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What is known about Oswald's time in England?


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34 minutes ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

All I can see is a bossy-boots, my way or the highway approach. I am in the Jason camp. Jason has been very helpful. I am not here to play guessing games. I don't even play games on the Internet or computer. I don't have the time. So as for asking about McClendon, I will ask you - who is he? McLendon I know.

It’s not games. I’m not playing games. I’m reading what I can find. I’m very interested in McClendon.

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Lots of luck with that Paul, I have never heard of him. You quote me but you did not read the two sentences you quoted. It must be a game. Maybe you are out on that golf course of the mind that Mike referred to, 'cos you sure don't seem to be reading what I write.

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Mervyn - What’s gotten into you about me? Are you asking me to give you a rundown on Brandstetter? When you posted on McClendon I automatically looked through whatever sources I could find before engaging with you. I expect the same. How is that playing games? 

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I thought that the penny would have dropped by now, I have given you enough hints.

I have no idea who McClendon is.

You keep mentioning his name.

Look at the two lines of mine that you quoted. It is proof that you are not reading what I am writing.

If you can't do that and now figure it all out, well, it's best to end this conversation.

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15 minutes ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

I thought that the penny would have dropped by now, I have given you enough hints.

I have no idea who McClendon is.

You keep mentioning his name.

Look at the two lines of mine that you quoted. It is proof that you are not reading what I am writing.

If you can't do that and now figure it all out, well, it's best to end this conversation.

Paul, you are spelling the name incorrectly.

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2 minutes ago, Michael Clark said:

Paul, you are spelling the name incorrectly.

Really? Jeez. Thanks. Do you really think Mervyn doesn’t know who I’m referring to? Talk about playing games.

Edited by Paul Brancato
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5 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Mark, the trip TO Southampton does not make any sense. Zero. Neither does Oswald's British Immigration explanation which can be read at least two ways:

1. Oswald was on vacation and doing it on the cheap. 

[...]

2. Oswald was being sent low-key on a mission which involved a stop-off in England for further instructions [...]

Hi Mervyn,

Although I am suspicious of forced dichotomies as a way to oversimplify history, your binary hypotheses for what Oswald was doing in the UK and Europe might be useful as a fresh template to understand him.   

Most Americans and definitely most assassination fans want to assign a plan to all events, and especially want to assign maximum assigned project duties to Oswald - the man who was officially crowned Kennedy's assassin.   But Oswald was an unimpressive teenager in every measurable way.   (Nothing wrong with that!)

You interestingly point out that in 1963 Mervyn Hagger took some time off to aimlessly wander around Europe with no plan whatsoever.   Were you a CIA operative?    If not, might we likewise grant Oswald the capacity for aimless wandering?   Your overnight accommodation at a West German police facility would in the case of Oswald serve to "prove" his involvement in a government conspiracy.  I read your story as proof you are in the CIA, MI6, and possibly more - or, perhaps you were just a normal kid, I can't decide.

I like your somewhat bipolar hypotheses - that Oswald was either a low level intelligence operative or a harmless free spirit - because it need not be an absolute dichotomy. 

Maybe Oswald had a job on this trip.  Maybe he merely wanted a job.  Maybe he was auditioning for a job, maybe his 19 y.o. Ian Fleming-saturated mind thought he could insert himself into CIA/KGB intrigues by this trip.   Maybe someone told him this would be a good start, an unpaid apprenticeship.   Maybe instead of going to Amsterdam for sex and pot like normal American kids, Oswald is something of a Cold War tourist looking for a Cold War job?   

It could be mix of two extremes - he was perhaps a wanderer, like Mervyn Hagger in the summer of 1963; but he was also perhaps on a low level mission, or perhaps hoping to be awarded a mission...how about we keep the options open?

 

Jason

(PS - I like to post evidence and let everyone make their own judgments.  Sometimes it's entirely on point, sometimes it's stuff I found while looking for the point of the thread.  If you think it's irrelevant, let me know.)

 

1. This document was withheld in full until November, 2017.  It is from a 1977 CIA internal report narrating their response to the assassination.
CIA_narrative_post_assn_formerly_within_

2.  Helsinki was almost as sexy as Berlin in terms of Cold War intrigue delivered for public consumption.   Anatoliy Golitsyn is a major figure in the Cold War saga and defected at Helsinki months after Oswald defected in the opposite direction.  This CIA document was also withheld in full until November 2017.
Golitsyn_helsinki.png

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoliy_Golitsyn

3. This IMO is the another interesting UK-related clue and is I think widely known among assassination fandom as it was never kept secret.

{the redacted portions are almost certainly references to a British police or intelligence service}

Cambridge_call_JFK.png

 

 

Edited by Jason Ward
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20 minutes ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

I thought that the penny would have dropped by now, I have given you enough hints.

I have no idea who McClendon is.

You keep mentioning his name.

Look at the two lines of mine that you quoted. It is proof that you are not reading what I am writing.

If you can't do that and now figure it all out, well, it's best to end this conversation.

McLendon. So sorry for that. Now can we stop playing games? 

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7 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

McLendon. So sorry for that. Now can we stop playing games? 

You’re right Mervyn. I wasn’t reading carefully. In my defense I can only say I was looking for you to answer a few questions and respond to them, not to how I was misspelling his name. It was you who insulted me, not the other way around.

Edited by Paul Brancato
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13 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

are unaware of what these folks were doing in the course of their lives

What does a man's reading habits tell us?   Is this a James Bond fan?

 

1. From the inventory of Oswald's furnishings at his rooming house on Beckley in Dallas:

oswald_reads_bond.jpg

2. From a New York Times look into Oswald's library books.  November 29, 1963.  Section C, p. 21

Oswald_library_007.jpg

Edited by Jason Ward
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Hi Jason - Thanks once again for your interesting comments and attachments.

I am interested in Oswald's return from the USSR and the route he took: more details, please, if you have them to hand.

As for Oswald and his interest in the subject of James Bond, this can also be interpreted two ways:

1. Oswald liked to read James Bond spy novels - just as millions of other people have done over the years. Nothing strange there. I love Michael Connelly. I have not seen the TV series (although I did see the movie about the Lincoln Lawyer), but I have read every novel that Connelly has written. Most I purchased and a few I got from a library.

2. Oswald knew who the author of James Bond was. If Oswald also borrowed non-fiction books about Ian Fleming and his real-life Spook friends in London, well then I might conclude that Oswald was living in a fantasy world and pretending to be "one of them".

On the other hand, Oswald arrived in England on his way to Helsinki from Galveston, Texas.

Huh?

That does not make any sense.

Why not find a more direct route from the USA to Finland?

Not only that, but with his limited funds he was squandering money by going to London, and the fact that he spent parts of two days in England meant that he was leaking money unnecessarily. That is, unless he was in England to receive orders and funds because Oswald had no idea that he was going to Helsinki!

The 'London Airport' stamp refers to Heathrow, so it is interesting that Oswald's itinerary made no sense to later investigation teams. Speculation arose that he must have gone via Gatwick Airport to Copenhagen or Stockholm on his way to Helsinki, because his itinerary did not seem to match his arrival schedule in Helsinki. So we are not the only ones asking what was Oswald doing?

Logic seems to say that Oswald had no idea that he was going to Helsinki when he left Galveston, and that in London he was met by someone who briefed him on the next leg of his journey to the USSR, and given additional funds to make it possible. Possibly he was handed the tickets and told where to go in the greater London area, and how to get there, in order to then go on to Helsinki. 

If that could be the case, then we should consider who else was around in Europe at that time?

Well Paul's nemesis, Gordon McLendon, for one.

McLendon was in Stockholm holding a press conference announcing the beginning of the 'Radio Nord' project in the Baltic Sea. It was to be located on board a ship anchored off the coast of Sweden - not far from Finland - where it could radiate a signal covering the blank spots on the CIA's Radio Free Europe services. That pattern included Helsinki.

Before McLendon arrived in Stockholm, Sweden in 1959, he had been in the Republic of Ireland trying to get a powerful radio broadcasting license to cover Britain and even touch the East Coast of the USA. But don't look for that in McLendon's biography - because it is not there. It is thoroughly documented elsewhere, however. And who was McLendon working with in Ireland? One person was a very strange and shadowy individual who had set up Radio Tangier; Radio Monte Carlo and Radio Europe 1 in the Saar. He was also in Ireland with both McLendon and the man who was behind the creation of Britain's commercial television service in the early 1950s. It was TV service that had been suppressed by taking away the sponsorship of programming. This same man was later behind the creation of Radio Caroline (although that story has also been obfuscated by someone who claimed that he created it, and then named the station after Caroline Kennedy. But those are just more lies that I have uncovered.)

To McLendon's entourage in this strange Scandinavian Baltic Sea venture we must also add Clint Murchison, Jr. 

Then there is the subject of Major General Edwin Walker and Eugene Bernald, a subject that causes Paul to shove his hands over his eyes lest he reads my words on that topic one more time. (Others chirped in on chorus to 'amen' Paul's edict to ignore me, and therefore it is hilarious that he followed me over to this thread which I started. But again in typical fashion he comments without reading.)

But back to Oswald in Galveston.

Is there anything to suggest that Oswald knew when he boarded that freighter in Galveston that he was heading for Helsinki?

Perhaps this is in itself a MAJOR clue!

If what he said to British Immigration is true, then the answer is 'no', Oswald did not know that he was going to Helsinki!

Oswald really did think that he was going to school in Switzerland!

Now that is a very interesting thought, because one wonders what exactly Oswald thought he would be going there to study?

The life and times of the real James Bond?

So we must ponder whether, upon arrival in England, he was met at Southampton and given both additional funds and the rest of his travel orders. For a ex-military man like Oswald, that would not seem strange at all.

The question then is: who met Oswald when he got off the liner at Southampton?

One reason no one has gone near that question is because it immediately shouts "CONSPIRACY"!

But who was he conspiring with, if in fact he did meet someone in England?

Mervyn

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On 5/4/2018 at 10:46 PM, Jason Ward said:

Your profile says you are a Dutch so you are no doubt comfortable with the ease of travelling today across borders.

Dear Jason,

I know that facts are important to you and that you wish to have evidence before speaking, but..uh..

My profile does not say I am Dutch.

It says I live in Rotterdam. And even if I were Dutch, I don't know whether 'would have been used to crossing borders at a young age, particularly, from a place like this great City bombed to ruins in May 1940. Should you be more curious, my info can be obtained at the website listed on my profile. Like Joseph McBride,  JFK has consumed my psychic interests at a level beyond - or concomitant with - my economic interests.

 

Edited by Robert Harper
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8 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Hi Jason - Thanks once again for your interesting comments and attachments.

I am interested in Oswald's return from the USSR and the route he took: more details, please, if you have them to hand.

As for Oswald and his interest in the subject of James Bond, this can also be interpreted two ways:

1. Oswald liked to read James Bond spy novels - just as millions of other people have done over the years. Nothing strange there. I love Michael Connelly. I have not seen the TV series (although I did see the movie about the Lincoln Lawyer), but I have read every novel that Connelly has written. Most I purchased and a few I got from a library.

2. Oswald knew who the author of James Bond was. If Oswald also borrowed non-fiction books about Ian Fleming and his real-life Spook friends in London, well then I might conclude that Oswald was living in a fantasy world and pretending to be "one of them".

On the other hand, Oswald arrived in England on his way to Helsinki from Galveston, Texas.

Huh?

That does not make any sense.

Why not find a more direct route from the USA to Finland?

Not only that, but with his limited funds he was squandering money by going to London, and the fact that he spent parts of two days in England meant that he was leaking money unnecessarily. That is, unless he was in England to receive orders and funds because Oswald had no idea that he was going to Helsinki!

The 'London Airport' stamp refers to Heathrow, so it is interesting that Oswald's itinerary made no sense to later investigation teams. Speculation arose that he must have gone via Gatwick Airport to Copenhagen or Stockholm on his way to Helsinki, because his itinerary did not seem to match his arrival schedule in Helsinki. So we are not the only ones asking what was Oswald doing?

Logic seems to say that Oswald had no idea that he was going to Helsinki when he left Galveston, and that in London he was met by someone who briefed him on the next leg of his journey to the USSR, and given additional funds to make it possible. Possibly he was handed the tickets and told where to go in the greater London area, and how to get there, in order to then go on to Helsinki. 

If that could be the case, then we should consider who else was around in Europe at that time?

Well Paul's nemesis, Gordon McLendon, for one.

McLendon was in Stockholm holding a press conference announcing the beginning of the 'Radio Nord' project in the Baltic Sea. It was to be located on board a ship anchored off the coast of Sweden - not far from Finland - where it could radiate a signal covering the blank spots on the CIA's Radio Free Europe services. That pattern included Helsinki.

Before McLendon arrived in Stockholm, Sweden in 1959, he had been in the Republic of Ireland trying to get a powerful radio broadcasting license to cover Britain and even touch the East Coast of the USA. But don't look for that in McLendon's biography - because it is not there. It is thoroughly documented elsewhere, however. And who was McLendon working with in Ireland? One person was a very strange and shadowy individual who had set up Radio Tangier; Radio Monte Carlo and Radio Europe 1 in the Saar. He was also in Ireland with both McLendon and the man who was behind the creation of Britain's commercial television service in the early 1950s. It was TV service that had been suppressed by taking away the sponsorship of programming. This same man was later behind the creation of Radio Caroline (although that story has also been obfuscated by someone who claimed that he created it, and then named the station after Caroline Kennedy. But those are just more lies that I have uncovered.)

To McLendon's entourage in this strange Scandinavian Baltic Sea venture we must also add Clint Murchison, Jr. 

Then there is the subject of Major General Edwin Walker and Eugene Bernald, a subject that causes Paul to shove his hands over his eyes lest he reads my words on that topic one more time. (Others chirped in on chorus to 'amen' Paul's edict to ignore me, and therefore it is hilarious that he followed me over to this thread which I started. But again in typical fashion he comments without reading.)

But back to Oswald in Galveston.

Is there anything to suggest that Oswald knew when he boarded that freighter in Galveston that he was heading for Helsinki?

Perhaps this is in itself a MAJOR clue!

If what he said to British Immigration is true, then the answer is 'no', Oswald did not know that he was going to Helsinki!

Oswald really did think that he was going to school in Switzerland!

Now that is a very interesting thought, because one wonders what exactly Oswald thought he would be going there to study?

The life and times of the real James Bond?

So we must ponder whether, upon arrival in England, he was met at Southampton and given both additional funds and the rest of his travel orders. For a ex-military man like Oswald, that would not seem strange at all.

The question then is: who met Oswald when he got off the liner at Southampton?

One reason no one has gone near that question is because it immediately shouts "CONSPIRACY"!

But who was he conspiring with, if in fact he did meet someone in England?

Mervyn

I am following your logic here. My SWAG (" scientific wild-a**ed guess) is that you ARE correct. Perhaps Oswald actually had plans on going to Albert Schweitzer College when he left Texas. He possibly believed he was going on an adventure, and perhaps he thought at first that attending college was going to part of it.

Gordon McLendon had a part in my past, although he was never aware of it. He purchased radio station WGRC in Louisville, KY in 1958, and proceeded to change it from a stodgy-but-respectable adult format to a rock and roll station with call letters WAKY, pronounced "wacky." The station made the format change announcement by playing Sheb Wooley's "Purple People Eater" over and over continuously for 24 hours. McLendon sold the station for a considerable profit in the 1960's, and I was fortunate enough to work there as an assistant to a blind DJ in the late 1970's, before FM kicked the AM rockers off their pedestals. If McLendon hadn't bought the station and changed the format, I might never have aspired to work in radio in my younger days.

What Oswald did in London and particularly who he was I contact with is still a mystery to most researchers. Did he meet General Walker during that time? Jim Root thinks it's possible. "Possible" may not translate to " probable."  Passenger lists on flights from 1963, I am told, no longer exist, so discovering who might have seen or spoken to Oswald on his flight(s) may be nearly impossible at this late date. But it doesn't mean we should stop looking for information, nor does it give us license to jump to conclusions.

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1 hour ago, Mark Knight said:

I am following your logic here. My SWAG (" scientific wild-a**ed guess) is that you ARE correct. Perhaps Oswald actually had plans on going to Albert Schweitzer College when he left Texas. He possibly believed he was going on an adventure, and perhaps he thought at first that attending college was going to part of it.

Gordon McLendon had a part in my past, although he was never aware of it. He purchased radio station WGRC in Louisville, KY in 1958, and proceeded to change it from a stodgy-but-respectable adult format to a rock and roll station with call letters WAKY, pronounced "wacky." The station made the format change announcement by playing Sheb Wooley's "Purple People Eater" over and over continuously for 24 hours. McLendon sold the station for a considerable profit in the 1960's, and I was fortunate enough to work there as an assistant to a blind DJ in the late 1970's, before FM kicked the AM rockers off their pedestals. If McLendon hadn't bought the station and changed the format, I might never have aspired to work in radio in my younger days.

What Oswald did in London and particularly who he was I contact with is still a mystery to most researchers. Did he meet General Walker during that time? Jim Root thinks it's possible. "Possible" may not translate to " probable."  Passenger lists on flights from 1963, I am told, no longer exist, so discovering who might have seen or spoken to Oswald on his flight(s) may be nearly impossible at this late date. But it doesn't mean we should stop looking for information, nor does it give us license to jump to conclusions.

Hi Mark. There are many possibilities if a cold case crime scenario is followed, and this is the process I am attempting to follow.

My study begins thus:

1. Forget everything you know about Lee Harvey Oswald and events on and after November 22, 1963.

2. Look at what is both known and stated by official sources.

3. Lee Harvey Oswald sees his mother and leaves the Dallas and Fort Worth area of Texas under 1963 road conditions which lacked a complete freeway system. Today that journey by road would take 5 hours and 43 minutes to travel 311 miles. Back in 1963 the journey time by road would have been longer. Did he go by Greyhound or Trailways bus (with many stops), or did he go by rail? I don't know. Does anyone else know the answer?

4. Lee Harvey Oswald arrived in Galveston with limited funds. What was his original intention? I don't know. We do know that he boarded a freighter which made stops along the way before ending up in France.

5. Lee Harvey Oswald then spent more money to board a liner to cross the English Channel and land at Southampton, England where he told Immigration that he would stay a week and then go to Switzerland to attend college. With even more limited funds where did he intend to stay in England, and how did he plan to pay for his food and board if he needed money to go to college in Switzerland? Was the college course pre-paid? Where was he going to stay in Switzerland?

6. If Lee Harvey Oswald planned to go to college in Switzerland with limited funds he would not have wasted money by boarding a liner and going to England. He was already on the correct side of the English Channel to buy a train ticket to go to Switzerland.

7. If he never intended on going to Switzerland, why did he tell Immigration that was his intention? How come Immigration didn't ask Oswald if he planned to illegally work in England for a week to get more funds?

8. If Lee Harvey Oswald was TOLD to take this journey via France to England instead of getting a ship bound for England, who told him to do this in Galveston? If he was going to England, why didn't he get a ship bound for England?

9. In England, there seems to be confusion as to how long he was there, but his US Passport makes it clear that he was there for part of two days.

10. What did Lee Harvey Oswald do for the time he was in England? Investigators started to search for explanations involving him going to Gatwick and possibly Copenhagen and possibly Stockholm, before going on to Helsinki. However, I have been assured that the "London Airport" triangular stamp refers specifically to Heathrow Airport.

11. If LHO was prepped with a 'need to know' story about going to school in England, who prepped him in Texas?

12. If LHO was prepped in Texas with a bogus story, who told him what the real agenda was once he arrived in England?

13. Was LHO met by someone in Southampton who gave him additional funds, put him up somewhere for the night, and then drove him to Heathrow Airport?

 

These are cold case questions to be asked and answered without the shading of knowledge post-1962. However, I should add that in 1962, McLendon's man Bill Weaver was staying at the Mayfair Hotel in London, and according to some sources, in 1966 David Atlee Phillips was also staying at a different hotel in London under the name of Harold Benson. Without proof that either person was in London in 1959, anything more is just speculation.

I am trying to stick to what is known and documented.

Mervyn

 

 

Edited by Mervyn Hagger
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