The Journey 55. Judyth Vary Baker: Lee Said, “Tell My Girls I Was a Good Guy”

Judyth Vary Baker (author of “Me & Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald” “and many other books) and RA “Kris” Millegan (TrineDay publisher) discuss the mud (the false stories) around the JFK assassination, her relationship with Oswald in the summer of 1963, how he worked for the CIA, the witnesses who confirm Judyth’s story, and why, after 35 years, she came out of hiding.

K: There’s so much mud around the JFK assassination. With “Dr. Mary’s Monkey” and your book, “Me and Lee,” I always felt we got more pushback from the medical side of the story.

J: There are so many false stories out there. The real story sounds outrageous anyway. “What, Lee Harvey Oswald working for the CIA to keep this project honest with [Dr. Alton] Ochsner?” Well, that sounds so wild and wooly anyway. Look at my new book [“Lee Harvey Oswald and Me”] and look at “Me and Lee.” You’re going to see that all the questions they say can’t be answered after fifty years, they’re answered. What happened in Jackson. What happened in Clinton. What happened in Mexico City.

K: The CIA is a whipping boy. You can say, “The CIA did it,” and the American people say, “Okay,” and nothing ever happens. I look at it and see that there’s a level above the CIA. I call it the “secret societal system,” where they’re able to reach down and they’re able to use parts of the CIA, they’re able to use parts of the Secret Service.

My crew [for JFK’s assassination] is, you’ve got Hoover and Johnson and they’re on the bottom because they’re so blackmailable, you’ve got them in your pocket. You can make them do whatever you want. And then you’ve got Allen Dulles and he’s the consigliore. He’s the lawyer. He’s been the head of the CIA and he was right there next to “The Farm” the whole weekend. And then you’ve got George H. W. Bush and Nelson Rockefeller. And then they have two friends off to the side. They have Averill Harriman and David Rockefeller. And then there were others that you play into position. You even make them think that they’re carrying water for the act but they aren’t. They’re just carrying water for the mud because you’ve got to play everybody so that you get away with it.

So, Judyth, how has this effected your personal life and with your family?

J: One of my sons, he hasn’t spoken to me for 23 years. I’ve never seen his children. I’m not really sure what their birthdays are because my own family is afraid to tell me anything about them. [In 1999 I started telling my story.] Prior to that, I had told my family [about my relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans in the summer of 1963.] They didn’t want me to speak out. Basically I have two members of my family who will have something to do with me. The hard part is they will say things like, “You don’t love us enough. You let us come into danger. Look what’s happened to you.” Because I’ve had threats and attempts on my life. It hasn’t been easy to stay alive, frankly. I’m surprised I’m still here.

K: I have members of my own family that wish I would be quiet, too. We live in very, very difficult times. I’m hopeful that this information gets out and we can come to an understanding that we need to do some things differently so we have a better future for our children.

J: We’ve got to stand for three things: love, truth, and justice. I look at this as bigger than planet Earth even because when injustice and evil have a place to fester, it’s like a sore on the whole face of the universe. And it’s got to be healed.

K: On your journey, you’ve had some very happy times, too.

J: For example, Claudia Roddick came forward and said that she saw Lee at my apartment so much, she thought he lived there. That’s nice, to tell the whole world, which she did. There are a number of witnesses that are afraid to speak out. They said I can tell who they are and what they said after they’re dead. But some of them have had the courage [to tell their story] and I’m grateful for them.

But I’m mostly grateful, really I am, for you, Kris, for publishing my book. It was going to be published in England but two people came forward and messed it all up. I sent it to Ed Haslam and asked if he could send it to someone he trusted. A lot of editors looked at my evidence. They were afraid to publish it. And some books that attacked me, they’ve never been published. They had to self-publish.

This has been a difficult journey and it has basically consumed my life. Lee only asked one thing of me. He said, “Please tell my little girls that I was a good guy. And I put it off for 35 years because of fear and my children and everything. And then I felt like a coward when I saw the film “JFK.” It says that you’re a coward if you don’t speak up. I’m not a coward.