Immie Feldman died on December 11th, 2024, at the age of 97. She was the widow of Harold Feldman, one of the first generation Warren Report critics.
Immie, whose given name was Irma, had a small, if peripheral, role in one of the earliest independent investigations into the assassination of John F. Kennedy – investigations that began because of plainly spurious official pronouncements.
In the summer of 1964, several months before publication of the Warren Report, Immie Feldman accompanied her husband Harold and then-brother-in-law Vincent Salandria to Dallas. They went there on behalf of Mark Lane, whose Citizens Committee of Inquiry had recruited a handful of amateur but highly capable investigators.
Just before they left, Lane’s assistant mailed Salandria a packet with suggested witness questions. “We didn’t frame any questions for the cops because of the accessibility problem,” she said in her cover letter. “If you do find one drunk in a bar somewhere or hanging over the edge of a precipice by his big toe, I’m sure you’ll know what to ask him...
“We’ll be eagerly and anxiously awaiting the results of your incursion behind enemy lines!”
One of the results was a remarkable article written by Harold Feldman. “The Unsinkable Marguerite Oswald,” published in The Realist in September, is an insightful and sympathetic profile of the alleged assassin’s mother. It revealed then-shocking details about the experiences of certain witnesses.
Many years later I conducted a telephone interview with Immie Feldman. At the time, I was talking to as many of the earliest Warren Commission critics as I could. What follows is an edited transcript.
Immie Feldman Interview, Feb 16, 2001
JK. If you’re ready, we can just plunge right into it.
IF. Okay.
JK. You accompanied Vince and Harold to Dallas that summer...
IF. That’s correct.
JK. I wonder if you had any concerns about that. Or if you – were you looking forward to it, or just along for the ride...?
IF. Well I was looking forward to it as an adventure. I was interested in the whole thing about it not being Oswald acting alone. And I, you know, I wanted to find out what they could find out…we were anxious to get to Dallas. And we had driven straight through, without stopping to – you know, except for gasoline, and bathroom stops. And eating, yeah. But we, Harold and Vince, and I think you say that in your [questions] – yes, you do – they took turns driving. And we just went right through.
JK. Okay. Let’s see, what next do we have? Your initial impressions of Marguerite Oswald. Do you remember that? First meeting her?
JK. Not a really warm person?
IF. Right, right. What else do I remember about her? She was hospitable to us. And I said we spent the night there, and Vince spent the other nights there also. And she was worried about – that people seemed to be circling her place that she lived, with an automobile that she kept recognizing. And I think that at one time there may have been a van parked in front of her place, that she thought maybe had listening devices or something. And she was constantly on the phone calling the Warren Commission to give them things that she thought were leads or clues. And mostly I think they just thought of her as being a nuisance.
JK. Mm-hmm.
IF. I think she was rather shabbily treated by people, especially the Council of Churches [in Dallas] that were collecting money [for Tippit’s widow]. And I think I wrote to you about that in my letter, that they received some money that was earmarked for her, and they returned it because they weren’t collecting money for the mother of a murderer.
JK. Mm-hmm.
IF. Of course, that was very hurtful to her. As naturally, it would be.
JK. Harold wrote about, in his article on Marguerite, about going to Helen Markham’s house. Or apartment, I guess it was.
IF. Apartment, yes.
JK. And Marguerite went with you, correct? It was all four of you?
IF. Yes, yes.
JK. And, do you recall, do you have recollections of that? I guess you went there a couple of times.
IF. Yes, we did go there a couple of times. And I don’t know why I don’t have, you know, any strong recollections there. Because I was kind of, you know, like in the background, and Vince and Harold were the ones that were proceeding with asking questions and trying to get information.
JK. Do you remember how you, or they, were received by – did Mrs. Markham seem at all suspicious or unwilling to talk?
IF. That, I’m sorry, I don’t recall.
JK. Okay. Now, were you with them when, I guess you went initially and she talked for a few minutes, and she was babysitting, I guess it was her granddaughter, and she said, ‘Come back later,’ and you went back a few hours later? And at that time, her husband had come home, and I – that’s when, according to Harold’s article, as you pulled up the second time, you saw, he saw, a few police cars pull away. And they apparently had been threatened by the Dallas police.
IF. By the police, mm-hmm.
JK. Do you remember that? Vince said something, I think I quoted him, he said to the effect, of having never seen anyone so scared before, and that their teeth were actually chattering. And I think the teeth chattering, I think that Harold mentioned that in his article, too.
IF. Yes, I do recall that the Markhams were thoroughly frightened. And apparently, you know, they were threatened.
JK. Do you recall noticing that the second time? When you came back a few hours later? As opposed to the first visit earlier in the day?
IF. Yes, it was definitely a different atmosphere the second time.
JK. Yeah. Okay. That pretty much is what Harold wrote.
IF. Yes, and of course, his recollection would have been much closer to the time that it happened.
JK. Yeah. Was he keeping notes?
IF. Both Harold and Vince did of course take notes, and Vince had brought down an IBM typewriter, and a small copier, so that they were, you know, every night...
JK. Busy?
IF. Yeah...
JK. Taking notes, transcribing...?
IF. Making notes, and getting things together. Because, I think, if I remember correctly, the original plan was that we go down and get information for Mark Lane. And then that was not, I don’t think he used that information, and Vince and Harold just used it for their own things that they wrote.
JK. Uh, let’s see. Going back earlier, to that first article that was in The Nation, ‘Oswald and the FBI.’ Do you have any memory of Harold becoming aware that the article had prompted, as it did, as I’m sure you’re aware, that secret meeting of the Warren Commission?
IF. Yes.
JK. And what did he think of that?
IF. I was, myself, very apprehensive, because I was wondering you know, what is this going to mean? What kind of difficulties would it make for us?
JK. You mean at the time it was first published?
IF. Yeah. And...I mean, I don’t know what else to elaborate on that. I was concerned if it would prove to be, make some difficulties in our lives.
JK. Yeah, I understand exactly what you mean. It, if you ever had the feeling you were messing with something that would get you in over your head, so to speak?
IF. Yes, but still I felt that we had to, Harold and Vince had to sort of, you know, work at what they thought was the truth. But it was, it was, you know. It was scary.
JK. Did – you may know – and I’m sure Harold must have seen the – that Gerald Ford wrote about that, mentioned him specifically, in his book. Do you have any memory of Harold thinking one way or another about that? Did he feel like he’d accomplished what he – he got the attention of some...
IF. Yeah, he got the attention, and he was in that book that was out there for – we have a copy of the book, or my son Vincent has a copy of the book. And it was, you know, it made an impact. Something that was a little thorn in their sides, apparently.
JK. After – I’m not sure exactly how many articles he wrote that were directly related to that case. But there were I think just four or five, is that about right?
IF. I think so.
JK. The last one that I think, chronologically, was the one about 51 Witnesses on the grassy knoll...?
IF. Witnesses on the grassy knoll, right.
JK. Which I think was about 1965. And he seems to have dropped out after that. But I’m sure he must have maintained an interest over the years.
IF. He maintained an interest over the years. He was, at that time, taking some post-graduate courses, and then in 1966 our son was born… [but] he always maintained an interest, but not actively. And he had a psychoanalytic practice, and he kept very busy. And so he didn’t have the time. He had, other things came into his life, so it wasn’t something that was all-engrossing.
JK. Okay. I have one more question, and feel free to not answer it, because I don’t know if I’m getting too personal here. But I was wondering whether Harold’s death was sudden and unexpected? Or was he ill for a time?
IF. It was rather sudden. He had had, ten years before he passed away, he had a heart attack and a stroke. And he had fully recovered from it and was able to continue his practice, and teach in this school of psychoanalytic studies here in Philadelphia, and led a very active and normal life. And then in August of ’86, he became ill, and they thought it was a stomach inflammation from medications he was taking. And it turned out to be, it was diagnosed as liver cancer, but then it proved to have come from the pancreas. And he was in the hospital on Wednesday, they made the – he went in the hospital on the weekend, and on Wednesday they made the diagnosis. And the doctor told me that he probably had six months to live. And he died that Friday.
JK. Wow.
IF. So that was quite a shock. Because he thought that he would be able to tie up some loose ends with the people he had in treatment. And as you can imagine, the shock for all of us, and for his patients, to have this happen this suddenly.
JK. I don’t mean to pry.
IF. Sure. No, that’s okay.
JK. Okay. Well that’s about all I have this morning. I do appreciate your taking the time to talk to me.
IF. If there’s anything I can, you know, add, I’m happy to do it.
JK. Okay. Well thank you very much!
IF. Okay, you’re quite welcome.
JK. I’ll talk to you later.
IF. Okay. Bye-bye.
_____
Read The Unsinkable Marguerite Oswald, by Harold Feldman.
Read this analysis of Jean Stafford’s interviews with Marguerite Oswald, published in Kennedys and King in November 2022, and based on hearing the original interview recordings.
