Greg Parker and Jim Root, this one's for you!

[Guest Tom Scully]

Jim, when did Oswald say he was a Trotskyite Socialist?

He never. Ruth Paine allegedly called him that(or said that he called himself that?).

What is not shown in the records is that the term is derogatory.

I apologise in advance for asking, as I'm sure it has been discussed already, but I just don't have the time to go through all the threads searching for it. Could someone plase give me a brief overview of how and why it has been determined that John B Hurt was the owner of the number listed under John W Hurt?

Is everyone aware that John D Hurt admitted late in life that he 'd made the call in a drunken state? If this is true, then it was an inbound call, not an outbound one. One theory is that the information written down as a result of that inbound call was assumed to relate to Oswald's known attempt to make a call. Except that that call was to try and contact Abt. This makes sense to me - EXCEPT that the notation has two John Hurts and two numbers listed. That could not happen as a simple response to a call from John D Hurt - unless perhaps in his drunken state he only left is name and town of residence and the operater subsequently looked up all John Hurts residing in Raleigh and wrote both names and numbers down.

This should not be taken as meaning I dismiss the ongoing discussion here. I don't. I think it has great potential.

On the name on the order form: To my eye, I'd say it could be "OF Drittal" or "DF Drittal". Since the FBI questioned document expet thought it was "DF", I'll stick with that. I see no reason to befieve he got it wrong. I don't think any other combinations are likely.

Since Oswald like classical music, did Ana perhaps play on any recordings he happened to own? Probably impossible to answer, but it is one way he may have come across the name.

Can it be determined why the FBI was interested in a "Ana Hidell"? I don't believe they arbitrarily decided that the "A" in A Hidell might stand for "Ana". I mean, why not look for an "Arnold Hidell", "Amelia Hidell", or "Aloysius hidell"? To me, that's one of the more compelling aspects of this: the Ana coincidence piled on top of the Drittal/Drittel conundrum.

Jim,

we're closer than I ever suspected we were. The Test Ban Treaty talks is the key (IMO) to Oswald's Soviet trip. We just differ on the driving force.

If I have it right, you suspect Trotskyists as being behind the assassination. I have the movement that largely grew out of that as being deeply involved: the Neocons.

Greg,

Did you enlarge the mail order coupon? In photoshop, it looks like like an "O", not a "D". It also looks like the "OF Drittal" signature is written over

some original, and possibly partially erased writing. How is it established with any certainty that the D is not an O, or that the "a" in "Drittal" is an a

and not an "e"? Are samples of Oswald's written a's and e's, clear enough to confirm anything, or even that they are real samples of HIS writing?

If you recall, I was urging Jim to accept contact info of a son of a John William Hurt, a man who I found in the 1930 census, living in an army Barracks at Ft. Bragg. That John W. Hurt had died at the VA hospital in Asheville, NC in 1977. Jim replied, in essence, with, "No thank you, I've got my man, John B. Hurt!"

I replied to Jim by telling him that my approach was in line with what I imagined a homicide investigator would do....follow every lead, leave no stone unturned, etc., and JIm politely replied that he tries to use the same approach.

Then, I followed my own advice, and I found that there was no record that closed off equal consideration of other "John Hurts", ones who did not have a "W" as a middle initial. This re-evaluation left me free to examine the background of John B. Hurt without handicapping him as I had before, because I thought a "prime" target of interest should have that "W" as a middle initial.

http://groverproctor.us/jfk/jfk-raleighcall.html

I dug this lead up,

Ron

I believe you are right and that he died around 1981. I still believe the story was a 2003 piece about a confession.

Sorry for the lack of information

Jim Root

Ron & Jim:

Hurt died in 1981. The story of the "deathbed confession" may be a tad overwrought, but according to "Reasonable Doubt" [pages 244-245] by Henry Hurt [no relation], Hurt told his wife before dying that he'd been drunk on 11/22/63 and on an intoxicated whim phoned the Dallas jail to speak with Oswald. Thereafter, he was too ashamed to admit what he'd done.

That ties it up with a nice neat bow.

However, it makes zero sense to my mind. Had Hurt called Oswald and left a number at which he could be called back, there would have been no second phone number on the switchboard operator's sheet for a second John [W.] Hurt, about whom we've learned precisely nothing in the intervening years.

My hunch is that with her husband dead, the widow Hurt simply wished to dispense with the matter, and did so.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

IMO, this "smells". The author twists the background of how the telephone operator's slip was retrieved by a "souvenir hunter.".

The slip was actually retrieved by an operator working next to the chief operator who she had seen tossing it into the waste basket.

It was retrieved approx. 15 minutes after it was thrown away, when the head operator left the room at the end of her shift.

There was no, "contradictory testimony of the telephone operators only added to the confusion."...because, to my knowledge, the

head operator refused interviews, she never "testified." Neither was a "jail" operator, the calls were routed through the Dallas City Hall

switchboard. Aside from trying to stimulate sales of his book, where does the author get these conclusions?

http://groverproctor.us/jfk/jfk-affidavit.html

Sorry for the delay in returning this to you. As I told you on the phone, my Brother had died & it hasn't been easy getting into the daily routine of life.

To the best of my memory I have not signed any affidavit concerning Pres. Kennedy or Oswald. I definitely would not have signed one containing a statement that I took Mrs. Swinneys L.D. [long distance] ticket from the wastebasket--that is too far from what happened. Actually I was the first one to say "Number please" to Oswald. He gave his name & placed his call & then I realized that Mrs. Swinney was on the line too. When she started taking over the call, I quit handling it & let her--but I stayed on the line with my key open & did not unplug until after Oswald hung up.

I have marked on the affidavit other corrections.

Alveeta Treon

"For years a debate continued about whether the call was really outgoing to North Carolina or incoming to the jail, " and "The mystery remained, even though arguments that the call was incoming were as strong as the arguments that Oswald made the call."

There is no description of a "deathbed" confession by John D Hurt, to his wife about making the call, the author only says, "John Hurt died in 1981.

A few months later, his wife told the author that Hurt had admitted the truth before he died."

As the sole source for this "revelation", isn't the author guilty of the same deficiencies he criticizes about the background of the incoming call documentation?

Wouldn't a notarized, sworn affidavit executed by Mrs. Hurt, or a video recording of her relating her husband's "confession, been in order?

It's 24 years later, and I find not other source for this.:

http://books.google.com/books?cd=1&q=H...nG=Search+Books

Reasonable doubt: an investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy‎ - Page 244

Henry Hurt

...For years a debate continued about whether the call was really outgoing to North

Carolina or incoming to the jail, since the best evidence was on a slip of paper

written by a jail telephone operator and, according to

one version, thrown into a trash can and later retrieved by a souvenir hunter.

The evidence was tainted, to say the least, and the contradictory testimony of

the telephone operators only added to the confusion. TThe speculation was that Oswald, if an agent, might

have been trying to contact his control. 195 When researchers finally found a John Hurt in

Raleigh, North Carolina, he proclaimed complete ignorance about the matter.

He said he had never known or heard of Oswald before the assassination and that

he made no telephone call to Oswald and, of course, had no knowledge of of Oswald's

trying to telephone him.196 This claim was quickly tarnished, however, when researchers discovered that

Hurt had a background in military intelligence as well as a law degree.

Hurt insisted to researchers that he had no idea why Oswald might want to call

him. That only fanned speculation that Hurt — who perhaps had some covert operations

connection with Oswald — was keeping the cover. The mystery remained, even though arguments that the

call was incoming were as strong as the arguments that Oswald made the call.*197 John Hurt died in 1981.

A few months later, his wife told the author that

Hurt had admitted the truth before he died. Terribly upset on the day of the

assassination, he got extremely drunk — a habitual problem with him —and telephoned the Dallas jail...

*The existence in North Carolina of training areas for CIA clandestine activities has been confirmed

by Victor Marcheyyi, a former executive assistant to a CIA deputy director.

Marchetti also feels there is a strong possibility that military intelligence, too, carried on activities in

that area.

Sorry, but I have difficulty "pulling" text from the next page, when the prior page ends the way this one did, with a footnote

interrupting the actual page ending sentence- "and telephoned the Dallas jail".

Edited February 23, 2010 by Tom Scully

[Jim Root]

Greg

Yes it was Ruth Paine who suggests that Oswald said he was a Trotskyite Socialist. James Patrick Hosty elaborates on that in his testimony. I also believe that one of the American Embassy employees in Moscow may have made a comment about Oswald's political beliefs and that Oswald would find himself rather lonely or alone in those beliefs in the Soviet Union.

Food for thought: This is important for me in my research if for no other reason than the Warren Commission suggests that Oswald was not sophisticated in his political beliefs. If Oswald was clear to Paine and perhaps others that he was in fact a Trotskyite socialist then the Warren Commission is not being truthful. Many conspiracy believers want to suggest that Ruth Paine was a part of the conspiracy but here we have a contridiction.....If Paine was a part of placing Oswald in the TSBD building she should have been spewing the "company" line that Oswald was mixed up in his political beliefs. But Ruth Paine does not do this....and lived to contridict the Warren Commission findings in this particular (but I believe) important point.

Oswald also has missing time in Mexico City, which just happens to have been the center of the Trotskyite movement. I speculate that Oswald may have been doing more than site seeing on his extended visit to Mexico.

US Intelligence had infiltrated the Socialist movement in the US starting in the 1930's (first Smith Act Trials) and I believe that Oswald had an understanding of both groups (Socialists and Communists) that had been tried using the Smith Act. The back yard photos and Oswald's desire to have Jonathan Abt (Smith Act attorney) act as his attorney, I believe, supports, at least in part, some of these thoughts.

Jim Root

[Robert Howard]

Greg

Yes it was Ruth Paine who suggests that Oswald said he was a Trotskyite Socialist. James Patrick Hosty elaborates on that in his testimony. I also believe that one of the American Embassy employees in Moscow may have made a comment about Oswald's political beliefs and that Oswald would find himself rather lonely or alone in those beliefs in the Soviet Union.

Food for thought: This is important for me in my research if for no other reason than the Warren Commission suggests that Oswald was not sophisticated in his political beliefs. If Oswald was clear to Paine and perhaps others that he was in fact a Trotskyite socialist then the Warren Commission is not being truthful. Many conspiracy believers want to suggest that Ruth Paine was a part of the conspiracy but here we have a contridiction.....If Paine was a part of placing Oswald in the TSBD building she should have been spewing the "company" line that Oswald was mixed up in his political beliefs. But Ruth Paine does not do this....and lived to contridict the Warren Commission findings in this particular (but I believe) important point.

Oswald also has missing time in Mexico City, which just happens to have been the center of the Trotskyite movement. I speculate that Oswald may have been doing more than site seeing on his extended visit to Mexico.

US Intelligence had infiltrated the Socialist movement in the US starting in the 1930's (first Smith Act Trials) and I believe that Oswald had an understanding of both groups (Socialists and Communists) that had been tried using the Smith Act. The back yard photos and Oswald's desire to have Jonathan Abt (Smith Act attorney) act as his attorney, I believe, supports, at least in part, some of these thoughts.

Jim Root

I ran across this rather strange blurb in the mary ferrell chronology section. While I am very familiar with the significance of the name Drittal, I confess, I am not aware of "Drittal cards," but the rest of the passage makes sense.

From mary ferrell chronologies

20d. January 15, 1964 (Wednesday) J. B. Sanders 4625 Cedar Springs, and/or 4142 Newton, a real-esate agent who “blocks-in” an area including J.R.Molina’s home

on Brown, is killed in a one-car wreck on North Central Expressway.

Is there any relation to?. . . . . “Drittal” cards show several interesting Sanders, one of whom lived at same apartment house as Jack Leslie Bowen (aka John Caesar Grossi)

H. O. W. Bocklemann, 4141 Newton in 1965?

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...p;relPageId=110

While we are "sharing," I will again state, that the John Hurt thread is probably the most important thread on the Forum, it amazes me at times, that I post information on that thread, with nary a response of any kind......It's kind of like walking down the street and seeing someone you know, saying hello and being ignored. I would think getting at the root of the Kennedy Assassination would preclude such behavior, but apparently I am wrong......

BTW Harrod G Miller maintained a relationship with William Friedman years after their time together in the 1930's, Miller was at Monmouth for a time and in May 1954, Col. Harrod G Miller acted as an intermediary between William Friedman and Lt. Arnaud transmitting a biography of General Francois Cartier a French cryptographer.

Basically the gist of what I am saying is that unless all of the other members of the Forum besides myself are MENSA graduates, we all need help in securing vital information at times, I'm willing to work with others, but not if I have to humiliate myself in the process.

[John Dolva]

Robert, I'm just along for the ride, what to you may be glaring seems to me to be vanguard stuff, but I don't have much background to follow, but be assured I read all the posts I note you make. To me they are not a waste.

[Greg Parker]

I ran across this rather strange blurb in the mary ferrell chronology section. While I am very familiar with the significance of the name Drittal, I confess, I am not aware of "Drittal cards," but the rest of the passage makes sense.

From mary ferrell chronologies

20d. January 15, 1964 (Wednesday) J. B. Sanders 4625 Cedar Springs, and/or 4142 Newton, a real-esate agent who “blocks-in” an area including J.R.Molina’s home

on Brown, is killed in a one-car wreck on North Central Expressway.

Is there any relation to?. . . . . “Drittal” cards show several interesting Sanders, one of whom lived at same apartment house as Jack Leslie Bowen (aka John Caesar Grossi)

H. O. W. Bocklemann, 4141 Newton in 1965?

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...p;relPageId=110

Robert,

I've been trying success, to get some sort of handle on what the "Drittal cards" are or were. The only other reference at MFF is on p112 of the same document, but that doesn't really help. If I had to guess, it looks like it has something to do with real estate.

Curious to say the least!

[Greg Burnham]

For instance I very early on believed that the downing of Francis Gary Powers and his U-2 might be tied to the TIROS I satelite project. If my calculations were correct then this satelite, one of the first polar orbited satelites, may have been over Russia ant located above the U-2 downing and may have, using infared technology, been able to "see" Soviet missle launches. At the time I felt that the U-2 cover story of a weather plane straying off course fit well within a TIROS weather satelite launch and my limited ability to track the course of TIROS I suggested a possible link (although the U-2 downing may have been a bit far North to be able to be "seen" by TIROS).

First, I am finding this discussion thread extremely fascinating. Great research! However, just as a point of accuracy, Jim, it is incorrect to report that Powers' U2 was "downed" [presumably by missile(s)] because it couldn't have been or he would have been instantly killed in the fire ball that would have followed. Moreover, the Soviet Union did not have any SAMs that could reach the U2's operational altitude of 70,000 feet! Powers' was "allegedly shot down" by a Soviet SA 2 system, but the absolute maximum altitude for that missile is 20,000 meters (60,000 ft). It couldn't have reached him. But, even IF hit at that lower altitude (60,000 ft), Powers would not have been able to bail out in time because the plane would have instantly exploded. Moreover, the official story claims that he did in fact bail out, but if that was true, how did the plane "crash land" itself?

Even Wikipaedia reports this [note the contradictions]:

"The 1960 U-2 incident occurred during the Cold War on May 1, 1960, during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower and during the leadership of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, when an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over Soviet Union airspace. The United States government at first denied the plane's purpose and mission, but then was forced to admit its role as a covert surveillance aircraft when the Soviet government produced its remains (largely intact) and surviving pilot, Francis Gary Powers."

I have yet to see any plane remain "largely intact" after 1) being hit by a Soviet SA 2 missile at altitude or 2) after the pilot has bailed out! Have you? In this case, the U2 was both hit by a SAM at altitude and was un-piloted to the ground, yet was "largely intact"! Even Allen Dulles admitted during his testimony to Congress after the event that [paraphrased]: "The U2 was not shot down --the pilot was forced to crash land on a Soviet farm..."

Anyway, I know this isn't the point of the thread, but I wanted to mention it.

Edited May 31, 2010 by Greg Burnham

[Greg Parker]

Oswald also has missing time in Mexico City, which just happens to have been the center of the Trotskyite movement. I speculate that Oswald may have been doing more than site seeing on his extended visit to Mexico.

Jim,

I've been contacted by a lurker who wanted to let you know that at the time of Oswald's alleged visit, Mexico had "next to zero Trotskyists". At the time, he says the whole of the SWP only had a few hundred members, many of them FBI infiltrators. He further said that they were based mainly in New York. Trotsky's grandson still lived at the compound which housed his grandfather, but it was not part of any organization.

It would be possible to check this claim out, but I do think he is probably correct.

I should add that he was in no way trying to disparage your overall research. In fact, he indicated appreciation of the work being done by all here.

[Jim Root]

Greg

Thank you for the info...

Jim Root

[Guest Tom Scully]

I don't think so....no.

Source:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=11510&relPageId=860

Nice try, though!

Edited April 1, 2012 by Tom Scully

[John Dolva]

a couple of things : it was not a good time, seldom was since after 1927 on, to declare ones Trotskyism in quite a number of places. Also various Trotskyist trends have been filled with people with properly functioning brains. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that the SWP was careful about the obvious learned from centuries of experience.. A look at the COINTELPRO-SWP docs around particularly pertaining to their prominence in local politics in places around the US. The 'Underground Press' is replete with on the street info including copies and analysis that indicate they were pretty much on the ball and in the culture at the time groupings like the SDS formed a network that disseminated info throughout the US for example, let alone overseas.

I think this is a matter of their story and 'our' story.

2 the notion that there is a seeming connection as presented is more simply understood in the context of linking Trotskyim to the assassination. That sort of individual terrorism as suggested for the JFK assassination is not in the platform. Therefore it is an attempt to discredit, like so much else in this inquiry.

edit add for interest

http://barrysheppardbook.com/

https://s4-us2.ixquick-proxy.com/do/show_picture.pl?l=english&cat=pics&c=pf&q=malcolm+x+militant&h=278&w=450&th=183&tw=297&fn=03malcolm-x-450pk051910.jpg&fs=30%20k&el=bing_pics_2&tu=http:%2F%2Fts4.mm.bing.net%2Fimages%2Fthumbnail.aspx%3Fq%3D4976540455273811%26id%3Dea70c88a0990b8b4817d303cdfc66fe2%26url%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fwww.aolcdn.com%252fphotogalleryassets%252fbv%252f883344%252f03malcolm-x-450pk051910.jpg&rl=NONE&u=http:%2F%2Fwww.bvonmoney.com%2F2011%2F02%2F22%2Fmalcolm-x-daughter-accused-identity-theft-arrested%2F&udata=bbcb59b23d1dfec42ea2d60ded683c62&rid=LILNNNMTOTLO&oiu=http:%2F%2Fwww.aolcdn.com%2Fphotogalleryassets%2Fbv%2F883344%2F03malcolm-x-450pk051910.jpg

https://s4-us2.ixquick-proxy.com/do/show_picture.pl?l=english&cat=pics&c=pf&q=malcolm+x+militant&h=266&w=275&th=175&tw=181&fn=Malcolm-X.jpg&fs=14%20k&el=bing_pics&tu=http:%2F%2Fts1.mm.bing.net%2Fimages%2Fthumbnail.aspx%3Fq%3D4915539037064576%26id%3Da27a65074022b3b35f78bab1b20f332f%26url%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fwww.workers.org%252f2007%252fus%252fMalcolm-X.jpg&rl=NONE&u=http:%2F%2Fwww.workers.org%2F2007%2Fus%2Fmalcolm-x-0222%2F&udata=98178eb3adf47e58576c3c9d7b3c9c87&rid=LILNNNMTOTLO&oiu=http:%2F%2Fwww.workers.org%2F2007%2Fus%2FMalcolm-X.jpg

Edited April 1, 2012 by John Dolva

[Robert Howard]

Lots of things to focus on here regarding this thread.

That Ruth Paine reference to Oswald being a Trotskyite definitively would have been on the November 5, 1963 Hosty memo to New Orleans, if for no other reason than it had been the most recent information Hosty had picked up from his last visit to the Paines.

One of the litmus tests for Warren Commission documents, ie "something of considerable value as opposed to someone saying the Communists or the Cuban's were the killers" is when you run across one of those "mis-spelt names" so common when a key person is the topic.

Which brings us to The Lost Cellos of Lev Aronson by Francis Brent - Atlas and Company.

The book is great IF, your interest in one of the most interesting members of the Russian/Latvian emigre community is strictly musical, however readers interested in detailed history would be disappointed in said book if they wanted to know anything about Lev Aronson's thoughts about President Kennedy, much less the actual assassination.

As a matter of fact, three topics I would have bet a large sum of money would be found in the book appear more or less, nowhere, Oswald, Yakeo Okui, [Lev brought her to the infamous Declan Ford, meeting where the emigres and the Paines and the Demohrenschildt's all first met LHO] and President Kennedy.

I respect any artist's, [ie writer] right to define the terms of their work, its just that the framework of the book, screams "I just don't want to get into any of that controversial stuff." I guess I shouldn't be surprised; look at the Obama/Romney sideshow, you would think the President was Hitler, Bin Laden and Aliester Crowley rolled into one, running against a man who is the epitome of the 2% richest American's, but I digress.

There is considerable reason to believe that Lev Aronson was much more than a famed cellist who happened to be living in Dallas and who just happened to bring Yakeo Okui to a party where some people there probably knew he was to be the goat sacrifice to be laid at the feet of the American people for John F. Kennedy's life.

By the way, even though it sound's contradictory, I certainly believe that it is possible, even probable that there was nothing sinister about Yakeo and Lev attending the get together, but to say there was nothing deeper is another story..

So here's the rub on WC Docs primarily CD 932 and CD 140 on Lev.

Commission Document 950 - Dallas Police Department Curry Letter of 19 May 1964 re: Oswald File pg 140

CRIMINAL INTELLIGENCE (6) LEV ARONSON Sirs Pursuant to the instructions of Captain W P GANNAWAY SUBJECT was interviewed by the undersigned officers and the following report submitted SUBJECT who is Russian born resides at 8418 Swananosh.....

There was no such street, but there was an 8418 Shenandoah, which was right off Lomo Alto....

While we're at it....

so who used to live there before Lev...

'Fightin Men'

News of Texans in U.S. Service;

April 12, DMN

Four Dallas Army Officers received promotions in an official list from the War Department

Saturday.

Lewis Coleman McMahan, 8418 Shenandoah, was promoted to major.

Charles Willard Zahn, 4718 Reiger.

Bryan Heard Keathley, 2503 Burlington, to captain.

Robert Borden Parker 1028 Haines to first lieutenant.

Hmmm. Below numerous documents years after the assassination.

DISPATCH ON CONTACT WITH LEV ARONSON, OWNER OF A PLACE FREQUENTED BY S pg 3

Found in: HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 14

RIF#: 1993.07.14.15:52:54:710280 (1/22/1969) CIA#: 80T01357A

SOVIET BLOC DIVISION TITLE DISPATCH ON CONTACT WITH LEV ARONSON OWNER OF A PLACE FREQUENTED BY SOVIETS AND ALSO LEAD TO ANTI-SOVIET BULGARIAN FIRST SECRETARY

DATE 01/22/69

PAGES 4

SUBJECTS ARONSON LEV

https://www.maryferr....do?docId=27578

RIF#: 104-10069-10041 (01/22/69) CIA#: 80T01357A

REDTOP AEREGATTA/2

1. AEREGATTA/2 Further contact with owner of Restaurant frequented by Soviets and his report of tightening controls on intellectuals in the Soviet Union. 201-226313

Robert: Does anyone see a inherent contradiction of topic matter after comparing the review of the book with what appears above?

THE LOST CELLOS OF LEV ARONSON

By Frances Brent

Atlas and Co., $24, 224 pages, illus.

REVIEWED BY PRISCILLA S. TAYLOR

Lev Aronson is not exactly a household name in nonmusical circles, but the story of his survival in Nazi Germany and eventual emigration to America, where he became a respected orchestra cellist and teacher, if not the soloist he had once aspired to be, is gripping. Frances Brent, a poet, doesn’t attempt to weave her material together like a true biography, primarily because her sources — Mr. Aronson’s unpublished memoir and oral history and interviews with his relatives and associates — are fragmentary and sometimes conflicting.

Instead, the author has concentrated on vividly conveying how a young Jewish musician from Latvia was swept up in Hitler’s mad efforts to exterminate every Jew in Europe and survived to reclaim his life and profession. Twenty-five members of his family perished in the Holocaust while he did slave labor under the Nazis in Riga, Danzig and the nearby camps for four years until, in 1945, he managed to flee the approaching Russians and take refuge in the U.S. sector of Berlin.

Lev Aronson was born in 1912 in Mitava, a provincial river city in the duchy of Kurland on the Baltic. He grew up in a family that settled in Riga after deportation to Russia during a pogrom (Hitler wasn’t the first to use cattle cars to move Jews from place to place). Lev’s father was a tailor, his mother a seamstress. Lev began cello lessons at age six. He became a student and, eventually, a close friend of Gregor Piatigorsky in Berlin, where Lev had gone to study law; both musicians studied, at different times, with the famed Julius Klengel in Leipzig, whose students also included William Pleeth, Janos Starker and Robert Hofmekler (well known and beloved in the Washington area as a cello teacher in McLean, Va., and at the D.C. Youth Orchestra).

Before the war reached Latvia, Mr. Aronson performed and recorded in that country (he was principal cello in a provincial orchestra) and elsewhere in Europe. Then, during the first week of the German occupation in June 1941, the authorities summoned him to turn over his two precious cellos, one of which was said to be an Amati cello, and bows, including a Tourte. He never saw them again, and never got over their loss. In 1986, at age 74, he was still petitioning the West German government for reparations. He died two years later.

The account of Mr. Aronson’s experiences during the war is typically horrendous but occasionally relieved by acts of human kindness. When in desperation he answered a call in the camp for experienced welders (there was no call for musicians), he was sent to work at the submarine shipyard in Danzig. There, one fellow worker, an Italian prisoner of war who had heard that Mr. Aronson was a musician, approached him with, “You’re not a welder, and you’ll be in danger if they find out. You must learn right away — I’ll teach you.” Whereupon he coached him in a relaxed-wrist welding technique “similar to bowing.”

A fellow prisoner, a part-German, part-Polish clarinetist, assessed Mr. Aronson’s welding skill as hopeless and volunteered to do all the work in exchange for music instruction, asking questions such as “What is a cadence? What are harmonic tones? What is a mode?” Mr. Aronson taught him the history of music, century by century, while they knelt on the steel plates. “With a piece of chalk he kept in his pocket, the clarinet player took dictation, writing on the newly welded steel.” Occasionally, writes the author, to impress others within earshot, the clarinetist would scream out, “Goddamn swine, why can’t you do this better?” After a few weeks, the clarinetist was called up to “the Reich’s work service” and Mr. Aronson never saw him again.

Sometimes, as the prisoners were marched from their barracks to the Danzig railway station to transport their food and water, Mr. Aronson saw people from his prewar life in Riga. One day, the author says, he noticed “a well-known violinist who had once been a friend”; the man was wearing a “heavy black coat with a fur collar,” and upon being recognized, instantly turned away.

Mr. Aronson’s barracks were eventually liberated by the Soviets, but that was not good news. The Soviets decided that because the cellist and his fellow musician from Riga, Gregor Shelkan, were Jews who had survived when millions had died, they must be spies who had “helped the German machinery,” and promptly interned them and prepared to ship them off to the Soviet Union. The two musicians, with the aid of a friendly Polish officer, managed to escape by train and on foot and headed west.

After four years without a cello, Mr. Aronson never ceased trying to find an instrument to play along the way, and apparently followed up a number of rumors about cellos buried in fields of the war-torn landscape. There were many narrow escapes before both men separately made their way to West Berlin; Lev Aronson and Nina Bukowska, a dancer and fellow refugee, were married there in 1947.

It was Piatigorsky who helped Mr. Aronson find a worthy cello and emigrate to the United States. He auditioned in Europe for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and once he had reached America, conductor Antal Dorati hired him to share the principal cello stand with Janos Starker. Mr. Aronson remained there for some four decades, honing the skills of an army of students. Unfortunately, this book offers almost nothing on Mr. Aronson’s life in Dallas; the acknowledgments mention that a stepdaughter provided documentary assistance, but there’s no mention of a second wife.

Ms. Brent has written a sensitive Holocaust memoir of a musician who survived with his humanity in tact and deserves to be remembered beyond his circle of friends and colleagues in Dallas. Priscilla S. Taylor is a writer in McLean. One of her daughters, a professional cellist in London, studied with Robert Hofmekler in McLean and with William Pleeth in London.

• Priscilla S. Taylor is a writer in McLean. One of her daughters, a professional cellist in London, studied with Robert Hofmekler in McLean and with William Pleeth in London.

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FAMED CELLIST LEV ARONSON DIES AT 76

The Dallas Morning News - Sunday, November 13, 1988

Author: John Ardoin, Music Critic of The Dallas Morning News: The Dallas Morning News (DAL) + _____

Lev Aronson, outstanding cellist and renowned teacher, died of cancer Saturday morning at his home in North Dallas. He was 76.

Considered one of the greatest cello teachers in the world, Aronson was co-author of a two-volume work on cello techniques that today is held as a classic.

Aronson, a longtime resident of Dallas, was born in Germany on Feb. 7, 1912, and raised in Riga, Latvia. He first studied cello in Riga and began playing professionally at age 13. He worked in Berlin between the two world wars with famed cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, who became a lifelong friend and colleague.

Aronson had successfully launched a career as a concert and recording artist in Europe when World War II broke out and he was interned in a series of German concentration camps. He survived and came to America in April 1948, where he auditioned for conductor Antal Dorati in New York. Dorati had just been engaged as music director of the Dallas Symphony, which was to be revived that fall after being disbanded during the war.

Dorati hired Aronson, who soon rose to be principal cellist with the orchestra, a post he held for 20 years. He was also a frequent soloist with the DSO and a professor of cello at Southern Methodist University.

Aronson gave up his post in the orchestra to teach full time at Baylor University. After a decade there, he returned to SMU's faculty in 1980.

His students are in the front rank of string players today. Two former pupils, John Sharp and Christopher Adkins, hold first-chair positions with the Chicago Symphony and the DSO, respectively. Two more of his students -- Lynn Harrell and Ralph Kirschbaum -- are leading soloists.

"I remember quite vividly that he would use metaphors and talk about a rippling stream and the sunlight cascading on a glistening rock,' Kirschbaum told The Dallas Morning News in 1986. "And here I was thinking about my third finger and where to put the bow, and suddenly he was exposing me to a whole new way of allowing my own feelings to be expressed in music.'

Friends and colleagues described Aronson as a superb raconteur, a gourmet and a committed humanitarian. They said he lived his life to the fullest and often with an almost childlike enjoyment.

The Dallas Opera's artistic director, Nicola Rescigno, recalled on Saturday first working with Aronson in 1957 when the opera company was formed. "I shall never forget the day I read through with the orchestra the score to Rossini's L'italiana in Algeri. This miraculous comedy was our first stage production, and then it was a little-known score.

"When we reached the last note there was a stunned silence. I think we were all overcome by the magic of the music. Suddenly Lev jumped up and said, "Let's start over from the beginning and play it again!' That was the kind of man and the caliber of musician he was. How he will be missed.'

Within weeks of his 75th birthday last year, three of his most famous students were in Dallas for concerts and took the opportunity to pay tribute to the man.

Lynn Harrell spoke of Aronson's "incredible sensitivity. He was never a cookie cutter for making cellists. He took the trouble to find out what made you tick as a person and how to make the most of that. . . . The time I spent with Lev was a high, and everything he played for me stuck in my ear and influenced me.'

To Ralph Kirschbaum, "Lev was larger than life. I had never been so stimulated before. . . . Lynn and I have many similarities but also great differences. This is because we were handled and influenced by Lev in a way that our own individual voices were reserved and encouraged. That is what a great teacher is all about.'

Aronson was fond of saying that he had been trying to retire for twenty years, but those who knew him said they could not imagine him taking it easy. "Sometimes I'm told that I am teaching too many students,' he would say with a twinkle in his eye. ""What do you need all those students for,' I am asked? "I don't,' I say, "they do.' '

Yet he resisted accolades.

"I am not famous,' he told one writer. "I am known. My fate is probably to be known more than to be famous.'

A memorial service will be at 2:30 p.m. Monday at Sparkman-Hillcrest Funeral Northwest Highway Chapel.

Memorials may be sent to the SMU school of music.

Edited July 11, 2012 by Robert Howard

[Robert Howard]

Thanks for the correction. I guess its true what they say about assuming......except there's no you in this case.....lol

[Greg Parker]

Lewis Coleman McMahan 8418 Shenandoah, was promoted to major.

I ass-u-me this is LEWIS COLEMAN McMAHAN of Dallas and not LEWIS McGURKENHEIMER McMAHAN of Dong Rack, Thailand. But I won't be a bit surprised it turn out to be LMM, even if I did make up the name!

Two other members were recently elected to the 10-member board as well. David Heacock, TI senior vice president of High Volume Analog & Logic, joined the board in May. Lewis McMahan, a retired vice president who led TI's Worldwide Facilities operations, joined in August.

http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/webemail/2008/enewsltr/public-affairs/4q/landing/community1.shtml

TI= Texas Instruments.

[Robert Howard]

Daniel, no explanation needed. Your good, and hey if somebody gets something wrong, as I did it needs to be pointed

out. Regarding Lewis Coleman McMahon, [thanks Greg] he, doesen't seem to be a "really big" name in Dallas related

infrastructure, although I am going by Darwin Payne's Dallas history, and Fred Florence's bio. Florence died in 1960.

Regarding the finer points of Lev Aronson, I will have to check over the book and some other sources. But I appreciate

the interest.