Thomas Graves

It would be nice if letters mailed by other people (preferably not "associated" with the assassination) from Irving, Texas, during that same general time period could be found on E-bay, etc, in order to help us determine whether or not the Irving postmark machine(s) normally created such a large gap as the one the "V" in "NOV" and the "2", above, i.e., between the month and the day for any single-digit-numbered day. -- Tommy .

Bill, Does it make sense that "hands on" Morales, known to have a scar on his left eyebrow (just like Billing's / Garrison's "Spanish Trace" allegedly had), might have been monitoring or "mentoring" Oswald in New Orleans on 8/09/63? -- Tommy PS. When you say Morales was a "mole", I don't suppose you mean it in the sense he was sharing American secrets with the Ruskies, do you? -- Tommy

Jim, So, you must be quite intelligent, then! Have you ever tried teaching English to native Slavic language speakers (Poles, Slovaks, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Russians, etc)? -- Tommy

Sandy, I might be wrong, but I don't think a Russian would be able to differentiate an American from a Spaniard from a Frenchman, etc, by the way that person spoke Russian. -- Tommy

It was my little test to see if Ray was paying attention. Fortunately, he was. -- Tommy

An excerpt from an interesting essay somebody wrote at some college: PART FOUR: THE “RUSSIAN” OSWALD "Some researchers have speculated that Oswald did not intend to travel to the Soviet Union but was only trying to gain entrance into Cuba in order to receive orders from the Soviet embassy in Havana, Cuba about the assassination and his subsequent escape out of the United States. In order to prove that he had resided previously in the Soviet Union, Oswald provided a copy of the 1959 passport from the original Oswald and his Russian work permit. He also displayed evidence that he had married a Russian woman and had supported the communist cause in the U. S. as secretary of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) and as a member of the American Communist Party. In short, Oswald wanted to establish that he was a supporter of the Cuban revolution (Eddowes, 1977). A woman by the name of Sylvia Duran interviewed Oswald at the Cuban Consulate and subsequently told him that his request for a visa had been denied. When Oswald became upset, Consul Eusebio Ascue was summoned and he also told Oswald that an immediate visa was out of the question because it would take several weeks to process an official request for travel to Cuba. Oswald was told that the only other alternative would be to secure approval from the Soviet embassy for a visa to travel to Russia. A Russian visa would have allowed Oswald initially to travel to Cuba before eventually departing for the Soviet Union (Eddowes, 1977). After Oswald’s failure to reach the Soviet embassy in Havana to receive his instructions about the assassination, it has been argued that Oswald met with clandestine KGB agents at the Soviet embassy in Mexico City from September 27 to October 3 to discuss the assassination of Kennedy. Specifically, there is documented evidence that Oswald met with Valeri Vladimirovich Kostikov, a KGB officer in command of Department 13 known for sabotage and assassination. Also, Oswald met with a second KGB officer connected to clandestine operations by the name of Valeri Dmitrevich Kostin who was not listed as an employee of the Soviet embassy in Mexico City. It has been speculated that Oswald was to have met with Kostin in Havana but, when he failed to obtain permission to travel to Cuba, Kostin was flown quickly to Mexico City. Unfortunately, the substance of the discussions between Oswald and the KGB officers is unknown (Nechiporenko, 1993)" https://history.appstate.edu/sites/history.appstate.edu/files/Paper - Scott Johnson.pdf In my humble opinion, if we factor in what Duran and Azcue's "Blond Oswald" wrote in his 2005 memoirs -- Likholetye (The Troubled Years) by Nikolai Leonov --, and also what Leonov told National Enquirer magazine in 1993, one possible scenario is that Oswald did meet with flown-in-from-Cuba KGB officer Valeri Dmitrecich Kostin inside the Mexico City Soviet Embassy on Sunday, 9/29/63, and that Mexico City-based at-that-time Leonov is trying, many years later, not only to "corroborate" Nechiporenko's allegation that Oswald was highly unstable (and therefore, in turn, "corroborate" Noshenko's 1964 contention that KGB had no interest in LHO because of his emotional instability) when he met with him on Saturday, 9/28, but also trying to retroactively "cover" for the activities of this KGB officer, Kostin's, as well. Just a thought. -- Tommy

I would think that that kind of result is to be expected with words and names labeled in a text as having been "phonetically-spelled". Regarding the 1975 Church Committee memo we've been talking about, I think it's reasonable to assume that: 1 ) the author was getting his information from Angleton, 2 ) JJA was telling the guys about things that had happened some twelve years earlier, 3 ) Angleton might not have been able to perfectly remember the Russian dude's name by that time, because 4 ) Angleton might even have had a martini or two a little earlier that day. Or, ..... Angleton did remember Leonov's name, and enunciated it clearly to the guys, but the writer of the memo was either too darn lazy or embarrassed to ask JJA to spell it out for him. LOL FWIW, I just now found this article on the website JFK Facts: Nikolai S. Leonov has an interesting perspective on the story of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Leonov joined the KGB in 1958 and retired in 1991 with the rank of Lieutenant General. In the spring of 1963, his fluency in Spanish gained him the job as the Russian interpreter for Cuba president Fidel Castro during his first visit to the USSR in the spring of 1963, In the photo above he is the man standing between and behind Castro and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Later that year Leonov was assigned to the KGB Station in the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. In October 1963, he was immediately informed when a man named Lee Harvey Oswald called the Embassy seeking a visa to travel to Cuba. Leonov recalled this encounter in his memoirs (Likholetye [The Troubled Years], 2005). The relevant passage was translated by Mark Hackard for his digital page Espionage History Archive. Here is an extract. Retired KGB official Nikolai Leonov "Once on a Sunday in the autumn of 1963, several weeks before the assassination of John F. Kennedy, I was playing volleyball with my colleagues at the embassy’s athletic field. Suddenly a somewhat agitated duty officer appeared and began to ask me to receive an American visitor and speak with him. Swearing under my breath, I ran over in my track suit, hoping that I could get off with a request for him to come on a workday. Entering the reception room for foreigners, I saw a young man with an unusually pale face. A revolver lay on the table, its cylinder loaded with bullets. I say nearby and asked him how I could be of assistance. The young man said his name was Lee Oswald, that he was an American, and that he was currently under constant surveillance and wanted to return immediately to the USSR, where he had earlier lived and worked in Minsk, and be delivered from the constant fear for his life and for the fate of his family. It was clear that behind the table sat a man with an overstimulated nervous system that was on the verge of breakdown. There was no purpose to speaking with a person who was in such a state. The question of restoring citizenship was extremely complicated. One had to write a well-founded request to the USSR Supreme Council Presidium and then wait without any great hope for a long time. And if a positive decision came, then bureaucratic red tape would a lot of time. With the softest, most calming tone I could use, I informed our unusual visitor of this. He began to write a request, but his hands were trembling strongly. Suddenly he set the pen aside and firmly stated: 'I’ll shoot them all today. In the hotel everyone is following me: the manager, the maid, the doorman…' “His eyes shone feverishly, and his voice became unsteady. Images and scenes unknown to me had obviously set upon him. It was clear that behind the table sat a man with an overstimulated nervous system that was on the verge of breakdown. There was no purpose to speaking with a person who was in such a state. We had only to calm Lee Oswald down as much as possible, try to convince him not to do anything that could hinder a positive resolution to his question of restoring USSR citizenship, and accompany him out of the embassy. I let the embassy consular department know of what had occurred. After November 22 “When some time later I learned that namely Lee Oswald was accused of assassinating US President John Kennedy, I saw on television the moment of his murder in a Dallas jail. It was a murder camouflaged as a random assassination, and it became clear to me that he was an obvious scapegoat. Never could a man with such a shaken nervous system, whose fingers couldn’t steadily hold a pen, calculatingly and in cold blood produce the fatal shots accurately from long distance. I say this firmly and with conviction, because in my youth, as a student at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), I was involved in sport shooting and steadily passed the requirements for a marksman. I was even a member of the Moscow shooting team. Many times I had to shoot from a combat rifle in competitions, and I know that the foundation of success lies most of all in a trained and forged nervous system. And I recall that in his conversation with me, Oswald not once spoke negatively of the president or US government. All his fears were tied to someone from nearby, although he couldn’t definitively explain who was after him and why. It’s a pity for such people hounded through life and made the victims of a greater political game.'” -- Tommy PS Here's the 1993 National Enquirer magazine article about the same incident: http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/P Disk/Passport to Assassination/Item 01.pdf .....................................

Bumped Because it's my thread. And because Jim never answered my question.

Jim, Okay. My conclusion: Regarding just the syntax, grammar, and vocabulary that he used (i.e., excluding his spelling and punctuation shortcomings), your "Harvey" spoke and wrote better English than most college graduates. How do you like *them* apples? -- Tommy

That's quite a coincidence. -- Tommy

Did Oswald somehow indicate he knew that the guy he'd allegedly met with at the MC Sov Embassy was KGB?

Excellent research, btw. IMHO

Hmm. So, that sneaky little Hungarian devil, HARVEY, did write "took," after all. (Thanks for pointing that out, Young Master Mitcham.) -- Tommy

Me? All the time. -- Tommy

Edited and bumped

Huh? "Foyou"?! I'm afraid I'm gonna have to contact a moderator now. Using profane language on this here Forum is strictly prohibited.

Well, I suppose to suggest that HARVEY intended to write the word "took" there, but since he was smoking some really heavy xxxx that day, that old Hungarian word for "l mean" kinda crept into his subconscious, and he wrote it down, instead! What do you make of it, Master Mitcham? I mean, I mean, I mean, ..... given the fact that Oswald wasn't dyslexic or anything? -- Tommy

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

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?

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.

improved and bumped

Nope. Not when compared to my "running into" my grandfather from Princeton, Indiana, in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, when I hitchhiked from La Jolla to Homer, Alaska, in 1973. Or when a friend of mine from La Jolla recognized me on a movie set in Boscovice, Czech Republic. Or when .... -- Tommy

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

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

Sandy, Given the fact that in the memo there are a couple of very similar, short, phonetically-spelled, Russian-looking names, both of which start with a "L" and end with an "-OV / -OFF" , would you agree with me that, if the writer is struggling with the correct spelling of the name "Leonov", and that this sentence fragment -- "a photo found by the Mexican police of Leninoff (phonetic), a Mexican KGB agent" could and should have been written -- "a photo found by the Mexican police of Leonov, a Mexico City-based KGB officer" ? -- Tommy