Jim Hargrove

Jim, thanks for taking the time to scrutinize my Innocent Explanations list and hypotheses.

Thanks for taking the time to put all this together. A worthwhile exercise, especially since the WC apologists seem to have given up.

Let me answer your question by pointing something out. Once the Internal Invoice was found, nothing more was needed to show that Oswald ordered the rifle. Because the P.O. box printed on the invoice would lead directly to Oswald. Therefore it was definitely Oswald's rifle... case closed. (In the pretend WC world, that is.)

That's a VERY good point, and, as you suggest, leads to even more problems. If the FBI really had this info on the night of Nov 22/23, how could they POSSIBLY have thought the rifle cost $12.78? I believe that figure only lives on today because Hoover couldn't take back the newspaper and media reports about it.

So why did the FBI bother to look for the money order as well? Clearly one reason was so that the ENTIRE chain of events leading up to the assassination could be explained. Oswald, the America-hating communist secured a P.O. box, used the Hidell alias to purchase a money order, and sent that with an order form to Klein's in order to purchase the assassination weapon. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Ultimately enough superfluous evidence was gathered to fill 26 volumes plus.

The same reason can be cited as to why it was decided that the actual ad Oswald saw, and that he cut the order form out for, should be identified.

So some FBI agent was assigned the task of finding the ad. He found what he thought was the correct ad and gave it to someone at the Bureau. This person looked at the ad and noted the prominent $12.78 price for the rifle. This figure was mistakenly passed on to Chief Curry.

Who in the FBI would have dared guess at the cost of the order for the gun that killed JFK by just looking at an advertisement for a rifle that looked similar? Can you imagine anyone other than Hoover doing that?

Multiple people were working on the rifle investigation, and the left hand likely didn't always known what the right hand was doing. Screw-ups happened.

The microfilm I believe you are referring to contains not two but seven different entries of $21.45, as shown below. How can you possibly tell what method of payment was used for those entries?

Jim, I am in the middle of trying to answer this question. Problem is, I've been up far too long an can no longer think. I'll leave here what I've already written and come back tomorrow to finish it up.

The FBI had a week or more to fix up this paperwork, but it still is a country mile from perfection. The money order wasn't cashed, its serial number seems out of sequence, the paperwork shows it was deposited a month before it was received, or, as Jim Di likes to point out, the revised story said it was deposited in Kleins' Chicago bank the day after it was mailed in Dallas. And now the fixed paper trail shows no way the $21.45 payment could be traced to any particular payment method, and I'm probably forgetting many of the other issues. WHAT A MESS!!!

FBI: "We ain't got no steenkin' counterfeit postal money orders!"

Don't click here!!!

(Unless you're comfortable in virtual FBI headquarters in a room filled with counterfeit Federal documents and surrounded by virtual agents.)

Tip of the hat to researcher Scott Kaiser for his anonymous tip!

Thanks Tom.

If you want to put up a graphic on this forum that exists nowhere other than on your computer, you can probably use a freebie cloud solution like Google Drive or Dropbox or any of a number of others. You'll probably have to fiddle with the "sharing" or "permission" settings a bit, but once you figure that out, it should work fine.

3. The FBI searches Klein's records and the Internal Invoice matching the C2766 rifle is found. (This is "Waldman Deposition Exhibit No. 7").

SDL HYPOTHESIS (3/4/16): It takes seven hours to locate the Hidell order because only the rifle's serial number and an approximate date of sale were known. Thousands of internal invoices have to be pulled and inspected.

The FBI then finds on microfilm two purchase orders that matches the price and payment method as indicated on the Internal Invoice. One was paid for with an American Express MO, the other with a postal MO. The latter is suspected of being the offending purchase order, or what Chief Curry will later call the "Order Letter." (This is CE773). The Order Letter consists of an order form clipped out of the Feb. 1963 American Rifleman magazine, and the envelope in which it was mailed.

4. SDL HYPOTHESIS (2/23/16): Somebody in the FBI was given a copy of the Internal Invoice (and perhaps also the Order Letter) and was assigned to search for Klein's ads matching the C2766 rifle. He finds one. The ad has a large "$12.78" price printed on it. The agent notes the 3/20/63 processing/shipping date on the Internal Invoice, and determines it to be a suitable "purchase date." He clumsily doesn't realize that the $12.78 price didn't include the scope. (Or perhaps he has heard that the Texas Sports Shop had added the scope later.) This information is passed on to Chief Curry of the DPD.

Sandy,

If the FBI really had what you call Klein's Internal Invoice for C2766 on Nov. 22^nd, why would they tell Curry that it was “Oswald's” handwriting on the order for a $12.78 rifle? The Internal Invoice we have now clearly shows the order was for $21.45. Do you seriously expect us to believe your #4 hypothesis, that an FBI agent who had “Klein's Internal Invoice” as we're shown today would really go by an advertisement instead of the clear document in his hand? That doesn't make sense.

The microfilm I believe you are referring to contains not two but seven different entries of $21.45, as shown below. How can you possibly tell what method of payment was used for those entries?

Here's what I think really happened….

Sitting at SOG in D.C., J. Edgar Hoover knows he's got to put the whole thing on Oswald alone fast. He sends his agents out looking for rifle ads matching the Carcano found on the 6^th floor. He quickly gets handed an ad like the one below.

Hoover himself (who else would dare to do this?) looks at the ad and decides the 6.5 Italian Carbine for $12.78 comes with a scope (as you might certainly think by looking at the ad). Hoover puts the word out to Curry that our man “Oswald” had his handwriting all over the order for that $12.78 rifle, knowing that he would prepare all the necessary “documentation” in the days to come.

But oops, J. Edgar made a mistake!

The topic is Marina Oswald’s birth certificate, and I apologize for not being able to post a photo of it - some sort of kB problem that’s got me currently baffled. I’ll post it here when I can. For now, if you want to actually see Marina’s supposed birth certificate, CE129, it’s in post #338 at the link below:

HI Tom,

Just wanted you to know I've read your posts whenever I came across them with somewhat baffled fascination. I never commented because I simply had no idea what to say, and I'll bet many others are in the same clueless boat with me. I kind of wish you'd put the post back into the original thread, just in case anyone might come across it some day who might be able to add something substantial. No doubt you have an extraordinary talent with ciphers or cryptography or whatever you call it. If you'd be kind enough to explain to me what the ICO puzzles are and how they relate to Mr. Nagell and if any of this goes beyond him (which it certainly seems to), I'll reciprocate in advance with the following....

Apparently this forum gives us a limited amount of graphic storage on its own servers, but then expects us to find another solution to keep the owners' bandwidth and storage costs halfway affordable. Sandy Larsen explained the simple work-around to me, and so here 'tis: Find any graphic anywhere on the net that you want to reproduce here. Right click on the graphic and select "Copy image address." (I use Linux, but Mac and Windows should be similar.) Then when you reach the point where you want to incorporate the graphic into your post on EF, click the "Image" box on the second line of the Reply menu (at the top of the window) and paste and enter the url you copied into the field that opens up. You'll immediately see the graphic in your composition window, and as soon as you post it so will everyone else. Amazingly simple once you know about it. Thanks again for your work, and please don't give up just because few of us can keep up with you.

It may even be simpler than that, it appears that Marina was interested in foreign visitors and the higher quality of entertainment they tended to enjoy. She hung out at the right places, dated some of them and ultimately came under GRU attention, hence her relocation under her Uncle's over sight in MInsk. She might have been a source in Russia, she may have just been interested in more interesting dates. There our some pretty solid interviews on this, including her move. The source escapes me but somebody else should have this well in mind. Letting her leave with Oswald might have been an administrative bonus, and no doubt they held open the vague possibility she might become some sort of "legal" open source in the US, certainly that appears to have concerned Hosty.

Larry,

What do you think of this?

The Central Intelligence Agency (ClA) issued a report titled, "Indications of Intelligence

Involvement by Marina Oswald." ^61-11 In the report they listed 29 points which indicated

Marina's possible involvement with Russian intelligence (KGB). A few of the indications

were:

Mystery of fatherless patronymic. Could be deliberate to obscure a cover-damaging

father.

Questionable aspects of her move to Minsk in 1959; where did she get travel funds?

What did she expect to do there, since job prospects were poorer and she did not know

in advance that she could stay and live with the Prusakovs?

Casual attitude about ignoring Komsomol; no apparent ill effects.

Refusal to identify certain individuals in her story, while identifying and giving infor­

mation on others. Cover story incomplete or forgotten?

Complete uncheckableness of her story.

Marina's statement that she had not been interviewed by any officials in connection with

her marriage and that the only documentation necessary was registration of intent and

then certification ten days later. Even Oswald said in the diary that she had to get

permission to marry a foreigner.

Her surprisingly quick decision to marry an ill-tempered misfit foreigner.

Irregularities in her trade union booklet: 1) no dues from 1956 to 1959, hence she must

have had another booklet; why? how? where? 2) why no year given in registration and

de-registration entries re pharmacy school?

--From Harvey and Lee, pp. 337-338

Copyright © 2003 by John Armstrong

Devil's advocate explanation would be that the postal service didn't issue enough of the new PMOs to the Dallas GPO, and had to issue more prior to March 12. That would explain the huge jump in the PMO serial number.

So this, in and of itself, isn't a smoking gun. But it is one more of the many irregularities that have been identified.

EVEN MORE EVIDENCE THAT

THE MAGIC MONEY ORDER WAS FAKED

“Lee Harvey Oswald” allegedly purchased postal money order 2,202,130,462 in Dallas on March 12, 1963. That money order was allegedly used to purchase the rifle that, according to the Warren Commission, killed JFK. But it is VERY likely that the postal form bearing that serial number would have been put into service far later than March, 1963.

From http://harveyandlee.net/Mail_Order_Rifle/Mail_Order_Rifle.html:

The above shows LHO's purchase of money orders that he used to
to repay his loan from the State Department. Note the money orders
from Ft. Worth (Sept 1/Oct, 6 1963) run sequentially, as do the
money orders from Dallas (Nov 13/Dec 6, 1962) and (Jan 5-25, 1963).

On March 12, 1963, Oswald allegedly purchased postal money order 2,202,130,462 in the amount of $21.45 from the Dallas General Post Office (GPO). The rectangular holes, punched at the printing office when the money order was created, identified the serial number of the money order by code as 2,202,130,462. The round holes identified the purchase amount of the money order as $21.45. This was the postal money order allegedly purchased at the Dallas GPO and mailed to Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago to pay for the Mannlicher Carcano rifle. Fact or fiction??

Let's begin by comparing the serial number of this postal money order (2,202,130,462) with the serial numbers of postal money orders previously purchased by Oswald at the same post office. Look at the serial numbers of money orders purchased by Oswald at the GPO (General Post Office) in Dallas (above) from November 13, 1962 thru December 6, 1962. The Dallas GPO sold 3887 money orders during this period, or about 1296 money orders per week (these were the old, blue-tinted money orders).

In preparation for the new yellow-tinted postal money orders, which were to be issued on January 5, 1963, the post office issued postal bulletin #20338. This bulletin, issued on 11/29/62, read, "The initial distribution will be automatic and based upon records as to usage in prior years. The initial supply should be sufficient for at least 3 months or until the next requisition cycle."

Based upon the only information currently available to researchers (the serial numbers of the money orders purchased by Oswald, as shown above) the Dallas GPO was selling about 1296 money orders per week. A 3-month supply of the new yellow-tinted money orders, first issued on January 5, 1963, should have contained around 16,000 money orders and lasted the Dallas GPO thru April 5, 1963 (a 3 month supply). The beginning serial number of the newly issued money orders was probably 2,202,000,000 (see above where LHO purchased order 2,202,000,060), and the serial number of the last of the initial batch of 16,000 money orders was probably around 2,202,016,000.

On the first day of issue (January 5, 1963), Oswald purchased a money order in the amount of $100 (2,202,000,060). Three weeks later, on January 25 Oswald purchased a money order for $100 (2,202,003,534) and another for $6.00 (2,202,003,535). From January 5 thru January 25, 1963, the Dallas GPO sold 3535 money orders, or about 1178 per week. The number of money orders sold during this period (1178 sold per week) is similar to the number of money orders sold in November/Dec, 1962 (1296 per week). At this rate (average of 1250 per week sold), the serial number of a money order sold on March 12, 1963 should have been around 2,202,014,137. A money order sold to Oswald on March 12, 1963 should have been within the first batch of money orders issued to the Dallas GPO on January 5, 1963. But it wasn't.

The serial number of the money order allegedly sold to Oswald (on March 12, 1963) was 2,202,130,462--a difference of 116,325 money orders. At this rate, assuming the post office was issued sequentially numbered money orders, the Dallas GPO would have to have sold 12,925 money orders per week (instead of the usual 1250 per week). There is no definitive answer or explanation as to why postal money order 2,202,130,462 is so much larger than expected, because the serial number of a money order sold on March 12, 1963 should have been within the original batch of 16,000 money orders furnished to the Dallas GPO on January 5, 1963(2,202,000,000 thru 2,202,016,000). Could postal money order 2,202,130,462 be from a subsequent batch/supply of money orders issued to the Dallas GPO? Yes, but only after the Dallas post office sold their original 3-month supply, which was supposed to last thru April 5, 1963.

Postal money order number 2,202,130,462 is consistent with the serial numbers of money orders issued to the Dallas GPO in January, 1963, beginning with 2,202,000,000. Serial number 2,202,130,462 suggests that this money order, if issued to the Dallas GPO in sequential order, should have been sold/issued in late 1964 or early 1965.

If Oswald did not purchase postal money order 2,202,130,462 on March 12, 1963, then how did this postal money order become an item of evidence?

My bet is that Marina served the KGB as a honey trap for both Webster and LHO. But back in the USA, were Mrs. Paine and the Agency already protecting her (Marina) in the days not only after the hit, but before as well? If so, as Gene suggests, she surely had been doubled, or at least had played the role convincingly enough to keep the pros interested. She may have been trained from an early age in this sort of thing.

============ from Harvey and Lee ============

NOTE: In a 1997 interview Robert Webster told JFK researcher and author Dick

Russell that he met Marina Prusakova in Moscow in the summer of 1959 and spoke with

her in English. Webster said that Marina spoke English well, but with a heavy accent.

A year after Webster was sent to Leningrad by the Soviet Government, 400 miles from

Moscow, he met Marina again shortly after he applied for an exit visa so that he could

return to the US. [interview of Robert Webster by Dick Russell at Cape Cod, MA. 1997]

Marina's friend in Dallas, Katya Ford, said that when she asked Marina why Oswald

went to Russia, Marina told her that he worked for the Rand Corporation and helped

set up the American exhibit at the World Trade Exposition in Moscow. [WC Document 5,

p. 259; FBI interview of Katherine Ford by SA James P. Hosty, 11/24/63] Marina had

momentarily confused Harvey Oswald with Robert Webster, the 1st US "defector," whom

she met in Moscow (1959) and again in Leningrad (1960).

It is not a coincidence that both Webster and Oswald "defected" a few months apart in

1959, both tried to "defect" on a Saturday, both possessed "sensitive" information of

possible value to the Russians, both were befriended by Marina Prusakova, and both

returned to the United States in the Spring of 1962. These US "defectors," acting in perfect

harmony, were both working for the CIA.

--Harvey and Lee, p. 799

Copyright © 2003 by John Armstrong

My wife, who was a social worker in Minsk and spoke nothing but Russian for the first 53 years of her existence, says the note is the work of someone with a poor command of Russian grammar, typical of someone who can speak Russian passably but not write it well. That could well be LHO.

Lance,

Wow! Please don't go into hibernation yet. At least consider this….

John Armstrong and I believe HARVEY Oswald (the guy shot by Jack Ruby) was most likely a World War II orphan who, before he was brought to the U.S., learned Russian from birth as a first or second language. But his exposure to Russian probably ended before he reached the age of 10, when he was brought to New York City, and it was probably also severely impacted by the war while he was still in Europe.

Please ask your wife if she feels that the note could have been written by someone with a biography like the one I've described above. I hope you see this and respond.

OK, just for you: Yes, my wife said that would be entirely possible. We have an example in our own family. My wife's sister was university-educated and lived and worked in Russia for her first 37 years. But she has been married to an American and has spoken English almost exclusively for more than 20 years. Even in this situation (i.e., where she once had a complete, educated adult command of Russian), she admits that she has forgotten a great many Russian words and she often communicates with my wife in writing in a phonetic "pidgin Russian" that my wife cannot read at all and can understand only when I read it phonetically out loud (which is quite comical). So, yes, the note could be someone who either never had a complete command of Russian or once did but then lost it due to circumstances. Russian is an extremely difficult language, at least IMHO. We have a couple of Russian-speaking friends who came to America when their children were in the 6-8 age range, and my wife is sure the kids are not going to be able to speak Russian at all by the time they are 15 unless the parents really work at maintaining their skills.

More of a crime than a coincidence, is my bet.

And, as Ray Mitcham pointed out, Ruth Paine spoke Russian. If memory serves (and it doesn't always) she also taught Russian somewhere.

My wife, who was a social worker in Minsk and spoke nothing but Russian for the first 53 years of her existence, says the note is the work of someone with a poor command of Russian grammar, typical of someone who can speak Russian passably but not write it well. That could well be LHO.

And blah-blah-blah-blah....

C'mon, Mr. Von Pein, you ALWAYS have to have the Last Word, right?

ADDED EDIT:

Mr. Von Pein wrote above: "And the note was a perfect forgery too (per CTers), with "Oswald"-like handwriting that fooled every expert who examined it for years thereafter."

That is hardly true. Although the FBI's utility fix-it man James Cadigan DID say the note was in "Oswald's" handwriting, only one of three handwriting experts from the HSCA made the same claim. Remember, J. Edgar Hoover and several of his men were the PRIME CONSPIRATORS in the cover-up.

From http://22november1963.org.uk/:

The note was undated, and did not mention General Walker or any reason why Oswald might find himself under arrest. There are several reasons to doubt the authenticity of the handwritten note:

• Ruth Paine’s home had been searched thoroughly on the afternoon of the assassination, and again the following day, when Paine claimed to have seen officers specifically looking for loose papers within books (Warren Commission Hearings, vol.3, p.87). The inventory of items discovered is 49 pages long, but does not mention the note (FBI HQ Oswald File, 105–82555–24).

• Although the FBI’s handwriting expert considered that the note was in Oswald’s handwriting (Warren Commission Hearings, vol.7, p.437), only one of the three experts who were consulted by the House Select Committee on Assassinations considered the note to be authentic ( Report, appendix vol.8, pp.232–246).

• The Bureau’s fingerprint expert found seven sets of fingerprints on the note. None of them belonged to either Lee or Marina Oswald (FBI HQ JFK Assassination File, 62–109060–36).

...but I sure think that undated, unsigned note, found by Ruth Paine almost a week after her whole house had been repeatedly searched by the police, was a fraud!

It was stuffed inside a book. Was the FBI supposed to leaf through every page of every book in Ruth's house in a search for potential evidence?

Get real.

On Saturday morning, November 30th, Mrs. Paine gave the book (actually two books) to Irving Police Captain Paul Barger. She said she found the book, "Our Child" in Marina's bedroom and the "Book of Helpful Instructions" in her kitchen. Mrs. Paine told Captain Barger that Marina could not get along without those books and constantly used both books during the day.

Why did it take a week for Mrs. Paine to offer police two books that Marina used every day and couldn't get along without? Someone needed to take a close look at those books. This story is as preposterous as the rest of the so-called "evidence" in this case.

BTW, let's hear what the FBI's Bob Frazier had to say about the bullet types....

MR. EISENBERG -- "Can you think of any reason why someone might have

called this [CE573] a steel-jacketed bullet?"

MR. FRAZIER -- "No, sir; except that some individuals commonly refer

to rifle bullets as steel-jacketed bullets, when they actually in fact

just have a copper-alloy jacket."

------------

Frazier was just lying through his teeth there, right Jim?

Funny, isn't it, that the WC wanted to hear from Robert Frazier about the steel-jacketed bullet found at General Walker's house. Frazier wasn't there. He didn't take it into evidence. He could only lamely speculate about how “some individuals commonly refer” to steel vs. copper jackets. Are you really calling this significant?

Why didn't the WC talk about the slug with the Dallas cops who actually placed it into evidence? Maybe because the Dallas cops didn't have a procedure in place for routinely altering testimony of their men at any time needed. But the FBI sure did!

If Frazier didn't get his weasel words quite right first time around to Please J. Edgar and Clyde, no doubt he had a second, and third, chance to make it as dull and unmemorable as possible.

Thanks, Jim H., for showing us all your true "Everything's Been Faked" colors. I'm loving it!

Hey, Pal, I'm getting' sick of your “America Last” attitude! We're Number One!

We're Number One in war and peace, or at least in war. We can eat more hamburgers than all the rest of the world combined!

And if we want to create false evidence, no one can fake trainloads of it like we can! We're Number One! Quit your defeatist attitude and start thinking big, like a Real American!

There's a ton of LHO's correspondence written in the Russian language in the Warren Commission volumes.

And all of it (AFAIK) was determined by the handwriting experts to be in Lee Harvey Oswald's writing.

Including Oswald's Diary (CE24). Do you think it's ALL phony and fake?

No, but I sure think that undated, unsigned note, found by Ruth Paine almost a week after her whole house had been repeatedly searched by the police, was a fraud!

Do you really think all those other documents in Russian were written by a native of the United States? Who's kidding who here?

Dear Mr. Von Pein,

It's truly sad that that your evidence is so consistently awful. If it makes you feel any better, by all means please continue to blame me for the mountain of bs you feel compelled to say doesn't stink.

If it will lift your spirits a bit, I'll even confess….

I (and a few of my chums) created all the bogus evidence against “Lee Harvey Oswald” in 1963 and 1964 from our world headquarters at Yorktown School in New York. We're really sorry it wasn't better but, in our defense, we were just kids! We didn't know that the Internet was just a few decades away, or that it would allow common folks like most of us here to pass around the “evidence” and have a good hard look for ourselves.

We really thought it would be just the government's hired hands who would see this stuff, and we didn't know it actually had to be believable under reasonable scrutiny! And so, on behalf of myself and my classmates, we sincerely apologize for all the heartache we have caused you.

Sincerely,

Jim

That's right... endless excuses.

Dallas cops didn't know the difference between steel and copper jacketed bullets. Neither did General Walker, apparently, who said the bullet in evidence wasn't the bullet dug out of his house.

Also -- notice any similarity here?:

I'd like to thank Mr. Von Pein for his help in discovering so many neat things in this thread…

I hope he won't be overly modest, but he has discovered another Magic Bullet!

The bullet Mr. Von Pein so proudly waves about believing that it was used by “Oswald” to shoot at Edwin Walker, is clearly a copper jacketed bullet.

But as you can see in the original report filed by Dallas police, it was a steel-jacketed bullet dug out of Mr. Walker's house. Somehow, perhaps while at the National Archives, it transformed itself into a copper jacketed bullet!

Magic rifles, magic money orders, magic deposit slips… and now yet another magic bullet! Do you suppose there is something fishy about all this so-called rifle evidence? Nah... it's just magic!

Ah…. Thanks for bringing this up, David!

Let's take a look at that note.

Do you REALLY think this Russian note was written by a native born American who spent a couple of years in Russia? Really??

This note was allegedly “found” by the ever helpful Ruth Paine on Nov. 30, a week after Dallas police had repeatedly searched her home (Nov. 22-23) and had somehow managed to miss it. Throughout the remainder of 1963 and much of the following year, Mrs. Paine would continue to “find” items that allegedly belonged to “Oswald,” every single one of them instrumental in framing him, and every one of them “missed” by Dallas police.

The assassination of JFK was an intelligence operation, using many of the normal tricks of the trade.

Oh, brother! Even the HSCA refused to believe Marina's tales about the Walker shooting!

Fourteen years after the assassination the HSCA wanted to interview Marina.

Before she agreed to the interview Marina insisted on a grant of immunity.^VICTORS-08

Committee members soon realized, like the Warren Commission had in 1964, that

Marina's testimony was full of lies and contradictory statements. The HSCA conducted

a detailed study of Marina's testimony regarding the Walker shooting and wrote, "When

combined with the other testimony linking Oswald to the shooting (whose testimony has

all the weight of a handful of chicken feathers), we regretfully refuse to accept the judgment

of the Commission in regard to the Walker shooting, hoping that its prides and preju­-

dices were a result of error and not expedience."^VICTORS-09

Harvey and Lee, p. 978

Copyright © 2003 by John Armstrong

Lance,

I'll try to make a better response tonight or tomorrow a.m., but if you have a few minutes to spare, you might want to take a look at the thread here called "Did somebody screw up." It has some info on the evidence that a Mauser was found on the sixth floor.

Well, Lance, good luck with your First Annual File Locater Number Conference…. But if it has fewer attendees than you hoped, blame it on my competing (and far more reverent) “IN GOD WE TRUST” seminar. At my meeting, I'll explain to anxious Americans that all those counterfeit twenty and hundred dollar bills their banks refused to honor can't possibly be phony since each one clearly says, “IN GOD WE TRUST.” How can such a spiritually righteous bill POSSIBLY be bogus?

I can't speak for anyone else, but John Armstrong's analysis of the assassination is really pretty simple.

A young Russian-speaking emigre (call him “Harvey”) is given the same identity as an American-born youth (“Lee”) for the purpose of eventually sending him to the Soviet Union where he secretly understands Russian and can learn about the conditions of common Russians... which is exactly what happened. His smart report, hiding in plain site in Warren Volume 16 for more than half a century, can be read HERE.

In the spring or summer of 1963, Harvey is selected to be the patsy for the upcoming assassination of JFK. (If you are conspiring to assassinate a U.S. president, you absolutely must have a patsy, otherwise the relentless search for you will eventually succeed.) Harvey is a superb choice for three reasons:

1. With his trip to Russia and staged FPCC activities, it's easy to paint him as a commie with ties to Castro.

2. His ties to both the FBI and the CIA will make G-men, especially J. Edgar Hoover, all too happy to enter full scale cover-up mode.

3. Harvey has demonstrated that he will follow even difficult orders, which will be critical in the days and hours before and immediately after the assassination. He absolutely needs to be in the right places at the right times.

In and around Dallas for six weeks or so prior to the hit, Lee framed Harvey as the assassin-to-be. Simple, yet quite brilliant.

The McKeown affair shows that the assassination rifle hadn't been selected by around Labor Day of '63, but John and many others believe that ALL the evidence for the Carcano was fabricated after the hit. It was six days after the assassination before the FBI declared, in any publicly verifiable source, that the rifle cost $21.45 instead of $12.78. I can't prove this, but I think it may have been a Mauser originally found on the sixth floor, that it had some immediately traceable link to Castro, and that the Carcano was an after-the-fact substitute to make the Cuban connection go away.

The cover-up was FAR more complicated than the original plot.