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Harvey and Lee: John Armstrong


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This is a major publishing event in the JFK assassination world. Parts of Armstrong's work has been on the Net and he's spoken at some of the big JFK conferences. His work-in-progress became spoken of as 'the John Armstrong research'; and finally we have the book, a self-published 1000 pages; plus a CD-Rom containing documents he cites. (I haven't even looked at the CD-Rom yet.) Since one reading of this (and some sections I merely skimmed), is all I have managed so far, and that is barely scratching the surface of 1000 pages, this is a

provisional report; first reactions.

This is a staggering piece of research, twelve years of it, and a lot of money spent in the process. Armstrong has interviewed people who haven't been interviewed since the Warren Commission - and many who have never been interviewed before. He has read official files no non-official had seen before him. Lots of new ground is broken here in all kinds of little subsections of the story. But it is far too long. If the text was copy-edited, he or she deserves a slap: the text is full of stupid little errors. The typesetting is eccentric: the text is covered in italicisation, bold and underlining. A potentially great 400 or 500 page book is buried in this behemoth. Or perhaps it shouldn't be thought of as a book, but more as research assembled in book form.

Armstrong does three things. First, he is offering a theory of the assassination. His minute - microscopic - analysis of key episodes in the case is punctuated by chunks of the ClA's coven activities in the 1950s and 60s: Armstrong wants us to

see what the Agency is known to have been doing while the Oswald story unfolded. But his thesis that the CIA killed JFK and framed Oswald fails for the same reason that previous versions of this have failed: no matter how plausible the idea, no matter how much detail we are given of other, analogous things the CIA was doing in the post-war years, Armstrong cannot show who was doing the shooting; and he cannot identify the CIA conspirators. The only plausible conspirators he offers are Jack Ruby and Lee, one of the two 'Oswalds' in the story. Both have connections to the ClA-funded anti-Castro operations; but that is all.

The second thing Armstrong does is show in great detail how the FBI 'edited' the evidence about the shooting. The FBI had all the evidence collected by the Dallas police sent to Washington and a lot of it didn't return. Armstrong thinks the editing was done to conceal evidence of the two 'Oswalds'; and while this looks very plausible, it is not conclusively demonstrated.

Thirdly, and centrally, Armstrong takes on the 'two Oswalds' question, which has been around since 1967. It arose first because there seemed to be someone pretending to be Oswald, apparently framing the other, genuine 'Oswald'. Professor

Richard Popkin detailed this first in his The Second Oswald (London: Andre Deutscn/ Sphere, 1967). Then 'Oswalds' with different heights and slightly different faces were noticed. A decade after Popkin, Michael Eddowes published The Oswald

File (New York: Clarkson Potter, 1977), which concluded that one 'Oswald', the American Marine 'Oswald', went to the Soviet Union but another 'Oswald' came back in his place, a ringer being run by the Soviets, who shot the President. In Alias Oswald (Manchester, Maine; GKG partners, 1985) Robert Cutler and W. R. Morris argued that the second 'Oswald', was not a Soviet spy but a US spy. In their analysis the switch from one 'Oswald' to the other took place in 1958 while Oswald was serving in the Marine Corps in Japan.

By dint of minute examination of the paper record and a lot of phone-bashing and travelling, Armstrong validates the Cutler-Morris thesis - there was a switch - and has tried to trace the life of the 'hidden' Oswald. He appears to have established the existence of an intelligence operation which began with two boys, of different heights, but who looked similar and who lived parallel lives. One, Harvey, was Russian-speaking, probably a refugee from Eastern Europe; the other, Lee, was an American.

It begins in the early WOs, some of the cooler years of the Cold War. US intelligence had no reliable information on the Soviet Union. (This was before U-2 over-flights and satellites.) Soviet nuclear arms, even the Soviet economy, were a mystery. All the agents sent in by CIA and MI6 had been turned or captured. How could they get agents in? One way was to send them in as defectors. There seems to have been a CIA programme of defectors - Armstrong discusses some of the others - in which, he hypothesises, there was an attempt at a better class of defection. Armstrong believes the CIA ran two real identities in parallel, merged them - Lee and Harvey became Lee Harvey - and switched them just before the apparent defection of the American 'Oswald', Lee. Thus the CIA would insert into the Soviet Union a defector, Harvey, with two outstanding characteristics: one, unknown to the Soviet authorities, he could speak Russian; two, if Soviet intelligence checked his biography, they would find the American 'Lee Oswald', not a 'legend' but a real life. If this seems elaborate, Armstrong reminds the reader of the Soviet use of 'illegals', and quotes the example of Molody, 'Gordon Lonsdale', who operated in the UK.

This hypothesised CIA plan entailed both boys being in the Marines at the same time. Armstrong shows reports and presents recollections of 'Oswald' in two places at the same time through secondary school and in the Marines. The two 'Oswalds' explains the mass of contradictory material about Oswald in the Marines: one who couldn't shoot; one who could: one who was an apparent Marxist and read Russian, the other who didn't: one who was outgoing and a brawler; the other a bookworm. The plan also meant two 'mothers of Oswald', two 'Marguerite Oswalds'. Here the programme didn't extend to two women who looked similar: one was tall and elegant and the other short and plain. If Armstrong is correct, and the evidence looks convincing on one reading, a woman spent nearly ten years, pretending to be 'Marguerite Oswald', following the real Marguerite round the country, taking a series' of xxxx-jobs to do so.

It should be noted that there is no evidence, either paper record or firsthand, that this scheme took place. Armstrong infers it from the evidence of the two 'Oswalds'. If this is true, Armstrong has uncovered the most elaborate intelligence operation (and done the greatest piece of espionage detective work) I have ever read about.

Passage from Lobster Magazine (Summer, 2004)

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This is a major publishing event in the JFK assassination world. Parts of Armstrong's work has been on the Net and he's spoken at some of the big JFK conferences. His work-in-progress became spoken of as 'the John Armstrong research'; and finally we have the book, a self-published  1000 pages; plus a CD-Rom containing documents he cites. (I haven't even looked at the CD-Rom yet.) Since one reading of this (and some sections I merely skimmed), is all I have managed so far, and that is barely scratching the surface of 1000 pages, this is a

provisional report; first reactions.

This is a staggering piece of research, twelve years of it, and a lot of money spent in the process. Armstrong has interviewed people  who  haven't  been  interviewed  since  the  Warren Commission - and many who have never been interviewed before. He has read official files no non-official had seen before him. Lots of new ground is broken here in all kinds of little subsections of the story. But it is far too long.  If the text was copy-edited, he or she deserves a slap: the text is full of stupid little  errors. The typesetting is  eccentric: the text is  covered in italicisation, bold and underlining. A potentially great 400 or 500 page book is buried in this behemoth. Or perhaps it shouldn't  be thought  of as a book,  but more as research assembled in book form.

Armstrong does three things. First, he is offering a theory of the assassination. His minute - microscopic - analysis of key episodes in the case is punctuated by chunks of the ClA's coven activities in the 1950s and 60s: Armstrong wants us to

see what the Agency is known to have been doing while the Oswald story unfolded. But his thesis that the CIA killed JFK and framed Oswald fails for the same reason that previous versions of this have failed: no matter how plausible the idea, no matter how much detail we are given of other, analogous things the CIA was doing  in the post-war years, Armstrong cannot show who was doing the shooting;  and he cannot identify the CIA conspirators. The only plausible conspirators he offers are Jack Ruby and Lee, one of the two 'Oswalds' in the story.  Both have connections  to the ClA-funded anti-Castro operations; but that is all.

The second thing Armstrong does is show in great detail how the FBI 'edited' the evidence about the shooting. The FBI had all the evidence collected by the Dallas police sent to Washington and a lot of it didn't return. Armstrong thinks the editing was done to conceal evidence of the two 'Oswalds'; and while this looks very plausible, it is not conclusively demonstrated.

Thirdly, and centrally, Armstrong takes on the 'two Oswalds' question, which has been around since  1967. It arose first because there seemed to be someone pretending to be Oswald, apparently framing the other, genuine 'Oswald'. Professor

Richard Popkin detailed this first in his The Second Oswald (London: Andre Deutscn/ Sphere, 1967). Then 'Oswalds' with different heights and slightly different faces were noticed. A decade after Popkin, Michael Eddowes published The Oswald

File (New York: Clarkson Potter, 1977), which concluded that one 'Oswald', the American Marine 'Oswald', went to the Soviet Union but another 'Oswald' came back in his place, a ringer being run by the Soviets, who shot the President. In Alias Oswald (Manchester, Maine; GKG partners, 1985) Robert Cutler and W. R. Morris argued that the second 'Oswald', was not a Soviet spy but a US spy. In their analysis the switch from one 'Oswald' to the other took place in 1958 while Oswald was serving in the Marine Corps in Japan.

By dint of minute examination of the paper record and a lot of phone-bashing and travelling, Armstrong validates the Cutler-Morris thesis - there was a switch - and has tried to trace the  life of the  'hidden'  Oswald. He appears to have established the existence of an intelligence operation which began with two boys, of different heights, but who looked similar and who lived parallel lives. One, Harvey, was Russian-speaking, probably a refugee from Eastern Europe; the other, Lee, was an American.

It begins in the early WOs,  some of the cooler years of the Cold War. US intelligence had no reliable information on the Soviet Union. (This was before U-2 over-flights and satellites.) Soviet nuclear arms, even the Soviet economy, were a mystery. All the agents sent in by CIA and MI6 had been turned or captured. How could they get agents in? One way was to send them in as defectors. There seems to have been a CIA programme of defectors - Armstrong discusses some of the others - in which, he hypothesises, there was an attempt at a better class of defection.  Armstrong believes  the CIA ran two real identities in parallel, merged them - Lee and Harvey became Lee Harvey - and switched them just before the apparent defection of the American 'Oswald', Lee. Thus the CIA would insert into the Soviet Union a defector, Harvey, with two outstanding characteristics: one,  unknown to  the  Soviet  authorities, he could speak Russian; two, if Soviet intelligence checked his biography, they would find the  American 'Lee Oswald', not a 'legend'  but a real life. If this  seems elaborate, Armstrong reminds the reader of the Soviet use of 'illegals', and quotes the example of Molody, 'Gordon Lonsdale', who operated in the UK.

This hypothesised CIA plan entailed both boys being in the Marines at the same time. Armstrong shows reports and presents recollections of 'Oswald' in two places at the same time through secondary school and in the Marines. The two 'Oswalds' explains the mass of contradictory material about Oswald in the Marines: one who couldn't shoot; one who could: one who was an apparent Marxist and read Russian, the other who didn't: one who was outgoing and a brawler; the other a bookworm. The plan also  meant two  'mothers of Oswald', two 'Marguerite Oswalds'. Here the programme didn't extend to two women who looked similar: one was tall and elegant and the other short and plain. If Armstrong is correct, and the evidence looks convincing on one reading, a woman spent nearly ten years, pretending to be 'Marguerite Oswald', following the real Marguerite round the country, taking a series' of xxxx-jobs to do so.

It should  be noted  that  there is  no  evidence, either paper record or firsthand, that this scheme took place. Armstrong infers it from the evidence of the two 'Oswalds'. If this is true, Armstrong has uncovered the most elaborate intelligence operation (and done the greatest piece of espionage detective work) I have ever read about.

Passage from Lobster Magazine (Summer, 2004)

Being a devotee of the Internet as a means of quickly identifying Warren Commission, HSCA and ARRB Documents, I also will do searches on individuals whose names come up on the JFK Forum from time to time. While I do not have John Armstrong's "Harvey and Lee" I seem to constantly stumble upon material from it and references to it on other JFK Forums. My point is that some of the material referenced if accurate I think, has a place in JFK Research in general. My overall attitude in researching the assassination is that "nothing should be ruled out" when approaching possible "angles" to the assassination. But Armstrong's premise is even hard for me to swallow. Still I would like to mention that I have read portions of his stuff in other forums, which present IMO valid "leads." For example, On excerpt describes an Oswald impersonator with Ruby somewhere in the New Orleans area prior to November 22, 63, it mentions that this person who claimed to be Oswald had a tatoo on his left arm. I don't believe a JFK researcher should be guilty of "throwing the baby out with the bath water." One does not have to accept Armstrong's premise of a "Harvey and Lee" to utilize the information contained in his research that is credible. Anyone?

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Mr. Ramsay wrote in Lobster magazine:

If this i[Armstrong's thesis] is true, Armstrong has uncovered the most elaborate intelligence operation (and done the greatest piece of espionage detective work) I have ever read about.

Robert, I agree with you that it is hard to accept the premise but it probably ought not be ruled out.

I do agree with Mr. Ramsay, however, that there is little, if any, evidence that the CIA as an institution, killed Kennedy. Perhaps this would be a time to raise this question: what would it take to prove that "the CIA" killed Kennedy? If the assassination was planned by one very high-ranking CIA officer, without the knowledge of any of his colleagues, does that mean "the CIA" killed Kennedy? I don't think so. What if it was, for purposes of argument only, Angleton and Hunt orchestrated the assassination, but without the knowledge of McCone or Helms? Or what if it was Helms and one other officer (not McCone) without any other officer's consent? Stretching things, what if it was Helms, Angleton, Phillips and Hunt, but without the knowledge or consent of any other high-ranking officer?

Then again--now I have myself thinking--I believe it was Richard Bissell (then the #2 man at the CIA) who initiated the alliance with the Mafia to kill Castro. As I understand the historical record, Bissell claims he told Dulles, but in very oblique terms and only after the Mafia started to work on the plot. The plot was known to only a few people in the CIA. Assuming Dulles did not understand what Bissell was telling him, and given that no one else at Bissell's level had ratified the action, is it fair to say the CIA (as an institution) entered into a plan to kill Castro through the use of the Mafia? If it is fair, then perhaps it would be fair to say the CIA killed Kennedy if Helms as #2 man had approved the plot.

This is probably an academic exercise since I believe there is no evidence that Helms or anyone near his level was a conspirator. But I do think it raises an interesting issue.

Edited by Tim Gratz
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This is a major publishing event in the JFK assassination world. Parts of Armstrong's work has been on the Net and he's spoken at some of the big JFK conferences. His work-in-progress became spoken of as 'the John Armstrong research'; and finally we have the book, a self-published  1000 pages; plus a CD-Rom containing documents he cites. (I haven't even looked at the CD-Rom yet.) Since one reading of this (and some sections I merely skimmed), is all I have managed so far, and that is barely scratching the surface of 1000 pages, this is a

provisional report; first reactions.

This is a staggering piece of research, twelve years of it, and a lot of money spent in the process. Armstrong has interviewed people  who  haven't  been  interviewed  since  the  Warren Commission - and many who have never been interviewed before. He has read official files no non-official had seen before him. Lots of new ground is broken here in all kinds of little subsections of the story. But it is far too long.  If the text was copy-edited, he or she deserves a slap: the text is full of stupid little  errors. The typesetting is  eccentric: the text is  covered in italicisation, bold and underlining. A potentially great 400 or 500 page book is buried in this behemoth. Or perhaps it shouldn't  be thought  of as a book,  but more as research assembled in book form.

Armstrong does three things. First, he is offering a theory of the assassination. His minute - microscopic - analysis of key episodes in the case is punctuated by chunks of the ClA's coven activities in the 1950s and 60s: Armstrong wants us to

see what the Agency is known to have been doing while the Oswald story unfolded. But his thesis that the CIA killed JFK and framed Oswald fails for the same reason that previous versions of this have failed: no matter how plausible the idea, no matter how much detail we are given of other, analogous things the CIA was doing  in the post-war years, Armstrong cannot show who was doing the shooting;  and he cannot identify the CIA conspirators. The only plausible conspirators he offers are Jack Ruby and Lee, one of the two 'Oswalds' in the story.  Both have connections  to the ClA-funded anti-Castro operations; but that is all.

The second thing Armstrong does is show in great detail how the FBI 'edited' the evidence about the shooting. The FBI had all the evidence collected by the Dallas police sent to Washington and a lot of it didn't return. Armstrong thinks the editing was done to conceal evidence of the two 'Oswalds'; and while this looks very plausible, it is not conclusively demonstrated.

Thirdly, and centrally, Armstrong takes on the 'two Oswalds' question, which has been around since  1967. It arose first because there seemed to be someone pretending to be Oswald, apparently framing the other, genuine 'Oswald'. Professor

Richard Popkin detailed this first in his The Second Oswald (London: Andre Deutscn/ Sphere, 1967). Then 'Oswalds' with different heights and slightly different faces were noticed. A decade after Popkin, Michael Eddowes published The Oswald

File (New York: Clarkson Potter, 1977), which concluded that one 'Oswald', the American Marine 'Oswald', went to the Soviet Union but another 'Oswald' came back in his place, a ringer being run by the Soviets, who shot the President. In Alias Oswald (Manchester, Maine; GKG partners, 1985) Robert Cutler and W. R. Morris argued that the second 'Oswald', was not a Soviet spy but a US spy. In their analysis the switch from one 'Oswald' to the other took place in 1958 while Oswald was serving in the Marine Corps in Japan.

By dint of minute examination of the paper record and a lot of phone-bashing and travelling, Armstrong validates the Cutler-Morris thesis - there was a switch - and has tried to trace the  life of the  'hidden'  Oswald. He appears to have established the existence of an intelligence operation which began with two boys, of different heights, but who looked similar and who lived parallel lives. One, Harvey, was Russian-speaking, probably a refugee from Eastern Europe; the other, Lee, was an American.

It begins in the early WOs,  some of the cooler years of the Cold War. US intelligence had no reliable information on the Soviet Union. (This was before U-2 over-flights and satellites.) Soviet nuclear arms, even the Soviet economy, were a mystery. All the agents sent in by CIA and MI6 had been turned or captured. How could they get agents in? One way was to send them in as defectors. There seems to have been a CIA programme of defectors - Armstrong discusses some of the others - in which, he hypothesises, there was an attempt at a better class of defection.  Armstrong believes  the CIA ran two real identities in parallel, merged them - Lee and Harvey became Lee Harvey - and switched them just before the apparent defection of the American 'Oswald', Lee. Thus the CIA would insert into the Soviet Union a defector, Harvey, with two outstanding characteristics: one,  unknown to  the  Soviet  authorities, he could speak Russian; two, if Soviet intelligence checked his biography, they would find the  American 'Lee Oswald', not a 'legend'  but a real life. If this  seems elaborate, Armstrong reminds the reader of the Soviet use of 'illegals', and quotes the example of Molody, 'Gordon Lonsdale', who operated in the UK.

This hypothesised CIA plan entailed both boys being in the Marines at the same time. Armstrong shows reports and presents recollections of 'Oswald' in two places at the same time through secondary school and in the Marines. The two 'Oswalds' explains the mass of contradictory material about Oswald in the Marines: one who couldn't shoot; one who could: one who was an apparent Marxist and read Russian, the other who didn't: one who was outgoing and a brawler; the other a bookworm. The plan also  meant two  'mothers of Oswald', two 'Marguerite Oswalds'. Here the programme didn't extend to two women who looked similar: one was tall and elegant and the other short and plain. If Armstrong is correct, and the evidence looks convincing on one reading, a woman spent nearly ten years, pretending to be 'Marguerite Oswald', following the real Marguerite round the country, taking a series' of xxxx-jobs to do so.

It should  be noted  that  there is  no  evidence, either paper record or firsthand, that this scheme took place. Armstrong infers it from the evidence of the two 'Oswalds'. If this is true, Armstrong has uncovered the most elaborate intelligence operation (and done the greatest piece of espionage detective work) I have ever read about.

Passage from Lobster Magazine (Summer, 2004)

Being a devotee of the Internet as a means of quickly identifying Warren Commission, HSCA and ARRB Documents, I also will do searches on individuals whose names come up on the JFK Forum from time to time. While I do not have John Armstrong's "Harvey and Lee" I seem to constantly stumble upon material from it and references to it on other JFK Forums. My point is that some of the material referenced if accurate I think, has a place in JFK Research in general. My overall attitude in researching the assassination is that "nothing should be ruled out" when approaching possible "angles" to the assassination. But Armstrong's premise is even hard for me to swallow. Still I would like to mention that I have read portions of his stuff in other forums, which present IMO valid "leads." For example, On excerpt describes an Oswald impersonator with Ruby somewhere in the New Orleans area prior to November 22, 63, it mentions that this person who claimed to be Oswald had a tatoo on his left arm. I don't believe a JFK researcher should be guilty of "throwing the baby out with the bath water." One does not have to accept Armstrong's premise of a "Harvey and Lee" to utilize the information contained in his research that is credible. Anyone?

First off, there were in fact two (2) M. Oswald's.

Margaret Oswald, who was the first wife of Robert E. Lee Oswald (Sr.), and who did not intitially change her name upon divorce from R.E. L. Oswald (Sr.)

&

Marguerite Oswald, who was the second wife of Robert E. Lee Oswald (Sr.)

Secondly, a little known fact!

It was not uncommon practice in the South, and especially in large cities such as New Orleans, where the proprietor actually knew the family, to issue two checks to a person who worked for them.

1 check in the person's name.

1 check in a minor child's name.

This was done for a combination of reasons which included:

1. The employer could actually report a lower salary to the IRS for the actual worker, while in fact paying the worker a portion of their salary through the name of a dependent child.

2. Since the child was usually only a "part time" worker, certain tax advantages could be taken advantage of by reporting a portion of the actual workers income as having been earned by a dependent child.

And, even if Income Taxes were withheld on the child, they would normally be all returned at the end of the tax year when a return was filed.

3. When "Worker's Compensation" laws came into effect, this arrangement was of benefit to the Employer as the worker was reportedly earning a considerably lower income than was truely the case. Therefore, that "contribution" made by the employer for any worker compensation insurance was lower, based on the reported lower salary of the employee.

And, part-time employees were not required to be fully covered under worker's comp.

4. In maintaing a "low income", the worker could frequently qualify for various assistance programs such as the old "commodities" assistance which was given to low income families.

Therefore, just because there may be indications of checks made out to Lee Harvey Oswald, when he was or was not there to collect and receive said monies, is not of itself full indication of some giant espionage game.

Merely those games that people play in order to avoid giving some of their income to the IRS, as well as still qualifying for various federal subsidy programs.

Tom

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This is a major publishing event in the JFK assassination world. Parts of Armstrong's work has been on the Net and he's spoken at some of the big JFK conferences. His work-in-progress became spoken of as 'the John Armstrong research'; and finally we have the book, a self-published  1000 pages; plus a CD-Rom containing documents he cites. (I haven't even looked at the CD-Rom yet.) Since one reading of this (and some sections I merely skimmed), is all I have managed so far, and that is barely scratching the surface of 1000 pages, this is a

provisional report; first reactions.

This is a staggering piece of research, twelve years of it, and a lot of money spent in the process. Armstrong has interviewed people  who  haven't  been  interviewed  since  the  Warren Commission - and many who have never been interviewed before. He has read official files no non-official had seen before him. Lots of new ground is broken here in all kinds of little subsections of the story. But it is far too long.  If the text was copy-edited, he or she deserves a slap: the text is full of stupid little  errors. The typesetting is  eccentric: the text is  covered in italicisation, bold and underlining. A potentially great 400 or 500 page book is buried in this behemoth. Or perhaps it shouldn't  be thought  of as a book,  but more as research assembled in book form.

Armstrong does three things. First, he is offering a theory of the assassination. His minute - microscopic - analysis of key episodes in the case is punctuated by chunks of the ClA's coven activities in the 1950s and 60s: Armstrong wants us to

see what the Agency is known to have been doing while the Oswald story unfolded. But his thesis that the CIA killed JFK and framed Oswald fails for the same reason that previous versions of this have failed: no matter how plausible the idea, no matter how much detail we are given of other, analogous things the CIA was doing  in the post-war years, Armstrong cannot show who was doing the shooting;  and he cannot identify the CIA conspirators. The only plausible conspirators he offers are Jack Ruby and Lee, one of the two 'Oswalds' in the story.  Both have connections  to the ClA-funded anti-Castro operations; but that is all.

The second thing Armstrong does is show in great detail how the FBI 'edited' the evidence about the shooting. The FBI had all the evidence collected by the Dallas police sent to Washington and a lot of it didn't return. Armstrong thinks the editing was done to conceal evidence of the two 'Oswalds'; and while this looks very plausible, it is not conclusively demonstrated.

Thirdly, and centrally, Armstrong takes on the 'two Oswalds' question, which has been around since  1967. It arose first because there seemed to be someone pretending to be Oswald, apparently framing the other, genuine 'Oswald'. Professor

Richard Popkin detailed this first in his The Second Oswald (London: Andre Deutscn/ Sphere, 1967). Then 'Oswalds' with different heights and slightly different faces were noticed. A decade after Popkin, Michael Eddowes published The Oswald

File (New York: Clarkson Potter, 1977), which concluded that one 'Oswald', the American Marine 'Oswald', went to the Soviet Union but another 'Oswald' came back in his place, a ringer being run by the Soviets, who shot the President. In Alias Oswald (Manchester, Maine; GKG partners, 1985) Robert Cutler and W. R. Morris argued that the second 'Oswald', was not a Soviet spy but a US spy. In their analysis the switch from one 'Oswald' to the other took place in 1958 while Oswald was serving in the Marine Corps in Japan.

By dint of minute examination of the paper record and a lot of phone-bashing and travelling, Armstrong validates the Cutler-Morris thesis - there was a switch - and has tried to trace the  life of the  'hidden'  Oswald. He appears to have established the existence of an intelligence operation which began with two boys, of different heights, but who looked similar and who lived parallel lives. One, Harvey, was Russian-speaking, probably a refugee from Eastern Europe; the other, Lee, was an American.

It begins in the early WOs,  some of the cooler years of the Cold War. US intelligence had no reliable information on the Soviet Union. (This was before U-2 over-flights and satellites.) Soviet nuclear arms, even the Soviet economy, were a mystery. All the agents sent in by CIA and MI6 had been turned or captured. How could they get agents in? One way was to send them in as defectors. There seems to have been a CIA programme of defectors - Armstrong discusses some of the others - in which, he hypothesises, there was an attempt at a better class of defection.  Armstrong believes  the CIA ran two real identities in parallel, merged them - Lee and Harvey became Lee Harvey - and switched them just before the apparent defection of the American 'Oswald', Lee. Thus the CIA would insert into the Soviet Union a defector, Harvey, with two outstanding characteristics: one,  unknown to  the  Soviet  authorities, he could speak Russian; two, if Soviet intelligence checked his biography, they would find the  American 'Lee Oswald', not a 'legend'  but a real life. If this  seems elaborate, Armstrong reminds the reader of the Soviet use of 'illegals', and quotes the example of Molody, 'Gordon Lonsdale', who operated in the UK.

This hypothesised CIA plan entailed both boys being in the Marines at the same time. Armstrong shows reports and presents recollections of 'Oswald' in two places at the same time through secondary school and in the Marines. The two 'Oswalds' explains the mass of contradictory material about Oswald in the Marines: one who couldn't shoot; one who could: one who was an apparent Marxist and read Russian, the other who didn't: one who was outgoing and a brawler; the other a bookworm. The plan also  meant two  'mothers of Oswald', two 'Marguerite Oswalds'. Here the programme didn't extend to two women who looked similar: one was tall and elegant and the other short and plain. If Armstrong is correct, and the evidence looks convincing on one reading, a woman spent nearly ten years, pretending to be 'Marguerite Oswald', following the real Marguerite round the country, taking a series' of xxxx-jobs to do so.

It should  be noted  that  there is  no  evidence, either paper record or firsthand, that this scheme took place. Armstrong infers it from the evidence of the two 'Oswalds'. If this is true, Armstrong has uncovered the most elaborate intelligence operation (and done the greatest piece of espionage detective work) I have ever read about.

Passage from Lobster Magazine (Summer, 2004)

Being a devotee of the Internet as a means of quickly identifying Warren Commission, HSCA and ARRB Documents, I also will do searches on individuals whose names come up on the JFK Forum from time to time. While I do not have John Armstrong's "Harvey and Lee" I seem to constantly stumble upon material from it and references to it on other JFK Forums. My point is that some of the material referenced if accurate I think, has a place in JFK Research in general. My overall attitude in researching the assassination is that "nothing should be ruled out" when approaching possible "angles" to the assassination. But Armstrong's premise is even hard for me to swallow. Still I would like to mention that I have read portions of his stuff in other forums, which present IMO valid "leads." For example, On excerpt describes an Oswald impersonator with Ruby somewhere in the New Orleans area prior to November 22, 63, it mentions that this person who claimed to be Oswald had a tatoo on his left arm. I don't believe a JFK researcher should be guilty of "throwing the baby out with the bath water." One does not have to accept Armstrong's premise of a "Harvey and Lee" to utilize the information contained in his research that is credible. Anyone?

First off, there were in fact two (2) M. Oswald's.

Margaret Oswald, who was the first wife of Robert E. Lee Oswald (Sr.), and who did not intitially change her name upon divorce from R.E. L. Oswald (Sr.)

&

Marguerite Oswald, who was the second wife of Robert E. Lee Oswald (Sr.)

Secondly, a little known fact!

It was not uncommon practice in the South, and especially in large cities such as New Orleans, where the proprietor actually knew the family, to issue two checks to a person who worked for them.

1 check in the person's name.

1 check in a minor child's name.

This was done for a combination of reasons which included:

1. The employer could actually report a lower salary to the IRS for the actual worker, while in fact paying the worker a portion of their salary through the name of a dependent child.

2. Since the child was usually only a "part time" worker, certain tax advantages could be taken advantage of by reporting a portion of the actual workers income as having been earned by a dependent child.

And, even if Income Taxes were withheld on the child, they would normally be all returned at the end of the tax year when a return was filed.

3. When "Worker's Compensation" laws came into effect, this arrangement was of benefit to the Employer as the worker was reportedly earning a considerably lower income than was truely the case. Therefore, that "contribution" made by the employer for any worker compensation insurance was lower, based on the reported lower salary of the employee.

And, part-time employees were not required to be fully covered under worker's comp.

4. In maintaing a "low income", the worker could frequently qualify for various assistance programs such as the old "commodities" assistance which was given to low income families.

Therefore, just because there may be indications of checks made out to Lee Harvey Oswald, when he was or was not there to collect and receive said monies, is not of itself full indication of some giant espionage game.

Merely those games that people play in order to avoid giving some of their income to the IRS, as well as still qualifying for various federal subsidy programs.

Tom

At the risk of being patronizing, I dare anyone to read the following information and come to the conclusion that John Armstrong's research should not be looked at carefully.

http://home.wi.rr.com/harveyandlee/NID97.htm

After looking at it, I believe it has solved the mystery of Dallas Police Documents referring to Oswald's arrest "in the balcony" of the Texas Theatre conclusively when combined with the story of Bernard Haire, who owned Bernies Hobbie

Shop close to the Theater. He saw the Dallas Police take a white male,

approximately 25 years of age, dark hair, wearing a pull over shirt and

dark pants, out the rear of the theater, place him in a police car and

drive off.

Concession stand operator W.H. "Butch" Burroughs stated that "Oswald entered the theater shortly after 1:00 P.M. but that "someone slipped into the theatre at 1:35."

After Oswald had already been arrested and was in custody at Dallas Police Headquarters, shortly after 2:00 p.m. Mr. T.F. White

saw a man he later identified as Lee Harvey Oswald sitting in a car,

with the engine running, behind a large billboard sign in the El Chico

parking lot. This was six blocks from the Texas Theater. As White

approached the car, the man sped off throwing gravel with his rear

tires. The license plates, whose number White wrote down, belonged a

vehicle owned by Collins Radio employee Carl Mather. Mather was the

best friend of Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit. Mather, unknown to

the Warren Commission, was granted immunity and interviewed by the HSCA.

His interview remains classified

I do not accept Armstrong's premise of his "Harvey and Lee" theory; but having said that his research "appears" to have an impact on almost every major aspect of the assassination including two key areas that now appear in a completely new light.

1. Marita Lorenz's testimony of the "Miami to Dallas caravan" appears extremely compelling for most researchers until she mentions the 'Ozzie' character as being with Sturgis, herself and the others. But what if there was someone who did resemble Oswald strongly enough to be mistaken for him, then the story IMO takes on a different appearance altogether.

2. An example of Marina's questionable integrity and unexplained intentions

surfaced recently. Jeremy Gunn, of the Records Review Board, called

Marina and requested the release of Oswald' tax returns. Marina replied

"I have no problem releasing tax records and I will agree to

have them released to journalists who will publish them". Journalists,

is she kidding? How can we possibly determine the legitimacy of records

of questionable origin casually submitted to journalists? Records

Review Board Chairman John Tunheim and Marina were together on the Oprah

Winfrey show. When asked Judge Tunheim asked Marina to release Oswald's

tax returns, Marina said they were not important and changed the

subject.

With reference to the last paragraph, is it possible that Marina knows that if Oswald's tax records were "released in toto" that it would blow the lid on the Kennedy assassination revealing that there is a massive discrepancy regarding his lifetime earnings?

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Armstrong has indeed compiled impressive evidence of two Oswalds. I'm far from finishing Armstrong's book, but one area that stands out in what I've read so far is the fact that Oswald entered the 9th grade at two junior high schools simultaneously, one in Fort Worth and one in New Orleans, in the fall of 1954. The government solved this problem by destroying the records of Oswald's attendance at Stripling Junior High in Fort Worth. The WC tells us that Oswald lived in and attended school in New Orleans through the 8th, 9th, and 10th grades.

Armstrong located former Stripling students and school officials who remembered Oswald being there, including former assistant principal Frank Kudlaty. When asked, Kudlaty readily stated that Oswald had been a student there. When Armstrong asked how he knew that, Kudlaty said "Because I gave his Stripling records to the FBI."

Kudlaty told Armstrong that he was called by his boss on Saturday morning, November 23, 1963, and told to go to the school and meet two FBI agents, to whom he turned over Oswald's records. The school had no copy machine, and Kudlaty received no receipt from the FBI. Kudlaty said it was very unusual that Oswald's file contained no transcripts from a previous school, nor was there any request for records to be forwarded to another school. He said that Armstrong was the only person who had ever asked him about Oswald's records at Stripling.

In the 1990s Armstrong wrote to the ARRB giving them Kudlaty's name, address, and a copy of the videotaped interview. No one contacted him.

Edited by Ron Ecker
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Armstrong has indeed compiled impressive evidence of two Oswalds. I'm far from finishing Armstrong's book, but one area that stands out in what I've read so far is the fact that Oswald entered the 9th grade at two junior high schools simultaneously, one in Fort Worth and one in New Orleans, in the fall of 1954. The government solved this problem by destroying the records of Oswald's attendance at Stripling Junior High in Fort Worth. The WC tells us that Oswald lived in and attended school in New Orleans through the 8th, 9th, and 10th grades.

Armstrong located former Stripling students and school officials who remembered Oswald being there, including former assistant principal Frank Kudlaty. When asked, Kudlaty readily stated that Oswald had been a student there. When Armstrong asked how he knew that, Kudlaty said "Because I gave his Stripling records to the FBI."

Kudlaty told Armstrong that he was called by his boss on Saturday morning, November 23, 1963, and told to go to the school and meet two FBI agents, to whom he turned over Oswald's records. The school had no copy machine, and Kudlaty received no receipt from the FBI. Kudlaty said it was very unusual that Oswald's file contained no transcripts from a previous school, nor was there any request for records to be forwarded to another school. He said that Armstrong was the only person who had ever asked him about Oswald's records at Stripling.

In the 1990s Armstrong wrote to the ARRB giving them Kudlaty's name, address, and a copy of the videotaped interview. No one contacted him.

I believe that part of Armstrong's research includes the following info. This is from memory only, as I am 120 miles from my home and the files on my personal computer, but, the following is basically an accurate description what happened.

Years ago the IRS responded to a citizen request for the date that an employer had opened their tax account.

What was not known by the IRS rep. was that this was a former employer of Lee Oswald.

The account was not found, but, several active accounts with numbers close to the number which was being queried, both higher and lower numbered accounts were checked.

The IRS rep. based the answer on the creation dates of those other accounts, which were all created in Jan. of 1964, and it was determined that the account in question had also been created in Jan. 1964.

The pay stub that provided the tax account number was supposed to be one of Oswald's from the year 1955.

I think we can safely assume the IRS rep. would give an honest answer when providing that answer to the citizen who made the request.

The IRS, however, claimed the information provided by the rep. was incorrect.

I guess that a combination of destroying some documents, and the creation of others,

is the govt.'s way of answering the question of who killed JFK.

They find a patsy and create enough evidence to "prove" that he was guilty of the crime.

I will find my copy of the document and post it if anyone wants to view it.

Chuck

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  • 7 years later...

From Frog and Len Osinac...b

Harvey and Lee Oswald from wayback...

http://web.archive.org/web/20071130023401/http:/home.wi.rr.com/harveyandlee/

Hello Frog,

Pass this on to anyone interetesd in Harvey & Lee

Since you mentioned John Armstrong, earlier this year I spent several days with him in Hawaii and recorded

him reading selected sections from his book, answering listener questions, and in general discussing his book Harvey and Lee.

This resulted Seven Hours which I have made into mp3 audio for direct download.

If anyone is interested in this it is available at

www.blackopradio.com/archives2012.html

Or

http://tinyurl.com/8q5f4fg

or here

Order the complete Seven hour John Armstrong interview for only $10 - direct mp3 download

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Plot Tip from a Fallen Rose Forever

Links Eunice & JFK Assassination

By Todd C. Elliott

11-22-12

todd.elliott@eunicetoday.com

According to the article, Cherami “told Francis that Oswald and Ruby

were close friends for years. She was found dead on the side of a Texas

highway September 4, 1965...she would have been an important witness

except that she was, like 23 or more other potential witnesses, dead.

Despite her unsavory reputation and record, everything she told

Francis...checked out.”

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Plot Tip from a Fallen Rose Forever

Links Eunice & JFK Assassination

By Todd C. Elliott

11-22-12

todd.elliott@eunicetoday.com

According to the article, Cherami “told Francis that Oswald and Ruby

were close friends for years. ...... everything she told

Francis...checked out.”

Nice work, if you believe in hearsay.

I hope no one now has any doubt

that Oz and Ruby were close friends for years.

I won't be surprised if they used to go duck-shooting

on weekends.

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To Jake Rubenstein, c/o The Carousel Club

William Weston

October 2001

On October 31, 1976, a government agent greeted a gray-haired gentleman who, on his own initiative, came into the FBI office in Memphis, Tennessee. He had a secret about the Kennedy assassination, he said, and he wanted to disclose it. [1]

The distinguished-looking visitor did not appear to be the type who would know something about the world of spies, pimps, drug dealers, con artists, and other disreputable denizens inhabiting the murky milieu of assassination intrigue. Daniel T. McGown, by anyone's standards, was a pillar of the community, a successful businessman with an honorable career in a prestigious profession. Born in 1908 in Brownwood, Texas, his family moved to Memphis prior to his graduation from high school. After receiving a degree from the School of Architecture at Georgia Tech, he went to work for Schulz & Norton, an architectural and engineering firm in Memphis. In 1941, he married Irma Lee Beasley, a daughter from one of Tennesee's more respectable families. During the course of their marriage, the couple had two children. In 1948, he started his own architectural firm, which over the years grew and prospered. He became president of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects and was a member of the Calvary Episcopal Church. [2] Family man, businessman, church member, community server, Mr. McGown lived a life that was largely indistinguishable from thousands of other men of his class who lived around the country. However, in that fateful year of 1963, a strange twist of fate had placed within his hands a hitherto unknown secret regarding a connection between Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby.

The incident occurred during a business trip to Texas in March 1963. McGown had flown to Austin, in order to check over the plans for a new building that was to be constructed on the campus of the University of Texas. When he had completed his survey, he rented a car and drove north to the city of Brownwood, where he spent a day with some relatives. He then drove to Fort Worth, where he visited his first cousin, a prominent attorney in that city. Late in the evening, he used his cousin's telephone to call his wife Irma. He wished her a happy birthday and said that he would see her the next day, when his plane arrived in Memphis. Irma's birthday was March 28.

McGown left his cousin's house and drove east to Dallas. It was almost midnight when he checked in at the Adolphus Hotel on Commerce Street. After getting settled into his room, he felt like having a nightcap before going to bed. He left his room, went down the elevator to the lobby, and went outside. The brightly lit sign of the Carousel Club beckoned from across the street. He walked over to the club entrance door and opened it. Behind the door was a staircase, leading up to the second floor. When he reached the top of the stairs, he was stopped by a heavy-set man. The club was closing up, the man said, who then complained about city regulations that prevented him from keeping the place open after midnight. [3] Rebuffed by the manager of the club, McGown went back to his room.

The following morning, McGown decided to do a little sightseeing, since he had a few hours to kill before his plane departed from Dallas. As he was walking down Commerce Street, he paused at the Carousel Club. Near the entrance was a showcase display featuring pictures of female performers. As he was gazing at the pictures, another man who was walking down the street crowded into the entryway to look at them too. It was an awkward moment for McGown as he tried to make room for the other man while at the same time trying to keep a favorable point of view for himself. Presently, the other man turned to leave. As he did so, he brushed by an overstuffed mailbox that hung on the entrance door. A few large pieces of mail, two magazines, and three letters spilled on the ground. The man continued on his way without stopping.

McGown proceeded to pick up the envelopes and magazines and stuff them back into the box. He noticed that the three letters were written by women and were addressed to "Jake Rubenstein, c/o The Carousel Club." Rubenstein must have been the heavy-set man whom McGown met the previous night. He was probably also the one who hired women to be performers in the club. Perhaps the senders of the three letters were prospective applicants for employment. McGown looked at the envelopes again. Two of the women lived in Fort Worth, and one lived in Dallas. The name on the Dallas letter caught his attention, for he happened to have a friend who had the same last name. [4] After making a mental note of the address, he put the letters back in the box with the rest of the mail. The woman he was planning to visit was "Lee Oswald."

Using a city map as a guide, McGown drove toward Miss Oswald's place. As he was approaching her street, he looked at the houses in the neighborhood. Expecting to see lower class housing, he was surprised to find upper middle class or upper class residences. McGown wondered about this. Why would anyone living in such an area have any dealings with a strip joint?

When he arrived at his destination, he stopped the car and looked at it. It was a two-story apartment building, constructed in the cheap, boxy style that was becoming the prevailing fashion at that time. It had an outside stairway that led up to a balcony walk on the second floor. It was a new building, perhaps two or three years old at the most. For the convenience of the postman, there was a mailbox with individual compartments that stood facing the street next to the curb. In order to find the unit that Miss Oswald was renting, McGown got out of his car and looked over the names of the tenants posted on the compartment doors. When he found Oswald's name, he realized that he had made a mistake. The middle name of Lee Harvey Oswald showed that this person was not a woman. Without further ado, McGown got back into his car and drove away.

Eight months later, when the names of Lee Oswald and Jack Ruby were being broadcasted on radio and television, the details of this episode came vividly back to his memory. Should he tell the authorities what he knew, or should he not? His reputation might suffer if this embarrassing incident ever became widely known. He hoped that the authorities would find out about Oswald's connection to Jack Ruby without his help. When the Warren Report was published, he bought a copy and read it from cover to cover. There was nothing in it to indicate that the government knew what he knew. Furthermore he read that the commission could find no "credible evidence" of an association between Oswald and Ruby. After the death of Jack Ruby in January 1967, McGown wondered if he was the only one left who still had the "credible evidence" that eluded the Warren Commission. Finally, nine years later, he told his wife about it. She encouraged him to go to the FBI. After all, his story might make a difference in the new, upcoming investigation into the JFK assassination that Congress was preparing to launch. Such were the circumstances that led Daniel T. McGown to the local office of the FBI in 1976.

The FBI of course wanted to know where the apartment was. McGown could not remember its exact location, but he drew a diagram depicting the apartment in relation to the mailbox out front, as well as in relation to a nearby apartment that faced another street. He remembered that the address had four digits and sounded something like "Diceland." A Dallas city map showed that there were was no street with the name of "Diceland," but there were two with the name of "Diceman." One was Diceman Drive, and the other was Diceman Avenue.

Dallas FBI agent Robert Gemberling drove out to Diceman Drive to see if there were any apartments matching McGown's diagram and description. Diceman Drive had single-family houses but no apartments. A few inquiries among the residents showed that no apartment had ever existed on that street.

Next stop was Diceman Avenue. Gemberling looked from one end of the avenue to the other, and the only dwellings that he could see were single-family homes - with one exception. At the point where Diceman ran into Cedar Crest Boulevard was a two-story building made of brick. It was the Cedar Crest Heights Apartment. It had a second floor balcony walk with an iron railing just as McGown described it. Next to the curb was a large mailbox with sixteen key-locked compartments with tenant nametags. Adjacent to the building was another apartment facing Birdsong Street. The apartment at 1106 Diceman Avenue must be the place that McGown had visited in 1963. There was no other possibility. Still, Gemberling was not satisfied. He noticed that all the buildings in the neighborhood were rundown, dilapidated, and occupied entirely by lower-class blacks. This was not the upper class neighborhood that McGown claimed to have seen.

Gemberling looked for the manager. He found him at a nearby office at 2514 Birdsong Avenue. The manager told him that the apartment was owned by a company called General Rental. It was built around 1959 or 1960, and it was the only apartment that had ever been on that street. The mailbox seen out front had been there since the apartment was first constructed. So far these extra details provided additional confirmation for McGown's story. Gemberling wanted to see the tenant records for 1963, but the manager told them that they no longer existed. They were destroyed with all the other tenant records in a fire that occurred in April 1968. Gemberling asked the manager if he knew anything about Oswald living in the apartment in 1963. Although the manager acknowledged that he had only been working for General Rental since 1969, he was nevertheless positive that Oswald could not have lived in the apartment in 1963. In an all-black neighborhood, people would have certainly remembered Oswald as the only white man living among them, and such was not the case.

Apparently the manager's statement was enough to convince Gemberling that the 1106 Diceman lead was a dead end. No further inquiries were made, as far as the available records show. (There are however some "postponed in full" documents from the Memphis office of the FBI regarding a "Daniel McGowen" that are now in the National Archives.) To find out more about the apartment, I checked the 1963 Dallas criss-cross directory and found a former tenant by the name of Orlean Dorsey. I located Dorsey in Lufkin, Texas and called him up. Contrary to what the General Rental manager told Gemberling, Dorsey, who is black, said it was not an all-black apartment in 1963. Both white and black people lived there. Furthermore, the apartment was indeed located in a prestigious area. About a mile south of the apartment was the Lakeview Golf Course, where Dorsey worked as a landscape and maintenance man. Among the celebrities who played golf there were such baseball legends as Mickey Mantle and "Dizzy" Dean. At that time, the golf course was racially segregated. Whites played there during the day and blacks played at night.

Not just anyone could live at the Cedar Crest Apartment. A prospective tenant had to have a very good background and excellent references. Dorsey was able to get his unit because he knew the manager, a black named Denny Blair, who often played golf at Lakeview. Blair was an employee of Bailey Rental, a white-owned company that had title to the Diceman apartment. (Bailey Rental was later renamed General Rental.)

The Cedar Crest Apartment was an expensive place to live. It took all of Dorsey's wages to pay the rent. He was making $1.25 per hour and the rent was about $210 per month. The only way he could afford to live there was by working a lot of overtime on the weekends. By way of comparison, Oswald was making $1.35 per hour at Jaggers Chiles Stovall during the month of March 1963, and he was paying $72.68 a month for a one-bedroom flat at the Neely Street house. [5]

Dorsey and his family moved into the apartment in November 1962. Because of his long working hours and because he was going to plumbing school at the same time, he did not get to know the other tenants. His wife and children also did not do much socializing. Thus he was unable to confirm or deny whether Oswald lived there. Dorsey and his family moved to another apartment in October 1963.

The transition from an affluent, mainly white neighborhood to black lower class ghetto occurred during the mid-1960's, according to Dorsey who would come back to visit his former apartment from time to time. The quality of the building and the surrounding area deteriorated as a result of vandalism and neglect. When I called the General Rental office in 1995, I found out that the apartment was still owned by the Bailey family. I also learned that rent was only $50 per week - a real bargain for anyone brave enough to live there.

Did Oswald live at the Cedar Crest Apartment? Considering the high cost of rent in 1963, it is unlikely he would have chosen to live there. A more reasonable possibility is that he used the address simply to receive his mail. As a man astute in the ways of intelligence, he no doubt realized that a mailbox at the post office was under surveillance. A second mailbox in another area would be highly useful for receiving mail from more sensitive sources. This line of reasoning is supported by the fact that most of the units at 1106 Diceman were listed as "vacant" in the criss-cross directories of 1962 and 1963. In 1962 only five of the sixteen units available were occupied. This ratio dropped to only four occupied units the following year. An apartment manager with a 75% vacancy rate might let someone temporarily use an unused mailbox for a small fee.

It is interesting to note that on March 29, the day that McGown was at the Diceman apartment, Oswald was seen at a barbershop in Sparta, Wisconsin. Oswald told John Abbott, the barber, that he got his money by blackmailing a Texas nightclub operator, for whom he had previously worked. Each time he made a contact with this man, he would get fifty dollars. The money he obtained would be used to cover his travelling expenses. (He never gave the name of the nightclub operator.) Perhaps the Oswald letter that McGown saw was another demand for more money.

McGown's story lends credence to the story of a connection between Ruby and Oswald in the May 17 edition of the National Enquirer. It said: "After a sniper shot at but missed General Walker in Dallas, April 10, 1963, Dallas police suspected that Oswald was the sniper and Ruby was the payoff man. The cops were set to arrest the pair. But they never got the chance, because of heavy pressure brought to bear by the Justice Dept. and so Oswald and Ruby were to remain free." The article also said that a top secret document, signed by a high official of the Justice Dept., was sent in April 1963 to Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry requesting the police not to arrest Oswald and Ruby. This document was reportedly in the hands of the Warren Commission.

Given the potentially explosive implications of the above story, it is no wonder that the Warren Commission chose to discount all witnesses to a connection between Oswald and Ruby, including Wilburn Litchfield, Joe Franklin, and Bill DeMar. McGown's story is not only important in rehabilitating the credibility of these undeservedly maligned witnesses, but it also provides a glimpse into the covert ways by which Oswald and Ruby communicated with one another.

ENDNOTES

1. Sources for this article were FBI reports in Memphis and Dallas. Also referred to were ten pages of McGown's hand-written account that was photocopied by the FBI.

2. Engagement announcement, Sept. 14, 1941; wedding announcement, Dec. 3, 1941, and obituary of Daniel T. McGown, March 5, 1985, in the Memphis newspaper, The Commercial Appeal.

3. According to Jack Ruby's bartender, Andrew Armstrong, clean up started at midnight on weeknights and at 1:00 am on Saturday and Sunday. All bottles and glasses had to be cleared off the tables by 12:15. If a vice squad police officer saw anyone drinking after 12:15, he could slap a five-day suspension on the club (Vol. 13 of the Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits, p. 325).

4. Actually the friend's surname had a slightly different spelling. Felix Oswalt, a member of the Board of Education in Memphis, was the friend McGown was talking about.

5. Warren Report, p. 743.

____________________________________________________________

-----

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A professional man is traveling alone and

sees an opportunity to meet strippers.

Eight months later, when the names of Lee Oswald and Jack Ruby were being broadcasted on radio and television, the details of this episode came vividly back to his memory. Should he tell the authorities what he knew, or should he not? His reputation might suffer if this embarrassing incident ever became widely known. He hoped that the authorities would find out about Oswald's connection to Jack Ruby without his help. When the Warren Report was published, he bought a copy and read it from cover to cover. There was nothing in it to indicate that the government knew what he knew. Furthermore he read that the commission could find no "credible evidence" of an association between Oswald and Ruby. After the death of Jack Ruby in January 1967, McGown wondered if he was the only one left who still had the "credible evidence" that eluded the Warren Commission. Finally, nine years later, he told his wife about it. She encouraged him to go to the FBI. After all, his story might make a difference in the new, upcoming investigation into the JFK assassination that Congress was preparing to launch. Such were the circumstances that led Daniel T. McGown to the local office of the FBI in 1976.

**********************************************

PAUSE AND REFLECT

PAUSE AND REFLECT

PAUSE AND REFLECT ...............

What would motivate a professional married man to contact the FBI and say he ," improperly looked at US Mail and wanted to 'hunt' down a stripper." ???? Would /could this not hurt his career ?? (YUP)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Answer ZERO. Harvey & Lee per Armstrong a real thing.

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I did not see anything resembling EVIDENCE on page five.

SEE ALSO GORE VIDAL NOTE AT BOTTOM

If Gore Vidal says Oz was gay

then it must be true,

mustn't it?

If Vidal didn't know his milieu, which stretched across several American cities, then perhaps we have no recourse but to trust that other demimondain, James Kirkwood - whose Wiki page calls him a "personal friend" of Clay Shaw's - on the veracity of Garrison's case. Myself, I always trust the better stylist.

Edited by David Andrews
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