Jim Hargrove

Unlike Mr. Walton, I like to talk about EVIDENCE. And so I’ll continue to do so…. The earliest known evidence that a second Lee Harvey Oswald was living in the United States dates back to the summer of 1947. In July of that year, while Marguerite and her son LEE Oswald were living on 8th Ave. in Fort Worth, Marguerite purchased 101 San Saba in Benbrook, a suburb of Fort Worth. A month earlier, in June, Georgia Bell and her husband, Walter, purchased a property and began building their home directly across the street from the house in which Mrs. Oswald and the young boy were soon living (101 San Saba). Georgia, who lived at 100 San Saba for the next 50 years, remembered that Marguerite Oswald and the young boy lived at 101 San Saba from May through Thanksgiving, 1947. Tarrant County land records confirm that Walter and Georgia Bell purchased their property in June, 1947, and also confirm that Marguerite Ekdahl purchased the existing house at 101 San Saba the previous month. Georgia Bell remembered buying groceries for the woman she knew as Marguerite Oswald, taking her to the store, and remembered that the young boy with her played with neighborhood children. She remembered that a neighbor, Lucille Hubbard, drove Mrs. Oswald to pick up some clothes from another house when she got a job as a nurse. Mrs. Hubbard confided to Georgia that Marguerite had furniture and lots of clothes stored at this house which was located "across from Stripling School," which was probably 2220 Thomas Place in Fort Worth, where the woman known as “Marguerite Oswald” lived on and off numerous times, including at the time of the assassination of JFK. If the Russian-speaking Oswald was a Hungarian immigrant, as suggested in the anonymous phone call to Mr. and Mrs. Tippit from Connecticut, then he might have learned Russian in the years 1945 to 1947 in school in Hungary. If, that is, the Journal Paedagogica Historica abstract is correct in stating that “In the period between 1945 and 1989, the learning of Russian as a compulsory subject was introduced, teaching other languages was restricted, and Hungarian-Russian bilingual schools were launched.” Since he was probably born somewhere around 1939, for this theory to work he would probably have had to have Russian instruction in his earliest elementary grades, not at grade 5 and above as Mathias has suggested was the case, at least after 1950 in Hungary. If Russian was not taught in 1945-47 to younger students in at least some Hungarian schools, this theory probably fails. If it was, then it was possible that the young boy who assumed the name LHO had time to attend up to hundreds of Russian classes. This time frame also gives the immigrant child six years to learn to speak English before appearing in New York City schools, plenty of time for a child of his age to learn to speak without much of an accent. After all, Mr. Bojczuk want us to believe it was easy for Oswald to become fluent reading, writing, and speaking Russian in just two and a half years in the USSR (and just a year and a half according to Marina, who said he was reading Russian classics before they were married).

Thanks, Sandy! It's a funny thing about the truth. No matter how many people attack it, it just stays right there in plain sight.

I've already shown the FBI report that supposedly doesn't exist, but it is interesting that Mr. Bojczuk would say LHO was “conjured into life in New York.” It is the EVIDENCE, not Mr. Bojczuk’s imaginary sorcerer, that shows, for example, that two Lee Harvey Oswalds attended school in the fall semester of 1953, one in New York City, the other in New Orleans. In 1953, Marguerite and LEE were living in a basement apartment at 1455 Sheridan while LEE was attending PS 44 in New York City. After the assassination SAC John Malone, the FBI agent in charge of the New York Office, inspected Oswald's original court file in the presence of Judge Florence Kelley. Malone took notes and sent a report to FBI Director Hoover the following day. Malone wrote, "Oswald's attendance record at PS #44 from 3/23/53 to 1/12/54 was 171 and 11 half-days present and 18 and 11 half days absent. If LEE Oswald's 182 days of attendance (171 full days, 11 1/2 days) and 18 absences are plotted on 1953 and 1954 calendars it is easy to see that LEE Oswald attended PS 44 full time during the entire 1953 school year. In the fall of 1953 LEE Oswald was attending the eighth grade at PS 44 in New York, while HARVEY Oswald and his caretaker/mother were living at 126 Exchange Place in New Orleans. HARVEY was enrolled in the eighth grade at Beauregard Junior High, and because he attended school part-time he was not assigned a home room. On page 817, of Warren Volume 22, there is a copy of Oswald's cumulative school records at Beauregard. The first row, highlighted in yellow, is the fall semester of 1953 and shows that Oswald attended a General Science class, a Physical Education class, and attended 89 days of school with only one absence. The second row is for the last half of the eighth grade (spring semester). The third row shows final grades, absences, and tardies for the entire 53-54 school year (eighth grade). This information has been available to Mr. Bojczuk for more than 50 years. Now, of course, he asks that I discuss the earliest evidence of two Oswalds in the United States, so that he can show how unlikely it was for a Hungarian kid to have learned Russian when coming to the United States after the war. To do so, he uses a statement that Russian became universally mandatory in Hungarian schools in 1950 when, in fact, he ignores my citation of an abstract of an article from Journal Paedagogica Historica, International Journal of the History of Education, stating: “In the period between 1945 and 1989, the learning of Russian as a compulsory subject was introduced, teaching other languages was restricted, and Hungarian-Russian bilingual schools were launched.” Read it HERE. I will be happy to discuss in detail with Mr. Bojczuk the evidence of two Oswalds in the U.S. at the earliest time if he will simply provide an explanation that passes the giggle test of how LHO learned Russian.

I never put much significance into it, Mathias. Seems to me that Liebeler was far more interested in talking about Oswald’s Spanish than his Russian, for the obvious reasons, even though Delgado said that Oswald at least seemed to be far more proficient in Russian than Spanish. Delgado was one of the many California-based marines who saw Oswald reading Russian newspapers and literature and speaking Russian. Funny no one saw that in Japan, where the other Oswald was stationed longer. Delgado met and became friends with the Russian-speaking Oswald at MACS-9 in Santa Ana in October 1958, while the other Oswald was still in Japan, then en route to the mainland, and then on leave in Fort Worth, only later reporting briefly to a nearby base at El Toro on, according to the Warren Commission December 22 (later corrected to December 19.) If you read Delgado’s testimony and keep that Dec 19/22 alleged arrival date in mind, you’ll see one of thousands of clear differentiations between the two Oswalds. The Warren Commission apparently didn’t know that the nearby bases at Santa Ana and El Toro were, in fact, two different facilities.

Ahh, I understand why you're so angry and unhappy Michael. We both know there were two Oswalds running around, we just can't agree on for how long.

Mathias, I know of no example of evidence suggesting Oswald spoke Russian before his arrival in California. Do you? Given the WC's claim of his arrival date from Japan, that gave him just a single month to learn Russian well enough to get more questions right than wrong on a Russian exam supposedly testing his reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. It's ridiculous. The Spanish issue is interesting, but you probably won't like my answer (g). The evidence seems to show that Russian-speaking Harvey Oswald spoke no Spanish, but American-born Lee Oswald did—at least a little. The evidence for Lee Oswald’s Spanish speaking ability comes largely from the Mexico City affair, which can be debated endlessly, and from Laura Kittrell at the Texas Employment Office, who met both Oswalds and wrote endlessly about her encounters, which she concluded involved someone deliberately impersonating—in name and appearance--the real Oswald (she thought Harvey was the real Oswald). The are a few other incidents that I’m probably forgetting. Did you have any others in mind?

Mr. Walton, as always, demonstrates all kinds of anger and no actual EVIDENCE. He clearly knows little about one of the most enduring themes among Warren Commission critics for more than half a century: More than fifty years ago, Sylvia Meagher published her highly regarded book, Accessories After the Fact. She had a whole section entitled “Two Oswalds.” In The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald, Robert Groden has an entire chapter entitled “Too Many Oswalds.” In his recent book JFK and the Unspeakable James Douglass devotes dozens of pages to evidence that was Oswald in two places at the same time, including on 11/22/63. He footnotes Harvey and Lee a number of times. The book has been lauded by Oliver Stone, Mark Lane, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who called it "a very well-documented and convincing portrait... I urge all Americans to read this book and come to their own conclusions.” None of this apparently means anything to Mr. Walton, who just seems want to let us know how angry and unhappy he is.

That's an interesting point, Mathias. "Oswald" may or may not have been aware of the new university, but I'll bet the CIA had a thick file on it long before he departed the U.S. The WCR says this: Before he married Marina (and presumably before February, when he had begun his efforts to return to the United States) Oswald had applied for admission to the Patrice Lumumba Friendship University in Moscow. He received a letter dated May 3 apologizing for the delay in responding to his application and turning it down on the ground that the university had been established exclusively for students from the underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Oswald expressed his disappointment at having been turned down to Marina.692 The source for the above apparently is Marina, and so we do have to consider it cautiously. But you suggest an interesting line of investigation. If possible acceptance at the school was a goal of the so-called defection, how can we find more evidence for or against it? I'm not sure.

According to the Warren Commission, Oswald was stationed in Japan from September 1957 until November 1958, more than a year. But no Marine stationed at Atsugi noticed Oswald speaking, reading or writing Russian. One of Oswald’s closest associates at Atsugi was Zack Stout, who John Armstrong interviewed in November, 1998. Zack Stout said, "Most of the time we were with a mobile radar unit. Shortly after he arrived we left Japan and traveled constantly from location to location in the South China Sea [beginning in November 1957]. I know Oswald didn't attend any Russian classes or read any Russian books or listen to any Russian records. He didn't have anywhere to get such materials and if he had them we [Stout and fellow Marines] would have known about it. We slept in the same bunkhouse and most of the time worked on the same radar crew. The idea that Oswald studied Russian in Japan is ridiculous--it just didn't happen." The Warren Commission says that Oswald left Japan and reported for duty at the Marine Corps Air Facility in Santa Ana, California, in December 1958. A month later, he took the infamous Russian language test in which he got more questions right than wrong. A few months after that, he spent two hours conversing in Russian with Rosaleen Quinn. While he was stationed in California, he conspicuously read Russian literature, blasted Russian songs so loud they could be heard outside his barracks, and became known to his fellow soldiers as Comrade Oswaldovitch. But this happened only—and suddenly--in California. Mr. Bojczuk is wise to avoid explaining how Oswald learned to read, write and speak Russian in a matter of days while stationed in California. He does say this…. There's no reason to doubt that Oswald learned Russian in the same way that any other sufficiently motivated person would learn a foreign language. You get hold of some suitable learning materials, then you get your head down and put in some effort. Damn, that sounds easy! I think I’ll get myself some suitable learning materials, put my head down and put in some effort, and become an attorney ready to pass the local bar exam. Should only take a day or two! Or maybe a medical doctor… or a nuclear physicist! Remember, kids, just by putting your head down and making some effort, you can learn to read and write Russian just like in the newspaper below, and you can do it in less than a month… in your spare time with no teachers! It’s easy… according to Mr. Bojczuk!

Here is a transcript of an FBI document, an internal teletype from 11/30/63, withheld from public view for three decades, providing evidence that Mr. Bojczuk claims doesn’t exist. In a phone call heard by two people, an anonymous caller claims that she knew “Lee Harvey Oswald’s” father and uncle and that they were Hungarians and communists living near 77th St. and Second Ave. in New York City (emphasis added): URGENT 11-30-63 7-37 PM EST MB TO DIRECTOR, AND SACS DALLAS AND NEW YORK FROM SAC, NEW HAVEN /100-18158/ NEW YORK VIA WASHINGTON LEE HARVEY OSWALD, IS - R ON NOV. THIRTY INSTANT, JACK D. TIPPIT, SELF EMPLOYED CARTOONIST FOR NATIONAL MAGAZINES AND WIFE, ONE SIX FOUR NEW TOWN TURNPIKE, WESTPORT, CONN., ADVISED AS FOLLOWS. AT APPROXIMATELY ELEVEN THIRTY AM ON INSTANT DATE MRS. TIPPIT RECEIVED A TELEPHONE CALL FROM UNKNOWN WOMAN WHO ASKED IF MR. TIPPIT WAS A POLICEMAN AND IF HE WAS RELATED TO THE POLICE- MAN TIPPIT WHO WAS SHOT IN DALLAS. MRS. TIPPIT REPLIED HER HUSBAND WAS NOT A POLICEMAN, WAS DISTANTLY RELATED TO OFFICER TIPPIT AND ASKED IDENTITY OF CALLER. ON ANOTHER EXTENSION JACK TIPPIT LISTENED TO BALANCE OF PHONE CALL. THE WOMAN SAID SHE COULD NOT GIVE HER NAME AS SHE WAS AFRAID OF BEING KILLED, THAT SHE WAS FROM NEW YORK AND HAD TO COME "HERE" TO MAKE THE CALL SO THAT SHE COULD NOT BE TRACED AS SHE WAS IN FEAR OF HER END PAGE ONE PAGE TWO: LIFE. THE WOMAN REQUESTED THAT NOTHING BE SAID TO THE PRESS ABOUT A WOMAN CALLING AS THEY WOULD KNOW HER IDENTITY AND SHE WOULD BE KILLED. THE WOMAN SAID SHE KNEW OSWALD-S FATHER AND UNCLE WHO WERE HUNGARIANS AND COMMUNISTS. THE WOMAN CONTINUED THAT OSWALD-S FATHER AND UNCLE HAD LIVED AT SEVENTY SEVENTH AND SECOND AVENUE, YORKVILLE, NYC, THAT WHILE LIVING THERE BOTH WERE UNEMPLOYED, GOT THEIR MONEY FROM COMMUNISTS AND SPENT ALL THERE TIME IN COMMUNIST ACTIVITIES. THE WOMAN THEN BEGAN SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY, DISJOINTEDLY, AND NERVOUSLY. SHE STATED SHE HAD TWO NAMES TO GIVE AND MENTIONED THE NAME EMILE KARDOS AND SAID SOMETHING ABOUT A BROTHER IN LAW. WHEN MRS. TIPPIT TRIED TO FIND OUT WHOSE BROTHER IN LAW THE WOMAN KEPT REPEATING THE WORD BROTHER IN LAW. THE WOMAN STATED KARDOS IS HEAD OF THE COMMUNISTS AND THAT THIS GROUP IN NEW YORK NOW HAS CHARTS AND MAPS. THE WOMAN SAID SOMETHING ABOUT WEINSTOCK THE EDITOR OF QUOTE WOMAN-S WORLD UNQUOTE BUT DID NOT GIVE FURTHER DETAILS.. THE WOMAN SAID THE END PAGE TWO PAGE THREE: GROUP IN NEW YORK PLANS TO TAKE OVER THE GOVERNMENT, THAT OF COURSE THEY WOULD DENY THIS BUT SHE KNEW IT TO BE TRUE. SHE THEN HUNG UP ABRUPTLY. THE WOMAN NEVER GAVE ANY REASON FOR HER CALL WHICH SOUNDED LOCAL. MRS. TIPPIT THOUGHT THE WOMAN HAD AN AUSTRIAN OR GERMAN ACCENT WHILE MR. TIPPIT BELIEVED IT WAS SPANISH. BOTH FELT THE WOMAN SOUNDED LIKE A MATURE ADULT AND DID NOT HAVE A YOUTHFUL VOICE. MR. TIPPIT EXPLAINED WOMAN MAY HAVE OBTAINED HIS IDENTITY FROM AN ARTICLE ON PAGE ONE OF NORWALK, CONN. QUOTE HOUR UNQUOTE FOR NOVEMBER TWENTYFIVE LAST, WHICH STATED THAT WE MAY BE A DISTANT RELATIVE OF THE DALLAS POLICEMAN. TIPPIT SAID ARTICLE RESULTED FROM TELEPHONE CALL FROM REPORTER WHO WAS CHECKING ALL TIPPITS IN LOCAL TELEPHONE DIRECTORIES. BUREAU REQUESTED TO COORDINATE ABOVE WITH ANY OTHER INFORMATION TO DETERMINE IF PERTINENT AS NEW HAVEN HAS NO KNOWLEDGE OF THE RESIDENCE AND ASSOCIATES OF OSWALD-S FATHER AND UNCLE. END AND ACK PLS 7-45 PM OK FBI WA LLD FOR RELAY 6-47 PM CST OK FBI DL FL TU PLSDISC M CC-MR_ROSEN See actual document here. Neither John Armstrong nor I has ever presented the Hungarian roots of the Russian-speaking Oswald as anything other than a possibility. Hearsay evidence based on an anonymous phone call can hardly rise to the level of proof, but the call was overheard by two people, and provided a rather precise location for “Oswald’s” alleged father (at the intersection of 77th St. and Second Ave. in the Yorkville area of NYC). The teletype ends with this sentence: “BUREAU REQUESTED TO COORDINATE ABOVE WITH ANY OTHER INFORMATION TO DETERMINE IF PERTINENT AS NEW HAVEN HAS NO KNOWLEDGE OF THE RESIDENCE AND ASSOCIATES OF OSWALD-S FATHER AND UNCLE.” There is no evidence the FBI even bothered to look into the assertion of a Yorkville father and uncle of “Oswald.” While stationed less than a year in the USMC in California, “Lee Harvey Oswald” suddenly, we’re told, taught himself to read, write, and speak Russian by reading Russian print literature and using an English-Russian dictionary. Here’s an image of a Russian-language newspaper printed in San Francisco. How long do you think it would take you to learn Russian by reading this and consulting a print dictionary, such as those available in the late 1950s? Mr. Bojczuk writes that Oswald: “was already speaking perfect American English when he was conjured into life in New York at the age of 12.” If anyone who happens to read this has an ear for regional dialects, please listen to any existing audio recording of the Russian-speaking “Lee Harvey Oswald.” Does that sound to you like the voice of an American teen-ager raised primarily in New Orleans and Texas? I'd like to hear Mr. Bojczuk's theory about how "Lee Harvey Oswald" learned to read, write, and speak Russian.

Well said, Michael. General Walker didn’t have the power to make a credible attempt to kill JFK in Chicago, or in Tampa, or, frankly, in Dallas nor did he, at the same time, have the connections to create a patsy affiliated with the U.S. National Security State who would ensure that any real investigation would be quickly shut down. But Allen Dulles and active members of the CIA sure did. In November 1963, the CIA was clearly at war with the Kennedy Administration. To understand that, all you need to do is read contemporaneous newspapers. Here's the original Richard Starnes piece from 10/2/63 that so appalled the Times' Arthur Krock: The Washington Daily News, Wednesday, October 2, 1963, p.3 'SPOOKS' MAKE LIFE MISERABLE FOR AMBASSADOR LODGE 'Arrogant' CIA Disobeys Orders in Viet Nam By Richard T. Starnes SAIGON, Oct.2 - The story of the Central Intelligence Agency's role in South Viet Nam is a dismal chronicle of bureaucratic arrogance, obstinate disregard of orders, and unrestrained thirst for power. Twice the CIA flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, according to a high United States source here. In one of these instances the CIA frustrated a plan of action Mr. Lodge brought with him from Washington because the agency disagreed with it. This led to a dramatic confrontation between Mr. Lodge and John Richardson, chief of the huge CIA apparatus here. Mr. Lodge failed to move Mr. Richardson, and the dispute was bucked back to Washington. Secretary of State Dean Rusk and CIA Chief John A. McCone were unable to resolve the conflict, and the matter is now reported to be awaiting settlement by President Kennedy. It is one of the developments expected to be covered in Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's report to Mr. Kennedy. Others Critical, Too Other American agencies here are incredibly bitter about the CIA. "If the United States ever experiences a 'Seven Days in May' it will come from the CIA, and not from the Pentagon," one U.S. official commented caustically. ("Seven Days in May" is a fictional account of an attempted military coup to take over the U.S. Government.) CIA "spooks" (a universal term for secret agents here) have penetrated every branch of the American community in Saigon, until non-spook Americans here almost seem to be suffering a CIA psychosis. An American field officer with a distinguished combat career speaks angrily about "that man at headquarters in Saigon wearing a colonel's uniform." He means the man is a CIA agent, and he can't understand what he is doing at U.S. military headquarters here, unless it is spying on other Americans. Another American officer, talking about the CIA, acidly commented: "You'd think they'd have learned something from Cuba but apparently they didn't." Few Know CIA Strength Few people other than Mr. Richardson and his close aides know the actual CIA strength here, but a widely used figure is 600. Many are clandestine agents known only to a few of their fellow spooks. Even Mr. Richardson is a man about whom it is difficult to learn much in Saigon. He is said to be a former OSS officer, and to have served with distinction in the CIA in the Philippines. A surprising number of the spooks are known to be involved in their ghostly trade and some make no secret of it. "There are a number of spooks in the U.S. Information Service, in the U.S. Operations mission, in every aspect of American official and commercial life here, " one official - presumably a non-spook - said. "They represent a tremendous power and total unaccountability to anyone," he added. Coupled with the ubiquitous secret police of Ngo Dinh Nhu, a surfeit of spooks has given Saigon an oppressive police state atmosphere. The Nhu-Richardson relationship is a subject of lively speculation. The CIA continues to pay the special forces which conducted brutal raids on Buddhist temples last Aug. 21, altho in fairness it should be pointed out that the CIA is paying these goons for the war against communist guerillas, not Buddhist bonzes (priests). Hand Over Millions Nevertheless, on the first of every month, the CIA dutifully hands over a quarter million American dollars to pay these special forces. Whatever else it buys, it doesn't buy any solid information on what the special forces are up to. The Aug. 21 raids caught top U.S. officials here and in Washington flat-footed. Nhu ordered the special forces to crush the Buddhist priests, but the CIA wasn't let in on the secret. (Some CIA button men now say they warned their superiors what was coming up, but in any event the warning of harsh repression was never passed to top officials here or in Washington.) Consequently, Washington reacted unsurely to the crisis. Top officials here and at home were outraged at the news the CIA was paying the temple raiders, but the CIA continued the payments. It may not be a direct subsidy for a religious war against the country's Buddhist majority, but it comes close to that. And for every State Department aide here who will tell you, "Dammit, the CIA is supposed to gather information, not make policy, but policy-making is what they're doing here," there are military officers who scream over the way the spooks dabble in military operations. A Typical Example For example, highly trained trail watchers are an important part of the effort to end Viet Cong infiltration from across the Laos and Cambodia borders. But if the trailer watchers spot incoming Viet Congs, they report it to the CIA in Saigon, and in the fullness of time, the spooks may tell the military. One very high American official here, a man who has spent much of his life in the service of democracy, likened the CIA's growth to a malignancy, and added he was not sure even the White House could control it any longer. Unquestionably Mr. McNamara and Gen. Maxwell Taylor both got an earful from people who are beginning to fear the CIA is becoming a Third Force co-equal with President Diem's regime and the U.S. Government - and answerable to neither. There is naturally the highest interest here as to whether Mr. McNamara will persuade Mr. Kennedy something ought to be done about it.

Hi, Mathias, Thank you for your thoughts and the link. I’m having no end of difficulty finding detailed information about Russian instruction in the years immediately after WWII fighting subsided in Hungary, so your info is most appreciated. A couple of my own thoughts…. From the article you cited: “For 40 years (from 1950 to 1989) Russian was the compulsory first (and in many cases the only) foreign language in schools.” This hardly proves, however, that Russian wasn’t taught in other Hungarian schools at an earlier time. In fact, in the abstract of an academic article I found is the following statement: “In the period between 1945 and 1989, the learning of Russian as a compulsory subject was introduced, teaching other languages was restricted, and Hungarian-Russian bilingual schools were launched.” The ip address to this site is endless, but I’m trying to embed it HERE. Worse yet, Journal Paedagogica Historica, International Journal of the History of Education, wants big bucks to download the actual article. This is frustrating. I’m sure your other observations have real merit, but I’d like to find something historically definitive about this specific situation. Thanks again, and please let me know if anything else occurs to you!

Rivers may have overstated the case a little in Outcast, but it is clear that Stalin at the end of WWII mandated extensive formal education in the Russian language in all schools in eastern bloc nations, including Hungary. The locals clearly hated it. I’ve heard from one person who was in Hungary in the early 1990s (after the Berlin Wall came down) who personally saw Hungarian construction workers chipping Russian alphabet letters from public monuments and structures. The significance of this is that, if the Russian-speaking Oswald did have parents from Hungary, as declared in an anonymous phone call to Mrs. Jack Tippit, it would explain how he was so fluent in Russian throughout his short life. He learned it in elementary school.

From the June 15, 1990 L.A. Times BUDAPEST, Hungary — When the minister of education announced last fall that the teaching of Russian was no longer compulsory in Hungarian schools, students celebrated by shredding their Russian textbooks. "Russian was forced on us," student Krisztina Karoly, 20, told a reporter recently. "It will always be considered the language of oppression." Read the full article HERE.

I’ve been trying to do a little research on that, Chris. It’s hard to find specifics on the teaching of Russian in eastern bloc schools, but most sources I've checked say that, in general, de-Stalinization efforts began sometime after the dictator’s death in 1953, often dating it to 1956 (also the year of the Hungarian Revolution). If this timeline is reasonably correct, a kid born around 1939 in Hungary would have been taught the Russian language for the majority of his elementary school years. He certainly would have become comfortable with the Cyrillic alphabet, which seems to be one of the significant obstacles to learning Russian. The experience of your Hungarian girlfriend seems to indicate Russian was still taught well into the 1960s, no?

Try to pay attention, Tommy.... When the Iron Curtain descended over Eastern Europe in 1944-1945, the little possibly Hungarian war orphan who later became known as "Lee Harvey Oswald" may soon have learned Russian and the Cyrillic alphabet in Hungary. Stalinization required it after WWII! The following is from the book OUTCAST, by Deke Rivers.... I reject the "worse than Hitler" reference.

No, no, no! She said she met Oswald in the fall of 1963 at an Operation 40 safe house in Little Havana in Miami. She met him AGAIN "a week or so before" the Kennedy assassination in 1963 in the house of Orlando Bosch, just before the drive to Dallas. This is not a contradiction.

It’s fascinating! I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of days. Marita said the trip happened "a week or so" before the assassination, so.... By a week or so before the assassination, the set-up of the scrawny, Russian-speaking Oswald had been in full swing for weeks. The FBI cancelled the wanted notice on him back on Oct 9, smoothing the way for the four or five different Sports Drome Rifle Range impersonations and all the other parts of the set-up. The TSBD records, if memory serves, indicate that Harvey worked there every day the M-F week of Nov. 11-15. And the WC made it OVERWHELMINGLY, ABUNDANTLY clear that he spent the weekend of Nov. 16-17 at 1026 N. Beckley. When Commission attorney Joseph Ball asked Mrs. Roberts if Oswald went anywhere that weekend she said, "He didn't go nowhere." Ball replied, "He stayed in all weekend, is that right?" Mrs. Roberts answered, "Yes, sir."119 Mrs. Johnson, the owner of the rooming house, was looking forward to her grandchildren visiting her over the weekend and was planning on letting them sleep in Oswald's room. About 6:3 0pm she entered the room and, when she saw Oswald said, "Oh! You're not going to Irving this weekend?" Oswald said nothing and Mrs. Johnson quickly left and closed the door to his room. The only time she saw Oswald during that weekend was when he left his room and walked to the washateria and to the Quick Service Grocery. 120 [H&L, p. 770] During this same time frame (roughly 11/10/63 to 11/17/63) an Oswald is making multiple appearances at the Sport Drome Rifle Range and applying on the 15th for a job at the Southland Hotel parking garage and asking oh-so-subtly if the roof had a good view of downtown Dallas. The late Jack White believed that not even two Oswalds could explain the multiple, credible encounters dating back at least to Alice, Texas, and I don’t think JA would necessarily disagree. It was a complex setup. I can’t recall John saying anything about this, but the amount of evidence placing Harvey at 1026 Beckley the weekend before the assassination might seem a bit like overkill.

Sturgis testified at the Church Committee hearings and described himself as a CIA assassin and said he was also involved in "domestic" assassination plots. His testimony begins here: http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=33941#relPageId=1&tab=page

One more thing I should have mentioned above…. Whether you believe Mrs. Lorenz’s testimony or find it too hard to swallow, she has been pretty consistent in her story of LHO in Florida in late 1960 as well as in her description of the automobile drive to Dallas a week before the assassination. It is undeniable that she had associated with most of the principal players in her story. In another part of her HSCA testimony, she said that “Jerry Patrick Hemming, Pedro Diaz Lanz, the Novos, Ozzie, Frank” and she and "Orlando" were in the cars traveling to Dallas “a week or so before November 22” with rifles in the trunk, several with scopes. “Ozzie” of course was Oswald , “Frank” was Frank Sturgis (Fiorini) and “Orlando” was Orlando Bosch. If Marita’s testimony is reasonably true: 1. There were clearly at least two political operatives named “Lee Harvey Oswald” active in the early 1960s. 2. Most likely CIA-affiliated Frank Sturgis played an operational role in the assassination of JFK, which also draws a direct line from the assassination to Watergate.

I think the Miami to Dallas trip described by Marita Lorenz is possible but hardly proved. The questioning in the Hunt lawsuit was not very helpful in proving or disproving its validity. Marita’s description of meeting American-born LEE Harvey Oswald in Florida at the time Russian-speaking Lee HARVEY Oswald was in Russia matches her HSCA testimony nicely. Here’s an excerpt of that testimony from my website (emphasis added): Mr. Fithian: "Now is it your testimony that the first time you saw Oswald would have been in the camps in the Everglades?"Marita Lorenz: "The very first time, no. I saw him in the Safehouse and then in the camps."Mr. Fithian: "And that first meeting at the Safehouse would have been within a year of the Bay of Pigs?"Marita Lorenz: "I would say 1960."Mr. Fithian: "It would be some time during 1960?"Marita Lorenz: "Late 1960."Mr. Fithian: "All right. Now I want to be sure that I have your dates correct. You said the first meeting of LEE Harvey Oswald, the first time you saw him, was at a Safehouse in Miami in 1960."Marita Lorenz: "Yes."Mr. Fithian: "The next time or times that you saw him were during training at a camp in the Everglades, various places in the Everglades, in early 1960, 1961 period?"Marita Lorenz: "Yes."Mr. Fithian: "And after that you saw him at the Safehouse the second time?"Marita Lorenz: "Yes."Mr. Fithian: "What makes you so sure of the dates. Within a year of the first meeting in the Safehouse and the meeting at the camps in the Everglades, is there anything else you could match that up with?"Marita Lorenz: "The photographs, the events that took place. the photographs that Alex (Rorke) took. Everywhere we went Alex took pictures."Mr. Fithian: "This was prior to the Bay of Pigs?"Marita Lorenz: "Yes, April, 1961, was the Bay of Pigs." Mr. Fithian: "And you are sure you saw him (Oswald) before April, 1961."Marita Lorenz: "Yes, because Alex took the pictures."Mr. Fithian: "And the whole purpose of the training was to somehow participate or help in the Bay of Pigs.Marita Lorenz: "Yes."Mr. Fithian: "Did you see Oswald at any time in the intervening two years between early 1961 prior to April of 1961 and the September-October Safehouse meeting in 1963?"Marita Lorenz: "No, but Frank (Sturgis) kept in touch with me. Alex kept in touch with me."Mr. Fithian: "Mrs. Lorenz, has your attorney explained what perjury before a congressional committee is all about?"Marita Lorenz: "That is right, yes."Mr. Fithian: "In any way do you want to change your testimony on these dates?"Marita Lorenz: "No, I do not."Mr. Fithian: "There is adequate documentary evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald did not indeed return from the Soviet Union until June of 1962. Marita Lorenz: "I don't know about that." Mr. Fithian: "Therefore you could not have met him at the Safehouse in 1960, you could not have seen him in the Everglades in 1960 and 1961, and you could not have taken a picture in those areas and could not have a picture for the dates of that time." Marita Lorenz: "No?"Mr. Fithian: "It is not possible."Marita Lorenz: "I don't know about that."Mr. Fithian: "Now can you explain to the committee why you gave us this false information as far as dates?"Marita Lorenz: "I did not give you false information."Mr. Fithian: "Mrs. Lorenz, I went over your testimony very carefully a moment ago and you assured me that you met Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the Bay of Pigs."Marita Lorenz: "I did."Mr. Fithian: "On two occasions."Marita Lorenz: "Yes."Mr. Fithian: "Lee Harvey Oswald was in Russia during that entire period."Marita Lorenz: "I do not know that. I did not know that. The Lee Harvey Oswald that I met was the same in that picture, the one in the Safehouse. the same one that Frank knows. I do not know where he was according to your information. I do not know. I never read up on anything about these theories that are coming out about him."Mr. Fithian: "This is not a matter of theory."Marita Lorenz: "I know I am telling the truth. If you don't want it, that's too bad, you know. I am here to gain nothing, you know. Nothing. Nothing at all. You are trying a homicide investigation that should be solved, you know. Don't dispute me or put me on trial."Mr. Fithian: "Only if we can have full and truthful testimony."Marita Lorenz: "You have got it. You have it from me. I don't know about the other people. I have nothing to lose and nothing to hide-nothing.Mr. Fithian: "And it is your testimony that you are certain that the person you met at the Safehouse and at the camps of the Everglades is the same person that you met in Dallas."Marita Lorenz: "Yes, it is."Mr. Fithian: "Do you have any explanation for how we come up with two Lee Harvey Oswalds during this period?"Marita Lorenz: "I have no explanation. I know the man I met; he was a creep. I didn't like him. I don't have to be here at all. I have nothing to gain. Mr. Fithian: "Thank you. That is all."

OK, Tracy, please respond when you are available.

To Jim Di…. I got discouraged going through all the irrelevant and/or illegible docs in this set and have given up for a while. I thought I saw some reference to docs still being withheld, though the summary wording was a bit different. Wish I’d kept notes... and I may be mistaken. To answer your question from the previous page, the Collins Radio PDF file I looked through (DOCID-32358065.PDF) was 21 pages long. Didn’t see anything in it about Wise or Mather; It was mostly about subjects more or less originating in the 1970s. I’d sure like to read the HSCA interview with Mather, though I can only hope we can trust it after being suppressed for all these years. It appears he may have been granted immunity... which might explain why the interview has never seen the light of day.

Continuing my "debate" with Greg Parker (his comments in blue).... 20. President Kennedy and the CIA clearly were at war with each other in the weeks immediately before his assassination, as evidenced by Arthur Krock's infamous defense of the Agency in the Oct. 3, 1963 New York Times. “Oswald” was the CIA’s pawn. Kennedy was at war with the CIA and Oswald was a CIA pawn and that is another of your "proofs" that there was an "Project Oswald"? Only a lunatic would make that statement. I'll let Mr. Parker be in charge of the insults and limit my explanation to four easy-to-understand points. 1. With his trip to Russia, staged FPCC activities, and staged commie-loving history going all the way back to the Marine Corps, it was easy to paint the Russian-speaking Oswald as a commie with ties to Castro, which is exactly what happened. LBJ had to intervene to prevent a possible war with Cuba and perhaps even the Soviets. (Question for Mr. Parker: What CIA Officer lied over and over in his attempts to tie Oswald to the Cubans and Castro and the assassination of JFK?) 2. Oswald’s ties to both the FBI and the CIA made G-men, especially J. Edgar Hoover, all too happy to enter full scale cover-up mode immediately. Please understand: If you are plotting the assassination of a sitting president, you have to shut down a full scale investigation. Otherwise, the search for the guilty will be relentless and you will be caught. 3. Russian-speaking Harvey Oswald had demonstrated that he would follow even difficult orders, critical in the days and hours before and immediately after the assassination. (He absolutely had to be in the right places at the right times to become a successful patsy. And a patsy was absolutely critical for the plot to succeed. Without one, the search for the plotters would have been, again, relentless.) 4. The “Harvey and Lee” project (JA suspects it was controlled by David Atlee Phillips) made it simple to send around a fellow who looked like Russian-speaking Oswald in the weeks prior to the hit to set him up as the assassin-to-be. For example.... The Sports Drome Rifle Range on Oct. 26, Nov. 9, Nov. 10, and again on Nov. 17, several times creating a scene and once shooting at another guy's target. Morgan's Gun Shop in Fort Worth on Nov 2. The Downtown Lincoln Mercury dealership also on Nov. 2 where he test drove a car at wrecklessly high speeds saying he would soon come into enough money to buy a new car. The Irving Furniture Mart On Nov. 6 or 7 for a gun part where he was referred to the shop where Dial Ryder worked. The Southland Hotel parking garage (Allright Parking Systems) on Nov. 15 to apply for a job and oh-so-subtly ask how high the Southland Building was and if it had a good view of downtown Dallas. Hitchhiking on Nov. 20 on the R.L. Thornton Expressway while carrying a 4-foot long package wrapped in brown paper and introducing himself to Ralph Yates as “Lee Harvey Oswald.” He discussed the President's visit, wondered if you could shoot a president, and asked to be dropped across the street from the Texas School Book Depository (where Russian-speaking “Lee Harvey Oswald” was already at work). The 1973 motion picture “Executive Action” with Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan does a great job showing how an “Oswald” look-alike traveled around Dallas in the weeks before the assassination doing many of the things listed above. Many of the earliest Warren Commission critics also wrote about the frame-up of Oswald in the weeks preceding the assassination.

Continuing with Mr. Parker (his comment in blue).... 7. Kenneth Porter, employee of CIA-connected Collins Radio, left his family to marry (and no doubt monitor) Marina Oswald after LHO’s death. LOL So every person ever employed by Collins Radio was CIA? Carl Mather also worked for Collins Radio, and see below for a third Collins Radio employee clearly in bed with the CIA at the time of the HSCA. Collins Radio was the lessee of the Rex, a ship that helped bring a team of CIA assassins to Cuba on October 31, 1963. Rhetorical giggling won't make the incriminating facts about this case go away. Bill Kelly's article linked below demonstrates that Collins Radio was up to it's eyeballs in CIA shenanigans. http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/02/collins-radio-connections-to.html By the time the HSCA was in session, Collins Radio personnel still had a close association with the CIA, as this July 2017 NARA release demonstrates. There are many other examples in this single 2017 release.