Paul Jolliffe

John, It wasn't Robert Oswald's wife who had Hungarian ancestry, it was John Edward Pic's wife, Margaret Dorothy Fuhrman. For some unexplained reason, Albert Jenner was very interested in her parents. Jenner targeted John Pic's knowledge of their background with his very first questions . . . Why? https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh11/pdf/WH11_Pic.pdf

All true Gil, but note that Nicholas Katzenbach (the acting Attorney General in RFK's immediate absence) wrote out this infamous memo in his own hand on a yellow legal pad during the afternoon of Sunday, November 24, 1963. It was then typed up by his secretaries the next morning and distributed. So, as soon as Katzenbach was sure that "Oswald" was dead (around 2:17 pm, Washington D.C. time), Katzenbach got to work, pinning it all on "Oswald" and "Oswald" alone. Exactly why Katzenbach wrote this on Sunday afternoon is a still unsolved mystery, but we now know he was "encouraged" by Eugene Rostow, the dean of Yale's Law School in conjunction with unnamed others . . . Here is the typed version of the Katzenbach memo, the absolute proof that the fix was in right from the start: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62268#relPageId=29

Which, of course, Ekdahl had to know when he "married" Marguerite on May 5, 1945. So, why did he do it? By then, Marguerite was a 38-year-old, twice married woman with three sons, including a six-year old who bore a distinct resemblance to another little boy in NYC. Whether there was ever any fleeting romantic interest between Ekdahl and Marguerite is irrelevant. The real question is whether that "marriage" was in any way and to any degree at all an intelligence assignment, based on the boys' physical similarities. I don't know, but I can't think of any other plausible reason why Ekdahl would risk a bigamy charge in Texas, unless he knew he had protection from such a charge.

No, not yet. I have only made it to July, 1948 in her life so far.

John, Since not even the Warren Commission and the FBI could produce a divorce record for Rasmina and Edwin Ekdahl, I suspect it is highly likely that they never officially divorced. Your research here indicates that as of the spring of 1942 (at least), they were not yet divorced. Apparently he started with EBASCO in 1943 and somehow met Marguerite thereafter. I've been hinting that their "courtship" was not necessarily romantic - that (maybe) he was enlisted in some kind assignment, based on the physical similarity between Marguerite's youngest son and a mysterious little refugee boy in NYC. In any event, I think it is highly likely that the "other woman" with whom Ekdahl was living in 1947 (according to statements dug up by Armstrong) was in fact his "former" wife, Rasmina. If so, then the bizarre wording on both of their obituaries becomes much more understandable - they really were husband and wife all along.

Matt, Mary "Meg" Ekdahl was Dewey Ekdahl's ex-wife.

Thanks, John. Of course, Nyak was where she and Edwin and their son, Dewey were living together in 1940, and apparently where she remained for the rest of her life. Can you find a divorce record for Edwin and Rasmina? I can't. Mighty curious that both Edwin Ekdahl's 1953 obituary and Rasmina Ekdahl's 1961 obituary mention spouses - hers specifically references him! - even though (supposedly) they divorced roughly twenty years before and he (mysteriously) remarried Marguerite in 1945 and then (supposedly) died a twice-divorced man . . . Again, exactly with whom was 52 year old Edwin fooling around when he was caught by Marguerite and her boys in 1947?

Jim, Thanks for the clarification about Orangetown Township and Nyack, NY. Either way, Ekdahl, his longtime wife Rosmina (Rasmina?) and their son Dewey lived within 20 miles or so of NYC in 1940. Close enough. I don't know of any connection to a"Ruth Ekdahl", but I doubt she was a close relative, if anything at all. Edwin Ekdahl's sister was Elvira Ekdahl (Mrs. Julius E. Larsen) of Newton Center, Massachusetts, although her obituary leaves open the possibility of another sister, Anna Larsen. (Did Edwin Ekdahl have two sisters, and did both of them marry brothers named Larsen? Maybe. But no sign of a "Ruth".) By 1946, we know Edwin Ekdahl was living with his wife (?) Marguerite in Texas. What role, if any, was played in their courtship (?) by Ekdahl's sister Elvira remains unknown (but intriguing.) We do know that by 1947, Ekdahl had no interest in Marguerite, having taken up with some other (unknown?) woman.

Jim, Edwin Ekdahl, his (then?) wife Rosmina and their son Dewey lived at 207 North Broadway, in Orangetown in Rockland County, New York, just northwest of New York City according to the 1940 census. https://www.ancestry.com/1940-census/usa/New-York/Edwin-A-Ekdahl_639qv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangetown,_New_York Close enough, I'd say. Note that his 1953 obituary claims that he "leaves his wife and son." (I cannot find a divorce record from Rosmina. Nor could the FBI, apparently. Rosmina seemingly vanished.) "Wife". Hmm. Gotta wonder with whom Ekdahl was fooling around when Marguerite found him with another woman in 1947 . . .

Also, at the very bottom of this page there is a really tantalizing handwritten note by some CIA analyst which is very faded, but seems to read thus: "(2) OSWALD was using the name "Alek" --------------- (really hard to read - very probably "frequently" then missing/deleted/partially erased/redacted word ? before resuming) "his stay in the USSR, but this is the only indication of its use in documentary form." Did somebody later sort of erase or white out the missing word "before" in that sentence before it was released to the public? If so, think what it would mean if the CIA had concluded that our "Oswald" was using the name "Alek" before he went to the Soviet Union! https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=96527#relPageId=213

Thanks, Sandy. Found it. Interesting - clearly the name "Alek" or "Alik" or "Alex" or "Aleksey" or some variation thereof had some special significance to our man "Oswald " for years before November of 1963. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=96527#relPageId=213

Jim, FWIW, you may recall that John Butler discovered four years ago that Blair's use of "Fred" was a nickname - his birth name was "Carroll", which caused John some confusion until he realized the mistake. I have no idea if Blair ever legally changed his first name to "Fred" or just used it as a suitable alternative to the ambiguous "Carroll". Anyway, I doubt that Blair was ever listed in a phone book. If he did spend time in NYC in the mid-1940's, he probably temporarily stayed/visited his sister Grace and her communist husband Emil Gardos, their son John (and maybe . . . our little "Oswald"?) at 217 E. 86th Street in Yorkville. Also, can you check these directories for Louis Weinstock? (Slight variation: can you check NYC directories to see if Edwin Ekdahl had any NYC addresses at any time in the 1940's?) Thanks.

Sandy, Can you give a little more precise citation from Bill Simpich for this? I can't get a link for the Oswald's "complete" 201 CIA file. The Warren Commission's Volume XXIV (24) has nothing to do with "Oswald's" use of the names "Alec" or "Alik" either. Where did Simpich get this? Thanks.

Jim, According to his obituary in the NYT, Louis Weinstock was the longtime business manager for "The Daily Worker." https://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/29/obituaries/louis-weinstock-91-a-top-communist-and-a-union-leader.html According to the FBI's "SOLO" files, "In conversation with Grace Gardos, a former American who is now residing in Budapest, Hungary, which was held in Prague, Czechoslovakia, during March, 1966, she remarked that no one in Hungary has "any use" for Louis Weinstock. She stated that Weinstock is making himself a real nuisance and is constantly bothering the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party, as well as JANOS KADAR, the party's First Secretary. She also noted that Weinstock has been traveling throughout the socialist countries and . . . former Americans in the countries to which he has been have developed considerable animosity toward him." https://archive.org/stream/FBI-Operation-Solo/100-HQ-428091-Serial5580-5626_djvu.txt I don't know (yet) if Bentley and Weinstock ever met in any context.

Jim, Thanks for the info on Louis Weinstock. If someone can get a look at those papers (have they been digitized?) then they would probably give us a clue as to why (Bentley) dropped his name in her call to the Tippit's. As to Elizabeth Bentley herself, while I hope to have a much more definitive answer in a few weeks, for now I believe she was exactly what the narrative has said she was: a genuine communist in the 1930's who then turned into an FBI informant in 1945. At present, I have no reason to suspect she was an American intelligence asset in the 1930's. I anticipate elaborating on this in April.

Jim, I agree that any surviving notes from that (those?) call/s may be very interesting. But until/unless they surface, we're left to parse out whatever we can from the FBI memo. Jim, what do you make of (Bentley) specifically naming "Weinstock"? How do you think Louis Weinstock fit into this?

Fair enough. I doubt we'll ever be certain as to why the name appeared as "Emile Kardos", although it is interesting that there really were two men named "Emil Kardos" in Yorkville at the time. They were a father in his 60's and his son in his 30's. There is no reason to think those men had anything to do with anything related to this. It seems at least possible to me that someone at the FBI deliberately garbled the name as "Kardos" to put any later investigation off the trail. But, as I wrote a moment ago, it really doesn't matter much. We know who the anonymous caller (Bentley) meant: she meant Emil Gardos and Fred Blair.

Sandy, She may have mentioned other names, but we only have the FBI's version of whatever Mrs. Jack D. Tippit told them. (It is at least possible that the FBI omitted from the record other names.) If John Kowalski is ever successful at unearthing a copy of Tina Tippit Brown's own notes about that call (or calls, apparently), then maybe other names may surface. Or not. It's also very plausible that (Bentley) really believed that Gardos and Blair were "Oswald's" Hungarian father and uncle. (Has anyone ever found a NYC address at anytime for Fred Blair? It is entirely plausible that Blair lived at 217 E. 86th with Grace and Emil Gardos, but left no record. He was probably there, but has anyone found any evidence of his presence in NYC?)

Jim, You and I agree that she surely meant to somehow connect Emil Gardos and Fred Blair) with our little "Oswald." And you and I agree that those men did indeed have some connection to our "Oswald." But did she necessarily mean they were "family" to "Oswald"? Probably, but . . . My only slight hesitation is that in addition to the (Emil Gardos and Fred Blair), she also dropped the name (Louis Weinstock). We all agree that Weinstock and Gardos were not closely related as far as we can tell at this point. Weinstock does not fit the profile of "uncle". So, since she (Bentley) did not use the name "Weinstock" in the context of "uncle", can we be 100% certain that she meant to use (Gardos and Blair) in that context? I guess I agree it is likely, but far from certain, that (Bentley) believed that Gardos and Blair were the custodial "father and uncle" of little "Oswald." So, to answer your question, yes, it is at least possible to me that there were two other men close to "Oswald' in Yorkville, men with whom (Bentley) interacted and believed to be the "father and uncle" of "Oswald." (Bentley) probably meant to link (Gardos and Blair) as "Oswald's" "father and uncle", but given the addition of the name "Weinstock", I don't think we can conclude that with certainty yet. I hope to have a more complete analysis of Bentley's contacts in NYC within a couple of weeks.

Geo, Thank you for responding. However, I doubt that the little refugee boy in Yorkville in New York City in the 1940's had the birth name "Oswald." I believe it would be a remarkable and highly unlikely coincidence if that little refugee boy was named "Oswald" from birth. We don't know what his birth name was, and honestly, neither do you. No one knows. Jim Hargrove and I (and others) think it is much more likely that the little boy in NYC in the 1940's was given the name "Oswald" when he arrived in the United States sometime in the 1940's because of his physical resemblance to another little boy in Texas who really was named "Lee Harvey Oswald." This Texas LHO had no family or genetic relation to the NYC "Oswald". You and I agree that the Tippit caller (Elizabeth Bentley) believed there was some connection between Emil Gardos and/or Louis Weinstock and the little NYC boy. She may (MAY) even have believed that Gardos and/or Weinstock was the little NYC boy's genetic "father" or "uncle". (Although please note that she did NOT specifically state that in the call, as far as we can tell.) We think she was wrong - whatever the relationship between Gardos and/or Weinstock (and/or Fred Blair), we don't have any evidence that either Emil Gardos or Fred Blair or Louis Weinstock was actually the little NYC boy's genetic father. And also please remember that she (Elizabeth Bentley) knew the little boy in the 1940's as "Oswald" - he already had that name when she met him. Otherwise, she never could have been so certain fifteen years later that the man accused of killing the president was the same little boy with whom she briefly interacted back in the 1940's! We believe that some combination of those men (or one of their close associates) were acting instead as a surrogate or foster father to the little NYC boy for a bit in the 1940's. In short, we think it likely that some facet of a U.S. Intelligence agency had already noted the physical resemblance between the little NYC boy and the real LHO in Texas, gave him the new name "Oswald", and then placed the little NYC boy with someone in Yorkville (Gardos and/or Blair and/or Weinstock and/or one of their close associates) by the time the anonymous caller (Elizabeth Bentley) in the 1940's met or saw our little NYC boy in the company of at least one of these men. So, while your work detailing the backgrounds of the names "Gardos" and "Oswald" is fascinating, there is no reason to think that the little boy in NYC really was born into a European family with one of those names. Again, we don't know who the little boy was, but the fact that Emil Gardos left him behind in NYC, never to see him again when Gardos left for Hungary in the late 1940's is powerful evidence that the little boy was NOT a blood relative of Gardos. (Or Blair.) And we have zero evidence that Louis Weinstock ever interacted in any meaningful way with that little boy, so Weinstock - who did remain in the USA for years - almost certainly was NOT a blood relative of the little boy in NYC either.

Jim, After re-reading CE 1874, I am not convinced that Robert was wholly mistaken. I agree with you that Marguerite, Lee and Ekdahl were residing in Benbrook at some point during the 1945/46 school year, but the window from "September" (probably early September - that's when most schools start) to Halloween is at least six weeks. Whatever the FBI claimed that Robert told them, Robert testified to the Warren Commission that Lee did not start at Benbrook until "early" in 1946. I bet Robert was wrong - Lee probably started the previous Halloween. That's what O.H. Stowe, the county superintendent testified. OK, but my point still remains: Whether young Lee started at Benbrook in "early" 1946 or on October 31, 1945 leaves a significant unexplained time gap either way. There definitely was a period between (presumably) early September and the end of October for Marguerite, Lee and Ekdahl to have been in Boston that fall for at least six weeks.

No I have not. Ekdahl had to be the go-between Marguerite Oswald in Texas and the Deep State connections, but that does not necessarily mean that he himself was a spook (although he might have been.) I simply don't know enough about his life.

I meant the 1963 edition. Typo.

I'm not so sure it was an Orthodox school back in the 1940's - it may have been, but by 1948, relatively sophisticated parents were sending their kids there. The diplomats to the U.S. from the brand new state of Israel were sending their children to Ramaz. Whatever else those guys were, I doubt the Israelis were sending Orthodox Jews as a major part of their diplomatic corps. That was not the image they wanted to present to the Americans in 1948. Jewish? Yes. Orthodox? No. I suspected Ramaz may (MAY) have been the school for little John Gardos and maybe our "Oswald" for a bit in the mid-1940's because of its location - it was (and is still) located on 85th just west of 2nd in Yorkville. The Gardos family at 217 E. 86th was just one and a half blocks northeast of the school. It was less than a ten minute walk away. And, as the school's own website notes (and as I previously highlighted) the school itself was seen by 1938 as a haven for refugee children from Europe. If our "Oswald" was placed with some foster family (probably Mr. and Mrs. Gardos, but maybe one of their associates in the immediate neighborhood), then the Ramaz School would have been a viable option in the mid-1940's for foster parents, regardless of their religious convictions. Anyway, religion for committed communists was a matter of convenience - even Stalin himself encouraged Soviet propaganda to appeal to Eastern Orthodox Christians for help against the German invasion during the dark years of WWII. For a guy like Emil Gardos, sending a foster kid like "Oswald" to a nearby school with maybe some religious overtones to it in the 1940's would have been seen as perfectly expedient and not any issue. After all, the great and good Joseph Stalin himself had recently reversed decades of "communist" policy and approved religious expression! https://cruxnow.com/church/2016/05/how-even-stalin-once-benefited-from-religious-freedom (Again, Ramaz on 85th was literally around the corner from the Gardos family on 86th.)

Sandy, Great question, one that I have wrestled with for years. The answer, I suppose, is that the apparent physical similarity between Marguerite Oswald's youngest son in Texas (the real Lee Harvey Oswald) and the recent refugee in NYC ("Oswald") had been noticed by someone in the intelligence world before the refugee was placed within the circles of the Gardos couple. The most likely conduit for such a similarity would be Edwin Ekdahl to his lawyer (the very well connected Fred Korth, Washington power-broker and future Secretary of the Navy) to someone that Korth knew who would want to take advantage of that physical similarity. The National Security Act of 1947 which established the CIA was not enacted until late July, and we think it is likely that our "Oswald" (the refugee little boy) was already in the custody of "Marguerite" down in Fort Worth by earlier that summer, so that means three things: 1. The Gardos couple (and or Fred Blair and or Louis Weinstock) did not have any meaningful interactions with our little "Oswald" after the summer of 1947, and 2. Elizabeth Bentley knew of the "Oswald"/Yorkville connection before that summer (she became an informant for the FBI beginning in the fall of 1945 and Emil Gardos would have been exactly the kind of target the FBI was interested in), and 3. Whatever the later "Oswald" project would eventually turn out to be, it certainly could not have been fully fleshed out in the mid 1940's when the resemblance between the two boys first came to the attention of men like Allen Dulles. The CIA had not even been created yet! Someone (Dulles himself?) managed to get the Eastern European refugee little boy placed with a caretaker in Texas not long before Emil Gardos "voluntarily" self-deported to Hungary, along with his wife Grace and their little son, John.