A Couple of Real Gems from the "Harvey and Lee" Website

[Sandy Larsen]

18 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

19 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Incidentally I never saw him interested in anything else except Russian
books and magazines . He said he didn't want to forget the language -

Jim's own source sinks his ship here. LHO had to work on Russian to keep up with the language. He did this by reading Russian literature and conversing with Marina who he discouraged from learning English. Would a "native" Russian speaker need to do this?

It depends upon at what age the native Russian speaker moved to America.

I have direct experience with this, and quite an appropriate example. My ex-wife is Korean and was adopted by an American couple when she was 7 years old. When I married her she was 19 and could no longer speak Korean.Not a word. Had her American parents encouraged her to continue reading Korean books, she would be able to speak Korean today.

Jim is right about Oswald having the skills of a native Russian speaker, or close to. The evidence he's presented proves it. And he's right that it would be a near impossibility for most people to achieve what Oswald did simply by teaching themselves Russian and living in Russia for a couple years. (I won't say impossible because I personally know an illegal alien family here whose oldest son came to America later, as a teenager, and within just a few years spoke perfect English, and without an accent. His parents have lived here for twenty years and can barely speak English. I don't recall how many years he'd been here when we spoke to him. But I think it was only two or three years.)

 

Edited April 30, 2017 by Sandy Larsen

[Thomas Graves]

19 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

According to H&L critics, we're supposed to believe their opinions over the opinion of Yale University Slavic Language Department head Vladimir Petrov, who wrote that a letter supposedly written by Harvey Oswald was actually "written by a Russian with an imperfect knowledge of English."

 

[...]

 

Jim,

It's too bad that the above letter which was allegedly written by a Russian teacher of Slavic languages (who, having lived in the US.S.R. for the first 37 years of his life, must have had a rather imperfect grasp of English syntax, grammar, and vocabulary when compared with that of his native-English-speaking colleagues) is covering a significant portion of Lee Harvey Oswald's difficult-in-itself-to-read handwritten letter, making it nearly impossible for us to determine whether or not Oswald's syntax, grammar, and vocabulary were as weak as you and Armstrong would like us to believe it was.  

Just sayin'

--  Tommy

Edited April 30, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Thomas Graves]

Once again, here is that letter to Senator Tower in an uncovered and much easier-to-read format, and with my expert analysis at the bottom!

Oswald's inconsequential (as far as the much more difficult syntax, grammar, and vocabulary aspects are concerned) spelling and punctuation mistakes have been corrected by me. Hopefully I've caught all of them.  LOL

 

"Dear Senator Tower;

My name is Lee Harvey Oswald, 22, of Fort Worth up till  October 1959, when I came to the Soviet Union for a residential stay.  I too(k) a residential document for a non-Soviet person for a time in the USSR.  The American Embassy in Moscow is familiar with my case.  Since July 20(,)1960 I have unsuccessfully applied for a Soviet exit visa to leave this country.  [T]he Soviets refuse to permit me and my Soviet wife (who applied to the U.S. Embassy Moscow, July 8, 1960(,) for immigration status to the U.S.A.) to leave the Soviet Union.  I am a citizen of the United States of America (passport No. 1733242, 1959) and I beseech you, Senator Tower, to rise (sic; should be "raise") the question of holding by the Soviet Union of a citizen of the US, against his will and expressed desires."

As a bonus, here's Oswald's letter to the American Embassy that preceded the letter to Tower, above:

"Dear Sirs:  I am writing in regard to a letter which I sent to the Embassy on November 1, in which I asked:  'Does the American Embassy feel that(,) in light of the fact that my temporary Soviet document for residence in the Soviet Union expires on January 5, 1962, that the deprivation of an exit visa after this date and therefore the foreseeable holding of me against my expressed desires is unlawful?'  I would like a written reply to this question before the expiration date of January 4, 1962(,) in order to have a basis for my refusal to give my permission for the legal extension on (an attempt at classy-sounding British English? this document."

 

My Analysis:

Other than Oswald's obvious typo-like spelling error (he wrote "too" instead of "took" -- which would have been a highly-cultured-sounding British expression, here, and the fact that the gerund form "their depriving me of" would have been better than "the deprivation of" -- but, hey!, very few Americans know how to use gerunds properly -- and his obvious mistake in either spelling (leaving out the "a") or in tense (using the past-tense "rise" instead of present-tense "raise"), I would have to say that his syntax, grammar, and vocabulary are very good, especially for someone who dropped out of school in the 10th grade (iirc), and that your "Yale Professor" is, therefore, blowing smoke out of his Ivy League you-know-what.

Note:  Among other things, "A Russian with an imperfect knowledge of English" wouldn't have used the indefinite articles "a" and "an", nor the definite article "the", as perfectly as Oswald did in these two letters. 

But why take it from me?  Heck, I only scored in the top 98- percentile in "verbal intelligence" on the SAT, and taught English in a Slavic-language country (the Czech Republic) for seven years.

--  Tommy

Edited April 30, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Ray Mitcham]

"

 

"Dear Senator Tower;

My name is Lee Harvey Oswald, 22, of Fort Worth up till  October 1959, when I came to the Soviet Union for a residential stay.  I took a residential document for a non-Soviet person for a time in the USSR.  The American Embassy in Moscow is familiar with my case.  Since July 20 1960[,] I have unsuccessfully applied for a Soviet exit visa to leave this country.  The Soviets refuse to permit me and my Soviet wife (who applied to the U.S. Embassy Moscow, July 8 1960[,] for immigration status to the U.S.A.) to leave the Soviet Union.  I am a citizen of the United States of America (passport No. 1733242, 1959)[,] and I beseech you, Senator Tower, to rise (sic; should be "raise") the question of [sic; should have "the"]holding [,]by the Soviet Union[,] of a citizen of the US, against his will and expressed desires."

Edited April 30, 2017 by Ray Mitcham

[Jim Hargrove]

21 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Excuse me for not doing the digging right now, but what were Marina Oswald's responses to questions regarding Lee's ability to speak Russian?

Joe,

A few years after the assassination, Marina rather famously wrote that when she first met her future husband she thought he was from one of the Russian Baltic states because of his accent.  The clear implication of her statement was that she believed “LHO” was born in the USSR.

I don’t use this example in my arguments, however, because I think Marina was trying to minimize her own fluency in English while she was still living in Russia.  She also met Robert Webster a few months before meeting “LHO” and Webster said she spoke English fluently, although with a heavy accent.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

28 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

The clear implication of her statement was that she believed “LHO” was born in the USSR.

I don’t use this example in my arguments, however, because I think Marina was trying to minimize her own fluency in English while she was still living in Russia.  She also met Robert Webster a few months before meeting “LHO” and Webster said she spoke English fluently, although with a heavy accent.

The "implication" is simply that he spoke Russian with an accent. Marina never implied that LHO was a native speaker of the language. As for Webster, the only "evidence" that Marina met him at all is Dick Russell's interview of Webster when he was in a nursing home. I would have liked to be a fly on the wall during that conversation to see how the questions were presented and answered, but if Webster said that, he was wrong. There is no evidence Marina spoke English although she may have understood what others were saying to an extent by the time she arrived in the US.

[Michael Clark]

45 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Joe,

A few years after the assassination, Marina rather famously wrote that when she first met her future husband she thought he was from one of the Russian Baltic states because of his accent.  The clear implication of her statement was that she believed “LHO” was born in the USSR.

I don’t use this example in my arguments, however, because I think Marina was trying to minimize her own fluency in English while she was still living in Russia.  She also met Robert Webster a few months before meeting “LHO” and Webster said she spoke English fluently, although with a heavy accent.

Jim, that is, perhaps, disingenuous. To say that when she first met Lee she thought he was from a Baltic state, and then say that, years later, she believed that he was born in the USSR, is implying something that you may not have intended.

Did Marina, years later, believe that Lee was born in the USSR?

 

Edited April 30, 2017 by Michael Clark

[Thomas Graves]

45 minutes ago, Ray Mitcham said:

"

 

"Dear Senator Tower;

My name is Lee Harvey Oswald, 22, of Fort Worth up till  October 1959, when I came to the Soviet Union for a residential stay.  I took a residential document for a non-Soviet person for a time in the USSR.  The American Embassy in Moscow is familiar with my case.  Since July 20 1960[,] I have unsuccessfully applied for a Soviet exit visa to leave this country.  The Soviets refuse to permit me and my Soviet wife (who applied to the U.S. Embassy Moscow, July 8 1960[,] for immigration status to the U.S.A.) to leave the Soviet Union.  I am a citizen of the United States of America (passport No. 1733242, 1959)[,] and I beseech you, Senator Tower, to rise (sic; should be "raise") the question of [sic; should have "the"]holding [,]by the Soviet Union[,] of a citizen of the US, against his will and expressed desires."

Eh?

I'm afraid you've made quite a hash of Lee Harvey Oswald's more-than-serviceable American English there, young Mr. Mitcham. Come to the front of the class immediately for your hourly caning.

[Jim Hargrove]

1 hour ago, Michael Clark said:

Jim, that is, perhaps, disingenuous. To say that when she first met Lee she thought he was from a Baltic state, and then say that, years later, she believed that he was born in the USSR, is implying something that you may not have intended.

Did Marina, years later, believe that Lee was born in the USSR?

 

Mr. McDONALD. At this time you were speaking in Russian together? 
Mrs. PORTER. Yes. He spoke with accent so I assumed he was maybe from 
another state, which is customary in Russia. People from other states do 
speak with accents because they do not speak Russian. They speak 
different languages. 
Mr. McDONALD. So when you say another state, you mean another Russian 
state? 
Mrs. PORTER. Yes, like Estonia, Lithuania, something like that. 
Mr. McDONALD. Did you suspect at all that he was an American? 
Mrs. PORTER. No, not at all. 

[Michael Clark]

48 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Mr. McDONALD. At this time you were speaking in Russian together? 
Mrs. PORTER. Yes. He spoke with accent so I assumed he was maybe from 
another state, which is customary in Russia. People from other states do 
speak with accents because they do not speak Russian. They speak 
different languages. 
Mr. McDONALD. So when you say another state, you mean another Russian 
state? 
Mrs. PORTER. Yes, like Estonia, Lithuania, something like that. 
Mr. McDONALD. Did you suspect at all that he was an American? 
Mrs. PORTER. No, not at all. 

Repeating from above...

nevermind....

Edited April 30, 2017 by Michael Clark

[Ray Mitcham]

2 hours ago, Thomas Graves said:

Eh?

I'm afraid you've made quite a hash of Lee Harvey Oswald's more-than-serviceable American English there, young Mr. Mitcham. Come to the front of the class immediately for your hourly caning.

I was doing according to the English grammar, sir.

[Jim Hargrove]

Michael,

All this stuff about Marina proves nothing.

As I said before, I don’t use the example of any of Marina's statements in my arguments for Harvey Oswald's Russian fluency because I think Marina was trying to minimize her own fluency in English while she was still living in Russia.  She also met Robert Webster a few months before meeting “LHO” and Webster said she spoke English fluently, although with a heavy accent.  

I've presented the real evidence for Harvey's Russian fluency several times.  With no evidence of ever having had any formal training in Russian whatsoever, how did he attain such fluency in it so quickly?  How did he learn to write like this:

 

[Thomas Graves]

3 hours ago, Ray Mitcham said:

I was doing according to the English grammar, sir.

Well, if only one COULD make any sense out of your silly, hodgepodged CHICKENscratches, one WOULD know what in bloody heaven's NAME young Master Mitcham is TALKING about, WOULDN'T one?

RIGHT, then.  Which bloody hand shall it be THIS time?

Edited April 30, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Ray Mitcham]

58 minutes ago, Thomas Graves said:

Well, if only one COULD make any sense out of your silly, hodgepodged CHICKENscratches, one WOULD know what in bloody heaven's NAME young Master Mitcham is TALKING about, WOULDN'T one?

RIGHT, then.  Which bloody hand shall it be THIS time?

Put the cane away, Thomas. In your correction of the note why did you bracket the "k" in the word "took" in the second sentence?

[Thomas Graves]

8 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Joe,

A few years after the assassination, Marina rather famously wrote that when she first met her future husband she thought he was from one of the Russian Baltic states because of his accent.  The clear implication of her statement was that she believed “LHO” was born in the USSR.

I don’t use this example in my arguments, however, because I think Marina was trying to minimize her own fluency in English while she was still living in Russia.  She also met Robert Webster a few months before meeting “LHO” and Webster said she spoke English fluently, although with a heavy accent.

Webster must have been confusing Marina with her KGB double, ... hmm ... give me a minute ...

... Meliana ?

Edited April 30, 2017 by Thomas Graves