Was Lee Oswald in Montreal in 1963?

[Linda Minor]

Hello Robert and Tom,

Many thanks for reviving this thread, just when I was thinking about it too.

Tom, I can't answer your questions but I hope someone can.

And Robert, thanks for the Quebec to Guantamano Peace March photos.

In the meantime, I learned that Will Weston wrote an article about all this that was published in Probe, a article that I missed, but got Weston to send to me. I also sent it to Jimmy D., and if he posts it I will run links to it, and will also mention what issue of Probe the article appeared in.

In any case, this is a very important article for a number of reasons, some of which Weston himself doesn't know, but he brings out some very interesting items - like the first march went through Minsk when Oswald and Marina were there, and after the appearances of "Oswald" with the marchers in Canada, there's TWO sightings of "Oswald" in Scranton and Philadelphia, and guess who gets to Philly at the same time as the marchers? Ruth Paine. Too much. There's more to this than meets the eye, but you'll have to digest this first.

Thanks to William Weston and Jim DiEugenio.

BK

I posted the Weston article with copies of news articles and documents at my Quixotic Joust blog.

This excerpt,

The story of his presence at a peace rally in Scranton becomes even more interesting in light of another report that he was meeting with members of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) at another peace rally in Philadelphia. Someone who only identified himself as "J.H.C." had dropped off a postcard at radio station WPEN in Philadelphia shortly after the assassination and had addressed it to talk show host Red Benson. As indicated below, the hand-written message contained several errors in punctuation and spelling.

Why, has no one checked out this. Lee Oswald [underscored by the writer] was at our meeting this summer here at Rittenhouse Sq. Check this by Fairmont guards who know about out F.P.T.C meeting. They saw Lee J.H.C.

also contained a misspelled word, which was not underlined by the Philadelphia FBI: "Fairmont" should be "Fairmount," as in Fairmount Park just north of Rittenhouse Square, where the park guards were headquartered and supervised by Inspector Philip Cella:

http://www.maryferre...4&relPageId=112

He told the commission the demonstration at Rittenhouse occurred on August 15, 1963 from noon until 2:15 p.m. This date was a Thursday. It was six days after Lee Oswald was arrested on Canal Street in New Orleans for handing out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets and one day prior to his handing out pro-Castro leaflets at the Trade Mart. Most likely, therefore, it was not Lee in Philadelphia that day.

Edited August 12, 2011 by Linda Minor

[William Kelly]

Hello Robert and Tom,

Many thanks for reviving this thread, just when I was thinking about it too.

Tom, I can't answer your questions but I hope someone can.

And Robert, thanks for the Quebec to Guantamano Peace March photos.

In the meantime, I learned that Will Weston wrote an article about all this that was published in Probe, a article that I missed, but got Weston to send to me. I also sent it to Jimmy D., and if he posts it I will run links to it, and will also mention what issue of Probe the article appeared in.

In any case, this is a very important article for a number of reasons, some of which Weston himself doesn't know, but he brings out some very interesting items - like the first march went through Minsk when Oswald and Marina were there, and after the appearances of "Oswald" with the marchers in Canada, there's TWO sightings of "Oswald" in Scranton and Philadelphia, and guess who gets to Philly at the same time as the marchers? Ruth Paine. Too much. There's more to this than meets the eye, but you'll have to digest this first.

Thanks to William Weston and Jim DiEugenio.

BK

I posted the Weston article with copies of news articles and documents at my Quixotic Joust blog.

This excerpt,

The story of his presence at a peace rally in Scranton becomes even more interesting in light of another report that he was meeting with members of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) at another peace rally in Philadelphia. Someone who only identified himself as "J.H.C." had dropped off a postcard at radio station WPEN in Philadelphia shortly after the assassination and had addressed it to talk show host Red Benson. As indicated below, the hand-written message contained several errors in punctuation and spelling.

Why, has no one checked out this. Lee Oswald [underscored by the writer] was at our meeting this summer here at Rittenhouse Sq. Check this by Fairmont guards who know about out F.P.T.C meeting. They saw Lee J.H.C.

also contained a misspelled word, which was not underlined by the Philadelphia FBI: "Fairmont" should be "Fairmount," as in Fairmount Park just north of Rittenhouse Square, where the park guards were headquartered and supervised by Inspector Philip Cella:

http://www.maryferre...4&relPageId=112

He told the commission the demonstration at Rittenhouse occurred on August 15, 1963 from noon until 2:15 p.m. This date was a Thursday. It was six days after Lee Oswald was arrested on Canal Street in New Orleans for handing out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets and one day prior to his handing out pro-Castro leaflets at the Trade Mart. Most likely, therefore, it was not Lee in Philadelphia that day.

Thanks for that Linda,

As I have some additional info to add when I get a chance.

BK

[Thomas Graves]

http://www.acorn.net..._issue/quakers.html

http://www.ratical.o...akerandLHO.html

Philadelphia Quakers - With Oswald in Mexico City

by Bill Kelly

Of the many Philadelphia connections to the assassination of President Kennedy, few stand out as more interesting or suspicious as Lee Harvey Oswald's Quaker connection in Mexico City.

As the story filtered back to the FBI, it was alleged that Oswald was seen at a restaurant in Mexico City with an American who also wanted to go to Cuba. This source ["the fiance of Homobono Alcaraz Aragon, a friend of an informant for the FBI's San Francisco office" -- LOL] further related later that this same American may have given Oswald a ride to the Cuban and Russian embassies on the back of a motorcycle. This American was later identified as a Philadelphia Quaker student possibly named "Steve Kennan or Keenan."

[...]

Identifying and locating a "Philadelphia Quaker student" who was in Mexico City in the summer of 1963 named "Steve Kennan or Keenan," should not be such a difficult task for any good researcher worth his salt, and I put out a challenge to others interested in this subject to help try to find this guy.

Among those who assisted in the search, Stu Wexler, myself and others looked in the extensive Quaker records at all the various Quaker institutions in Philadelphia, but came up empty for any "Steve Kennan" or "Steve Keenan."

Australian researcher Greg Parker however, noticed a similar name in Priscilla Johnson McMcillan's book Lee & Marina (p. 68), in which she notes, on October 31, 1959, former U.S. Marine Corps defector Lee Harvey Oswald left the Hotel Metropole in Moscow and took a taxi to the American Embassy. There he told a receptionist he wanted to "dissolve his citizenship."

In the office of U.S. consul Richard E. Snyder, Oswald "slapped his passport down on Snyder's desk and demanded to take the oath renouncing his American citizenship that very moment. And he handed Snyder a letter formally requesting that his American citizenship be revoked and affirming his allegiance to the U.S.S.R. He added that he had been a radar technician in the Marine Corps and would make available to the Soviet government such knowledge as he had acquired."

According to PJM, "Richard Snyder was in a dilemma, for Lee Oswald appeared to be sane and he was within his own rights . . . glancing at Oswald's passport and noting that he was still a minor, the boy ought to have time to think it over . . . The exchange lasted less than an hour, but it had so nasty a tone that it was remembered long afterward by three Americans, besides Snyder and Oswald, who were present during parts of it -- John McVicker, the vice-consul, Marie Cheatham, the receptionist, and Edward L. Keenan, a graduate exchange student down for the weekend from Leningrad."

Could "Edward L. Keenan," the graduate exchange student in Leningrad and Moscow be the mysterious, "unknown American" Philadelphia Quaker student who also rode Oswald around Mexico City on the back of his motorcycle in the fall of 1963?

Parker took his hunch to the internet and came up with one Edward L. Keenan, professor of linguistics at the Univeristy of the City of Los Angeles [sic] (UCLA), whose Curriculum Vitae includes a BA degree in Philosophy and Religion from Swathmore College in Philadelpia in 1959 and the Sorbonne (1962), as well as work as an "Escort Interpreter" (French-English) for the U.S. Department of State in 1962-64 (summers).

A Quaker student from Philadelphia named Edward L. Keenan!

Is this the guy? If so, it is even more remarkable that he would meet Oswald at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on the day he defects in 1959 and then hooks up with him again in Mexico City in the fall of 1963, a few months before he is accused of being the assassin of the President of the United States.

[...]

You are confusing the Harvard-educated Edward L. Keenan, Jr. (who encountered Oswald in Moscow in 1959) with another "Edward L. Keenan" who teaches linguistics at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

The Edward L. "Ned" Keenan who saw Oswald at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was born on May 13, 1935, and died on March 6, 2015. He taught Medieval Russian History at Harvard University. He received his bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1957 and his PhD from Harvard in 1965. You will note that the following obituary-of-sorts mentions that this Harvard-educated Keenan lived in the Soviet Union for a couple of years in the early 1960's.

http://slavic.fas.harvard.edu/news/remembering-ned-keenan

"Within the large and famous university of which Dumbarton Oaks forms but a small and remote part, Ned Keenan was a consummate Harvard man—but in his own distinctive fashion. Born on May 13, 1935, he remained in Cambridge continuously as an undergraduate (with a ’57 honors AB in Slavic Languages and Literatures), graduate student (PhD in 1965), and junior and senior faculty member (tenure in 1968), except for a couple of years in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, until he took up the directorship of Dumbarton Oaks. While being Harvardian through-and-through, he clung proudly to his background as an outsider from western New York State."

Here's another obituary-of-sorts which spells out that this Harvard-educated Edward L. Keenan was a graduate exchange student for two years in Russia starting in 1959:

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/kritika/v016/16.2.boeck.pdf

I don't deny that Harvard-educated Edward L. "Ned" Keenan might have been a young CIA agent in Russia in 1959 (he was 24 years old when Oswald showed up in Moscow), but I don't see any obvious connections between him and your Philadelphia Quakers. But then again, perhaps his simply being from western New York State (Buffalo) makes him guilty of that. LOL

--Tommy

PS Here's the Philadelphia-connected Edward L. Keenan who teaches linguistics at UCLA:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Keenan

http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/keenan/keenan.htm

If my math is correct, this Philadelphia-connected UCLA Keenan would have been an even younger (21-years-old) CIA agent than Edward L. "Ned" Keenan, Jr., was when Oswald showed up in Moscow in October, 1959...

Edited June 11, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Greg Parker]

http://www.acorn.net..._issue/quakers.html

http://www.ratical.o...akerandLHO.html

Philadelphia Quakers - With Oswald in Mexico City

by Bill Kelly

Of the many Philadelphia connections to the assassination of President Kennedy, few stand out as more interesting or suspicious as Lee Harvey Oswald's Quaker connection in Mexico City.

As the story filtered back to the FBI, it was alleged that Oswald was seen at a restaurant in Mexico City with an American who also wanted to go to Cuba. This source ["the fiance of Homobono Alcaraz Aragon, a friend of an informant for the FBI's San Francisco office" -- LOL] further related later that this same American may have given Oswald a ride to the Cuban and Russian embassies on the back of a motorcycle. This American was later identified as a Philadelphia Quaker student possibly named "Steve Kennan or Keenan."

[...]

Identifying and locating a "Philadelphia Quaker student" who was in Mexico City in the summer of 1963 named "Steve Kennan or Keenan," should not be such a difficult task for any good researcher worth his salt, and I put out a challenge to others interested in this subject to help try to find this guy.

Among those who assisted in the search, Stu Wexler, myself and others looked in the extensive Quaker records at all the various Quaker institutions in Philadelphia, but came up empty for any "Steve Kennan" or "Steve Keenan."

Australian researcher Greg Parker however, noticed a similar name in Priscilla Johnson McMcillan's book Lee & Marina (p. 68), in which she notes, on October 31, 1959, former U.S. Marine Corps defector Lee Harvey Oswald left the Hotel Metropole in Moscow and took a taxi to the American Embassy. There he told a receptionist he wanted to "dissolve his citizenship."

In the office of U.S. consul Richard E. Snyder, Oswald "slapped his passport down on Snyder's desk and demanded to take the oath renouncing his American citizenship that very moment. And he handed Snyder a letter formally requesting that his American citizenship be revoked and affirming his allegiance to the U.S.S.R. He added that he had been a radar technician in the Marine Corps and would make available to the Soviet government such knowledge as he had acquired."

According to PJM, "Richard Snyder was in a dilemma, for Lee Oswald appeared to be sane and he was within his own rights . . . glancing at Oswald's passport and noting that he was still a minor, the boy ought to have time to think it over . . . The exchange lasted less than an hour, but it had so nasty a tone that it was remembered long afterward by three Americans, besides Snyder and Oswald, who were present during parts of it -- John McVicker, the vice-consul, Marie Cheatham, the receptionist, and Edward L. Keenan, a graduate exchange student down for the weekend from Leningrad."

Could "Edward L. Keenan," the graduate exchange student in Leningrad and Moscow be the mysterious, "unknown American" Philadelphia Quaker student who also rode Oswald around Mexico City on the back of his motorcycle in the fall of 1963?

Parker took his hunch to the internet and came up with one Edward L. Keenan, professor of linguistics at the Univeristy of the City of Los Angeles [sic] (UCLA), whose Curriculum Vitae includes a BA degree in Philosophy and Religion from Swathmore College in Philadelpia in 1959 and the Sorbonne (1962), as well as work as an "Escort Interpreter" (French-English) for the U.S. Department of State in 1962-64 (summers).

A Quaker student from Philadelphia named Edward L. Keenan!

Is this the guy? If so, it is even more remarkable that he would meet Oswald at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on the day he defects in 1959 and then hooks up with him again in Mexico City in the fall of 1963, a few months before he is accused of being the assassin of the President of the United States.

[...]

You are confusing the Harvard-educated Edward L. Keenan, Jr. (who encountered Oswald in Moscow in 1959) with another "Edward L. Keenan" who teaches linguistics at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

The Edward L. "Ned" Keenan who saw Oswald at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was born on May 13, 1935, and died on March 6, 2015. He taught Medieval Russian History at Harvard University. He received his bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1957 and his PhD from Harvard in 1965. You will note that the following obituary-of-sorts mentions that this Harvard-educated Keenan lived in the Soviet Union for a couple of years in the early 1960's.

http://slavic.fas.harvard.edu/news/remembering-ned-keenan

"Within the large and famous university of which Dumbarton Oaks forms but a small and remote part, Ned Keenan was a consummate Harvard man—but in his own distinctive fashion. Born on May 13, 1935, he remained in Cambridge continuously as an undergraduate (with a ’57 honors AB in Slavic Languages and Literatures), graduate student (PhD in 1965), and junior and senior faculty member (tenure in 1968), except for a couple of years in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, until he took up the directorship of Dumbarton Oaks. While being Harvardian through-and-through, he clung proudly to his background as an outsider from western New York State."

Here's another obituary-of-sorts which spells out that this Harvard-educated Edward L. Keenan was a graduate exchange student for two years in Russia starting in 1959:

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/kritika/v016/16.2.boeck.pdf

I don't deny that Harvard-educated Edward L. "Ned" Keenan might have been a young CIA agent in Russia in 1959 (he was 24 years old when Oswald showed up in Moscow), but I don't see any obvious connections between him and your Philadelphia Quakers. But then again, perhaps his simply being from western New York State (Buffalo) makes him guilty of that. LOL

--Tommy

PS Here's the Philadelphia-connected Edward L. Keenan who teaches linguistics at UCLA:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Keenan

http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/keenan/keenan.htm

If my math is correct, this Philadelphia-connected UCLA Keenan would have been an even younger (21-years-old) CIA agent than Edward L. "Ned" Keenan, Jr., was when Oswald showed up in Moscow in October, 1959...

Tommy,

the Keenan thing started with me trying to discover who "Steve Kennan" was because the FBI reports actually have Alcarez stating it was "Kennan" OR "Keenan" with a first name of "Steve" OR "Larry" -- so when I found 2 Edward L Keenan's, I thought maybe one of them had the middle name of Larry and used that instead of Ed or Ned. The odd's jumped a bit when I realized the Harvard guy had been in Snyder's office when Oswald was there...

But to cut to the chase, both were eventually interviewed and ruled out before the real "Steve Kennan" was positively ID'd. Alcarez did give one other important piece of information. He had met "Kennan" in '62 AND '63 -- and that's where the confusion with the first name comes in. Steve K was there in '62 until about Aug '63 (with motorbike). When he went back to the US, he gave his motorbike to his TWIN brother i.e a REAL doppelgangers - if not intentionally so. It has not been established that the twin did ride the bike to Mexico - but it is my theory he did. His first name was not Larry but does start with "L" and I believe he was the one Alcarez met in '63, not realizing it was not the same guy he'd met the previous year.

As for Edward L Keenan the exchange student. He was most definitely a CIA agent in the REDSKIN program and had actually been "spotted" for the role by Snyder. He was kicked out in '61 or '62 for spying and in a speech once at Harvard, he talked about the difficulty of meeting contacts over there - an admission of sorts, despite his denials when the Russians actually published the details of his spying in '67.

[Thomas Graves]

http://www.acorn.net..._issue/quakers.html

http://www.ratical.o...akerandLHO.html

Philadelphia Quakers - With Oswald in Mexico City

by Bill Kelly

Of the many Philadelphia connections to the assassination of President Kennedy, few stand out as more interesting or suspicious as Lee Harvey Oswald's Quaker connection in Mexico City.

As the story filtered back to the FBI, it was alleged that Oswald was seen at a restaurant in Mexico City with an American who also wanted to go to Cuba. This source ["the fiance of Homobono Alcaraz Aragon, a friend of an informant for the FBI's San Francisco office" -- LOL] further related later that this same American may have given Oswald a ride to the Cuban and Russian embassies on the back of a motorcycle. This American was later identified as a Philadelphia Quaker student possibly named "Steve Kennan or Keenan."

[...]

Identifying and locating a "Philadelphia Quaker student" who was in Mexico City in the summer of 1963 named "Steve Kennan or Keenan," should not be such a difficult task for any good researcher worth his salt, and I put out a challenge to others interested in this subject to help try to find this guy.

Among those who assisted in the search, Stu Wexler, myself and others looked in the extensive Quaker records at all the various Quaker institutions in Philadelphia, but came up empty for any "Steve Kennan" or "Steve Keenan."

Australian researcher Greg Parker however, noticed a similar name in Priscilla Johnson McMcillan's book Lee & Marina (p. 68), in which she notes, on October 31, 1959, former U.S. Marine Corps defector Lee Harvey Oswald left the Hotel Metropole in Moscow and took a taxi to the American Embassy. There he told a receptionist he wanted to "dissolve his citizenship."

In the office of U.S. consul Richard E. Snyder, Oswald "slapped his passport down on Snyder's desk and demanded to take the oath renouncing his American citizenship that very moment. And he handed Snyder a letter formally requesting that his American citizenship be revoked and affirming his allegiance to the U.S.S.R. He added that he had been a radar technician in the Marine Corps and would make available to the Soviet government such knowledge as he had acquired."

According to PJM, "Richard Snyder was in a dilemma, for Lee Oswald appeared to be sane and he was within his own rights . . . glancing at Oswald's passport and noting that he was still a minor, the boy ought to have time to think it over . . . The exchange lasted less than an hour, but it had so nasty a tone that it was remembered long afterward by three Americans, besides Snyder and Oswald, who were present during parts of it -- John McVicker, the vice-consul, Marie Cheatham, the receptionist, and Edward L. Keenan, a graduate exchange student down for the weekend from Leningrad."

Could "Edward L. Keenan," the graduate exchange student in Leningrad and Moscow be the mysterious, "unknown American" Philadelphia Quaker student who also rode Oswald around Mexico City on the back of his motorcycle in the fall of 1963?

Parker took his hunch to the internet and came up with one Edward L. Keenan, professor of linguistics at the Univeristy of the City of Los Angeles [sic] (UCLA), whose Curriculum Vitae includes a BA degree in Philosophy and Religion from Swathmore College in Philadelpia in 1959 and the Sorbonne (1962), as well as work as an "Escort Interpreter" (French-English) for the U.S. Department of State in 1962-64 (summers).

A Quaker student from Philadelphia named Edward L. Keenan!

Is this the guy? If so, it is even more remarkable that he would meet Oswald at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on the day he defects in 1959 and then hooks up with him again in Mexico City in the fall of 1963, a few months before he is accused of being the assassin of the President of the United States.

[...]

You are confusing the Harvard-educated Edward L. Keenan, Jr. (who encountered Oswald in Moscow in 1959) with another "Edward L. Keenan" who teaches linguistics at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

The Edward L. "Ned" Keenan who saw Oswald at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was born on May 13, 1935, and died on March 6, 2015. He taught Medieval Russian History at Harvard University. He received his bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1957 and his PhD from Harvard in 1965. You will note that the following obituary-of-sorts mentions that this Harvard-educated Keenan lived in the Soviet Union for a couple of years in the early 1960's.

http://slavic.fas.harvard.edu/news/remembering-ned-keenan

"Within the large and famous university of which Dumbarton Oaks forms but a small and remote part, Ned Keenan was a consummate Harvard man—but in his own distinctive fashion. Born on May 13, 1935, he remained in Cambridge continuously as an undergraduate (with a ’57 honors AB in Slavic Languages and Literatures), graduate student (PhD in 1965), and junior and senior faculty member (tenure in 1968), except for a couple of years in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, until he took up the directorship of Dumbarton Oaks. While being Harvardian through-and-through, he clung proudly to his background as an outsider from western New York State."

Here's another obituary-of-sorts which spells out that this Harvard-educated Edward L. Keenan was a graduate exchange student for two years in Russia starting in 1959:

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/kritika/v016/16.2.boeck.pdf

I don't deny that Harvard-educated Edward L. "Ned" Keenan might have been a young CIA agent in Russia in 1959 (he was 24 years old when Oswald showed up in Moscow), but I don't see any obvious connections between him and your Philadelphia Quakers. But then again, perhaps his simply being from western New York State (Buffalo) makes him guilty of that. LOL

--Tommy

PS Here's the Philadelphia-connected Edward L. Keenan who teaches linguistics at UCLA:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Keenan

http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/keenan/keenan.htm

If my math is correct, this Philadelphia-connected UCLA Keenan would have been an even younger (21-years-old) CIA agent than Edward L. "Ned" Keenan, Jr., was when Oswald showed up in Moscow in October, 1959...

Tommy,

the Keenan thing started with me trying to discover who "Steve Kennan" was because the FBI reports actually have Alcarez stating it was "Kennan" OR "Keenan" with a first name of "Steve" OR "Larry" -- so when I found 2 Edward L Keenan's, I thought maybe one of them had the middle name of Larry and used that instead of Ed or Ned. The odd's jumped a bit when I realized the Harvard guy had been in Snyder's office when Oswald was there...

But to cut to the chase, both were eventually interviewed and ruled out before the real "Steve Kennan" was positively ID'd. Alcarez did give one other important piece of information. He had met "Kennan" in '62 AND '63 -- and that's where the confusion with the first name comes in. Steve K was there in '62 until about Aug '63 (with motorbike). When he went back to the US, he gave his motorbike to his TWIN brother i.e a REAL doppelgangers - if not intentionally so. It has not been established that the twin did ride the bike to Mexico - but it is my theory he did. His first name was not Larry but does start with "L" and I believe he was the one Alcarez met in '63, not realizing it was not the same guy he'd met the previous year.

As for Edward L Keenan the exchange student. He was most definitely a CIA agent in the REDSKIN program and had actually been "spotted" for the role by Snyder. He was kicked out in '61 or '62 for spying and in a speech once at Harvard, he talked about the difficulty of meeting contacts over there - an admission of sorts, despite his denials when the Russians actually published the details of his spying in '67.

Greg,

Thanks for clearing that up.

But I'm still confused as to the name of the CIA-connected Quaker dude from Philly who gave Oswald rides on his bitchin' cherry red Harley soft tail "chopper" in Mexico City in Sept. - Oct., 1963.

LOL

--Tommy

Edited June 12, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Thomas Graves]

http://www.acorn.net..._issue/quakers.html

http://www.ratical.o...akerandLHO.html

Philadelphia Quakers - With Oswald in Mexico City

by Bill Kelly

Of the many Philadelphia connections to the assassination of President Kennedy, few stand out as more interesting or suspicious as Lee Harvey Oswald's Quaker connection in Mexico City.

As the story filtered back to the FBI, it was alleged that Oswald was seen at a restaurant in Mexico City with an American who also wanted to go to Cuba. This source ["the fiance of Homobono Alcaraz Aragon, a friend of an informant for the FBI's San Francisco office" -- LOL] further related later that this same American may have given Oswald a ride to the Cuban and Russian embassies on the back of a motorcycle. This American was later identified as a Philadelphia Quaker student possibly named "Steve Kennan or Keenan."

[...]

Identifying and locating a "Philadelphia Quaker student" who was in Mexico City in the summer of 1963 named "Steve Kennan or Keenan," should not be such a difficult task for any good researcher worth his salt, and I put out a challenge to others interested in this subject to help try to find this guy.

Among those who assisted in the search, Stu Wexler, myself and others looked in the extensive Quaker records at all the various Quaker institutions in Philadelphia, but came up empty for any "Steve Kennan" or "Steve Keenan."

Australian researcher Greg Parker however, noticed a similar name in Priscilla Johnson McMcillan's book Lee & Marina (p. 68), in which she notes, on October 31, 1959, former U.S. Marine Corps defector Lee Harvey Oswald left the Hotel Metropole in Moscow and took a taxi to the American Embassy. There he told a receptionist he wanted to "dissolve his citizenship."

In the office of U.S. consul Richard E. Snyder, Oswald "slapped his passport down on Snyder's desk and demanded to take the oath renouncing his American citizenship that very moment. And he handed Snyder a letter formally requesting that his American citizenship be revoked and affirming his allegiance to the U.S.S.R. He added that he had been a radar technician in the Marine Corps and would make available to the Soviet government such knowledge as he had acquired."

According to PJM, "Richard Snyder was in a dilemma, for Lee Oswald appeared to be sane and he was within his own rights . . . glancing at Oswald's passport and noting that he was still a minor, the boy ought to have time to think it over . . . The exchange lasted less than an hour, but it had so nasty a tone that it was remembered long afterward by three Americans, besides Snyder and Oswald, who were present during parts of it -- John McVicker, the vice-consul, Marie Cheatham, the receptionist, and Edward L. Keenan, a graduate exchange student down for the weekend from Leningrad."

Could "Edward L. Keenan," the graduate exchange student in Leningrad and Moscow be the mysterious, "unknown American" Philadelphia Quaker student who also rode Oswald around Mexico City on the back of his motorcycle in the fall of 1963?

Parker took his hunch to the internet and came up with one Edward L. Keenan, professor of linguistics at the Univeristy of the City of Los Angeles [sic] (UCLA), whose Curriculum Vitae includes a BA degree in Philosophy and Religion from Swathmore College in Philadelpia in 1959 and the Sorbonne (1962), as well as work as an "Escort Interpreter" (French-English) for the U.S. Department of State in 1962-64 (summers).

A Quaker student from Philadelphia named Edward L. Keenan!

Is this the guy? If so, it is even more remarkable that he would meet Oswald at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on the day he defects in 1959 and then hooks up with him again in Mexico City in the fall of 1963, a few months before he is accused of being the assassin of the President of the United States.

[...]

You are confusing the Harvard-educated Edward L. Keenan, Jr. (who encountered Oswald in Moscow in 1959) with another "Edward L. Keenan" who teaches linguistics at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

The Edward L. "Ned" Keenan who saw Oswald at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was born on May 13, 1935, and died on March 6, 2015. He taught Medieval Russian History at Harvard University. He received his bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1957 and his PhD from Harvard in 1965. You will note that the following obituary-of-sorts mentions that this Harvard-educated Keenan lived in the Soviet Union for a couple of years in the early 1960's.

http://slavic.fas.harvard.edu/news/remembering-ned-keenan

"Within the large and famous university of which Dumbarton Oaks forms but a small and remote part, Ned Keenan was a consummate Harvard man—but in his own distinctive fashion. Born on May 13, 1935, he remained in Cambridge continuously as an undergraduate (with a ’57 honors AB in Slavic Languages and Literatures), graduate student (PhD in 1965), and junior and senior faculty member (tenure in 1968), except for a couple of years in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, until he took up the directorship of Dumbarton Oaks. While being Harvardian through-and-through, he clung proudly to his background as an outsider from western New York State."

Here's another obituary-of-sorts which spells out that this Harvard-educated Edward L. Keenan was a graduate exchange student for two years in Russia starting in 1959:

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/kritika/v016/16.2.boeck.pdf

I don't deny that Harvard-educated Edward L. "Ned" Keenan might have been a young CIA agent in Russia in 1959 (he was 24 years old when Oswald showed up in Moscow), but I don't see any obvious connections between him and your Philadelphia Quakers. But then again, perhaps his simply being from western New York State (Buffalo) makes him guilty of that. LOL

--Tommy

PS Here's the Philadelphia-connected Edward L. Keenan who teaches linguistics at UCLA:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Keenan

http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/keenan/keenan.htm

If my math is correct, this Philadelphia-connected UCLA Keenan would have been an even younger (21-years-old) CIA agent than Edward L. "Ned" Keenan, Jr., was when Oswald showed up in Moscow in October, 1959...

Tommy,

the Keenan thing started with me trying to discover who "Steve Kennan" was because the FBI reports actually have Alcarez stating it was "Kennan" OR "Keenan" with a first name of "Steve" OR "Larry" -- so when I found 2 Edward L Keenan's, I thought maybe one of them had the middle name of Larry and used that instead of Ed or Ned. The odd's jumped a bit when I realized the Harvard guy had been in Snyder's office when Oswald was there...

But to cut to the chase, both were eventually interviewed and ruled out before the real "Steve Kennan" was positively ID'd. Alcarez did give one other important piece of information. He had met "Kennan" in '62 AND '63 -- and that's where the confusion with the first name comes in. Steve K was there in '62 until about Aug '63 (with motorbike). When he went back to the US, he gave his motorbike to his TWIN brother i.e a REAL doppelgangers - if not intentionally so. It has not been established that the twin did ride the bike to Mexico - but it is my theory he did. His first name was not Larry but does start with "L" and I believe he was the one Alcarez met in '63, not realizing it was not the same guy he'd met the previous year.

As for Edward L Keenan the exchange student. He was most definitely a CIA agent in the REDSKIN program and had actually been "spotted" for the role by Snyder. He was kicked out in '61 or '62 for spying and in a speech once at Harvard, he talked about the difficulty of meeting contacts over there - an admission of sorts, despite his denials when the Russians actually published the details of his spying in '67.

Greg,

Thanks for clearing that up.

But I'm still confused as to the name of the CIA-connected Quaker dude from Philly who gave Oswald rides on his bitchin' cherry red Harley soft tail "chopper" in Mexico City in Sept. - Oct., 1963.

LOL

--Tommy

PS How sure are you that in late 1959 twenty-four year old Harvard grad student Edward Louis Keenan, Jr. was a CIA agent in the REDSKIN program?

Are there any documents that prove this?

Thanks.

bumped for Greg Parker

Edited June 12, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Greg Parker]

Tommy, the name of the real "Steve Kennan" is immaterial to anything. I'm convinced it was his twin we need to have a little talk to. Even if it's possible Steve was involved with one or more intel agencies himself (quite possibly because there is evidence he was doing some surveilling), he wasn't the one giving lifts to anyone relevant (he did admit giving a lift once to a female staffer of the embassy...)

As for ELK1 as he became affectionately known to the small group working on the Quaker from Philly project (incidentally, he wasn't a quaker, tho may have hung out with them in MC), I thought you'd never ask!

There is a grab bag full of circumstantial evidence - but there is also a document which I believes provides verification. It is a CIA memo sent out about him after he was booted from the country. It is about him meeting with a NSA defector shortly before leaving. It is marked REDSKIN and RYBAT (code for "urgent"). To further add to the weight of that, I checked memos on a number of other Americans who happened to come into contact with the NSA defector - none had either of those crypts.

You can read it all here, Tommy:

http://www.reopenkennedycase.net/parker5.html

Timing is everything. I am actually about to tackle this part of the case for my book. I'll be turning a few notions upside down in the process.

Edited June 12, 2015 by Greg Parker

[Thomas Graves]

[...]

deleted and moved to a new thread

--Tommy

Edited June 12, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Michael Clark]

Some off-topic discussion regarding LHO in Montreal in this thread.

 

[Michael Clark]

This interests me because it circles around James McCord Jr., as CIA pointman in the infiltration of the FPCC.