Jim Hargrove

There are two main issues about “Lee Harvey Oswald” that I have concentrated on in this forum. 1. John Armstrong’s research showing that two LHOs were active not only during the weeks leading up to the assassination, but for more than a decade earlier. 2. Whether a person believes in one, two, or more LHOs, the Oswald Project was a creation of American intel. My post above with a portion of Gaeton Fonzi’s report on Laura Kittrell was in answer to a post made in this thread by Sandy Larsen, who pointed out that there is little evidence that the pair of LHOs active throughout the 1950s and beyond were, in fact, the same pair active in mid to late 1963. I followed the Kittrell post with a short write-up about James Wilcott, in support of his assertion that LHO was on the CIA payroll. This is a separate issue. It is not my intention to claim Wilcott had knowledge of two Oswalds; he clearly didn’t. More than three years ago, in this 2018 post, Sandy asked me if anything Mr. Wilcott said supported Harvey and Lee, and I said the following: I have made numerous posts over the years making the case that LHO (one or more) was a creation of American intel. In support of that, I’ve posted several newspaper articles indicating that the Kennedy Administration was a war with the CIA just weeks before the assassination. I’ve also maintained a list of 20 or so facts indicating Oswald or the Oswald Project was run by the CIA. This hasn’t been posted in a while, so I’ll attach it here. I consider this a separate issue from Harvey and Lee. 20 Facts Indicating the Oswald Project Was Run by the CIA 1. CIA accountant James Wilcott testified that he made payments to an encrypted account for “Oswald or the Oswald Project.” Contemporaneous HSCA notes indicate Wilcott told staffers, but wasn't allowed to say in Executive session, that the cryptonym for the CIA's "Oswald Project" was RX-ZIM. 2. A 1978 CIA memo indicates that a CIA operations officer “had run an agent into the USSR, that man having met a Russian girl and eventually marrying her,” a case very similar to Oswald’s and clearly indicating that the Agency ran a “false defector” program in the 1950s. 3. Robert Webster and LHO "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. 4. Richard Sprague, Richard Schweiker, and CIA agents Donald Norton and Joseph Newbrough all said LHO was associated with the CIA. 5. CIA employee Donald Deneslya said he read reports of a CIA "contact" who had worked at a radio factory in Minsk and returned to the US with a Russian wife and child. 6. Kenneth Porter, employee of CIA-connected Collins Radio, probably left his family to marry (and possibly monitor) Marina Oswald after LHO’s death. 7. George Joannides, CIA case officer and paymaster for DRE (which LHO had attempted to infiltrate) was put in charge of lying to the HSCA and never told them of his relationship to DRE. 8. For his achievements, Joannides was given a medal by the CIA. 9. FBI took Oswald off the watch list at the same time a CIA cable gave him a clean bill of political health, weeks after Oswald’s New Orleans arrest and less than two months before the assassination. 10. Oswald’s lengthy “Lives of Russian Workers” essay reads like a pretty good intelligence report. 11. Oswald’s possessions were searched for microdots. 12. Oswald owned an expensive Minox spy camera, which the FBI tried to make disappear. 13. Even the official cover story of the radar operator near American U-2 planes defecting to Russia, saying he would give away all his secrets, and returning home without penalty smells like a spy story. 14. CIA's Richard Case Nagell clearly knew about the plot to assassinate JFK and LHO’s relation to it, and he said that the CIA and the FBI ignored his warnings. 15. LHO always seemed poor as a church mouse, until it was time to go “on assignment.” For his Russian adventure, we’re to believe he saved all the money he needed for first class European hotels and private tour guides in Moscow from the non-convertible USMC script he saved. In the summer of 1963, he once again seemed to have enough money to travel abroad to Communist nations. 16. To this day, the CIA claims it never interacted with Oswald, that it didn’t even bother debriefing him after the “defection.” What utter bs…. 17. After he “defected” to the Soviet Union in 1959, bragging to U.S. embassy personnel in Moscow that he would tell the Russians everything he knew about U.S. military secrets, he returns to the U.S. without punishment and is then in 1963 given the OK to travel to Cuba and the Soviet Union again! 18. Allen Dulles, the CIA director fired by JFK, and the Warren Commission clearly wanted the truth hidden from the public to protect sources and methods of intelligence agencies such as the CIA. Earl Warren said, “Full disclosure was not possible for reasons of national security.” 19. CIA's Ann Egerter, who worked for J.J. Angleton's Counterintelligence Special Interest Group (CI/SIG), opened a "201" file on Oswald on December 9, 1960. Egerter testified to the HSCA: "We were charged with the investigation of Agency personnel....” When asked if the purpose was to "investigate Agency employees," she answered, "That is correct." When asked, "Would there be any other reason for opening up a file?" she answered, "No, I can't think of one." 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 edition of the New York Times. “Oswald” was the CIA’s pawn.

John, I may have made a mistake in the note at the top of this page. More ASAP.

Mr. Charles-Dunne started this thread because he was alarmed that anyone would even speculate whether one of Marguerite Oswald’s husbands could have a relationship with American Intel. His concern is well founded. After all, we have testimony from a CIA accountant that the “Oswald Project” was indeed funded by the CIA! Who else could have been a part of the “Oswald Project”? Specifically, CIA accountant James Wilcott told HSCA investigators that money he himself disbursed was for the “Oswald Project” and that the CIA cryptonym for the “Oswald Project” was RX-ZIM. Who else could have been a part of the “Oswald Project?” Mommie… her husband(s)…? We were just speculating and sharing notes and, as I said days ago, we had found no hard evidence that Ekdahl was associated with American Intel, although LHO clearly was! Many of us plan to continue to look for connections between Ekdahl and the intelligence services. In the meantime, let's talk more about Oswald and the CIA!!

Sandy, We’ve discussed before that there is little evidence that both of the two LHOs active in and around Dallas in the weeks preceding the assassination were, in fact, the same two LHOs attending, for example, different schools simultaneously in the 1950s, and existing at different places in the USMC a few years later. There are a couple of minor hints suggesting it, though, one of which I’ll describe below. For a moment, though, let’s consider who would be the most likely candidates for the two LHOs in Dallas in October and November 1963. One, we know, was the Russian-speaking LHO shot dead by Jack Ruby. Who could the other have been? Let’s speculate a little…. If you were a part of American Intel and knew about the Oswald project, and knew the American-born LHO had demonstrated loyalty to the operation, was familiar with Dallas and environs and also knowledgeable about the other LHO and his experiences, wouldn’t that LHO (the birth LHO) be the most likely candidate to recruit to set up the patsy to be? Who else would be a better candidate? Now to one minor hint about the identity of the second Oswald in 1963: As you know, Myrtle and Julian Evans, both of whom had known Marguerite Oswald for years until a decade or so before their WC appearances, both testified that they couldn’t recognize “Marguerite” and that the Lee Harvey Oswald they had known was loud and boisterous, with a "foghorn voice." That does not seem to describe the more taciturn Russian-speaking Oswald known to the world after the assassination as LHO. Texas Employment Commission employee Laura Kittrell told the U.S. Attorney in Dallas, and anyone else who would listen to her, including the FBI, that she interviewed two young men, both of whom claimed to be “Lee Harvey Oswald” just weeks before the assassination, at the very time one Oswald was obviously imitating the other. Kittrell told the HSCA’s Gaeton Fonzi that the second LHO she spoke to had “the same general outline and coloring and build, but there was something so different in his bearing…. He had this peculiar way of laughing and talking so that people all over the room could hear him” and added that the other LHO she interviewed “wasn’t like that at all.” One Oswald was neat and quiet, the other boisterous and a bit sloppy. Does that description of the two LHOs sound familiar?

It's easy to speculate about anything in this case. All you have to do is ignore the evidence. And the evidence covering more than a decade clearly shows there were two LHOs.

Mr. Bleau corresponded with John A. and me while he was writing his piece. I sent him info on the wallets from one of John’s Dallas speeches. Here’s a description of Oswald’s Five Wallets from HarveyandLee.net.: Wallet #1: November 22, 1963 @ 1:42 pm--wallet found at Tippit murder scene; contained identification of Oswald/Hidell; observed and handled by DPD Captain Westbrook, Officers Owens, and Doughty; observed by FBI Agent Barrett; filmed by WFAA cameraman Ron Reiland. Neither this wallet nor the contents were inventoried, cataloged noted on either DPD or FBI inventory lists or photographed. This wallet was last "seen" at the Tippit murder scene and thereafter disappeared. None of the above named DPD or FBI officers volunteered information to the Warren Commission about this wallet. Wallet #2: November 22, 1963 @ 2:00 pm--arrest wallet--taken from Oswald's left rear pocket by Detective Paul Bentley in route to DPD headquarters. Four DPD officers--Carroll, Hill, Lyons and Walker accompanied Bentley and Oswald to DPD headquarters. All were aware that Bentley had removed Oswald's wallet and looked at the contents. Neither the wallet nor its contents were catalogued or photographed by DPD upon returning to DPD headquarters. DPD photographed the contents of the wallet on 11/23/63. The FBI designated wallet as exhibit B-1. The origin of the above described wallets is known and verified by witnesses. The following two wallets are in the National Archives--FBI exhibit #114 and #382--but their origin is unknown: Wallet #3: November 22, 1963--brown billfold; FBI #114 Wallet #4: November 22, 1963--red billfold; FBI #382 Both wallets were allegedly found at the Paine residence. DPD officers Rose, Adamcik and Stovall participated in the search. Neither wallet was listed on the their handwritten inventory list nor on the DPD typewritten inventory list (WC exhibit "Stovall A & B"). Neither wallet can be found in photographs of Oswald's possessions taken at DPD headquarters. There is no evidence either of these wallets were found at the Paine's. These wallets first appear on the joint DPD/FBI inventory list of Nov 26,1963 as items #114 and #382. They were later photographed by the FBI in Washington, DC and are now at the National Archives. During Warren Commission hearings, no DPD officers were asked about nor volunteered information concerning wallets allegedly found at the Paine house. A 5th wallet was found in the dresser in Marina's room at the Paine residence: Wallet #5: November 24, 1963--Marina telephoned Ruth Paine and asked Mrs. Paine to bring some of her clothes, some baby clothes and bottles, her husband's wedding ring and wallet. On Monday, November 25, a Secret Service man brought her the wallet, which contained $180.00. To all of this, Mr. Bleau added a sixth Oswald wallet! You’d think there might be more than one Oswald to account for all those wallets! I didn’t know anything about Byron Phillips either. Much of the stuff associated with the life of “Lee Harvey Oswald” is just weird!

John, thanks for all the work putting this stuff together. On our website, John A. wrote that on Dec. 8, 1958 LEE Oswald, while on leave, opened a bank account at the West Side State Bank in Fort Worth. He listed his address as Marine Corps Air Station in El Toro. My bet is that the hunter photo was taken around this time. Note that he is wearing both a sweater vest and a jacket, hardly attire for summertime in Texas. At the same time LEE was at the big El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, HARVEY was at the much smaller facility (with MACS 9) at Santa Ana, just a few miles away. To me, this documentary evidence trumps the family's recollections about the time of the military leaves.

John, for decades, I’ve always thought the opposite about LHO's receding hairline. Although we’re ALL suspicious of the photographic record of “Lee Harvey Oswald” (from the perspectives of both misrepresentation and alteration), the methodology John A. used was to group photos of the two Oswalds according to what he felt was the best biographical evidence available and then post the corresponding mugshots regardless the facial details and overall appearance. Look at the photo montage below from the H&L homepage. In this collection, John felt that the overall evidence indicated that the top row of portraits SHOULD be of American-born Lee, while the bottom row SHOULD show Russian-speaking Harvey. Note the images for 1956, 1957, and 1958 in the top row. John A. believes all three SHOULD show Lee. You can clearly see the receding hairline in these pix. In the top row for 1959 is the photo attached to the 1959 passport application filed by Harvey. John believes this is actually a photo of LEE, but note the hairline. Incidentally, do you have a clear image of Jack White’s poster called “THE EVOLUTION OF LEE HARVEY OSWALD”? It has more than 80 mugshots of our boy(s) and might be useful for you in your analyses. I’ll try to look some more into the hunter photo, but as soon as I started looking into the evidence I found it difficult to trust Robert’s dating of it, and so may take some time. Note Tony K’s summary of the farm owners (Vada Oswald’s parents) remembrances at the top of p. 99 here. And here is John A’s summary from H&L p. 209. NOTE: On November 22 , 1963, FBI Agent Charles Brown interviewed Robert Oswald and reported, "He only saw his brother one time during the period of time he was in the service, at which time Lee came home on furlough to Fort Worth. "Robert Oswald's wife, Vada, said that Lee Oswald took leave four or five months after she and Robert were married (they were married in November, 1956). This would place Lee Oswald's first visit to Fort Worth in March, 1957 which agrees with the Marine Corps records and L. M. McCracken's memory (Marguerite's neighbor) of seeing Lee Oswald when he visited his mother at 3830 W. 6th. On February 20, 1964 Robert told the Warren Commission that he and his brother had hunted at the farm (his in laws farm) on two occasions and placed one of those dates at September, 1958. It is probable that Robert saw his brother, Lee, during two separate Marine leaves-in March, 1957 and November, 1958.

Thanks for recalling the name Beulah Bratton. It’s an interesting story, but I don’t think even John A. can add much more to it. He’s said more than once that he wished he could go back to some of his early interviews and ask more questions. Don’t think I’ve come across a reference to “National Committee for a Free Europe,” though its hard to ignore the similarity to Radio Free Europe, which was associated with a host of familiar names, including Allen Dulles, Frank Wisner and Philip Graham.

Can't remember the details, but John A. has a write-up somewhere about a woman renting a room near "Marguerite Oswald" claiming she heard, late at night, "Marguerite" speaking on the phone in a foreign language that wasn't, she thought, either German or Spanish. This is from my (always suspect) memory. Could it have been Russian? If you're interested, I can probably dig up the specifics. That's my guess too, but we we're nowhere near proving it. BTW, I'm still checking the 1958 "hunter" photo of LHO, which I always thought was LEE. Your belief that it was actually HARVEY is intriguing. More soon, hopefully.

Hi, Sandy, Thank you. That was indeed a typo. The paragraph SHOULD read as follows: British researcher Malcolm Blunt years ago interviewed a NYC school teacher who had LHO in her class and said he talked with a strong Eastern European accent and may have feigned occasional deafness because he had difficulty communicating in English. John A. is working on this new material and it should be up on our website within a week or two. Looking at old school records, Texas real estate transactions, and other materials he hadn't reviewed in years, John has made a number of pretty interesting new discoveries. One is that Marguerite Oswald sold her Texas home after "Lee Harvey Oswald" was enrolled in Trinity Evangelical School in NYC. We'll have more on this in an update to The Early Lives of Harvey and Lee, which should be completed in a week or two. There is quite a bit of new material there already.

John B: I disagree with a number of your conclusions, including that it is Lee HARVEY Oswald in the hunter photo, but it is great to see someone who doesn’t try to bury and ignore the evidence for two Oswalds, but instead looks at everything with a fresh viewpoint. I hope you keep it going. Jeremy B: As perhaps you will agree, the use of lookalikes and impostors is common in spycraft. Antonio and Patricio DeLaGuardia, top spies for Cuba, were twin brothers. Starting in the 1950s, Russian spy Konon Molody assumed the identity of Gordon Lonsdale, after being schooled in Berkley to learn English and American customs. Starting in the 1980s, Canadian Michael Ross married an Israeli woman, joined the Mossad, and assumed at least six different identities, one lasting seven years, so he could gather intelligence. Even Mata Hari was said to have used a stage double so she could do other things. There are other examples. One reason, of course, for the use of doubles is deniability. LHO couldn’t have been at Bolton Ford in Louisiana, or with Cuban expats in Miami and the Everglades, because he was in the Soviet Union. Case closed. Another reason to use impostors and lookalikes is that the impostor may have skills his counterpart simply doesn’t have. One example: to understand the Russian language with remarkable clarity, so that he could travel to the USSR, pretend he didn’t speak Russian, and understand everything that was said around him. It is quite clear that Lee HARVEY Oswald understood Russian before he ever set foot in the Soviet Union. And, of course, he took that famous Russian-language test in the Marines, making essentially the same score he made in English language tests (“poor”). A few years ago, a foreign language teacher names (from memory) Mathia Bauman, told us that those military language exams were designed to test native speakers. “He [Oswald] spent a great deal of his free time reading papers printed in Russian…. I believe he also had some books written in Russian, although I do not remember their names.” –Mack Osborne, who told the FBI he shared a bunk with Oswald in a 6-man Quonset hut in the Marines. British researcher Malcolm Blunt years ago interviewed a NYC school teacher who had LHO in her class and said he talked with a strong Eastern European language and may have feigned occasional deafness because he had difficulty communicating in English. John A. is working on this new material and it should be up on our website within a week or two.

Thanks, John. As we know, the LHO killed by Jack Ruby had no missing front teeth. This photo from the exhumation was given to John A. directly by Marina. Since Tony started talking about school pics, it just amazes me how clear the evidence is for two LHO’s during much of that time. For example, John Pic testified that in the fall of 1952, LHO attended school near his apartment in Manhattan. Mr PIC- …. It got toward school time and they had their foothold in the house and he was going to enroll in the neighborhood school, and they planned to stay with us, and I didn't much like this. We couldn't afford to have them, and took him up to enroll in this school. Mr. JENNER - You did? Mr. PIC - No, sir; my mother did. I think this is a public school in New York City located on about 89th, 90th Street between Third Avenue and Second Avenue. Lee didn't like this school. I didn't much blame him. But there is no record of this attendance in the school records published by the WC. Why? Because the WC had LHO attending school in the Bronx at this time, not in Manhattan. The very next fall semester, 1953, has one LHO attending the full semester at PS 44 in NYC while the other attends the full semester at Beauregard JHS in New Orleans. The fall semester after that has one LHO at Beauregard in New Orleans and the other at Stripling JHS in Fort Worth. The H&L critics will tell readers all this has been debunked elsewhere and post lots of links, but they won’t argue those facts here, where all can see the real evidence.

Right. We both agree there was an imposture of American-born Lee Harvey Oswald long before JFK was killed, we simply don't agree on how long the imposture existed. Please tell me this imposture had nothing to do with American Intel!!!

Hi Tony, It is far too easy to misrepresent photos, and I'm not good with faces, but my bet is that the young man you have depicted above is American born LEE Harvey Oswald, not Russian-speaking Lee HARVEY Oswald. My advice, though, is don't rely on pix. It is far too easy to misrepresent them. I'd like to hear from John Butler on this....

Good grief... Laura Kittrell met both LHO's in 1963. Mrs. Kittrell said, "the man I remember as (Harvey) Oswald, and the man I remember as the Teamster (Lee Oswald) were much alike in size, shape and outline, generally, there was a marked difference between them in bearing and manner. The man I remember as Oswald was a trim, energetic, compact, well-knit person, who sat on the edge of a chair (Harvey). The man I remember as the Teamster, was sprawled over his chair and was rather messy looking (Lee)". Ms. Kittrell was describing two young men who claimed to be named "Lee Harvey Oswald." LAURA KITTRELL MEETS THE TWO OSWALDS

Good grief, KK! You’ve been trying to mock H&L for years. Is this the best you’ve got? No doubt Mr. Bojczuk will talk endlessly about the mastoidectomy (he’s made more than 200 posts about it), but none of you will talk about the EVIDENCE for Harvey and Lee! Look at my original post in this thread. By all means, tell me how Greg Parker, Tracy Parnell, Jeremy Bojczuk, you and others have debunked my posts! But all you will do is CLAIM to have debunked this info. And post dozens of links. You simply WILL NOT argue the evidence here, on the JFK ASSASSINATION DEBATE website. Why?

John, I asked John A. about this and he said no, he had found no direct evidence for that. It is interesting, though, that Marguerite once worked for the U.S. Navy. As Mr. Zartman is showing, though, the secretive nature of Mr. Ekdahl’s many travels, coupled with his uh… surprising support for the Oswald family, certainly leaves open the possibility that he was associated American intel. The updates are continuing. The longest in this batch, by far, are for The Early Lives of Harvey and Lee.

John, I’ve been working some of John’s new write-ups primarily into three pages on HarveyandLee.net: Early Years of Harvey and Lee Marine Corps and the Soviet Union Harvey in Russia … Lee in the USA The most substantial of the new Early Years material reaches back to 1947 and 1948 and examines the two Oswald families apparently living at 101 San Saba in Benbrook and at 1505 8th Ave. in Fort Worth. It also includes additional information about Harvey’s friend Ed Voebel in 1954. The Marine Corps updates are relatively brief. The Harvey in Russia … Lee in the USA page has some substantial updates, largely about CIA agent Donald P. Norton, who said he took a case full of money to “Harvey Lee” in Mexico in the fall of 1962. After the assassination, Norton said “Harvey Lee” looked just like Lee Harvey Oswald. John cautioned readers not to confuse Donald P. Norton with Donald O. Norton, the man who met John Judge and Mae Brussel in Ohio and who the two researchers believed might be the birth LHO. We've got several more substantial updates in the works. John has several homes and he’s now at the one where he keeps all his paper files on Oswald, and he’s re-reading as many as he can. I hope he’ll have quite a few more updates to come. I'll ask him about Ekdahl and ONI.

Thanks, John. It never ceases to amaze me how afraid the naysayers are to engage! They appear to be simply afraid to debate. WHY??? John A. has sent me a number of updates for the H&L website. I'll be back here ASAP!

Interesting stuff, John. Please see my email note!

They just can't do it, John! For example, they simply WILL NOT discuss the 1952 evidence for two Oswalds. Nor will they discuss the 1953 evidence. They are simply afraid to engage with me. Why?

Great question, Denny. As I’ve often said, either LHO was more impersonated than anyone else in history, or there is a simpler explanation. What could it be?

Great! Then it should be simple for you to debunk it here, but since it HAS NOT been debunked by Greg Parker or anyone else, please go right ahead and debunk it yourself. Again, junior high schools records published in the Warren volumes show that LHO attended the entire fall 1953 semester at Public School 44 in New York City and, simultaneously, the entire 1953 fall semester at Beauregard JHS in New Orleans. The problem is quite simple. The explanation should be equally simple. The simplest explanation is that the records refer to two different boys, which, in fact, they do.

I’d describe it as attempted derisive hyperbole. I’m unaware of any reference to a 6’ 3” LHO.