Was it really just a MOLE HUNT about "Oswald?"

[John Butler]

41 minutes ago, James Norwood said:

John,

I agree with your statement above.  In the case of Sir Richard Francis Burton, it was recognized when he was a child that he had a great facility for learning foreign languages.  He was born into privilege and had the finest tutors and education of his era.  He eventually graduated from Oxford University.  There is no doubt that he was a brilliant linguist; he could pick up languages quickly; and he was passionate especially about Arab culture, leading to his adaptation of the famous Thousand and One Nights.

In the case of Oswald, he was a high school dropout who never completed his freshman year.  There is no known instance of a teacher, friend, or family member who recalled his interest and facility in learning foreign languages as a youngster.  There is no known instance of anyone witnessing him studying a Russian language textbook, conjugating verbs, or working on vocabulary lists with flash cards.  The inveterate Warren Commission apologist Robert Oswald wrote in his memoir that his "brother" taught himself Russian.  But if that were true, it would have been corroborated by a teacher, friend, or fellow student.

Oswald certainly "could" have taught himself Russian.  But he would have left behind a paper trail of eyewitness or documentary evidence of how he did it.  In this thread, Steve and I were discussing the Warren Commission testimony of Dennis Offstein, who kept badgering Oswald in the attempt to understand how he could speak Russian so well, whereas Offstein still struggled after a year of intensive Russian language study at the Monterey institute.  If Oswald had taught himself Russian, he likely would have been proud of that accomplishment and described his experience.  Instead, he was silent and never offered a clue about his fluency.

 

 

  

 

That was said very well.  I agree.  Harvey Oswald had a Russian background of some kind.  A short time back we did a lot of research into the possible Hungarian background of Harvey Oswald.  Basically, we improved the knowledge concerning the FBI Tippit document and the folks mentioned in it.  But, we were not able to firmly establish or disprove a Hungarian background for Harvey.  Even though the evidence is pointing towards a Russian language background for Harvey we need to retain the notion that some how or another he might have a Hungarian background and was brought to this country during or after WWII.  This connects to Harvey and Lee and remains a viable notion.  This bit of info from the internet might be appropriate:

How many languages are spoken in Hungary?

What Languages Are Spoken In Hungary?

Rank	Language	Number of speakers (2011)
1	Hungarian	9,896,333 (99.6%)
2	English	1,589,180 (16.0%)
3	German	1,111,997 (11.2%)
4	Russian	158,497 (1.6%)

Russian is spoken by a small minority of people.  It's possible that Harvey came from a family speaking both.  It is something that can't be ruled out at this time.  If that is so we are connected back to the Tippit phone call doc.

[James Norwood]

35 minutes ago, Steve Thomas said:

I would only add a note of caution about that. To the best of my knowledge, we only have Ofstein's word on that, and I think I've picked up a couple of instances where he was less than truthful shall we say; such as not remembering Crigler's last name, even after visiting in their respective homes on at least three different occasions.

Steve,

The Warren Commission witnesses were sworn under oath before giving their testimonies.  Each witness knew that the committee had unlimited powers to investigate and corroborate their stories.

Offstein goes into great detail to inform the commission that his Russian language skills were inferior to those of Oswald.  On multiple occasions, Offstein claimed that he was curious about how Oswald spoke such fluent Russian.  He also recalled that he solicited coaching from Oswald in conversational Russian and that Oswald gave him Russian language publications to improve his reading skills.

So, why would Offstein possibly be "less than truthful" about these matters when he ran the risk of perjury charges if the committee interviewed other JCS employees or researched Offstein's Russian language achievement at the Monterey School and found that he was not telling the truth?

What do you think Offstein may have been hiding?

[Steve Thomas]

56 minutes ago, James Norwood said:

What do you think Offstein may have been hiding?

James,

I don't know, but the idea that somebody who spent a stretch in the Army Security Agency, and was stationed in a location that intercepted Russian and East German military traffic at the height of the Cold War didn't know what microdots were, just strains my credulity.

Steve Thomas

[Jim Hargrove]

On 5/17/2020 at 2:06 PM, Steve Thomas said:

John,

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/oswald_m1.htm

WC testimony February 3, 1964

Mr. RANKIN. Did you know that Lee Oswald was an American when you first met him?
Mrs. OSWALD. I found that out at the end of that party, towards the end of that party, when I was first introduced to him, I didn't know that.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/m_j_russ/hscamar1.htm

HSCA testimony 1977?

Mrs. PORTER. No, I didn't. When he asked to dance, we just talked very little.
Mr. McDONALD. Did he tell you he was an American?
Mrs. PORTER. No, not at that--not during the dancing, no.
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.

Steve,

Thanks for putting together all that testimony from Marina and the others in one spot.  I really wish we could trust Marina on this, for her stated belief that on first meeting him she thought her future husband was from a Russian state such as Estonia or Lithuania kind of makes our point for us.   (She also mentioned a “Baltic state” to an interviewer.)

It may be that Oswald let down his guard at the dance and spoke Russian to this attractive young woman, but it is also clear that he was, in general, hiding his knowledge of the Russian language while in Moscow as well as Minsk.  For example, 

At Botkinskaya Hospital in Moscow after the so-called suicide attempt, a medic wrote: “the patient apparently understands the questions asked in Russian.  Sometimes he answers correctly, but immediately states that he does not understand what he was asked.” (WCE 985, Volume 18, 470.)

In Mink, the man assigned by the Soviets to teach Oswald Russian, Stanislav S. Shushkevich (he went on to become the first president of Belarus when it gained its independence in 1991) said this when interviewed:

Oswald’s Russian was limited; “he knew very few words.”

Oswald “found it hard to communicate with his ‘comrades’ in any meaningful way.

Talking about the famous popular song “Moscow Nights,” Shushkevich indicated it would have been “impossible for Oswald to understand the lyrics.” 

The interviewer added, “Oswald, Shushkevich told me, did not make sense.  He didn’t appear to know a lot.  He didn’t appear to want to know a lot.”  In the end, Shushkevich felt he had been given the assignment not really to teach Oswald Russian, but to find out how much Russian Oswald knew.

At the same time Oswald was hiding his Russian fluency, there is evidence that Marina was hiding her knowledge of English.  After living in the United States for more than a year and a half, she still needed a couple of translators during the WC hearings.  Although one biographer said she only knew a few words in English while living in the Soviet Union, American “defector” Robert Webster, who Marina befriended shortly before she met Oswald, told author Dick Russell that Marina spoke fluent English, though with a heavy accent.

It is almost funny to think how Boris and Natasha, I mean Lee HARVEY Oswald and Marina Prusakova, may well have been hiding from each other their knowledge of each other’s languages.  What language was their pillow talk?  I wish I could have more confidence in Marina’s testimony.

Dr. Norwood was probably wise to largely steer clear of Marina’s testimony and statements in his article on Oswald’s Proficiency in the Russian Language.

[Steve Thomas]

58 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

It is almost funny to think how Boris and Natasha, I mean Lee HARVEY Oswald and Marina Prusakova, may well have been hiding from each other their knowledge of each other’s languages.  What language was their pillow talk?  I wish I could have more confidence in Marina’s testimony.

 

Jim,

Boris and Natasha... that's funny 🙂

You know, I've often wondered if LHO knew, or suspected Marina of being a "honey pot: agent, and brought her over here anyway. Did he leave her alone to carry out her own agenda?

It seems like they spent an awful lot of time apart from each other in the fall of 1962 once they got back to the Unites States.. He completely disappears for two weeks, and she's flitting around between the Mellers and the Fords and what not.

Steve Thomas

[John Butler]

2 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

she's flitting around between the Mellers and the Fords and what not.

He said flitting hee hee ha hu hee he said flitting ha ha hee huh hee.

An absolutely fitting word for some of Marina's activities as described in her life as a "honey pot" before she met Harvey.  And, it is suggested by others this behavior didn't stop after the Russian Princess married. 

I think Jim has mentioned something important about Boris and Natasha.  Did they know each other were double agents and triple agents?  Did they cover for each other on language abilities.

Edited May 19, 2020 by John Butler

[James Norwood]

Jim, Steve, and John:

This is a good discussion of Marina with an important point about the unreliability of her testimony.  In nearly every instance, there is the chance that she is either embellishing, obfuscating, or contradicting herself.  And yet, I feel great empathy for Marina because I believe that she was focused primarily on ensuring the safety and well-being of her children.  Growing up, the two girls were completely cut off from anything to do with her father.  The FBI even gathered up every photo of Oswald from Marina, so there was no family photo album.  After Oswald's funeral, Robert completely cut ties with his two Oswald "nieces." 

Anyone who knew that Oswald was a native speaker of Russian would not be reliable as an eyewitness to history.  Therefore, the words of Marina, Marguerite, and Robert are so often not helpful when one is developing an argument about the true story of the JFK assassination.

One of the most interesting of Oswald's family members is John Pic, who died at age 68 in the year 2000.  A devoutly religious man, Pic believed he was a sinner and feared the wrath of God.  Pic never threw his half-brother under the bus like Robert .  While he knew much more than he let on, Pic's words are definitely worthy of close examination.

[Jim Hargrove]

We all sympathize with Marina's position after the assassination and surely understand how she, to put it charitably, had to cooperate entirely with the authorities (Sylvia Meagher titled one of her chapters "The Scorpion's Lash: Testimonies of Marina Oswald") but I don't think her behavior going back at least to 1962 was blameless.  Here's how John A. put it:

There was never a single indication that Lee Harvey Oswald harmed or abused Marina in the Soviet Union. Nor was there an indication that he harmed or abused her at Robert Oswald's house or "Marguerite Oswald's" apartment in Fort Worth in the summer of 1962. But soon after the young couple moved into the apartment on Mercedes Street, and were alone, Marina began to complain that her husband was beating her. (H&L p. 428)

Was Marina trying to invent grounds for a divorce?  I seem to recall Marina saying somewhere that her husband told her he was tiring of their marriage and wanted to go back to Russia, but I can't recall the specifics. Does this ring a bell with anyone?  If so, should we give it much credence?

[James Norwood]

Jim,

One of the reasons that it is difficult to evaluate what Marina "said" is that she had two women who were speaking for her, and their words may not accurately represent what Marina told them.  Priscilla Johnson McMillan, author of the ridiculous book "Marina and Lee," would regularly appear in documentaries and would be quoted in the media about what Marina "said."  In turn, Ruth Paine served as McMillan's tag-team partner in representing (or misrepresenting) the words of Marina. 

Jim DiEugenio just published a meticulous review of a new book on Marilyn Monroe that discredits earlier books that have offered lurid accounts of Monroe's relationships with the Kennedy Brothers.  DiEugenio shows how one or two authors served in poisoning the well about Monroe's connection with the Kennedys.  So too, McMillan and Paine have used Marina as a pawn to advance their agenda about Oswald.  That agenda was to throw Oswald under the bus of history.

John Armstrong makes a persuasive case that, despite her heavy accent, Marina understood English perfectly and gave the false impression that she was in need of a translator.  So, you may be correct when you write above that her behavior is not entirely "blameless."

[Denny Zartman]

On 5/14/2020 at 1:36 PM, James Norwood said:

 Jim,

I find your idea of testing the waters ("a final test") to be intriguing with regard to the Laura Kittrell interviews

This whole post was excellent. Thanks for the analysis. It makes sense.

Does anyone know if Laura Kittrell's manuscript is available online? I'd like to read it. I didn't know about the motorcycle jacket. That's an interesting detail that should have been easy to confirm Oswald's ownership of such a jacket.

[James Norwood]

Denny,

Yes, the detail about the motorcycle jacket is intriguing.  When one is searching for a job, the idea is to make a favorable impression.  In the interview of the first Oswald, it was clear that the attire and deportment were unprofessional.  John Graef, the work supervisor of Oswald at Graef at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, testified to the Warren Commission that Oswald arrived at his interview "in a dark grey suit, modestly dressed and he was very businesslike and likeable."  (WCH, Vol. 10, 177).  That is the demeanor that one would expect from a job applicant, and it is the exact opposite of the man interviewed by Kittrell.  For this and a host of other issues, I must conclude that the man meeting Kittrell was an Oswald imposter.

The long, typewritten Kittrell manuscript is available in the online John Armstrong collection at Baylor.  But after the Baylor University library made a change in software, it is apparently impossible download the file in a readable format.  Jim Hargrove has more detailed information on this, and I am certain that he will reply more completely to your question.

Thanks for joining the discussion on this thread.

[Jim Hargrove]

5 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

This whole post was excellent. Thanks for the analysis. It makes sense.

Does anyone know if Laura Kittrell's manuscript is available online? I'd like to read it. I didn't know about the motorcycle jacket. That's an interesting detail that should have been easy to confirm Oswald's ownership of such a jacket.

Denny,

The problems noted by Dr. Norwood at Baylor University's digital collections site appear to have been fixed in the last day or two.  I was able to download the 187-page document at the link below, although the system was VERY slow.  Note that the PDF file is misnamed “Laurel Kittral,” but it does contain all the material you seek about Laura Kittrell.

Here is the link to the correct subsection of the John Armstrong Collection at Baylor.

When the first page of the PDF file appears, click “Download,” and then click “Full Asset,” and then click “Download” again.

Also definitely worth reading is the ten-page 1978 memo from HSCA’s Gaeton Fonzi to Blakey.  I believe Mr. Fonzi was the last person to interview Ms. Kittrell.  The memo is at the very end of the file.

You may spend less time waiting for Baylor’s server if you do this early in the morning or late at night.

[Pete Mellor]

After the JFK assassination the next month, Kittrell took on her own investigation, eventually deciding that this second Oswald was actually Curtis Laverne Crafoord. She would tell her story to the FBI in 1966, and again to the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978. Her story would then become grist for alternative theories of Kennedy’s assassination. (She wrote a letter to “Time” magazine, published 15 December 1975: “To think that you still believe the Warren Report. I do look forward to a future issue featuring the tooth-fairy story.”)

Laura Kittrell never seems to have married. She outlived all of her immediate family. William Henderson II, her father, died in 1966. Her mother passed on 1988. Louise, her sister, died four years later, in 1992. She seems to have still been in Dallas as late as that year, but at some point presumably moved to Taylor county.

She died there on 10 June 2000. Laura F. Kittrell was 82. She was buried at Sparkman Hillcrest Memorial Park, where her mother and father were also interred.

********

Kittrell’s most public skepticism of the official position came after the death of the Fortean Society, and so cannot really be used as evidence of her beliefs when she joined. But there are other reasons to suspect that she was disinclined to believe government pronouncements on controversial matters—even if (or maybe because) she worked for the government and seems to have shared at least some of her father’s progressive political inclinations.

Kittrell’s Fortean career, based on the evidence I have found, was quite short, and mostly opaque. The entirety of it is composed of two mentions in Doubt from the mid- to late-1950s. I do not know if she ever read Fort, or what drew her to the Fortean Society, nor what kept here there, though a few suggestions can be inferred from her contributions to Thayer’s Fortean magazine.

Kittrell’s first mention came in Doubt 47 (January 1955). The reference, though, is a generic one—Kittrell is listed in a paragraph of acknowledgments—that may have had something to do with anti-fluoridation reports (the credits were appended to a column on the topic) but also may not have. It is impossible from this mention to even be sure that Thayer referred to Laura F. Kittrell, because only the surname was included, though subsequent evidence strongly supports the idea that Laura had sent in the material. That most likely being the case, she was thus a member as early as the end of 1954. I am not sure what would have brought her to the Fortean Society at this time, though her father’s business may have provided an impetus: since she seems to have been somehow involved in the clipping service, she may have noted a mention to the Fortean Society in a news report.

That speculation is based on her second (and final) appearance in Doubt, issue 56 (March 1958). Thayer devoted this “Doubt” to Sputnik—he thought the evidence for them spurious at best—in the course of which he mentioned “phenomena” in Levelland, Texas, on the night of Saturday, 2 November 1957. Thayer did not disclose the nature of the phenomena, but contemporaneous newspapers report a fiery “thing” that flashed through the sky—as reported by several witnesses—and seemed to land on a highway, though it was not found. It was described as a 200-foot long egg of fire.  This was a month after Sputnik was launched.  A number of people said the ball was a space ship. Later investigations by the government, though, suggested there were fewer witnesses than originally reported, the stories were inconsistent, and the most likely explanation was ball lightning.

Thayer then went on: “In addition to the fine coverage from the national press by faithful members everywhere, the Society had the unique advantage of a member almost on the spot. That is MFS Laura Kittrell who owns a news clipping service in Dallas and heads a local UFO group. From her we received maps of the township and annotated diagrams of the events and interviews with eyewitnesses. In a more nearly normal issue this would make a feature story. Alas—we can only relate it to the Sputs—for they have taken over.” He then noted that the sighting occurred the very day Sputnik II was supposed to have been launched, and it reportedly passed over Moscow at the same time the events in Levelland unfolded. Similar phenomena then occurred in White Sands, N.M., the next day. 

Thayer’s exact point here is obscure to me—he wanted to cast aspersions on the Sputnik reporting and leave open other possibilities, which he did, but I am not clear what exactly he thought was going on. At any rate, though, we do learn some more about Kittrell. It is this mention that allowed me to connect the name to Laura Frances—the Dallas home and the relationship with the clipping bureau provided the necessary evidence (though there is some room for my being wrong). She remained a member. And she displayed the same interest in investigating a matter for herself that had driven her to Guam when her brother disappeared and had her looking into the identity of the second Oswald a few years later. This was, no doubt, a Fortean trait, the need to get into the weeds and make discoveries on her own, not taking the word of officials.

The report also shows that she was interested in flying saucers—interested enough to head up her own group. This may not be exactly correct: Thayer also had her owning the news clipping bureau that was actually owned by her father. But it does suggest she was devoted to the subject. I obviously do not know when she took up UFOs, nor her opinion on them, nor, for that matter, to which group she belonged: my searches have come up empty. But it does explain how she might have learned about the Fortean Society, If she was collecting clippings on flying saucers for her own use, she likely came across the name of the Society. And if flying saucers were the main focus of her unorthodox views—or her only one—then she might not have heard about the Society until the early 1950s, which could account for the timing of her appearance in “Doubt.” (There was a mention of the Fortean Society in relation to flying saucers in a Vermont paper, August 1952, and several similar mentions across the country in 1951.)

There’s also evidence here for speculating about why she did not appear in “Doubt” again. To be sure, there are plenty of possibilities: she was too busy; the Society folded not long after, when Thayer died in August 1959; she sent in material, but it was not used. But there’s also the possibility that she was irritated by the short-shrift Thayer gave what seems to have been a great deal of work. By his own admission, it should have been a feature, but he chose not to give the material its due. He blames Sputnik, but there is no reason he could not have devoted space to all of her Fortean investigation in a subsequent issue. It is exactly the kind of detailed work he wanted from Forteans, and yet, when he got it, chose to sit on it—a reflection, perhaps, of his souring on Forteanism.

Whatever the case, it was the last mention of Kittrell in the pages of “Doubt.” Soon enough, she would have other conspiracies to investigate.

[Jim Hargrove]

If Laura Kittrell was a member of the Fortean Society, she was in good company.  According to Wikpedia:

The Fortean Society was primarily based in New York City. Its first president was Theodore Dreiser, an old friend of Charles Fort, who had helped to get his work published. Founding members of the Fortean Society included Tiffany Thayer, Booth Tarkington, Ben Hecht, Alexander Woollcott and many of New York's literati such as Dorothy Parker.... Other members included Vincent Gaddis, Ivan T. Sanderson, A. Merritt, Frank Lloyd Wright and Buckminster Fuller.

 

[James Norwood]

For more on Laura Kittrell, see the two-part article published by William Weston in The Fourth Decade (Volume 8, Number 1, November 2000 and Volume 8, Number 2, January 2001), wherein Weston carefully cites his sources:

https://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=48719#relPageId=3&tab=page

https://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=48720#relPageId=3&tab=page