Jim Hargrove

3 hours ago, Glenn Nall said:

yes, and as 99.9% of the threads here, this took a diversion.

hatin' it for ya, but it seems unavoidable.

I responded to an earlier statement/theory/claim. i didn't write that out of clear, blue sky.

Glenn,

This movement of the sixth floor shooter and his accomplice(s) up and down the TSBD passenger elevator shaft did NOT require a diversion.  Have you even bothered to read John's article?

http://harveyandlee.net/TSBD_Elevator/TSBD_elevator.html

Jim

1 hour ago, Glenn Nall said:

I SIMPLY stated that if a person who really knew Oswald, like Truly, were to have happened to run into BOTH Oswald's within a matter of minutes, this person would have 1) recognized a REAL problem, and 2) blown the whole thing.

Glenn,

The whole point of John's article was to show how the men on the sixth floor might escape from the Book Depository while being seen by the fewest witnesses.

http://harveyandlee.net/TSBD_Elevator/TSBD_elevator.html

On 4/15/2017 at 0:01 AM, Glenn Nall said:

It absolutely boggles my mind that - after "they" had spent so many years and so much effort cultivating such a person - there was any conceivable reason to risk all that by putting two indistinguishable people - one of whom was about to take the blame for murdering the President - in the same building, even for but those few minutes.

makes NO sense to me whatsoever (unless it was simply to confuse testimony? - there are easier ways to do THAT). if just ONE person - like Roy Truly - happened to see BOTH of them within a few minutes, wearing different clothing - then THE ENTIRE MISSION (I can't believe i'm using that word) WOULD HAVE BEEN FLUSHED.

JUST LIKE THAT.

Truly: "I saw Oswald on 2 wearing a brown shirt and drinking a Coke and i also saw Oswald on 1 wearing a white shirt - all while the President of the US was being murdered in our front yard."

Operation destroyed, just like that.

Risk/reward insanity. No?

Lee Oswald took the risk of going to the Book Depository so he could parade around with a rifle on the sixth floor and be seen minutes before the assassination.  He looked enough like Harvey that it was assumed some witnesses would be confused.

It surprises me that any critic of the Warren Commission would make a comment like Glenn’s above.  If we have learned ANYTHING over the years, it is that there were many witnesses on 11/22/63 who saw things that undermined the Official Story®, but that these views were totally suppressed in a number of different ways.

Some witness observations were merely altered.  The three minute video below shows how the FBI altered the statements of three Dealey Plaza witnesses who saw evidence of shooters outside the Book Depository.

 

Sworn testimony before the Warren Commission was altered, as the example below shows, in this case to hide the secret transfer of “Oswald’s” possessions to Washington, D.C. the very night of the assassination.  That evidence was altered and then expanded before being secretly returned to Dallas and then being publicly sent to Washington.
 

Some witnesses were browbeaten by the FBI to change their stories.  When that didn’t work, some witnesses were even dumped into insane asylums.   Ralph Leon Yates comes to mind.  And, of course, many were simply killed.

As far as we know, someone at the TSBD may well have noticed two similar looking “Oswalds” were in the building.  But we can hardly expect they would be in a position to tell us about it.

4 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Do you suppose it's possible to address the topic without all the sarcasm?

What did or did not happen is well beyond your ability to parse Jeremy... unless you're an ex-spy with experience in the craft....
You or anyone else being incredulous about the possibilities does not make them any less likely or possible.

We have a rich history of conspiracy, futile attempts at spycraft, successful attempts at spycraft and all the spycraft for which we are not aware.  That you cannot fathom something being done, when the available evidence supports the conclusion, only shows me you'd rather stick with circular arguments than consider something outside your comfort zone.

Your acceptance or understanding of the magnitude of the information is not something I give a rats ass about Jeremy.  Just like those who prefer to argue that Oswald did what he was accused of, no amount of discussion will crack that nut nor open your eyes enough to explore the evidence.

But please don't insult our collective intelligence with posts that sound like poor versions of Tommy's famous "wit"  as you butcher the realities of our intelligence history and wax philosophical over data and analysis that remains out of your reach.

Read the book, do the work, then come talk to me...  right now you're like one of those blind men feeling an elephant and calling it a tree.  Until the blinders come off and you attempt to look at an entire picture your conclusions will remain half-assed...

Finally, if you're interested in those who spent time with LEE in the Marines I'd suggest you look into Richard Bullock...  a man who was with LEE and compare his evidence with Allen Felde's.  In fact Felde's statement comes right after the Marine's detailed chronology for Oswald...  The stories don't match and then the FBI goes and finds the wrong Felde... 

 

 

It's a fine idea showing some more examples of Harvey and Lee in the Marines.  I tend to concentrate too much on just the Taiwan/Japan episode and the U.S.S. Skagit because it is such a slam dunk, but there are other examples of the two Oswalds in the Marines, at least for the sporadic periods Harvey was placed there.  You graphics, as always, are beautifully done.  Thanks!

George,

I talked to John and, as expected, he says the evidence indicates the electricity was turned off only once, and that seemed to be during and immediately after the shooting.  John thinks it’s possible that the men got to the sixth floor by entering the elevator shaft and climbing up the ladder inside, the shooter throwing the rifle over his shoulder and carrying it up using the sling.  It’s just John’s hypothesis.  The single electrical outage kept the elevator at the fourth floor until the men on the sixth floor could get back into it after the shooting.

Mrs. Reid provided a real problem for the WC because the WC knew that Oswald (Harvey) was wearing a brown shirt when Truly and Baker encountered him in the lunchroom and when he was in the cab.  But the Oswald (Lee) Mrs. Reid saw was wearing a white shirt and carrying a coke.  If you read her testimony, you can see Belin trying to find a way to get this Oswald back to get that shirt, but she said it didn’t happen.

Mrs. REID. What he was wearing, he had on a white T-shirt and some kind of wash trousers. What color I couldn't tell you. 
Mr. BELIN. I am going to hand you what has been marked Commission Exhibit, first 157 and then 158, and I will ask you if either or both look like they might have been the trousers that you saw him wear or can you tell? 
Mrs. REID. I just couldn't be positive about that. I would rather not say, because I just cannot. 
Mr. BELIN. Do you remember whether he had any shirt or jacket on over his T-shirt? 
Mrs. REID. He did not. He did not have any jacket on. 

The entrance to the second floor office was close to the lunchroom and both were close to the rear stairs.

===============================================

Mrs. Robert Reid was standing next to Roy Truly and O.V Campbell when the
shooting began, a few feet in front of the steps to the TSBD. Mrs. Reid told Campbell
she thought the shots came from their building, whereupon Campbell said, "Oh, Mrs.
Reid, no, it came from the grassy area down this way." Mrs. Reid then turned around
and walked up the front steps, through the entrance door, and up the front stairs to the
second floor. She then walked 20 feet to the front door of the TSBD office and opened
the door. As she entered the office Mrs. Reid saw a man wearing a white shirt enter the
office through the rear door, which was close to the lunchroom and rear stairs. Mrs. Reid,
who had seen Oswald a few times in the building but did not know his name, thought
that it strange that one of the warehouse boys would walk through the office at that time.⁹⁷

NOTE: It was Lee Oswald who walked through the office, but did not work in the

warehouse and did not realize the TSBD office was off-limits to warehouse personnel.

As Lee Oswald walked past Mrs. Reid wearing a white t-shirt and holding a bottle
of coke in his right hand, she told him the President had been shot. Oswald mumbled
something and walked through the front door of the office and down the front stairs
which led to the main entrance.⁹⁸ WC attorney David Belin asked Mrs. Reid how she
knew the man she saw walk through her office was Lee Harvey Oswald. Mrs. Reid
answered, "Because it looked just like him." ^{Nov 22-39}

Lee Oswald and the man with the brown jacket were now safely out of the building. Harvey Oswald, wearing a long-sleeved brown shirt, was in the 2^nd floor lunchroom where he would soon be confronted by Dallas Police Officer Marion Baker and Roy Truly.
 

--From Harvey and Lee, p. 817, Copyright © 2003 by John Armstrong

===============================================

John believes that there were probably three conspirators on the sixth floor and in the stopped elevator immediately beneath it.  He suspects that, when leaving the TSBD, these men would not want to leave as a group but immediately break up and go their own ways as quickly and quietly as possible.  Note this paragraph from his write-up:

Richard Randolph Carr observed a man looking out the top floor of the TSBD moments before the shooting. Carr, like Carolyn Walther, said the man was wearing a light brown coat. He described the man as having an athletic build and wearing horn rim glasses and a hat. Minutes after the assassination Carr saw the same man walking toward him on Houston, constantly looking back over his shoulder. The man turned east on Commerce St, walked one block to Record St., and got into a 1961 or 1962 light colored Nash Rambler station wagon. The author believes this vehicle drove north on Record St., turned left on Elm, picked up LEE Oswald by the grassy knoll at 12:40 PM, and was last seen by Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig driving under the triple overpass. 

Also, on the elevator access, John said that WC diagrams indicate there was no access from the basement or the fifth floor but, as a building contractor, he understands when some sort of access for workers and inspectors would be needed at the top and bottom of the shaft.  I’ll try to remember to tell him about the cops on the fire escape.  Thanks.

Thanks, George.  I agree about the multiple shooters.  That was just poor wording on my part.  I should have said a shooter and his accomplice(s). I *think* John will agree.

I'll try to get your questions to him later today, but I'm pretty sure for #1 he'll say the evidence suggests the electricity only went out once for a couple of minutes, at which time the shooting took place and the shooter and accomplice(s) got into the elevator.  I'll try to get his reaction for your second question.  

Note the fast-developing widow’s peak in the hairline of Lee Oswald over a period of just a few years.

Tracy Parnell claims this is just the result of a “high and tight” military haircut.  To see what a “high and tight” cut really looks like, CLICK HERE.

Is that really the same man killed by Jack Ruby?
 

 

If you don’t believe “Lee Harvey Oswald” was shooting at JFK from the 6th floor of the Book Depository, you have to wonder how the real shooter(s) got away sight unseen.  In a new essay, John Armstrong examines the possible escape routes…. ruling out all but one.

http://harveyandlee.net/TSBD_Elevator/TSBD_elevator.html

This should be better, despite suspected DropBox compression .... 

 

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Jim,

I enlarged that collage and had a hard time reading much of it.

I wonder if Dropbox (the host for the photo) compressed it further.

Apparently so, 'cause I selected that rez carefully with the captions in mind.  I have an 8-10 meg version of the poster floating around somewhere with fairly sharp text. If you want it, PM me with an email address (gmail would avoid file size issues for both of us) and I'll try to dig it up and send it to you.  Pls bear in mind that my everyday Linux machine went down in flames yesterday and I'm limping along now in Windoze, which I barely remember how to use.  But I have backed up that hi-rez file somewhere and should be able to send it your way.

Just my opinion, again, but I think the photographic evidence in this case is enormously  compromised.  We're dealing with the things they (Hoover et al) forgot to cover up, and photos are the first things they probably thought about.

In a 30-year-old radio interview, Harold Wesiberg (author of Whitewash and other books) recalled hearing, in 1965, from a caller to a radio station claiming to be a Marine veteran who knew a second Oswald in the USMC. The caller then came into the station and talked at length.  Harold gets into the story about 30 seconds into the recording.

 

 

As for Russian-speaking Harvey Oswald's command of English, just look at how he wrote:

The first sentence reads:

“Sorry too take so long to write but I thought sometime might have
come up but we’re still waiting.”

Note the comma splice in the second sentence.

57 minutes ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Dawn Meredith writes ( http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/23677-a-couple-of-real-gems-from-the-harvey-and-lee-website/&do=findComment&comment=349992 ):

But there is ample evidence that when Oswald returned to the USA, his spoken Russian, though good, was far from perfect. That's the point: he was clearly not a native speaker, unless, somehow, spending more than two and a half years surrounded by other native speakers of Russian had caused him to forget the grammar of his native language, which is, to put it mildly, not very likely.

What is your evidence for Oswald having "not mastered the English language"? Listen to any of the surviving recordings of Oswald speaking English. He is clearly a native speaker. True, his written English was poor, but that proves nothing. There are plenty of reasons (dyslexia being the best known, though it may not have applied to Oswald) why native speakers communicate poorly in the written form of their own language. The mistakes he made in writing, he did not make in speaking. And his command of spoken English was that of someone born and brought up among native English speakers in the USA. The natively Russian-speaking 'Harvey' was a fictional character.

In the immortal words of Natalie Ray, asked by Liebeler if "Oswald" spoke to her in Russian:

Yes; just perfect; really surprised me... it's just too good speaking Russian to be such
a short time, you know.... I said, "How come you speak so good Russian? I been here so long
and still don't speak very well English."

Of course George De Mohrenschildt, a Russian immigrant and a teacher of Russian, said it
best:

Incidentally I never saw him interested in anything else except Russian
books and magazines. He said he didn't want to forget the language -
but it amazed me that he read such difficult writers like Gorki, Dostoevski,
Gogol, Tolstoi and Turgenieff - in Russian . As everyone knows Russian is
a complex language and he was supposed to have stayed in the Soviet Union
only a little over two years. He must have had some previous training and
that point had never been brought up by the Warren Committee - and it is
still puzzling to me. In my opinion Lee was a very bright person but not
a genius . He never mastered the English language yet he learned such a dif-
icult language! I taught Russian at all level in a large University, and
I never saw such a profficiency in the best senior students who constantly
listened to  Russian tapes and spoke to Russian fiends . As a matter of
fact American-born instructors never mastered Russian spoken language as
well as Lee did.

If you want to believe that "Lee Harvey Oswald" learned Russian with that level of
fluency by reading Russian newspapers in his spare time in the Marines and spending
two and a half years mostly working full-time in a factory in Russia, I've got
a bridge I'd like to sell you.

13 hours ago, Thomas Graves said:

It would be nice if a Harvey and Lee and the Two Marguerites specialist were to put together a new graphic showing, separately, all of the photos of "Lee," and all of the photos of "Harvey" (which appear to be all mixed together in Jack White's "poster"), and which included, if necessary, a special category for "undecided."

(I've got a sneakin' hunch that the "undecided" photos will comprise a very large group, indeed.)

--  Tommy

I wouldn't have the slightest idea how to characterize many of those photos.
What the John Armstrong/Jack White poster called "THE EVOLUTION OF LEE HARVEY
OSWALD" proves is that the photographic record has been seriously messed with.
I've had that poster taped to my home office door for fifteen years or so.  It
doesn't make much more sense now than when I first looked at it.

The image I uploaded here, if enlarged, has sufficient resolution to read the 
print beneath each shot. People should read the captions and study the issue for 
themselves instead of asking me to do all their work for them.

Alistair Briggs brought the issue of the 1959 “Defection” photo of LHO as published in the Fort Worth Star Telegram newspaper.  Here is the image the newspaper printed:

The image was provided by Wide World Photos (now owned by AP) to the Star Telegram and a few other papers.  Why was the image so terrible?

Because there were undoubtedly many people in the Fort Worth area who knew or remembered American-born LEE Harvey Oswald.  But it was Russian-speaking Lee HARVEY Oswald who was involved in the false defection program, and a real photo of Harvey Oswald might alert some people to the fact that Harvey had assumed Lee’s identity.  So a crappy photo was shown.

Later, Wide World Photos retransmitted what it said was an improved photo “to provide better copy.” In the late 1990s, John Armstrong purchased the photo from Associated Press/Wide World Photos.  Here it is:

For some of his speeches starting in the 1990s, John Armstrong himself pasted the “improved” Wide World Photos image over the poor image in the original Fort Worth Star Telegram article.  Here is what John’s composite image looked like:

The significance of this story is that a  CIA-friendly asset either at or communicating with Wide World Photos understood that a photo of American-born Lee Oswald could alert the Russians that an impostor was using his identity in Moscow.  A photo of Harvey Oswald might be recognized as different from Lee by some of the residents in and around Fort Worth.  So the crappy, unrecognizable photo was used instead.

To see John’s brief write-up on how the Wide World Photo came into being, go to this link:

http://harveyandlee.net/Marines/Defection_Photo_Evolution.html

54 minutes ago, Michael Clark said:

I posted a thread, weeks back, hoping to get some clarification on some truly "what-the-heck!" moments in the case that really could use some explanation, but there were no takers. I guess it's just more fun to point out the weakest areas of the structure, and harp about that, and sling dung at the researcher.

Cudos-to-you, and...

Cheers,

Michael

Well, if any of them had to do with "Lee Harvey Oswald," why don't you bring them up on this thread?  (I really don't have the free time to participate in much other than this thread, which is the one I'm interested in.)

5 hours ago, Michael Clark said:

It's like watching a tennis match. Your neck gets sore, but you just can't stop watching because you are amazed at Jim's stamina and skill in single-handedly holding his own against a team on the other side of the court.

Cheers,

Michael

It's amazing what having the truth on my side can do.  Despite all the names they call me, at some point they have to at least pretend to be interested in the facts, and that's where I can beat them all day long.   

5 hours ago, Dawn Meredith said:

Jim I hardly ever come here anymore. Seems a waste of time.  Answering all these questions and proving over and over that John Armstrong's research is valid goes no where.  Naysayers don't care about truth, just argument for the sake of argument. All of the witnesses who testified as to the perfection of Harvey's Russian had zero motive to lie. And was pointed out he had not mastered the English language. Typical of someone whose second language is English.

Thanks, Dawn.  This thread was started by Tommy Graves to try and criticize Harvey and Lee, but it just gives me a chance to explain it some more.  You'd be surprised how many notes and letters I get from people who are reading, but not posting, to this thread.  They are amazingly supportive.

2 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Let's try again. There is solid evidence that Oswald made grammatical mistakes when speaking Russian, and that he objected when Marina corrected those mistakes.

True enough, just as you would expect for someone who learned Russian as a kid and then was taken to an English speaking nation.  George DeM talked about that, but still insisted that Harvey Oswald's Russian fluency was remarkable and that he read the Russian classics in Russian.

Since several people like to point to Greg Parker’s site and say how he is correcting my “errors,” let’s take a look at Parker’s latest effort. (Moderators note: Mr. Parker is reproducing my posts from this site, and so it seems only fair that I post his words here, right?)

==================

ME: He is unaware that Roger Craig and others (Robinson, Cooper, Forrest, Pennington) saw a second Oswald getting into a Nash Rambler station wagon on Elm St. immediately after the hit.  

PARKER: No, Jimbo. That is a mischaracterization. These witnesses said they saw someone they believed looked like Lee Harvey Oswald. Only one was given a chance to view Oswald and he ID'd him as the man he had seen and not someone who looked a bit like the person in custody but was 2 inches taller and 20 pounds heavier.   

I RESPOND: Which is the precise description of American-born Lee Oswald, in contrast to the shorter, lighter Russian-speaking Harvey Oswald, both of whom were in the USMC.

On his 9/3/59 USMC medical report LEE Harvey Oswald’s height is listed at 5’ 11” (which is 71 inches) and his weight as 150 lbs.

 

On his 10/12/59 Armed Forces Report of Transfer or Discharge LEE Harvey Oswald’s height is also listed at 5’ 11” and his weight as 150 lbs.

 

 

The same 5’ 11” height is listed on LHO’s 1959 passport, his 1963 passport, his 9/14/59 Selective Service Registration card, and many other places. The public record contains nearly as many references to a 5” 11” Oswald as to a 5’ 9” Oswald. Almost sounds like two different fellows, eh?

Parker is actually helping to confirm that the taller, bulkier American-born LEE Oswald was seen leaving the TSBD and entering a Nash Rambler station wagon.

====================

ME: He doesn’t know that one Oswald was arrested or detained in the balcony of the Texas Theater while the other was arrested on the main floor,

PARKER: There was only one arrest. Stringfellow has conflated early reports of a suspect up on the balcony with the actual circumstances of the arrest.

PARKER: Despite what any cop has said, according to Jim Ewell, "there must have been about fifteen or twenty high school age boys up there watching. They’d skipped school to watch double feature war movies. One of them was “War Is Hell.”" I know who is more believable. Does anyone really think that the cops were arresting high school kids for the murder of Tippit?

I RESPOND: Multiple Dallas Police reports indicate Oswald was arrested in the theater balcony.

 



 

 

For his book JFK and the Unspeakable, author James Douglass interviewed Butch Burroughs, the Texas Theater concessionaire who witnessed the arrest of both Oswalds. Douglass wrote:

Butch Burroughs, who witnessed Oswald’s arrest, startled me in his interview by saying he saw a second arrest occur in the Texas Theater only “three or four minutes later.” He said the Dallas Police then arrested “an Oswald lookalike.” Burroughs said the second man “looked almost like Oswald, like he was his brother or something.” When I questioned the comparison by asking, “Could you see the second man as well as you could see Oswald?” he said, “Yes, I could see both of them. They looked alike.” After the officers half-carried and half-dragged Oswald to the police car in front of the theater, within a space of three or four minutes, Burroughs saw the second Oswald placed under arrest and handcuffed. The Oswald look-alike, however, was taken by police not out the front door but out the back of the theater.

What happened next we can learn from another neglected witness, Bernard Haire. [Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, pp. 292-293.

================

ME: He is ignorant of the fact that Bernard Haire and others saw a second Oswald led out the back of the Texas Theater while Classic Oswald was dragged out the front. I could go on, but it would all be lost on Walton, who chooses only to be outraged by what he doesn’t even understand.

PARKER: Bernard Haire saw a witness being taken in. Or is Hargrove unaware that a witness or two from inside the theater did give statements?

I RESPOND: Bernard Haire thought for 25 years that he had seen Oswald under arrest being led out the back of the Texas Theater. Citing an interview with Jim Marrs, James Douglass continues:

“Police brought a young white man out,” Haire told an interviewer, “The man was dressed in a pullover shirt and slacks. He seemed to be flushed, as if he’d been in a struggle. Police put the man in a police car and drove off.”

 

When Haire was told in 1987 that Lee Harvey Oswald had been brought out the front of the theater by police, he was shocked.

“I don’t know who I saw arrested,” he said in bewilderment.

Butch Burroughs and Bernard Haire are complementary witnesses. From their perspectives both inside and outside the Texas Theater, they saw an Oswald double arrested and taken to a police car in the back alley only minutes after the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald. [ Ibid, p. 292]

 

Inadvertently as it may be, Mr. Parker is helping confirm the presence of two Oswalds at both the Texas School Book Depository and the Texas Theater. As he had done for the previous month or so, Lee framed Harvey for the hit.

Michael Walton's outrage is matched by his ignorance of this case.

Walton is unaware that Frazier saw a second Oswald walking up Houston behind the Book Depository.  He is unaware that Roger Craig and others (Robinson, Cooper, Forrest, Pennington) saw a second Oswald getting into a Nash Rambler station wagon on Elm St. immediately after the hit.  He doesn’t know that one Oswald was arrested or detained in the balcony of the Texas Theater while the other was arrested on the main floor, as shown by multiple Dallas Police reports and confirmed by Butch Burroughs.  He is ignorant of the fact that Bernard Haire and others saw a second Oswald led out the back of the Texas Theater while Classic Oswald was dragged out the front.  I could go on, but it would all be lost on Walton, who chooses only to be outraged by what he doesn’t even understand.

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.” 
― Leo Tolstoy,

A brand new gem on the Harvey and Lee website....

John Armstrong believes American-born LEE Oswald framed Russian-speaking HARVEY Oswald for the assassination of JFK. Was LEE Oswald filmed on the sixth floor west end window by Tom Dillard seconds after the shooting?

Read John’s new write-up:

MEN ON THE SIXTH FLOOR

Enjoy!

21 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

The best evidence that Harvey Oswald’s first language was Russian was his sheer mastery of it as a young man.  He clearly spoke Russian and read Russian literature in the Marines prior to his false defection to Russia.  When he returned, the White Russians in and around Dallas were amazed at his fluency, even though he had spent two and a half years there, mostly working full time in a factory.

In his manuscript  I AM A PATSY! I AM A PATSY!  Russian immigrant George De Mohrenschildt, who Harvey in 1963 called his closest friend, described his amazement at Harvey’s Russian fluency.

For those who can’t see the graphic above, here’s what the main paragraph from this page of De Mohrenschildt's manuscript says:

Incidentally I never saw him interested in anything else except Russian
books and magazines . He said he didn't want to forget the language -
but it amazed me that he read such difficult writers like Gorki, Dostoevski,
Gogol, Tolstoi and Turgenieff - in Russian . As everyone knows Russian is
a complex language and he was supposed to have stayed in the Soviet Union
only a little over two years . He must have had some previous training and
that point had never been brought up by the Warren Committee - and it is
still puzzling to me. In my opinion Lee was a very bright person but not
a genius . He never mastered the English language yet he learned such a dif-
icult language! I taught Russian at all level in a large University, and
I never saw such a profficiency in the best senior students who constantly
listened to  Russian tapes and spoke to Russian fiends . As a matter of
fact American-born instructors never mastered Russian spoken language as
well as Lee did .

De Mohrenschildt would have made a fascinating witness at the HSCA hearings and, in fact, in early 1977 the HSCA sought to interview him. But on March 30 he was found in his home with a shotgun blast to his head. The last person to see him alive was author Edward Epstein, a close friend of CIA Counterintelligence Chief James Angleton.

There are a number of people here on the Education Forum who will undoubtedly claim there is nothing unusual about Harvey Oswald’s Russian fluency.  But that is not the view of the Russian immigrants who met him in Dallas in 1963.  No doubt the Harvey and Lee critics here will say they know better.

George De Mohrenschildt was hardly the only White Russian immigrant in Dallas who was amazed by Harvey Oswald’s fluency in Russian.

 

From Harvey and Lee:

 

On Christmas Day, Mr. and Mrs. John (Elena) Hall visited the Oswalds at their

apartment on Elsbeth Street.¹⁶⁶ Three days later, on Friday, December 28, Mrs. Declan

(Katya) Ford held a post-Christmas party gathering at her house in Dallas. At the request

of Jeanne DeMohrenschildt. who Mrs. Ford had known for 14 years. she invited the

Oswalds to her party.¹⁶⁷ This was the third and last time Katya Ford would see either

of the Oswald's.

 

[….]

 

Party attendees notice Oswald's ability to speak Russian

 

Natalie Ray, one of the party attendees, said, "Oswald was very proud of the fact

that he spoke Russian so well." As a native of Russia Natalie said that she was amazed

that he had such a good command of the language.¹⁶⁹ Other attendees of the party were

equally amazed at his proficiency in the Russian language and discussed their thoughts

with the Warren Commission:

•

Natalie Ray was asked by Commission attorney Wesley Liebeler, "Did he

(Oswald) speak to you in Russian?" Mrs. Ray replied, "Yes; just perfect; re­ally

surprised me .... .it's just too good speaking Russian for be such a short time,

you know .... .l said, 'How come you speak so good Russian? I been here so long

and still don't speak very well English."'

•

George Bouhe was asked by Liebeler, "Did Oswald's command of the Rus­-

sian language seem to be about what you would expect from him, having been

in Russia for that period of time? Would you say it was good?" Bouhe replied,

"I would say very good."¹⁷⁰

•

Mrs. Teofil (Anna) Meller was asked by Liebeler, "Do you think that his com­-

mand of the Russian language was better than you would expect for the pe­-

riod of time that he had spent in Russia?" Mrs. Meller replied, "Yes; absolutely

better than I would expect."

•

Elena Hall was asked by Liebeler, "In your opinion, Lee did have a good

command of the Russian language?" Mrs. Hall replied, "Very good ..... "

•

Mrs. Dymitruk was asked by Commission attorney Albert Jenner, "He did

speak Russian?" Mrs. Dymitruk replied, "Yes; and I was really surprised--in

short time, he spoke nicely."

•

George DeMohrenschildt told Jenner, "He loved to speak Russian ..... he spoke

fluent Russian ..... he had a remarkable fluency in Russian ..... he preferred to

speak Russian than English any time. He always would switch from English

to Russian."

•

Peter Gregory told Warren Commission Representative Gerald Ford, "I

thought that Lee Oswald spoke (Russian) with a Polish accent, that is why I

asked him if he was of Polish decent."

 

--From Harvey and Lee, pp. 425-426, Copyright © 2003 by John Armstrong

Sure, but during WW II and immediately afterward, who would doubt that some Russian-speaking people were in (or dislocated to) Hungary? It shared a lengthy border with the USSR. To me, at least, there is no doubt that Harvey Oswald’s native tongue was Russian, regardless of who his parents were or what his earliest history was.

As to his possible Hungarian roots, never considered by JA as anything other than a possibility, it is all based on an anonymous phone call.  Read about it HERE.

What is not based on a vague tip is Harvey Oswald’s mastery of Russian.  It is wildly inconsistent with his official biography.

The best evidence that Harvey Oswald’s first language was Russian was his sheer mastery of it as a young man.  He clearly spoke Russian and read Russian literature in the Marines prior to his false defection to Russia.  When he returned, the White Russians in and around Dallas were amazed at his fluency, even though he had spent two and a half years there, mostly working full time in a factory.

In his manuscript  I AM A PATSY! I AM A PATSY!  Russian immigrant George De Mohrenschildt, who Harvey in 1963 called his closest friend, described his amazement at Harvey’s Russian fluency.

For those who can’t see the graphic above, here’s what the main paragraph from this page of De Mohrenschildt's manuscript says:

Incidentally I never saw him interested in anything else except Russian
books and magazines . He said he didn't want to forget the language -
but it amazed me that he read such difficult writers like Gorki, Dostoevski,
Gogol, Tolstoi and Turgenieff - in Russian . As everyone knows Russian is
a complex language and he was supposed to have stayed in the Soviet Union
only a little over two years . He must have had some previous training and
that point had never been brought up by the Warren Committee - and it is
still puzzling to me. In my opinion Lee was a very bright person but not
a genius . He never mastered the English language yet he learned such a dif-
icult language! I taught Russian at all level in a large University, and
I never saw such a profficiency in the best senior students who constantly
listened to  Russian tapes and spoke to Russian fiends . As a matter of
fact American-born instructors never mastered Russian spoken language as
well as Lee did .

De Mohrenschildt would have made a fascinating witness at the HSCA hearings and, in fact, in early 1977 the HSCA sought to interview him. But on March 30 he was found in his home with a shotgun blast to his head. The last person to see him alive was author Edward Epstein, a close friend of CIA Counterintelligence Chief James Angleton.

There are a number of people here on the Education Forum who will undoubtedly claim there is nothing unusual about Harvey Oswald’s Russian fluency.  But that is not the view of the Russian immigrants who met him in Dallas in 1963.  No doubt the Harvey and Lee critics here will say they know better.