Lee Harvey Oswald's possessions

[Paul Trejo]

On 12/5/2017 at 6:57 PM, Zach Jendro said:

I would like to discuss a research project I have been working on for the past couple of years concerning Lee Oswald’s possessions and what they mean. I had started to become a bit frustrated with my own research as I continued to go further and further down “the rabbit hole” and I decided to pull everything back in to focus. I decided to view this case as a crime, rather than a conspiracy theory. I figured the best way to understand the crime was to look at the physical evidence owned by the suspect. I had decided to examine how it was gathered and analyzed, first of all. Then, I wanted to look at the items to see what kind of story they told.

I believe this research has uncovered some new leads which have not been fully explored. Some of the topics have been discussed, but deserve to be reexamined. I am hoping that some of the members here can shed some light on some of these subjects.

A short and incomplete list of some of the topics:

1. The search for evidence about Oswald’s trip to Mexico. How was it that the bus ticket (the strongest evidence which supported Oswald in Mexico) appeared in Marina’s brown suitcase six months after it had already been searched, particularly during a time when the Warren Commission was scrambling to place Oswald in Mexico? There was a distinct pattern of important pieces of evidence appearing out of thin air after thorough searches. Also, Lee had a bar of Mexican soap at his boarding room, as well as some other small items from Mexico. I know he said he had been in Tijuana (I assume he meant while he was in the Marines) but it is really interesting that he had a bar of soap as that is something that people generally do not keep as a keepsake for too long and he didn’t really have many keepsakes at Beckley.

2. The Imperial Reflex camera has no real provenance, other than it came from Robert Oswald and turned into the WC in March 1964. There really is no evidence that Lee even owned it, other than Marina’s word, which should not be accepted at face value since she admitted that she lied to the Commission due to threats from the FBI. In fact, during her HSCA testimony, she would not even positively identify it.

3. What is the connection between Oswald and the Red Cross? The Red Cross had assisted Lee in getting his hardship discharge in 1959. The Red Cross was the organization which also gave Lee his living expenses in the Soviet Union. Lee sent his mother to a Red Cross office to attempt to gather funds to return home. Then, the State Department got intervened immediately as a result of this transaction. Finally, Oswald mentioned the Red Cross by name in the “Walker Letter” as a place for Marina to get help if he got arrested. This organization was lurking in the background since Lee was in the military and played some pretty important roles. The Warren Report lied about the role of the Red Cross in the USSR and when one looks at the history of that organization, it is pretty apparent that it has been used a s cover for espionage activities. This needs to be examined further.

4. The story of Oswald’s birth certificate is really important. Too much to talk about here, but why was a Marine recruiter pressuring Marguerite to get Lee to forge his birth certificate to join the Marines below the standard enlistment age? What made Lee so important and different than any other kid? Also, it seems the recruiter was already discussing sending him to Japan at that early stage. This is just the tip of the iceberg for this mystery.

5. Most intriguing of all are items I call “mystery items” which have never been fully explained, such as an “electronic device of an unknown nature” which had a broken brown plastic case. It was entered into inventory after the DPD picked it up at Beckley and was never seen again. What was this device?

6. The two dollar bill halves supposedly in Lee's possession. The serial number of one of the bills matches exactly with counterfeit bills which were passed in Sedalia, MO. This is too big to be a coincidence. Was Lee involved with some kind of counterfeit operation?

7. A mess pass made out to “Sgt. Oswald” for the Zebra NCO club in Yokohama, Japan, which was a club frequented by NCO’s from Atsugi. Oswald was not a sergeant... how did he get this pass and why did he have it? He should not have even been allowed in the club and this corresponds with other reports of him going off base to the various social clubs. What does this all mean?

8. Oswald worked at Jaggars with someone else’s Social Security Number. This was the only instance of him working with an incorrect SSN and it just so happens that it was at a facility which dealt with classified military materials. Are we truly to believe that Oswald was allowed to work at JCS, a military contractor while the Cuban Missile Crisis was going on, without any kind of a background check AND with an incorrect SSN?

I have never posted here before. I don’t believe this is breaking any of the rules as I am not selling anything. If this is improper, I apologize, but I really would just like this material to be examined because I think there are some new leads here. The link to the website is below. Thank you very much for your consideration.

https://debunked.wordpress.com/the-possessions-of-lee-harvey-oswald/

Zach,

Interesting post.   Here's my opinion, by the numbers:

1.   Since Mexican Immigration records show Lee Harvey Oswald entering and exiting Mexico as a passenger in an automobile -- and not a bus -- then that bus ticket to Mexico City must be -- as you suggested -- a late "discovery" by the Dallas Police and Dallas FBI as "new evidence".   As for the small bar of Mexican soap -- this strongly confirms that Oswald was really in Mexico -- as Edwin Lopez testified under oath.  (This stingy habit -- keeping free bars of soap -- also sounds like Oswald.) 

2. The Imperial Reflex camera came from Oswald's brother and was certainly used in the Backyard Photographs, as shown by Secret Service analysts -- to the exclusion of all other cameras.  Marina’s word under oath is evidence.  Marina's word not under oath is irrelevant.  (You say that Marina admitted that she "lied" -- please provide a citation.)  The fact that Marina could not positively identify the Imperial Reflex was because it wasn't hers -- and she never used cameras -- except one time for one photograph only -- the original Backyard Photograph before Fakes were made from it at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall (according to me).

3.  The Oswald family made extensive use of the Red Cross as a welfare organization.   This was before Food Stamps existed.   It was not uncommon.   The Red Cross was originally a Lutheran organization (est. 1881) with no ties to spies or cloak-and-dagger activities. 

4.  My own father and four brothers joined the US Navy during World War Two at a very young age.  Two of the five were underage, and the Navy recruiter was happy to do anything to change birth years to allow the underage recruits to join.  It was no big deal in those days.   Harry Dean also joined the US Navy vastly underage, and he reports meeting a large boy only 13 years old in the Navy.  This is a minor part of the mystery.

5.  Let's see the photograph of that unknown "electronic device."   All of Oswald's possessions were photographed. 

6. The two dollar bill halves in Lee's property -- one of which was counterfeit -- makes sense for any lower class teenager.  It's petty crime since it was a single dollar bill.  A true counterfeit operation would show bigger bills and more of them.  The bill-half was probably a memento of teenage hi-jinx.  

7.  The property of Lee Harvey Oswald showed that he loved to forge documents.  He was a smart-aleck, and he liked to be the exception.   You could just as well ask why he had several ID cards for Alek J. Hidell, or any of the several FAKE Backyard Photographs among his possessions. 

8.  In the USA a half-century ago, the background check that we find so commonplace today, was not as commonplace.  A good recommendation from this or that person or agency was all that was required for a Trainee position -- and that was what Oswald had at JCS.  Insofar as Oswald wasn't ready to lie about his Marine Discharge,  lying about his SSN would kick the can down the road for the three month Trainee probation period.   Then, if he was hired, he would claim the incorrect SSN was a bureaucratic blunder, and deal with it then.  This was typical lower-class behavior in 1963. 

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited December 8, 2017 by Paul Trejo
typos

[Tom Hume]

The two half dollar bills enigma is a very good puzzle and I’ve posted about it before. I’ve refined my solution, however, and as a favor to Steve, I won’t go on and on, page, after page, after page. This will hopefully be brief:

Two sets of serial numbers on the half-bills:

“38355215” and “35031413”

Two sets of letters associated with these serial numbers:

“F A” and “F A”

Step #1: Add the two sets of numbers:

  38355215

+35031413

=73386628 

Step #2: Anagram the numbers in the answer above into something meaningful (and hopefully intended):

“2766. 88-33”

Step #3: Convert the letters “F A” and “F A” to numbers using the key at the bottom, then add those numbers together:

  50

+50

=100

Step #4. Combine the “100” answer with the “2766. 88-33” answer:

“100. 2766. 88-33”

Step #5: Answer two questions: (1) What is the significance of 2766? (2) What is another way of expressing the number 100? (Tip: think Italian/Roman) The answers are:

“C 2766”

Step #6: Combine “C 2766” with the other part of the answer:

“C 2766. 88-33”

Step #7. Recall from my many long posts on this forum that “Historic Diary” anagrams to “Richard’s ’88’ Toy”, and that there are “88” puzzles in Oswald’s Historic Diary, “44” bracketed in quotation marks, and “44” bracketed in parentheses. The entire list of “88” can be found in my June 25, 2014 post at the link below:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/20276-the-oswald-code/?page=1

 

“C 2766. 88-33”

Puzzle number “33” in the list of “88” (“88-33”) is:

“THEY MAKE NOTES”

Step #8. “THEY” is referring to the serial number “C 2766” and we now need to translate the numbers to letters:

“C C H G G”  

“They Make Notes”

You music majors out there should recognize this tune immediately. It is the theme to the most popular Italian song in the world, “O Sole Mio”, and it’s being played by the serial number of the most famous Italian rifle in the world: "C 2766" = "C C H G G"

The following is for you non-music majors. Historically, most of Europe used a slightly different system for the naming of notes in the musical scale. This slightly different system is still in wide use today in Germany and many other Northern European countries. To keep this explanation simple, there's only one difference: The note many of us call “B” is called “H” in this other system. Hence. “C C H G G” is equivalent to “C C B G G”, on the piano, or whatever you have handy = “Ole Sole Mio”.

 

Good job, Andrej. I can’t do it without being tethered to something solid off camera.

Letter/Number translation key:

(A=0)(B=1)(C=2)(D=3)(E=4)(F=5)(G=6)(H=7)(I=8)(J=9)(K=10)(L=11)(M=12)(N=13)(O=14)(P=15)(Q=16)(R=17)(S=18)(T=19)(U=20)(V=21)(W=22)(X=23)(Y=24)(Z=25) 

Footnote #1: In the anagram of “Historic Diary”, “Richard’s ’88’ Toy”, the “Richard” person is “Richard Nagell” (the word “ROMAN” anagrams to “A RN MO”).

Footnote #2: The ubiquitous "MC" is also a Roman Numeral. It's "Eleven Hundred". Have at it!

 

 

Edited December 11, 2017 by Tom Hume

[Zach Jendro]

On 12/7/2017 at 10:42 AM, Paul Trejo said:

Zach,

Interesting post.   Here's my opinion, by the numbers:

1.   Since Mexican Immigration records show Lee Harvey Oswald entering and exiting Mexico as a passenger in an automobile -- and not a bus -- then that bus ticket to Mexico City must be -- as you suggested -- a late "discovery" by the Dallas Police and Dallas FBI as "new evidence".   As for the small bar of Mexican soap -- this strongly confirms that Oswald was really in Mexico -- as Edwin Lopez testified under oath.  (This stingy habit -- keeping free bars of soap -- also sounds like Oswald.) 

2. The Imperial Reflex camera came from Oswald's brother and was certainly used in the Backyard Photographs, as shown by Secret Service analysts -- to the exclusion of all other cameras.  Marina’s word under oath is evidence.  Marina's word not under oath is irrelevant.  (You say that Marina admitted that she "lied" -- please provide a citation.)  The fact that Marina could not positively identify the Imperial Reflex was because it wasn't hers -- and she never used cameras -- except one time for one photograph only -- the original Backyard Photograph before Fakes were made from it at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall (according to me).

3.  The Oswald family made extensive use of the Red Cross as a welfare organization.   This was before Food Stamps existed.   It was not uncommon.   The Red Cross was originally a Lutheran organization (est. 1881) with no ties to spies or cloak-and-dagger activities. 

4.  My own father and four brothers joined the US Navy during World War Two at a very young age.  Two of the five were underage, and the Navy recruiter was happy to do anything to change birth years to allow the underage recruits to join.  It was no big deal in those days.   Harry Dean also joined the US Navy vastly underage, and he reports meeting a large boy only 13 years old in the Navy.  This is a minor part of the mystery.

5.  Let's see the photograph of that unknown "electronic device."   All of Oswald's possessions were photographed. 

6. The two dollar bill halves in Lee's property -- one of which was counterfeit -- makes sense for any lower class teenager.  It's petty crime since it was a single dollar bill.  A true counterfeit operation would show bigger bills and more of them.  The bill-half was probably a memento of teenage hi-jinx.  

7.  The property of Lee Harvey Oswald showed that he loved to forge documents.  He was a smart-aleck, and he liked to be the exception.   You could just as well ask why he had several ID cards for Alek J. Hidell, or any of the several FAKE Backyard Photographs among his possessions. 

8.  In the USA a half-century ago, the background check that we find so commonplace today, was not as commonplace.  A good recommendation from this or that person or agency was all that was required for a Trainee position -- and that was what Oswald had at JCS.  Insofar as Oswald wasn't ready to lie about his Marine Discharge,  lying about his SSN would kick the can down the road for the three month Trainee probation period.   Then, if he was hired, he would claim the incorrect SSN was a bureaucratic blunder, and deal with it then.  This was typical lower-class behavior in 1963. 

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Dear Paul, 

Thank you for your response.

To answer your posts by the number:

2. RE: Marina lying. New York Times. Sept. 14, 1978. Article by Nicholas M. Horrock. "She (Marina) admitted under questioning that because of what she called ‘brutal’ pressure by the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents who questioned her after the assassination she had deliberately lied in some instances, but she said Wednesday that what she was saying now or what she had said in her book was the truth.”

I covered where the camera came from in the article. It has no provenance as being owned by Lee Oswald. Period. When you take into consideration that Marina admittedly lied, anything she had to say should not be considered to be accurate, about any subject.

3. Please take no offense to this, but I would suggest you take a harder look at the Red Cross, the same organization which gave Oswald his stipend while he was in the USSR... which was not some kind of Soviet organization, as the Warren Commission stated. Please read the website for more information on this topic.

4. It is not that he tried to join underage that is the mystery, but that he had a powerful New Orleans attorney named Clem Sehrt who assisted in the procurement of a phony birth certificate. Once again, I would hope that you would read the writings.

5. Most of the items in Oswald's possession were photographed, sir, but as I have documented in the writing, the microfilm of these photographs was not handed over to the DPD in a timely manner, as promised, and it is unsure if they even got a complete collection, as it took them decades to return all of the photographs. Also, not all of the items were photographed, including the American Bakeries pay voucher and the Cox's Department Store box top.

6. It is not common for someone to have a counterfeit bill. And for that person to be an accused murderer. And for that counterfeit bill to disappear. You are trying to tell me that the fact that Oswald evidently had a counterfeit bill on him is not important? Are you aware of the counterfeit operations which involved the Cuban exile community?

8. As I explain in the article, defense contractors did do background checks on their employees in 1963. In fact, many employers did. This wasn't the Stone Age. JCS was handling classified military materials. You think they just hired people off the street and didn't bother to check such things? That is kind of hard to believe. Also, why didn't the IRS look into it? He was receiving pay with an incorrect SSN. It isn't quite so easy to dismiss these things.

[Zach Jendro]

On 12/5/2017 at 9:52 PM, Micah Mileto said:

Hold on, source? 

Sedalia (Missouri) Democrat of April 9, 1969. Read the website... all of the information is there.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Zach Jendro
basic addition

[Zach Jendro]

On 12/5/2017 at 11:28 PM, Mike Kilroy said:

Found the article:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/oakton/oswalds-radio-1zk85?utm_term=.ukXw0DRnOZ#.pt3NwpyXZe

Unfortunately, the link seems to be broken? I checked it out on the Wayback Machine... this is not the same device. His Soviet radio had a different entry in the early inventories. It seems there were two electronic devices and the author of the article has either confused the two or somehow their story has been melded into one.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Zach Jendro
update

[Micah Mileto]

6 hours ago, Zach Jendro said:

Sedalia (Missouri) Democrat of April 9, 1969. Read the website... all of the information is there.

Anyone have a newspapers.com subscription to post a full scan?

[Paul Trejo]

On 12/22/2017 at 3:42 AM, Zach Jendro said:

Dear Paul, 

Thank you for your response.

To answer your posts by the number:

2. RE: Marina lying. New York Times. Sept. 14, 1978. Article by Nicholas M. Horrock. "She (Marina) admitted under questioning that because of what she called ‘brutal’ pressure by the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents who questioned her after the assassination she had deliberately lied in some instances, but she said Wednesday that what she was saying now or what she had said in her book was the truth.”

I covered where the camera came from in the article. It has no provenance as being owned by Lee Oswald. Period. When you take into consideration that Marina admittedly lied, anything she had to say should not be considered to be accurate, about any subject.

3. Please take no offense to this, but I would suggest you take a harder look at the Red Cross, the same organization which gave Oswald his stipend while he was in the USSR... which was not some kind of Soviet organization, as the Warren Commission stated. Please read the website for more information on this topic.

4. It is not that he tried to join underage that is the mystery, but that he had a powerful New Orleans attorney named Clem Sehrt who assisted in the procurement of a phony birth certificate. Once again, I would hope that you would read the writings.

5. Most of the items in Oswald's possession were photographed, sir, but as I have documented in the writing, the microfilm of these photographs was not handed over to the DPD in a timely manner, as promised, and it is unsure if they even got a complete collection, as it took them decades to return all of the photographs. Also, not all of the items were photographed, including the American Bakeries pay voucher and the Cox's Department Store box top.

6. It is not common for someone to have a counterfeit bill. And for that person to be an accused murderer. And for that counterfeit bill to disappear. You are trying to tell me that the fact that Oswald evidently had a counterfeit bill on him is not important? Are you aware of the counterfeit operations which involved the Cuban exile community?

8. As I explain in the article, defense contractors did do background checks on their employees in 1963. In fact, many employers did. This wasn't the Stone Age. JCS was handling classified military materials. You think they just hired people off the street and didn't bother to check such things? That is kind of hard to believe. Also, why didn't the IRS look into it? He was receiving pay with an incorrect SSN. It isn't quite so easy to dismiss these things.

Zach, 

Thanks for the polite discussion.  Again by the numbers:

2.   It it one thing to lie to a judge under oath.  It is completely different for a wife to deny everything when suddenly picked up by police for questioning about her husband -- especially during a national crisis like the Assassination of a President.   That counts as NORMAL behavior, and not CRIMINAL behavior.  

2.1.  Some sticklers want to say that since Marina Oswald denied absolutely everything to the FBI when they first picked her up, that this should count as perjury, and so she should have gone to prison for perjury.   "Although she wasn't under oath, after all this was the FBI!"   I say that's absurd.   Firstly, as Marina Oswald clarified, she believed that Texas law held every wife immune from testifying against her husband.  That's why she felt legally justified in her emotional denials of every charge that a biased FBI threw at her.  

2.2.  In my CT, James Hosty, in particular, wanted to convict Marina Oswald of being a KGB Agent (as he himself admitted in his 1996 book, Assignment Oswald), since that would have cinched the Radical Right accusations by General Walker, leader of the JFK plot.   (I say James Hosty was part of this JFK plot.)  

2.2.1.  So Hosty came on very strong, and so did at least one other FBI agent -- so strong that poor Marina Oswald was terrified of them.  She far preferred to deal with the Secret Service.  Before long, the FBI was out of her life, and the Secret Service controlled every aspect of Marina Oswald's life.

2.3.  I see no cause to conclude that "Marina lied" under oath.   Nothing abnormal occurred.  The Imperial Reflex camera was used by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas to begin his forgery of the Backyard Photographs (to the exclusion of any other camera, testified the Secret Service experts), using the body-double of Roscoe White (according to Jack White) and the technical equipment at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall (according to me). 

2.4.  Every word that Marina Oswald testified under oath to the Warren Commission is certifiably true and correct, and is legally considered FACTUAL in the case.   No CT Researcher has ever proven her perjury.   On the contrary -- all who have tried to prove perjury have merely referred to Marina's original denials of everything to the FBI.  Very weak.

3.   The Red Cross operates under different laws in different nations.  It was originally a Lutheran -- that is, a religious -- organization.  It's aim was always Humanitarian.  It extends Charity all around the world, especially in war torn areas.  Red Cross workers are true heroes and volunteers with hearts of gold.  To suggest that they were ever a CIA front is to take a cynical view of the Red Cross that I don't accept.

4.   To make a big deal about the Navy accepting underage boys in the WW2 and post-WW2 period is to beat a dead horse.  It's not a big deal, no matter how many "scary" people were involved.  It's a trivial matter, because it was an enormously widespread practice.   (If you'd like me to read yet another treatise on the JFK Assassination, then please offer a sentence or two explaining why.)

5.  Since you have no photograph of this mysterious "electronic device" which your presented document says was also "broken", anybody is free to fill in the blanks.  You may prefer to imagine that it was a secret CIA spy device.   I suggest that it was a spare part from the Russian radio factory in which Oswald worked in the USSR -- as a memento.   Without a photograph or more text than "an electronic device" it is pointless to keep beating this dead horse.

6.  You cite the counterfeit operations which involved the Cuban exile community, and I thank you for that.  We know that Oswald was operating inside New Orleans within the scope of the Cuban exile community, along with Guy Banister, David Ferrie and Clay Shaw.  That was conclusively demonstrated by NOLA District Attorney Jim Garrison (1968).  That's the most likely place for Oswald to have obtained a fake dollar bill.  Why imagine that there was more to it than that?  Using Occam's Razor, this has been asked and answered. 

8.  Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall was hiring a Trainee on Probation.  They got a recommendation from a respectable Employment Agency, plus the data that Oswald was a former Marine.   For most employers seeking a mere Trainee in 1963 -- even many with military contacts -- that was good enough.   I suspect that JCS felt capable of managing their own internal affairs with regard to Trainees on Probation.  I also suspect that they felt they could trust a former Marine as a Trainee.   They would never have given a Trainee any classified materials.

8.1.  We don't know what the IRS looked into or not -- since they still haven't released Oswald's records.  Yet 1963 wasn't the computer age -- such matters took months to get around to -- unlike today.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited December 24, 2017 by Paul Trejo
typos

[Greg Doudna]

Zach Jendro, thank you for your research in your series on "The Possessions of Lee Harvey Oswald". A question: in your article in that series, "Photographic Equipment" (https://debunked.wordpress.com/the-possessions-of-lee-harvey-oswald-photographic-equipment/), you say, "However, in Oswald's address book (found at the Paine residence) is a notation for Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall (JCS), the company address, as well as the words 'micro dots'."

Could you say what is your basis for identifying the Paine residence as where the Oswald address book was found?