Reporter's notes

[James Richards]

I thought that forum members might find these notes by radio reporter, Ike Pappas interesting. Pappas was present when the DPD paraded Oswald.

Some curious aspects include the handwritten note saying that he detected a hint of a Spanish accent and that Oswald was 5' 6".

James

[Greg Kooyman]

I thought that forum members might find these notes by radio reporter, Ike Pappas interesting. Pappas was present when the DPD paraded Oswald.

Some curious aspects include the handwritten note saying that he detected a hint of a Spanish accent and that Oswald was 5' 6".

James

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Hi James,

Interesting bit of information. I find the notation of Oswald having a slight Spanish accent intriguing. I wonder why he thought Oswald only appeared to be 5'6". Thats a big difference from say maybe 5' 9" or 5' 11".

Greg

[James Richards]

Hi James,

Interesting bit of information. I find the notation of Oswald having a slight Spanish accent intriguing. I wonder why he thought Oswald only appeared to be 5'6". Thats a big difference from say maybe 5' 9" or 5' 11". (Greg Kooyman)

Hi Greg,

The height thing in particular intrigued me the most. According to Oswald's DOD card below, he was 71 inches which is 5' 11".

How does a guy shrink 5 inches? Bizarre.

James

[Ron Ecker]

I'm going to break down and read Armstrong's book Harvey and Lee. It won't take much to convince me that there were two Oswalds (and I don't mean some occasional impersonator such as Seymour).

Ron

[Charles Black]

I'm going to break down and read Armstrong's book Harvey and Lee. It won't take much to convince me that there were two Oswalds (and I don't mean some occasional impersonator such as Seymour).

Ron

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Hi Ron

Although this book is well worth having as a research tool it has not proven to me that there were two Oswalds as presented in this book. Why would an agency go to the years of trouble that were neccessary in order to place a very low level agent in USSR. I sincerely believe that there were several Oswald impersonators but this concept, I feel is off the wall.

There were too many things that could have gone wrong : Suppose one of them had died in their youth or was crippled. What if as they matured, they looked nothing alike? What if one had a change of ideas? Consider the programming of two different families. How about acquantenances from the past? Did they have the same medical histories. Theorize what might have happenedif one of the two was sevrely allergic to a certain drug. Similar IQ's?

It is obvious that we could probably list hundreds of potential and serious problems.

On the other hand, if you wanted "two Oswalds" why not take two similar looking young men in their mid-teens with patriotic ideals. Young men that you knew their appearance, their size, medical and emotional histories, and over a much shorter period of time with much less chance of something going wrong, program them for their "voluntary"mission. After all, this type of mission did not require a "James Bond"

Charlie Black

[J. Raymond Carroll]

James, what is the source for this document and can you decipher the hand-written corrections?

[Ron Ecker]

if you wanted "two Oswalds" why not take two similar looking young men in their mid-teens with patriotic ideals. Young men that you knew their appearance,  their size, medical and emotional histories, and over a  much shorter period of time with much less chance of something going wrong, program them for their "voluntary"mission. After all, this type of mission did not require a "James Bond"

That sounds reasonable to me. Whether or not or to what extent Armstrong has the scenario right, it looks to me like there were two Oswalds, one of whom was shorter than the other, and one of whom had plenty of time to learn and master the Russian language, which could not be done in some Marine Corps barracks listening to records in his spare time.

Ron

[Alan Healy]

I'd like to hear a few of our US members comment on that James.

He seemed to me to be well spoken, with good manners but how do you describe that accent?

Alan

[Ryan Crowe]

It makes me wonder if Oswald said something in spanish. Like Alan said, he was well spoken, so I dont know how one could make this claim, unless he said something in spanish.

[James Richards]

James, what is the source for this document and can you decipher the hand-written corrections?

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J. Raymond,

The document was published in a book titled, 'President Kennedy Has Been Shot', compiled by Cathy Trost and Susan Bennett. It is a break down of news and how it was reported at the time. There is also a CD that goes with it which is narrated by Dan Rather. That aside, it is a good historical record of actual televison and radio news reports.

As to the hand written corrections, they read as follows -

"didn't know anything about killing the President."

"I detected a slight Spanish accent."

"he looked pale and made the statement."

"someone yelled."

As to referencing a Spanish accent, that is really bizarre. I have no idea what to make of that. Ryan's point about the possibility of LHO having said something in Spanish is well taken.

James

[Roger Fong]

In the heat of battle, anyone can make mistakes, even reporters. So I wouldn't lose too much sleep over the height difference, or even the Spanish accent comment. Although I've studied linguistics, I'm not an expert by any stretch. However, I think many people familiar with American idiomatic speech will agree that Oswald is not that easy to pin down. His speech pattern is kind of uniquely his own, with maybe a trace of southern. Amazingly, Englishman Gary Oldman nailed it in the JFK movie.

[Robin Unger]

In the heat of battle, anyone can make mistakes, even reporters. So I wouldn't lose too much sleep over the height difference, or even the Spanish accent comment. Although I've studied linguistics, I'm not an expert by any stretch. However, I think many people familiar with American idiomatic speech will agree that Oswald is not that easy to pin down. His speech pattern is kind of uniquely his own, with maybe a trace of southern. Amazingly, Englishman Gary Oldman nailed it in the JFK movie.

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Thanks James.

Very interesting thread.

QUOTE:

With the release of primary-source documents pursuant to the 1992 law, the evidence that Oswald may in fact have been impersonated over a period of years for a variety of reasons and in a number of locations just keeps piling up. For example, one release from *96 which provides additional fodder for proof of imposture in Mexico City is a November 27, 1963, memo from Winston Scott to Legal Attache Clark D. Anderson which says that the final one in a series of phone calls to the Soviet embassy in Mexico City regarding Oswald's visa request came from a man who was suspected NOT to be Oswald because of the broken Spanish and English spoken (rather than Russian). The call also came in at 1539 hours on October 3rd -- after Oswald is supposed to have been back in Dallas.

http://www.jfklancer.com/Page4.html

QUOTE:

* Oswald's alleged bus tickets were found only a few days before the Warren Report was to be published. The tickets were supposedly found in some Spanish- language magazines that Oswald had allegedly brought back from Mexico City. As the story goes, Marina Oswald supposedly took these magazines with her to the hotel where the government detained her after the assassination. There, at the last minute, Marina found the tickets in one of the magazines. No one has yet explained why Marina would have taken Spanish magazines with her when she did not even speak the language. Nor has anyone explained why it took so long to "find" the tickets. FBI had agents had already carefully searched the motel rooms where Marina and her children were being kept. The agents said they had examined every scrap of paper in the rooms and found nothing of interest (43:66). The rooms were searched again by a different team of agents. They didn't find the tickets either. It was only after the WC finally seemed to get suspicious about the lack of hard evidence of Oswald's Mexico City trip that the tickets miraculously turned up.

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/the_critics/g...personated.html

[J. Raymond Carroll]

[

As to referencing a Spanish accent, that is really bizarre. I have no idea what to make of that. Ryan's point about the possibility of LHO having said something in Spanish is well taken.

James

James, Many thanks for the source info. I agree with Roger about the accent. Ike Pappas is a New Yorker, i.e one who believes that everyone else has a funny accent.

Ray

[Bill Cheslock]

I'm going to break down and read Armstrong's book Harvey and Lee. It won't take much to convince me that there were two Oswalds (and I don't mean some occasional impersonator such as Seymour).

Ron

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Ron:

Your remark about Armstrong's book, "Harvey and Lee" is interesting.

Although I haven't read it, I have seen excerpts from it and Armstrong does

bring up a few arguments for the two Oswald theory that are difficult to dismiss.

I won't go into detail, but I will bring up one that I have found difficult

to explain. Armstrong discovered that Lee Oswald was working for the Pfisterer

Dental Laboratory in New Orleans during the exact time he was serving

duty in the United States Marines. Quite frankly, this is an impossibility.

Armstrong goes on to say that all of Oswald's records from Pfisterer have conveniently disappeared. The WC has gone on record and stated that Oswald

worked at Pfisterer in 1956, before entering the Marines. However, employees

at the dental lab remember Oswald well, and remember working with him from

the fall of 1957 to the summer of 1958 (CE 1386), during the same time Oswald

was in the Marines. It does indeed make you stop and wonder...........

Bill Cheslock

Edited April 10, 2005 by Bill Cheslock

[Tim Gratz]

Robin wrote:

With the release of primary-source documents pursuant to the 1992 law, the evidence that Oswald may in fact have been impersonated over a period of years for a variety of reasons and in a number of locations just keeps piling up. For example, one release from *96 which provides additional fodder for proof of imposture in Mexico City is a November 27, 1963, memo from Winston Scott to Legal Attache Clark D. Anderson which says that the final one in a series of phone calls to the Soviet embassy in Mexico City regarding Oswald's visa request came from a man who was suspected NOT to be Oswald because of the broken Spanish and English spoken (rather than Russian). The call also came in at 1539 hours on October 3rd -- after Oswald is supposed to have been back in Dallas.

We have not yet been able to post here the article Mark Howell and I did for "Solares Hill" (part of Key West Citizen) but in it we report that according to Gerry Hemming Oswald was never in Mexico City. He may have been impersonated by the man photographed emerging from the Soviet Embassy, a man Hemming has identified as Mario Tauler Sague.