Jim Hargrove

Steve and John, Thank you for the links. This will take some time for me to study....

Steve, There is a U.S. Harvey Lee Oswald reference dating back to 1959. It is on the Dependency Affidavit the Russian-speaking Oswald submitted at MACS-9 in Santa Ana, CA. Near the top of the form is “OSWALD, Lee Harvey,” but at bottom left is “Oswald, Harvey Lee.” It may be just an error, of course, but the two names are clearly typed on two different devices. Just checking, but are you aware of the Harvey Lee Oswald reports relating to CIA agent Donald P. Norton, who said that in the fall of 1962 he gave a case full of money to a man he knew as “Harvey Lee,” who he said was nearly identical to LHO’s newspaper pictures; and of the “Harvey Lee Oswald” who apparently was interviewed by Francis Martello in August 1963; and, in addition, John A’s assertion that the name “Harvey Lee Oswald” appears five times in the Spanish language version of Sylvia Duran’s statements signed and submitted to the WC on May 18, 1964? It sounds as if you have compiled many more examples. I’d love to see your full list.

To John Butler, Thanks, but I had a little trouble understanding your post. I was hoping you could provide a link to the CIA collection of Oswald photos you were looking at when you found the Iceland Airport images. Did I miss it? Do you have reason to believe all the pictures were related to "Oswald?"

“Oswald” hid his Russian language proficiency in the Soviet Union Before “Oswald” first set foot in the Soviet Union, while he was still in the U.S. Marine Corps, “it was a matter of common knowledge among squadron members that he could read, write, and speak Russian.” As soon as he arrived in Moscow, the Soviets realized he was a spy and decided to kick him out. In a desperate but brilliant move, “Oswald” faked a suicide attempt and was able to rescue his mission. Nevertheless, medics at Botkinskaya Hospital in Moscow who treated his wound realized that “The patient apparently understands the questions asked in Russian. Sometimes he answers correctly, but immediately states that he does not understand what was asked.” In Russia, “Oswald” tried to hide his fluency in Russian from almost everyone. Pulitzer Prize winning author Norman Mailer was among the earliest people to gain access to Russian Intel documents about “Oswald.” Mailer wrote that when “Oswald” arrived in Moscow by “Deluxe class,” he hired a personal tour guide named Rimma and, “He didn’t seem to know a single word in Russian, so Rimma spoke to him in English.” By the time he got to Minsk, “Oswald” continued to pretend he didn’t speak Russian. Mailer wrote, “People laughed at him when he talked. His Russian was so bad people laughed, not mocking, but friendly. He would try to pronounce words, get them wrong. They would laugh…. You have cows in America? You have pigs in America? He couldn’t understand their words, so they showed him with sign language, made animal sounds, and he laughed.” A Belarusian scientist named Stanislav Shushkevich was eventually assigned to teach “Oswald” the Russian language. A few years ago, Shushkevich was extensively interviewed by an American writer. There were, apparently, only a dozen or so lessons, and the teacher noted that “He didn’t appear to know a lot. He didn’t appear to want to know a lot.” Shushkevich added that he “knew very few words” in Russian. Shushkevich concluded that he real job (he didn’t speak English) was not to teach “Oswald” Russian, but “to see how much Russian Oswald really knew….” Nothing could be more obvious than the fact that “Oswald” tried to hide his Russian fluency while in the Soviet Union. Saying otherwise is merely attempting to hide the fact that he was a U.S. spy who successfully worked in the Soviet Union understanding everything that was said about him but pretending he barely understood a word. His brilliant and lengthy final report was published by the Warren Commission, hidden in plain sight for all these years. For much more on all of this, read Dr. James Norwood’s superb essay on my website: Oswald’s Proficiency in the Russian Language

To Steve Thomas, Megathanks as always for this fascinating research. It sure sounds as if the Soviets were tracking a “Harvey Lee Oswald” and a “Lee Harvey Oswald” regarding employment at the Minsk radio plant, but it is virtually impossible for me to believe that two American expats with such similar names could possibly have been at the same employer at the same time without creating a major ruckus. Can you chalk this up to something more interesting than bureaucratic snafus? That said, once when I was visiting John A. I skimmed through a single roll of microfilm from his set of the FBI "Series 2" microfilm series from UMI. This single roll, part of a 12 or 15 roll collection John had purchased, contained Kennedy Assassination documents not only from the FBI, but from other U.S. agencies and some foreign governments. It looks to me that EVERYTHING from everyone regarding the assassination was filtered through the FBI. I don’t totally trust anything in the collection, which is a shame. Aline Mosby interviewed Harvey Oswald in Moscow on 10/31/59. But when Harvey responded to specific questions about his background he often made mistakes, which were unknown to Mosby. For example, (Harvey) Oswald told Mosby he was 20 when he was discharged from the Marines, yet he was 19. He gave his most recent address as 4936 Collinwood, yet he hadn't lived at that address since 1956 and used his "mother's" address of 3124 W 5th on his Marine discharge papers.25 Oswald told Mosby, "My mother works in shops mostly in Fort Worth," but "Marguerite" had not worked since her alleged work-related injury at King Candy in December 1958. (H&L 269) Indeed! He apparently made the same slip when talking to Ana Ziger. Marguerite did live on a Vernon, Texas ranch owned by a Mr. Phillips starting around August 1, 1961. She worked for a number of different people in and around Vernon until she moved to 316 East Donnell in Crowell, Texas in May of 1962. (H&L 362, 363 & 398) This is just bizarre. If memory serves, John A. writes about some of this in H&L, but I don't remember the details. I'll have to take another look. Thanks again for this research!

To John B.... Thanks. Would you be kind enough to re-summarize your thoughts about the Iceland airport photo in the CIA’s Oswald collection, or just point to a previous post? If you could provide a link to the full collection I’d really appreciate it!!

John, Yes! I had forgotten that John A. wrote about this in H&L. He wrote, “In an autobiography submitted to the factory Oswald wrote, ‘My parents are dead, I have no brothers or sisters,’ which was not a true statement for "Lee Harvey Oswald.” A couple of pages later, he wrote about his 1998 interview with Ana Ziger in Buenos Aires. Ana's father managed the Minsk radio plant where Oswald worked and he socialized often with the Ziger family, especially Ana and her sister. Ana recalled, "Oswald was not an affectionate person, was not open, and did not express himself often or at all. He had a glassy look, didn't like to talk much, and said little about himself. One time he told us that he had no relatives--no mother, no father, no brothers, no sisters. Another time he said he had a brother and a sister. Years later, after the assassination, we learned about his mother in Texas, but we never knew much about his (personal) life."6 [H&L p. 287]

In another thread, Steve Thomas wrote this: As I was reading through the pages of CE 985 that Steve pointed to, one thing jumped off the page to me. In a short “autobiography” allegedly written in “Oswald’s” own hand as part of an application for employment at the Minsk radio plant, he wrote: “...my parents are dead, I have no brothers or sisters.” The rest of the paragraph pretty much matches the biography of Classic Oswald®. Take a look at the page: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1135#relPageId=441&tab=page I’m sure WC loyalists will just say “Oswald” was playing games with the Soviets, but the odd thing about this is that the statement is probably true for the Russian-speaking Oswald. Anyone have any other thoughts, or thoughts on the questions Steve raised?

Thanks, Paul. I agree that Belmont's treachery is becoming increasingly clear. I'll try to study it more closely.

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, left his family to marry (and probably monitor) Marina Oswald after LHO’s death. 7. George Joannides, 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 New York Times. “Oswald” was the CIA’s pawn. The Agency, as the Kennedy Administration warned, wanted JFK dead! Please go ahead and deny this!

So, let me get this straight.... “Lee Harvey Oswald,” half of what CIA accountant James Wilcott called the “Oswald project,” who by his behavior was clearly looking for a “contact” at the Texas Theater (by sitting right next to multiple theater patrons), had on his person a note about two torn-in-half dollar bills, or, more likely, two actual torn in half dollar bills--as listed in the Dallas JFK archives right next to a list of possessions on his person when he was in Dallas Police custody. Or all this was just an Amazing Coincidence®? Was it also an Amazing Coincidence that the Agency, just a few months earlier, documented a similar program involving torn-in-half dollar bills in effect for Manuel (AMBIDDY-1) Airtime? Or, are we to believe that the Dallas Police failed to find the torn dollar bill note in Agent Oswald’s tiny room until 11/23/1963? It’s easy to understand why the list of patrons from the Texas Theater had to disappear. Oswald’s odd behavior of sitting right next to one patron and then moving to another and then another clearly suggested he was looking for a contact. The fact that he created a scene doing so meant the probably more than one patron would have noticed that he was watching events on screen far too early to have killed Tippit or to be seen by Brewer in front of the shoe store. As to the torn bills note Mr. Payette wants us to forget about? Why isn’t it in evidence at the National Archives? Why is it just sitting in a box in Dallas? My suspicion is that it, like the police reports indicating “Oswald” was arrested in the balcony, were preserved because a couple of Dallas cops got tired of being played by Hoover and the FBI. Just as they refused to alter their records about a certain camera when the FBI tried to call it a light meter. Do we seriously believe Agent Oswald didn’t make use of CIA programs? See my next post (below) about Agent Oswald. Do we seriously believe the Agency didn't have an Oswald Project?

Wow, making your insults in large purple type really shows how smart you are, eh.? The note you are so desperately trying to distance us from is in the JFK assassination file in Dallas. The filename is http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/22/2288-001.gif. The very next file in the sequence is http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/22/2289-001.gif. Do you recognize it? It is a list of some of "Oswald's possessions," possessions that were on his person when he was under arrest. By all means, use your large purple type to explain that these two consecutive files are COMPLETELY UNRELATED!

Oh fer cryin’ out loud! How long will you pretend the so-called “investigation” by the WC and the FBI wasn’t exposed decades ago for the massive cover-up that it was? To see a three minute video showing how the FBI altered statements by three critical Dealey Plaza witnesses.... CLICK HERE Here’s an example, again, of how the Warren Commission altered sworn testimony that exposed games the FBI was playing with “Oswald’s possessions.” The FBI falsified so much testimony that it even had a process in place for routinely doing so, including over the objections of Warren Commission attorneys.

Here is an image of “Lee Harvey Oswald’s” entire living quarters in the house on North Beckley: Are we really to believe police missed this note in their first search of North Beckley? Look at the room! We are really to believe the note was found on the second day on a second search of the room and that this is how it was introduced into evidence? We are to believe they missed it the first time? Are you kidding? On the other hand, John wrote on our website, “Curiously, neither of these items were listed on the police inventory of 11/23/63, the joint FBI/DPD inventory of 11/26/63 (Oswald's so-called possessions), nor were they photographed. At the National Archives, in Adelphi, MD, I inspected and handled each item of inventory listed on the joint FBI/DPD inventory of 11/26/63. These items were not among the inventory.” It’s easy to see why so many people are disturbed by the torn dollar bill(s) associated with “Oswald.” Less than 5 months before the assassination, the exact same identification technique was used in another Agency project. As David Boylan reminded us a couple of weeks ago (emphasis added by me): AMBIDDY/1 mentioned above was Manuel Artime. Henry Hecksher was his case office and was tasked with the AMWORLD project which was the "autonomous" anti-Castro initiative that was based in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. This was just getting started at this time. David Morales and Ted Shackley would later train Artime and Rafael Quintero on intelligence activities. Didn't John Martino say that LHO was to meet his contact at the Texas Theater, flown out of the country and killed? And as Larry Hancock wrote on Jefferson Morley’s website: "The second person to whom Martino confided was a former business partner named Fred Claassen. He said Martino told him: “The anti-Castro people put Oswald together. Oswald didn’t know who he was working for — he was just ignorant of who was really putting him together. Oswald was to meet his contact at the Texas Theater [the movie house where Oswald was arrested]. They were to meet Oswald in the theater and get him out of the country, and then eliminate him. Oswald made a mistake . . . there was no way we could get to him. They had Ruby kill him.”" It’s easy to understand why the list of patrons from the Texas Theater had to disappear. Oswald’s odd behavior of sitting right next to one patron and then moving to another and then another clearly suggested he was looking for a contact. The fact that he created a scene doing so meant the probably more than one patron would have noticed that he was watching events on screen far too early to have killed Tippit or to be seen by Brewer in front of the shoe store. As to the torn bills note Mr. Payette wants us to forget about? Why isn’t it in evidence at the National Archives? Why is it just sitting in a box in Dallas? My suspicion is that it, like the police reports indicating “Oswald” was arrested in the balcony, were preserved because a couple of Dallas cops got tired of being played by Hoover and the FBI. Just as they refused to alter their records about a certain camera when the FBI tried to call it a light meter. When you ignore the insults and name-calling and concentrate on the facts, this issue gets really interesting!

To read Millicent Cranor's exposé of Titovets, CLICK HERE.

This from a man who wants us all to believe the Warren Commission Report!

Mr. Payette chooses to mock Brewer’s comment about the two “IBM men” as if that was an integral part of this case, says that Brewer is “a good candidate for The Least Suspicious Person On Earth,” and then goes on to insist he was a prevaricator. Mr. Payette’s dictum that the earliest testimony is usually the best, normally well founded advice, completely ignores a trainload of evidence that the FBI and the WC in this case altered witness statements and testimony, falsified physical evidence, made statements and documents disappear, and invented others out of whole cloth. Here’s a three minute video with Gil Jesus and Mark Lane that shows how the FBI dramatically altered statements by three Dealey Plaza eyewitnesses about where the gunshots may have originated on that fateful day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODXoISgU-0M The Warren Commission and the FBI knowingly altered sworn testimony, as the example below shows. In this case, it was to hide the fact that “Oswald’s” so-called possessions were quietly transferred to Washington the night of the assassination, vastly modified and expanded, and quietly returned to Dallas a few day later so they could be PUBLICLY sent back to Washington in their modified form. Among a great many other alterations, a Minox “spy camera” became a Minox “light meter.” Tax records, not found by Dallas police who said they initialed each scrap of paper, magically appeared without DPD initials. FBI agent James Cadigan inadvertently spilled the beans about the secret transfer during his sworn WC testimony, which was altered by the WC. The FBI falsified so much testimony that it even had a process in place for routinely doing so, including over the objections of Warren Commission attorneys. Mr. Payette tells us, “If you seriously don't believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the man in the alcove of Hardy's, I have nothing further to say to you. You have gone down the rabbit hole.” He tells us, from deep within his own rabbit hole, to trust the Warren Commission and the FBI versions of witness statements and physical evidence in this case, which have been proven again and again to be unreliable and downright fraudulent. But, of course, Warren Commission loyalists ignore all that and insist that we are nutty Conspiracy Theorists® who don’t make sense. Odd, and indefensible, but an old, old story.

Ron, You're quite right; I meant Jack Davis, not Applin. Thank you for the correction.

That's a very good point, Paul, but it is hardly the only problem with Brewer's tale. The main floor "Oswald" was clearly inside the Texas Theater long before Brewer claimed to see him in front of the shoe store. And he was making such a scene moving from patron to patron that it is quite obvious why the list of theater patrons had to disappear. George Applin confirmed Butch Burrough's recollection that "Oswald" walked back into the concession area long before he was supposed to be in front of Hardy's Shoes. This isn't complicated.

Mr. Payette apparently chooses not to consider the evidence that the major players in the events of 11/22/63 in Dallas were following instructions. In fact, someone had clearly been impersonating “Oswald” for six weeks or so in and around Dallas prior to 11/22. The photos taken by Stuart Reed on assassination day virtually prove that one of the Oswalds was told in advance to board the Marsalis bus. The murder of Tippit was clearly a planned event. The proof is here. The fact that both Oswalds ended up at the Texas Theater was CLEARLY planned. One was told to look for a contact, probably with a matching torn dollar bill that Classic Oswald® was apparently carrying. These events, and many others, were PLANNED, and had the earmarks of American Intelligence are all over them. What CIA accountant James Wilcott referred to as the “Oswald Project” was clearly a program that sent a man who secretly understood Russian to the Soviet Union for two an a half years. Due to its enormous success, this same project was apparently resurrected in 1963 when Classic Oswald was granted permission by the State Department to return to Russia. Ruby apparently was protected by the American government when he ran guns to Cuba during two different decades. He was also connected to Agency bigwig David Atlee Phillips through Phillips' close friend Gordon McLendon, who owned radio station KLIF, where Ruby spent time the night of the hit. Phillips’ deceitful machinations immediately after the hit are regarded by some researchers as opportunistic efforts to blame JFK’s murder on Castro, but on closer examination the whole purpose of the Kennedy assassination was clearly to blame it all on Castro and provoke an invasion of Cuba. LBJ himself had to head off the invasion juggernaut by ordering the cover-up. Earl Warren told us that in his book many years ago. I could go on and on, as could most of us, but some people don’t seem to want to even consider the truth. Too bad.

McKeown, most importantly, was a close friend of Fidel Castro's. That's why "Oswald" tried to buy rifles from him. John A. wrote: After leaving Washington, DC, Castro flew to Houston and met Robert McKeown at the airport. A photograph on the front page of the Houston Chronicle titled “Castro and the Gunrunner" recorded the event. An article accompanying the photograph quoted Castro as saying that if McKeown would return with him to Cuba, he would be given a high post in the government, a franchise.....whatever he wanted. McKeown politely told Castro that he could not legally leave the United States because of his probation. Castro said not to worry because US authorities would not bother him in Cuba. But McKeown declined his offer and Castro departed for Havana. McKeown's close friendship with Castro prompted many people to ask him for assistance in affairs pertaining to Cuba. On one occasion McKeown's brother asked him to contact Castro and attempt to obtain the release of three friends who were being detained because they were caught fishing in Cuban waters. McKeown personally telephoned and spoke with Castro and the men were quickly released. On another occasion Jack Porter, a campaign manager for Eisenhower, contacted McKeown about approaching Castro.

Indeed! McKeown smelled a rat and wouldn't sell "Oswald" those four 300 Savage rifles with scopes, even for the laughably inflated price of $10,000 (in 1963 dollars!) Does ANYONE here doubt that at least one of those 300 Savage rifles would have appeared on the sixth floor of the Book Depository on 11/22/1963 had McKeown been fooled?

Jim, Henry Lee's report, if it exists, does not seem to be online, although Gunn apparently requested it. Can the date of Gunn's letter (see below) possibly be correct?

The evidence that Ruby ran guns is really quite substantial. Does anyone here believe he could have run guns to Cuba during two different decades without attracting notice from, among other authorities, the CIA? And yet Ruby wasn't prosecuted! For similar offenses, Robert McKeown, Carlos Prio and others were charged, but why not Ruby? He was apparently protected. Why?

Perhaps people other than me should continue this line of thought because I just don’t have much faith at all in Brewer as a witness. We could speculate endlessly about what he meant by the “IBM men,” but I’d be just as inclined to guess they were a stand-in for Tommy Rowe, who would certainly be more likely to have the ability to close up the shoe shop. Before he got enmeshed in this whole mess, I’ll bet Brewer had no idea how close his underling was to Ruby, or how pivotal Ruby was in the assassination plot. This is all just a wild guess on my part, of course, but so is everything else regarding the two “IBM men,” at least in my opinion. None of us are getting any younger, especially me, and I’d rather concentrate on matters that have a greater chance of being understood with at least some modest degree of certainty.