Charles Black

"many people do not accept that Oswald did in fact kill Kennedy therefore a search for the Oswald motive must be moot"

Jim----I apologize if I lacked clarity. My post was directed toward those who do believe that Oz was THE lone nut assassin. My question was and is---if he in fact was a lone nut assassin, what was his motive? The assassination was planned. What did he personally expect to gain.He apparently did not seek fame. If truly a lone nut he could not have gained wealth. Was his motive a death wish?

Regarding Marina, I restate that I can place very little value in any of her testimony or subsequent statements. Which portions of even a part time xxxx are to be believed. CharlieB

malfunction / sorry

Hi Jim

This would be a good idea if one believes that Oz was a participant in the first event which I personally do not. I furthermore have a major problem with nearly all of Marina's WC testimony. I feel that she was under extreme duress. Reenforcing my beliefs have been her more recent affirmations of his innocence. Charlie Black

Realizing that in the U.S. judicial system that motive need not be proven to find a defendant guilty of murder, I have a dilemma. It is logical to me that when a case involves the planned killing of one particular individual, by name, to the exclusion of all other individuals, that motive must in fact exist! Apart from crimes of passion, random killings, insanity and a few other examples which do not fit the alledged LHO murder of JFK, we must assume that this was a planned murder. Except for in cases of insanity, a plan requires a motive. The very nature of "a plan" excludes it from being random. If this is true, then LHO had a motive to, as a lone assassin, kill JfK.

What then was his motive? He did not seem to seek fame by taking blame. Charlie Black

Mr. Carroll

I cannot believe that a man of your background could have authored anything this shallow. What proof have you of what was locked or unlocked or who or how many may have visited Marilyn's house that night. Have you ever considered that some false statements may have been made in this case? I certainly hope that you would never be called on to investigate anything that I had a vested interest in. I sign off as just another charlatan.

Charlatan Black

Good Morning Stephen

Yes, very much so! CharlieB

Hello John & Tim

Just a quick stab at perhaps why Robert may have risked his presence at the MM scene. Both Jack and Robert seemed to have a fascination for all things that were black ops / special ops, particularly Robert. They were also known to have at times used poor, perhaps very reckless judgement, in the pursuit of matters that caught their fancy. Robert's presence, and their is considerable evidence of it, may to him have been a covert ops adventure that compelled him to participate in. Charley Black

Dawn, I do agree. Charlie Black

Hello Dawn

This is my personal feeling only, but I feel that the geographic and political restructuring which began occuring prior to the end of WWII which included, for all practical purposes, the end of Colonialism, brought together the elements of super powered private factions that could control governments.

Charlie Black

And absolute power------------------

It is frightening to me and very nearly unimagineable when I attempt to expand my mind to the extent that I can even touch on the meaning of "Absolute Power". I am speaking of that Absolute Power that exists and has existed in the world of geo politics and the New World Order. A power that literally allows anything that is imagineable to be Absolutely possible and probable. It operates at a stratospheric level in which words and concepts such as law & lawless, crime, religion, loyalty, love, right, wrong, conscience, morality and guilt do not exist.

To my thinking it is like a tidal wave that sneaks in, unobserved and removes or re-arranges everything in its path to the extent that it is impossible to reconstruct, even in ones own mind, the original order of things. For the most fortunate, their may be a blurry, faded photograph. When I consider the power that has been involved, I clearly realize that my life, the lives of everyone that I know, the lives of John & Robert Kennedy, other heads of state, religous leaders, Popes------ the life and lives of no one or any group are at all important to the master plan and can in no way stem the tide. Nothing has resisted this force which started as a ripple sixty years ago.

Sorry ! No real message. Just venting. Charlie Black

Although all of these deaths may not be consdidered sinister, the timing of them IMO definitely is. Even if a very few of the below listed had, under immunity, "told all", I think that there is a good possibility that we would not be having this discussion today. I feel that it is very damned sinister that none of this testimony was ever heard!

William Sullivan, Manuel Artime, J. Hoffa, DeMorenschildt, Cadigan, Nicholas, Giancanna, Nicoletti, Prio, J. English, Karamessines, Sheffield Edwards, William Harvey, W. Pawley, Morales, Paisley and John Roselli. It has been suggested that several of these were ready to spill the beans. What these people as a group probably knew, may very well have encompassed the entire case.

Coinidence again! Charlie Black

Thanks John and Tim. I have saved this. IMO, these particlar persons and their cause of death is even more telling than those who died relative to the WC investgation. Were I a statistician, I would do a study on those persons whose testimonies I at least felt were most pertinent to the subect and determine what percentage these deaths were of that total. Then of course the statistical probability of this occuring naturally. I would bet that this figure is phenomenal!

Again, thanks very much to both of you. Charlie Black

Hello Mel

During the course of his life, LHO was subjected to many medical examinations. He was examined by U.S. doctors both military and civilian, doctors within the USSR, and by various inteligence agencies within this country and without who have the capabilities to determine whether a person is a "crazed psychotic". I have never seen this diagnosis administered. Furthermore you claim that the proof is that he murdered JFK, officer Tippet and attempted to murder that upstanding General. Are their any court records that substantiate or support your personal guilty verdict? Is this your form of vigilante justice? Or perhaps is this just your personal opinion? Charlie Black

We are all aware of the long list of "mysterious deaths" that are related to the JFK assassination in general.

However those persons who died immediately prior to their scheduled testimonies before the HSCA seem even more ominous. I suppose that I am being a little lazy but has anyone developed a list of those persons and their alledged cause of death?

By way of introduction to this forum I have added the following article which sets out my take on the JFK assassination.

40 Years On—Who Killed Kennedy?

By Mel Ayton

This essay first appeared in History Ireland, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Winter issue, 2003)

      In 1964 the Warren Commission investigation of President Kennedy’s assassination concluded that he had been killed by a lone assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the findings were accepted by the majority of the American public. However, a significant minority greeted the findings with instant skepticism. A public opinion poll immediately afterwards revealed that 56% accepted the Commission's conclusions. By the beginning of the new century, however, skepticism had turned to incredulity. Opinion polls were now showing around 10% or 11% of Americans believed that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing President Kennedy.

      The assassination of JFK has held a fascination for three generations of Americans. 40 years on, it has become the “Great Whodunnit” of the 20th Century. And the plots have become labyrinthine in their complexity. The Mafia, the CIA, the military-industrial complex, Texas oilmen, pro-Castro Cubans, anti-Castro Cubans, the KGB, J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, Lyndon Johnson, southern racists, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff all come under suspicion. However, no credible evidence has surfaced to support these theories.

      The enduring popularity of conspiracies makes them a highly lucrative enterprise and vested interests keep the myths alive. Six million visitors a year visit the JFK assassination site, where “researchers” peddle books, autopsy pictures and signed “grassy knoll witness” photos. The visitor can experience a virtual “Disneyland” of assassination themes, from limousine rides which trace JFK’s route from Love Field to Dealey Plaza to bus trips which follow Oswald’s escape route. It is a multimillion-dollar industry promoting books, videos, CD-ROMs, T-Shirts, and even board games. Conspiracy theories have brought the assassination into the world of entertainment.

      So how did we arrive at this position?

      From the start, the fact that a crazed psychotic could have changed the world in a single moment staggered belief. The American public simply could not believe such a monumental crime could be committed by such a pathetic individual. The cause—Oswald as a self-appointed champion of Castro—seemed so disproportionate to the consequences.

      Another answer lies in how the investigation of Kennedy’s murder was handled by the American government. In the hours following the assassination, America’s leaders feared that a public hysteria would demand revenge for the death of the president. At the very least their hopes for détente with the Soviet Union would be dashed. Some believed a world war would be imminent if evidence had been found that the Soviets or Cubans were behind the murder. Although intelligence agencies, using sophisticated methods, confirmed that Khrushchev and Castro were not involved, President Johnson was fearful that suspicions alone could lead to conflict. The government therefore decided they must convince the public that the president’s death was the work of a lone madman, not of some vast Communist conspiracy. In the context of the time this strategy was well intentioned, but many leads pointing to Oswald’s peripheral connections with foreign agencies were ignored or swept under the carpet.

      The actions of succeeding American administrations can also explain why the American public became open to persuasion by conspiracy advocates. The American people faced a litany of lies, distortions and half-truths by government agencies during the administrations of Johnson (Vietnam war), Nixon (Watergate) and Reagan (Iran-Contra); therefore allegations of a cover-up did not appear unusual or outrageous.

      The start of the assassination myths, however, began with the Warren Commission. Had the Commission carried out a more thorough investigation and demanded complete cooperation from the FBI and CIA, questions about Oswald and his nefarious activities in the weeks leading up to the assassination might have been immediately answered. If the FBI and CIA had been more forthcoming with the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which reinvestigated the crime in the 1970s, some of the “mysteries” might never have taken hold. Had the information they held on Oswald been released to investigatory bodies, there would have been little room left for the conspiracy theorists to maneuver.

      Blame for the way suspicions were engendered can be shared. The Dallas Police were careless with Oswald, a carelessness that led to the assassin’s murder by Jack Ruby, but they were not conspiratorially involved. The FBI failed in their duty to protect the president and failed to keep Oswald under observation during the presidential visit. They had a file on Oswald which traced his movements back to his time in the Soviet Union. Two weeks before the assassination, Oswald marched into the local FBI office in Dallas and created a scene, complaining about the harassment his wife was receiving from its agents who were trying to keep track of the ex-Marine Russian defector. And former CIA Director Allen Dulles, a Warren Commission member, failed to tell his colleagues on the commission or staff investigators about the assassination attempts against Castro. This knowledge could have given investigators an important lead on Oswald’s time in Mexico City in the short period before the assassination. In this sense, the "cover-up" is a historical truth.

      The CIA had their reasons for withholding files from the Warren Commission and the House Assassinations Committee. During the Cold War, information concerning the electronic bugging and surveillance of the Russian and Cuban embassies in Mexico City was deemed sensitive (as it is to this day). The National Security Agency’s capabilities and the methodology of its electronic intercepts are the most highly guarded of secrets. Information gleaned from bugging is protected on the grounds that it may inevitably lead to the discovery of intelligence-gathering methodology or the placement of undercover agents. Even though the CIA files were (and are) central to proving that Oswald was not the agent of a foreign power (or an agent of the CIA, for that matter), they have remained partially classified for these reasons. Commission members Richard Russell and Gerald Ford also knew about the Castro assassination plots. However, if no link existed between Oswald and the Soviet or Cuban governments, they reasoned, there was no reason to inform their staff investigators who wrote the Commission’s report.

      Initially, the Warren Commission Report was well received. However, as time passed, a series of proconspiracy books and newspaper revelations began to chip away at the commission’s lone-assassin conclusions. The Zapruder film apparently revealed how Kennedy had been shot from the right front; new witnesses spoke of how Oswald and his killer, Jack Ruby, had known one another; independent researchers and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison alleged that Oswald had been tied in with anti-Castro Cuban groups. Some researchers believed that shots had been fired from the “Grassy Knoll.” “Eyewitness” after “eyewitness” came forward to report they had recovered their memories and were “now ready to talk.” Their tales were rightly treated with skepticism by government investigators, but they convinced many a conspiracy author as well as the American public.

      The media can also take some responsibility for fanning the flames of conspiracy thinking. Following the assassination, every witness, no matter how remote from first-hand knowledge, became a “newsmaker.” The spotlight confused many of them—seldom did any respond with a “don't know” answer to media questions. The result was a flood of distortion and misinformation. As Patricia Lambert wrote, "(In 1966 LIFE magazine) ... may have played a greater role in turning the majority of Americans away from the conclusions of the Warren Report than any book written. In those days most of the country still relied heavily on the print media for its news. LIFE was an honored part of the American scene. For an institution as conservative and important to endorse such an idea seemed, in itself, to validate the notion of conspiracy."

      Thousands of new documents released following the enactment of the JFK Records Act in 1992 also show how the Kennedys may have inadvertently fed the conspiracy machine. Jacqueline Kennedy and the president's brother Robert Kennedy asked many of those present at the autopsy to promise not to talk about the procedure for 25 years. They feared that JFK’s health problems, which he lied about to get elected, may have been revealed. Conspiracy theorists pointed to this wall of silence as “proof” of a continuing cover-up, when in fact the doctors and staff were merely adhering to the wishes of the family. Beyond the autopsy, Robert Kennedy may have worried that the Warren Commission might stumble onto the government’s plots to kill Castro. He did not want the Warren Commission investigating Cuba even though the plots had nothing to do with the assassination.

      Even though assassination conspiracy theories have been successfully challenged time after time and found to be without merit, they have remained very appealing. Conspiracy theories are powerfully seductive, offering mystery and intrigue to the reader. Additionally, a conspiracy with a valid aim suggests control; the psychotic actions of a lone individual suggest chaos. And people are always looking for simple and straightforward answers. Furthermore, conspiracy theories are like the legendary Hydra—cut off one of its heads and a score of others will replace it.

      Conspiracies, imagined or otherwise, are part of the culture of American society. Far-reaching and complex conspiracy themes have been the staple diet of Hollywood, with movies like “The Manchurian Candidate,” “Conspiracy Theory,” “The Parallax View,” “Total Recall,” and “JFK.” Even television and the Internet have joined forces to promote sinister and antilibertarian motives of the United States government.

      Conspiracy theories have in the past been promoted by ideologues left and right alike. During the 1950s and 1960s, conspiracy theorists were generally right-wingers like Joseph McCarthy, who saw an America subverted by Communists. From the late ‘60s to the present, it has been the idealists of the left, who tended to see America subverted by right-wing conspiracies. JFK conspiracies have undergone a similar shift. Early targets were the Russians or the Cubans. Since the late 1960s it has been popular to suggest that the president’s death was the result of clandestine groups or agencies which had a natural right-wing bias, like the CIA, the Pentagon, or right-wing Texas oilmen. While the Soviet Union and Castro’s Cuba were busy subverting democracies in Latin America, conspiracy theorists in the United States began to look inward to the subversion of democratic institutions by faceless and powerful groups dedicated to the advancement of American corporations and the “military-industrial complex” that President Eisenhower spoke of.

      Conspiracy advocates have promoted the JFK conspiracy myth by adopting changing tactics in their desire to keep the issue alive. When named conspiracists were discovered to have been innocent, or no evidence could be provided to support various allegations, conspiracy theorists accused the government and suggested scenarios which were impossible to discredit—a very powerful group of individuals inside officialdom killed the president, a group powerful enough to engage vast legions of workers to cover up the conspiracy. These circumstances led Professor Jacob Cohen to criticize “the platoons of conspiracists (who) concertedly scavenged the record, floating their appalling and thrilling ‘might-have-beens,’ unfazed by the contradictions and absurdities in their own wantonly selective accounts, often consciously, cunningly deceitful.”

      Scientific and historical research throughout the 1990s, together with the release of government files, has now established the true circumstances surrounding the assassination, despite the protestations of the conspiracy-minded. All the major issues of the case, which center around the existence of single or multiple assassins, have been successfully addressed by America’s leading scientific and legal experts.

      Even though conspiracy advocates continue to insist that a conspiracy killed JFK, the evidence does not support their arguments. No “smoking gun” from the JFK assassination files has been unearthed. Sophisticated reenactments of the assassination using state of the art technology (computer models and laser-assisted weaponry) have shown that three shots were fired, all from behind and from the direction of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, where eyewitness Howard Brennan placed Oswald at the time of the shooting. The rifle and the pistol were traced directly to Oswald. Spectrographic analysis of photographs purporting to show gunmen on the “Grassy Knoll” reveal only light and shadows. Neutron-activation analyses of bullet fragments support the single bullet theory, which was central to the single-assassin conclusion. A computer- enhanced version of the Zapruder film has confirmed that Oswald could have fired the three shots in the time sequence required. Ballistics experts have testified that Oswald’s rifle was more than adequate for the job. Forensic pathologists and physicists have proven that the backward snap of Kennedy's head is consistent with a shot from the rear. Incontrovertible evidence links Oswald with the murder weapon. And credible eyewitness testimony and circumstantial evidence establishes that Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots which killed President Kennedy. His fleeing the scene of the crime established his “consciousness of guilt.” Incontrovertible evidence establishes that Lee Harvey Oswald murdered Police Officer Tippit within an hour of shooting President Kennedy.

      Researcher Don Thomas’s acoustics research, published in 2001 and alleging that more than three shots had been fired, has now been rejected by the National Academy of Sciences and other acoustics/ballistics experts(http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/JFK.html) who concluded his research was flawed. Reports of Oswald’s alleged contacts with anti-Castro Cubans, KGB agents, rogue elements of the CIA, and Castro’s intelligence agents have been researched fully and found to be the product of guilt by association and gross speculation. The Jim Garrison investigation, made famous by Oliver Stone’s movie “JFK,” in which the New Orleans District Attorney claimed to have uncovered the conspiracy behind the assassination, was found to be politically inspired and bogus when his files were opened for scrutiny by the Assassination Records Review Board, which reported the results of its five-year investigation of Government files in 1998. Books by Gerald Posner and Patricia Lambert revealed how conspiracy advocates, fueled by a public hooked on conspiracy theories, have continually abused the evidential record. These authors have shown how conspiracy theorists misrepresented the facts of the case through selective use of witnesses, presentation of crude scientific opinion about the physical evidence, and by accusing government officials of involvement without providing concrete proof. Furthermore, over a period of 40 years, documents connected to the case have been proven to be forged, “conspiracy witnesses” have provided no corroborative evidence, and conspiracy authors have accused innocent individuals of involvement in the crime.

      Conspiracy advocates have never been able to address many logical aspects of the crime which decisively argue against conspiracy. For example, how could a conspiracy, which would have to involve hundreds if not thousands of people, remain a secret in an age when “whistle-blowers” have succeeded in everything from revealing corruption in government to initiating the impeachment of presidents?

      Confusion about motive was at the heart of the Kennedy murder. The Warren Commission failed to decisively conclude that Oswald was anything but a deranged assassin, which left open many avenues for speculation. Yet there was definitely a political motive for Oswald’s actions. He had spent his adolescence and early manhood pursuing a Communist dream and searching for some kind of involvement in revolutionary activities. Disillusioned with his time spent in the Soviet Union, the young Oswald returned home searching for a new cause. He found it in his hero, Fidel Castro, and began planning a way to help the revolution. As his wife Marina said, “I only know that his basic desire was to get to Cuba by any means, and all the rest of it was window dressing for that purpose.” His friend Michael Paine said Oswald wanted to be an active guerrilla in the effort to bring about a new world order.

      During the time he spent in New Orleans he set himself up as an agent provocateur for the cause and imagined himself as a hero of the revolution. In New Orleans it was common knowledge that anti-Castro exiles had been planning another invasion of Cuba and had been attempting to kill Castro with the assistance of the CIA. As an avid reader of political magazines and newspapers, Oswald could not have failed to see a September 1963 New Orleans newspaper article in which Castro threatened retaliation for attempts on his life. It is plausible Oswald had been inspired by this article.

      Oswald’s political ideals remained with him up to the moment of his death at the hands of a Dallas self-appointed vigilante, Jack Ruby. It was inevitable that someone as politically motivated as Oswald would wish to reveal his political sympathies to the world following his arrest for the murder of the president and a Dallas police officer. However, he did not accomplish this by confessing, but instead by parading around the Dallas police department giving a clenched-fist salute. Most conspiracy advocates had assumed Oswald had been merely showing his manacled hands to reporters. But two photographs taken that tragic weekend show clearly Oswald’s left-wing salute. His actions were confirmed by Dallas police officer Billy Combest, who accompanied Oswald in the ambulance as he lay dying. According to Combest, Oswald “made a definite clenched-fist salute.”

      However, conspiracy advocates continue to muddy the waters with the release of new books to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the assassination. Engaging in indiscriminate presentations of “fact” and applying fractured logic, they continue to construct false theories. The end result is a narrative of half-truths and speculation “proving” that President Johnson and a mixed bag of intelligence agents, military officers, gangsters, and police officials conspired to eliminate a “dangerous” president. Even the most erudite reader would have to spend a considerable amount of time to filter the information they present, eventually becoming overwhelmed by the masses of esoteric and highly technical data, most of it the work of self-proclaimed “experts” who have been ridiculed by the scientific community. Conspiracists are at an advantage in that their use of facts and evidence that supposedly support their theories is not easily falsifiable. Conversely, books which rightly reject the conspiracy solution to the Kennedy assassination have been relatively unsuccessful because there are no really dramatic discoveries.

      The true facts cannot now be established with absolute precision. Too many false leads have been sown, too many witnesses have died, and the volume of material pertaining to the case can be misinterpreted by anyone who wishes to construct a false story. And time has a way of eroding the truth. However, after 40 years of speculation we can now say, for the purposes of historical accuracy, that no evidence has been produced which can decisively point a conspiratorial finger, nor has any evidence negated the argument for Oswald’s guilt.

Mel Ayton

http://www.melayton.co.uk

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Hello Mel Ayton and welcome to the forum. Always potentially enlightening to perhaps hear fresh thoughts. In that I am very pressed for time on this beautifully sunny Florida morning I will be very brief and address but two points.

"All the major issues in this case which center around the existence of single or multiple assassins have been successfully addressed by America's leading scientific and legal experts".

Sir, would please quote your references for these successful addresses by America's leading scientific and legal experts. It seems that over the past thirty years I have somehow missed them.

The only other question which I have for you this morning pertains to shooting skills. Even excluding the three second time frame, which is a very major exclusion, have you ever re-acquired a moving target thru a misaligned rifle scope from 65 feet in the air and at a range of 85 meters with a very slow cycling, 19th century vintage, bolt action rifle? If so, did you hit your target? I personally was a much better shot than LHO when I was in the military and since target shooting is a hobby of mine (at least once a week), I find it strange that even today I still am unable to do this while many lone nut theorists profess that this is no mean feat.

Needless to say that in my target practice I am not physically shaken by the tremendous adrenalin flow which would have resulted from knowing that I was murdering the most powerful man in the world, from a position in which escape would be very difficult, and that I had no sidearm for protection nor any planned escape strategy. I would think also that the confusion created by hundreds of shouting onlookers would certainly further disrupt me.

Unless you feel that either you or persons that you know could successfully have handled this situation, as you profess to believe that Oswald did, any further discussion of Oswald's lone nut, near super human involvement would be pointless.

I feel that it is generally acknowledged by both consp. theorists and lone nutters that LHO was of at least average intelligence and many consider that his IQ to have been well above average.

Mel, I ask you for just a little speculation, though much less than was asked of witnesses by Warren commission council. If a person of at least average intelligence had decided to murder the most powerful man in the world, and who had the money immediately prior to the assassination to have purchased a weapon much more likely to have accomplished same, don't you feel that he would have done so, particularly in the light that he was most likely going to die during the attempt? Or do you feel that in order to be frugal he decided to attempt this with a near unworkable 19th century vintage rifle and only four rounds of WWII miitary ammo. CharlieB

Although we don't know if rifle CE 2766 which allegedly belonged to LHO was actually fired on 11/22/63, we must accept that the rifling marks on CE399 and at least one of the fragments said to have been found in the Presidential Limo had been fired "at some time" thru this rifle barrel. This as, stated elsewhere, could have occured on 11/22/63 or at any date prior to this and the bullets could have been saved for later evidence planting. As a matter of fact the near pristine condition of CE399 could have resulted from the bullet having been fired into a liquid or into a soft fiber.

The question that I ask is in the light of Ozzie's satement that he did not own a rifle, a statement which I think was was subjected to a voice stress analization test, he perhaps could technically have been telling the truth. Is it not possibe that he sold this weapon? Maybe to Seymour, Ferrie, Wes Frazier or to countless other suspected conspiracists? When was the last time that Marina claimed to actually see the rifle?

The reason that this scenario came to mind is if the gun were stolen from the Paine garage, who knew that it was their? I don"t think that tight lipped Ozzie would have broadcast it. It is unlikely that Marina would have told Morman Ruth Paine. Therefore if it had been removed from the garage, it seems that it could not have been so without the knowledge of Ruth, Marina or LHO.

In lieu of substantial testimony of other TSBD employees who observed LHO enter work without a large package on 11/22/63, I have for some time questioned the testimonies of Wes Frazier and his sister Linnie Mae. We must remember that they were close neighbors of the Paines. We must also remember that Ruth, Wes and Linnie Mae were the only way that Oz had procured his job at the TSBD. Additionally, it was the testimonies of Marina, Ruth, Wes and Linnie Mae that initially nailed LHO to the cross. Their seems to be an enormous amount of circumstantial and not so circumstantial evidence here. In my opinion--Too Much!

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