply being used as a replacement for the forgotten-about Lee Oswald wedding ring, why would she add her engagement ring? Also, weren't we informed by Ruth Paine that Marina considered it very unlucky not to wear your wedding ring? Wasn't that another reason it was so weird that Lee left it home on that fateful morning? Or was that just another story to bolster the narrative about Lee? Many widows/widowers choose to continue wearing their wedding band, some permanently, others until they stop grieving and others still until they are ready to enter a new relationship. Would the very superstitious Marina risk abandoning her ring so quickly? Or was the story of this being unlucky, just more hokum? I have searched for any indication that this was a Russian superstition. I found many superstitions regarding weddings and marriage, but not one specific to rings. The far more likely event is that there was no "Oswald wedding ring".
Other pieces of the puzzle According to a 2007 Dallas News Story, Markward was 90 in 2004 and suffering Alzheimer's and recalled nothing about the ring. He did however, bring the papers on Marina to the attention of the law firm. On learning of the papers, it seems the law firm brought in local JFK expert, Dave Perry. It is Perry who finds the ring and the "receipt". We know this, even though it is absent from his article because it was reported in the History Channel show, Lost History in 2014. Perry then confirmed it on another page on his website where he corrects errors in the program.
Here is the quote:
Meltzer correctly states Perry found the ring in July of 2004 but then says the ring was discovered “23 years later.” It is actually 40 years later. R&R Auction’s Bobby Livingstone corrects this error at 13:10 when he mentions the ring “was returned to them [the Oswalds] after 40 years.”
While researching this, I contacted the Sixth Floor Museum to flag that I was finding a lot of issues concerning the provenance of the ring. I received a very polite blow-off from Curator Stephen Fagin, which finished with "The Museum is confident, based on available documentation and research, in the provenance of the ring we currently have on display." I know the above is a blow-off because no one without a dog in this hunt could seriously look at the evidence gathered here and proclaim that the ring held by the Sixth Floor was collected in 1963 by the Secret Service and kept by them for nearly three months before being handed over to a law firm used by Marina and who also never tried to give it back to her, but instead, locked it up in a safe and never mentioned it - only for it to be discovered by Dave Perry in 2004 - after the lawyer who originally took control of it, developed Alzheimer's and had lost his memory - at least about the ring - but not about the papers with the ring. Not only is that story ridiculous on its face, there is zero evidence for it except the word of Marina and an unsigned, undated receipt.
The receipt itself has been confirmed as using 10 point (or almost identical sized) fonts. Using those as the measuring guide, the ring held by the Museum is .594" in diameter - below the average female ring size which is .60".
This is based on the work of Jake Sykes and Stan Dane of the Reopen Kennedy Case forums (ROKC). Dane confirmed that it used 10 point fonts as in MS Word, or the almost identically sized 12 pitch characters used in IBM Selectric typewriters. Sykes then did the following calculation:
"Using 1/16" (the 10 pt font measurement) yields 9-1/2 lower case s letters. 9.5 x 1/16" = .594" for the ring diameter, which puts the ring close to but below the average woman's ring size of .60". Ref: https://www.reference.com/beauty-fashion/average-ring-size-woman-ffcb65bc768cb0f1 Also refer to international ring size conversion chart here: http://ringsizes.co/ "
Since completing my research, I have replied to Mr Fagin that the ring they have is not Lee Oswald's because he never owned one and it was possibly Marina's own ring. I have yet to receive a reply.
A note on the history of men wearing rings
As previously indicated, armed services rings in the West were worn on the left ring finger until the wearing of other rings entered the culture, resulting in most service men (and women) now wearing it on the right ring finger.
Men wearing wedding rings in the West began in WWII so that those on the front-lines would have something to remember their wives and families by. It was not however, until the second half of the last century that the practice began to spread.
I have not been able to confirm when men in Eastern bloc countries started wearing wedding rings, bur in general, rings by men and women would be worn on the right hand ring finger based on cultural and religious differences. Oswald followed the Russian tradition while there and wore his USMC ring on his right hand. It can be seen in a photo as Lee and Marina leave Minsk by train to begin the journey to the US.
In his arrest photo, he is wearing it on his left hand per Western tradition.
To summarize
There are no FBI or Secret Service documents confirming they took any ring from the Paine house.
Marina gave an amazing array of different stories concerning "Lee's wedding ring" over the years. The lawyer who allegedly held it in his files, had Alzheimer's and could recall nothing about the ring when it was first discovered in 2004, yet he did recall the papers stored with it. He died in 2009, well into his 90s. The law firm which allegedly took possession of the ring never tried to return it to Marina. Just as telling, the Secret Service could easily have given it straight to Marina on Dec 2, 1963 when they allegedly took possession of it. Seems no one wanted Marina to have a ring that legally belonged to her. Which leads into a change in the story where Ruth's testimony and 2004 memory is that the ring was picked up from the Paine home on behalf of Marina. That got changed to "confiscated" from Ruth Paine - a subtle change to allow for the non-return of said ring to the former Mrs. Oswald. There were no clues about the ring in the files except an unsigned and undated receipt which curiously"confirms" it was taken from Ruth Paine in Dec 1963 instead of simply stating it was Lee Oswald's ring - almost as if "confirming" that the ring was taken by the Secret Service was the main aim. The ring and receipt were "found" by Dave Perry.
The ring was described by Marina as "rather wide" to the Warren Commission by way of explaining why it caused him some issues at work. The ring now held by the museum was described in Dale Myers article as "... a small gold wedding band" and Dr Norton also as "a small wedding band" that was "too small even for his little finger..."
The construction and pushing of the official story has come via a triumvirate of shills who often resort to simply citing each other, rinse and repeat, and then rely on a complacent media to regurgitate the resultant c(r)ud to the public. I am of course, referring to Dave Perry, Hugh Aynesworth and Dale Myers.
Marna would eventually receive $108.000 for a ring worth probably less than $100.00.
the Sixth Floor Museum has a vested interest in maintaining the "official" version of the ring and has no interest in what the evidence actually shows.
Conclusions
Lee Oswald made inquiries in Minsk about Russian marriage traditions - in particular about engagement and wedding rings for the bride-to-be. There is no indication that he made any inquiries about rings for a groom. Ultimately, he purchased a female engagement ring and then a wedding ring - both for Marina. If they exchanged rings during the ceremony, Oswald used his Marine Corps ring.
The day before returning to the US, Lee tried to give his Marine Corps ring to Ernst Titovets. Titovets declined to accept it. He said of the ring that Oswald wore it "constantly". When Marina stated Lee always wore his wedding ring except when working, she was really referring to his Marine Corps ring - which as above - he may have actually used in the wedding ceremony. Marina, at the same time, also described his wedding ring as "wide" - wide enough to cause some annoyance. The ring now in the Sixth Floor Museum is "small" and of only moderate width. His Marine Corps ring however, is indeed wide.
No ring was collected at any time by the Secret Service or FBI from the Paine home. The Secret Service receipt was forged by someone aware of the code used to designate JFK assassination-related paperwork, but had no access to Secret Service letterhead. The receipt was either typed on a computer using 10 point fonts or on an IMB Selectric typewriter using 12 pitch characters. The official story was changed at some stage from the Secret Service returning the ring and getting Marina to sign for it on Dec 30, 1964, to the Secret Service returning it to Marina's attorney who got it mixed up in Marina's file and proceeded to forget all about it. The ring now with the museum has either been sourced from an unwitting third party, or belonged to Marina, in which case she would have retrieved it from Lee's corpse before his reinternment in 1981.
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