Jim Hargrove

At 20, "Little Lynn" (in private life, Karen Carlin) was Jack's youngest stripper. With long locks of artificially colored gray hair, Lynn had the body of swimsuit contestant—but, on stage, wore little other than a big smile, pink heels and a matching G-string. On November 24, 1963, Little Lynn told U.S. Secret Service agent Roger Warner that she, in his words, "was under the impression that Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, and other individuals unknown to her, were involved in a plot to assassinate President Kennedy and that she would be killed if she gave any information to authorities." Lynn reportedly died of a gunshot wound in Houston in 1964.During the first week of September, Louisiana gubernatorial candidate Clyde Johnson was residing temporarily at the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans. A man telephoned Johnson, introduced himself as Alton Bernard, and asked to meet with him. Johnson agreed and soon Bernard, accompanied by a young man named “Leon,” arrived at Johnson's hotel room. About 10 minutes later a third man arrived and was introduced as “Jack." Johnson watched as Mr. Bernard opened his briefcase and handed thick, brown envelopes to Jack, Leon and to himself. The envelope given to Johnson contained $5000 in cash, for his gubernatorial campaign. After the assassination of President Kennedy, Johnson identified “Leon” as Lee Harvey Oswald and “Jack” as Jack Ruby. Years later Johnson identified a photograph of Clay Shaw as the man who introduced himself as “Alton Bernard” at the Roosevelt Hotel. Gubernatorial candidate Clyde Johnson was a very credible witness who met Clay Shaw, Jack Ruby and LEE Harvey Oswald in the summer of 1963. Johnson was scheduled to testify at Clay Shaw's trial in New Orleans, but was badly beaten and unable to appear. A short while later he was murdered by a shotgun blast.In early September Antonio Veciana observed his long-time CIA contact “Maurice Bishop” talking with LEE Oswald at the Southland Building in Dallas, a few blocks from the Carousel Club. “Maurice Bishop” was later identified by HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi as David Atlee Phillips--a high level CIA agent (Mexico City Station) who became the CIA's “Chief of Western Hemisphere." Phillips, a native of Ft. Worth, was very close to Gordon McLendon, the owner of Dallas radio station KLIF. McLendon had been a Naval intelligence officer at Pearl Harbor in WWII and later founded the “Association of Former Intelligence (CIA) Officers” (click here to visit AFIO website). McLendon, who had known Phillips since junior high school in Ft. Worth, was also one of Jack Ruby's closest friends. Why would a high-level CIA agent like Phillips, assigned to the Mexico City Station, head of Cuban Propaganda, and soon to be the Chief of Western Hemisphere, meet with 23 year old LEE Oswald in Dallas? And why did the name “Bishop” appear in Ruby's notebook with phone number RI 87991? Intelligence sources told news reporter Vic Walter that Veciana was probably the closest living link to the Kennedy assassination (linking the CIA's David Atlee Phillips with Lee Harvey Oswald). On Labor Day weekend HARVEY Oswald, a very pregnant Marina, and 2-year old June, boarded a city bus and rode to the Murrets in New Orleans. Three hundred and fifty miles away, in Kemah, TX, Robert McKeown watched as a car arrived, parked, and two men got out and walked toward his home. One of the men introduced himself to McKeown as LEE Oswald, and said that he wanted to purchase rifles. McKeown, who was still on a 5-year probation for selling arms, refused to sell guns to LEE Oswald. The two men left but returned a few minutes later and again asked McKeown to sell rifles, but he refused. LEE Oswald's attempt to purchase rifles from Robert McKeown, who was a very close personal friend of Fidel Castro, was very significant and an obvious attempt by the conspirators to link Lee HARVEY Oswald to Cuba. This “staged encounter,” in which LEE Oswald impersonated HARVEY Oswald, was the first in a series of attempts to frame/set-up HARVEY as the future assassin of President Kennedy. Had McKeown sold one or more rifles to LEE Oswald then one of those rifles could have been “planted” on the 6th floor of the TSBD, found by police, and linked through McKeown to Castro. If the rifle could be linked to Castro, the American public would have been outraged and would have demanded a retaliatory response by US armed forces. The meeting with McKeown took place within a few days of LEE Oswald's meeting with the CIA's David Atlee Phillips in Dallas. It is worth remembering that Phillips' close friend, Gordon McLendon, was a close friend of Jack Ruby. In June, July, and August 1963, while HARVEY, Marina, and June were living in New Orleans, Jack Ruby spent a lot of time with LEE Oswald in Dallas. During the next 2-1/2 months a young man, identified by witnesses as “Lee Harvey Oswald," appeared in various locations in order to create the impression that he was a communist, a supporter of Castro, a good marksman who owned an Italian carbine rifle, carried that rifle in a 4-1/2 ft long package wrapped in brown paper that he said contained “curtain rods”, knew about President Kennedy's trip to Dallas, and would soon receive a large amount of money. Someone was setting up/framing HARVEY Oswald as the assassin of President Kennedy—the former Russian speaking “defector” to the Soviet Union, with a Russian wife, who recently handed out FPCC literature in New Orleans in support of Castro. The most likely person to devise and create such a ruse was the CIA's head of Cuban propaganda--David Atlee Phillips (Mexico City). Someone was needed to impersonate HARVEY Oswald in Dallas, and who better than LEE Oswald. And someone close to LEE Oswald was needed to pass along Phillips' instructions and direct him as to where to go and what to do—and that man was likely Jack Ruby. During the next two months that preceded the assassination, LEE Oswald followed instructions and “staged” one event after another in order to implicate, frame, set-up, and identify HARVEY Oswald as the future assassin of President Kennedy.Some of those “staged events” included: Sept 26 to Oct 3--Mexico City, “Lee Harvey Oswald” was supposed to have taken bus to Mexico City and visited the Cuban Consulate and Embassy. However, available evidence and the complete lack of documentation shows that the entire Mexico City “episode” was the CIA's attempt to link Oswald with Cuba. Four Dallas deputy constables (fully empowered peace county-wide jurisdiction) inspected a box containing documents that linked Ruby and Oswald. Deputies Billy J. Preston, Ben Cash, and John Callaghan reported they had seen a motel near New Orleans with Ruby and Oswald's names dated several weeks before the assassination of President Kennedy. They said the receipts showed several phone calls had been placed to Mexico, to numbers identified as the Cuban and Russian embassies. The supervisor (Robie Love), personally turned the box over to Dallas DA Henry Wade, and the box disappeared. Oct 4 (Fri), LEE Oswald arrived at the Carousel Club about 10:00 pm and began talking with Jack Ruby. Dallas attorney Carroll Jarnagin was sitting nearby and heard Oswald say, “I just got in from New Orleans.” Ruby replied, “I noticed you hadn't been around in two or three weeks.” After listening to their conversation Jarnagin realized they were talking about assassinating Texas Governor John Connally. Following the assassination Jarnagin recognized the younger man as “Lee Harvey Oswald” and on 12/3/63 prepared a lengthy statement detailing the conversation he overheard between Ruby and Oswald and gave it to the FBI. Oct 14 (Mon), Texas Employment Commission. Counselor Laura Kittrell interviewed HARVEY Oswald, who said he had just arrived from New Orleans and was looking for work. Laura recalled that Oswald had a “sketchy” background in off-set printing (Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall), and arranged for him to take GATB tests. The following Monday at 1:00 PM HARVEY took the tests, and this was his last meeting with Laura Kittrell. Oct 16 (Wed), HARVEY Oswald began working full time at the TSBD. Oct 17 (Thur), TEC. A man closely resembling HARVEY Oswald showed up at Laura Kittrell's office. Laura said, “I looked up from my desk and there he was, standing beside it, and grinning.” The young man was wearing a red and white checkered sport shirt and said, “The Claims Office sent me back to you. You got to change my Primary Code. You got to change it back to what it was in the beginning. I have just joined the Teamsters Union. Joined last night." At first Laura thought the man was (HARVEY) Oswald. But after talking with him she realized that this was not the man who took the GATB tests the previous Monday. This man was more interested in collecting unemployment compensation than finding a job. She wondered if (HARVEY) Oswald had sent this man in his place to try and collect unemployment. She later recalled, “Although 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, there was a marked difference between them in bearing and manner.” As Laura Kittrell was interviewing (LEE) Oswald, HARVEY Oswald was working full-time at the TSBD. Oct 26 (Sat), the Sports Drome Rifle Range, where LEE Oswald sighted in his rifle and showed off his shooting ability (HARVEY was at Ruth Paine's house with wife and daughters). Nov 1 (Fri), three weeks before the assassination Wally Weston, master of ceremonies at the Carousel and a good friend of Ruby's, was on stage. A young man walked up to the stage and said, “I think you're a communist.” Weston jumped off the stage and hit the man, while Ruby grabbed the man and said, “I told you to never to come in here,” and then threw him out of the club. After the assassination Weston recognized the man as LEE Harvey Oswald. (HARVEY was at Ruth Paine's house with wife and daughters). Nov 2 (Sat), Downtown Lincoln Mercury, where a man who identified himself as LHO test drove a Mercury Comet. He told salesman Al Bogard that he would return in a couple of weeks with $3500 in cash to purchase the car. (HARVEY was at Ruth Paine's house with wife and daughters). Nov 2 (Sat), Morgan's Gun Shop. A young man, who claimed to be a former Marine, arrived at the shop and wanted to purchase ammunition. He created a bad impression and soon left. The clerk and three customers later identified the man as LHO (HARVEY was at Ruth Paine's house with wife and daughters). Nov 6 (Wed) or Nov 7 (Thur), Furniture Mart in Irving, TX., where a young man arrived in a 1957 blue and white Ford with wife. He was carrying an object wrapped in paper that was about 15 inches long and looked like it was part of a gun. The man asked Mrs. Whitworth for a gun part and was told the store no longer had a gun department. Following the assassination Mrs. Whitworth and her friend, Gertrude Hunter, identified the young man as LHO and the woman who accompanied him as Marina Oswald (HARVEY was working at the TSBD). Nov 9 (Sat), Sports Drome Rifle Range. LEE Oswald had his rifle sighted-in by Floyd Guy Davis, owner of the range. (HARVEY was at Ruth Paine's house with wife and daughters). Nov 10 (Sun), Sports Drome Rifle Range. LEE Oswald was observed by Garland Slack firing a rifle on a 100-yard line in booth #6 or #8. That evening Harvey Lawill Wade saw a man he later identified as LHO sitting at a table with two other men in the Carousel Club (HARVEY was at Ruth Paine's house with wife and daughters). Nov 14 (Thurs), At 12:40 PM Jack Ruby came into the New Port Motel in Morgan City, LA. He asked clerk Corrine Verges Villard if he could speak with Pete Guarisco, and was told that Pete was attending a Rotary Club meeting. As Jack and Corrine began to talk a young man, wearing a white t-shirt and faded blue jeans, entered and sat at a nearby table. Jack talked with Corrine for a half-hour, discussed his business in Dallas, and said that he was trying to charter a plane out of Patterson, LA (7 miles from Morgan City). At 1:10 PM Ruby walked out the front door while the young man walked out the side door. Both men got into same vehicle and drove away. When shown a photo of Oswald, Corrine said that she was sure this was the man who sat at the nearby table a week earlier (HARVEY was working at the TSBD in Dallas). Nov 16 (Sat), Sports Drome Rifle Range. LEE Oswald entered booth #5 and began firing his rifle. Dr. Homer Wood and his 13-year old son, Sterling Charles Wood, asked the man if he was shooting a 6.5 Italian carbine. The man replied, “Yes, it is.” Following the assassination both Dr. Wood and his son identified the man as LHO (HARVEY was at Ruth Paine's house with wife and daughters). Nov 17 (Sun), Sports Drome Rifle Range. LEE Oswald made sure he would be remembered as he shot at targets that belonged to Garland Slack, the man in the next booth. After leaving the rifle range LEE Oswald drove to Jack's Bar on Exposition St. in Dallas. It was there that LEE met Vern Davis, and began talking about President Kennedy's upcoming trip and specifically mentioned the Dallas Trade Mart. Jack Ruby, whom Davis had known for 10 years, entered the bar and said hello to Davis (HARVEY was at Ruth Paine's house with wife and daughters). Nov 20 (Wed), Ralph Yates picked up a hitch-hiker who was carrying a 4-1/2 ft long package that he said contained “curtain rods”. This man asked Yates if he though a man could be shot from a window in a tall building. The young man then showed Yates a photograph of a man holding a rifle and asked Yates if he thought the President could be killed with an identical rifle. The man then asked Yates if he knew the President's parade route, and then asked Yates to drop him off at Elm and Houston (TSBD). (HARVEY was working at the TSBD the entire day). Nov 21 (Thur), about 9:00 PM a young man knocked on the door of apartment #206 at 223 S. Ewing, which was occupied by an SMU Professor. A friend of the Professor, Helen McIntosh, opened the door and saw a young man who asked for “Jack”. The Professor told Miss McIntosh that “Jack” (Jack Ruby) lived next door in apartment #207. The next day, following the assassination of President Kennedy, Helen saw a photograph of LHO on television. She immediately recognized him as the man who appeared the night before at the Professor's apartment. (After work, HARVEY rode with Wesley Frazier to Ruth Paine's in Irving, TX, where he spent the evening.) Nov 22-(Fri), while LEE OSWALD was on the 6th floor of the TSBD, attracting attention from onlookers below who would be able to provide a description of the President's assassin, HARVEY Oswald was in the lunchroom. After the shooting, four witnesses saw LEE Oswald get into a Nash Rambler station wagon and leave Dealey Plaza, while HARVEY Oswald left Dealey Plaza by city bus and then by taxi. In October, a three-man musical "combo" group was performing in Ruby's club that consisted of John Anderson (trumpet), Bill Willis (drums), and William Simmons (piano). The small group worked only four hours a day, from 9 PM to 1 AM. Curiously, and without explanation, Willis and Simmons lived fifteen miles away from the Carousel Club, in a house located at 2530 W. 5th in Irving, TX., just 200 feet west on th

But since the passport picture (inset) clearly was part of LHO's 1963 passport application, and since it appears to be the same fellow watching the scantily-clad young woman, the logical assumption is that this picture was taken in 1963. Dallas or New Orleans... take your pick. I'm guessing the Carousel Club in 1963 is the likely venue , unless you can suggest a more likely alternative.

Oh, man, lengthy excerpts of the Pike Committee Report from the famous Village Voice supplement of 2/16/1976!! I tried in vain to get the densely printed 24-page supplement more than 40 years ago, and now here it is, just a click away. Megathanks to Mr. Caddy for the link and to Jim DiEugenio for the backgrounder. If memory serves, both the Pike Committee and Church Committee reports were getting mainstream press mentions at roughly the same time. To my recollection, at least, the truth about American Security State operations was never more nearly exposed. Jim—If you were to compare the English version of the Pike Report with what is in the 1976 Village Voice supplement, would you hazard an estimate of the thoroughness of the VV story? Was the Pike Report ever finished? My understanding is that even the English version was a draft. Thanks again!!! My reading for the next several days has clearly arrived. Technology does have it upsides!

In answer to Cory’s original question, I’d like to chime in that Marina was a Russian agent, in my opinion. The Soviet’s would have never let her and “LHO” out of the country so easily had she not been. Joe’s belief that this “Red Sparrow” may have been turned before the assassination sounds quite possible to me, though in the hall-of-mirrors world of spycraft , how can we ever be certain of things like this? More evidence that Marina was involved in intelligence affairs is that she befriended not one but two American “defectors” in the Soviet Union in relatively quick succession: Robert Webster and Oswald. Webster told American author Dick Russell that he and Marina spoke English in the USSR and that her English was good, although she had a heavy accent. “Lee Harvey Oswald’s” Russian was amazing! Even if we assume a one-and-only Lee Harvey Oswald had some sort of crash Russian-language training as part of his spy training, his love of reading classic Russian literature in Russian is hard to fathom. John Armstrong interviewed a number of “Oswald’s” USMC fellow soldiers and was told there was simply no time for him to have seriously studied Russian. And yet Marina tells us he loved Turgenev! Consider this from George DeMohrenschildt’s manuscript I’m A Patsy! I'm A Patsy! There are ample reasons to distrust DeMohrenschildt, but this pretty much confirms Marina's observation. Reading Russian authors like Gorki, Dostoevski, Gogol, Tostoi, and Turgenieff in Russian as a leisure activity does not strike me as remotely compatible with the Lee Harvey Oswald we’ve been told about, who would surely be studying the Russian counterpart of Dick and Jane.

Rich, Yes, I know that Gary Powers blamed "LHO" for shooting down his plane, but John Newman and Peter Dale Scott agree with me. From Spy Wars, Part 2: March 3, 2018 in San Francisco The part I excerpted below begins at about the 37:12 mark in the YouTube video. Above courtesy Dr. Gary Aguilar and YouTube Speakers in this clip are: Bill Simpich--BS Peter Dale Scott – PDS John Newman – JN Re. the alleged “Oswald” calls in Mexico City in 1963: At approximately the 37:12 mark in the YouTube clip above: BS: There’s two different genuses of false phone calls. PDS: Yeah, exactly. One was a call with a lie in it, the other was an alleged call that did not, in fact, take place. JN: The Tuesday call didn’t take place? PDS: No, the Tuesday call did take place by a man, I’m sure, was not the Oswald we think of…. JN: Right PDS: … and then, by the way… this is just a question… are you absolutely convinced that the man who was “Lee Harvey Oswald” in Russia was, in fact, the man picked up in Dallas in 1963? JN: Not at all. And I’ve gone over to the view that in Mexico City that, maybe it’s him, maybe it’s not. So I’m not going to be dogmatic about it. He could have been there and impersonated or could have been not there at all. PDS: … There is a fragment of a release that says that the man who made the phone calls spoke horrible Russian AND English! So, I do not think that was the man in Dallas. And I actually think, and this is completely anecdotal, but I once had an hour long conversation with Marina when I was trying my hardest not to bring up the assassination, and we were talking about literature, and I said did she like Henry James and she said that she had never heard of Henry James, who was Henry James, and I said, oh, he's sort of like the American Turgenev, and she said, "Oh, Turgenev, Alec really loved Turgenev." The man who checked out books from the New Orleans Public Library was not a lover of Turgenev."

A decade and a half after the assassination of JFK, the HSCA repeatedly asked the CIA for an image of Oswald in Mexico City. Despite the fact that the CIA had a pulse camera and one or more backup cameras in each of three different locations focused on the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, the CIA never came up with a photo, although they provided a trainload of excuses. Just another Honest Mistake®, no doubt. The honesty around here is amazing! To read some of this Honest Hilarity, CLICK HERE.

So the third one is an honest mistake, FC? What about the second one? What about the tape recorded conversation that FBI agents said didn't sound like Oswald's voice and spoke in "broken English." Was that also an honest mistake? Or a dishonest mistake? What about the fact that the recording of the "Oswald" who spoke in "broken English" was erased and replaced with 14 minutes of noise? Was that also an honest mistake? Surely are a lot of mistakes here! Do you suppose something else might be going on? No, it's just a number of silly mistakes on the same subject. Silly us!

To speak seriously about this Shirley, I mean Sandy, Hoover did tell LBJ about the Mexico City impersonation, and did so less than 24 hours after the assassination. If we are to believe Earl Warren in his autobiography, LBJ ordered the cover-up (I mean blaming it all on Oswald by himself) because Johnson was afraid, he said, that Commies were behind the assassination and that disclosure could provoke a nuclear war killing thirty million Americans almost instantly. I've always suspected Warren was telling the truth. I don’t think the FBI was as rogue as it appears to be, although the extent they were will to falsify evidence in order to follow LBJ’s directive is Shirley, I mean surely, stunning.

I’m beginning to think that FC is secretly on our side, Robert. He offers up any number of softball statements that are easy to hit out of the park. Perhaps you’re not old enough to remember a tv show called “Home Run Derby,” but in it pitchers would be paid to offer up easy-to-hit pitches so that well-known sluggers from the day could try and hit home runs. A few of the best would hit more than half the ten pitches made per at-bat out of the park.

Heh-heh. I see what you mean, Sandy. I'll never again believe that there was anything the least bit suspicious about this "Lee Harvey Oswald" business.

What's amusing, though, is that the young man posing as "Lee Harvey Oswald" was never in the radar bubble at Atsugi and had no legitimate sensitive information to offer the Soviets.

Hoover warned LBJ about the Oswald impersonator in Mexico City From a contemporaneous transcript of a telephone conversation conducted the morning of 11/23/63; President Johnson: “Have you established any more about the visit to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico in September,” J. Edgar Hoover: "No, that's one angle that's very confusing for this reason. We have up here the tape and the photograph of the man who was at the Soviet Embassy, using Oswald's name. The picture and the tape do not correspond to this man's voice, nor to his appearance. In other words, it appears that there is a second person who was at the Soviet Embassy down there." That conversation was kept classified for thirty years, not declassified until 10/26/93. The full transcript can be seen starting HERE. The audio tape recording of the LBJ/HOOVER discussion excerpted above existed for some time. If my memory serves, and it doesn’t always, I listened to the recorded conversation two or perhaps even three times in the early years of the Internet. But at some point the relevant portion of the tape was erased, replaced by 14 minutes of noise. A very detailed discussion of this 14 minute gap by archivist Rex Bradford can be read HERE.

Just hours after JFK was killed, top FBI brass knew Oswald had been impersonated in Mexico City a few weeks earlier. Alan Belmont, the number 3 man at the FBI, wrote a 9:15 am 11/23/63 memo to Hoover's assistant and special friend Clyde Tolson which said, in part, "... this individual does not appear to be Oswald, as he looks to be older, heavier, and with more hair. Also the Agents who have talked to Oswald have listened to the tape provided by the CIA of the call allegedly made by Oswald to the Soviet Embassy, and they do not think the individual was Oswald, as his voice is different, and he spoke in broken English." That audio tape of the Oswald impersonator, naturally, disappeared.

Where's "Oswald" in Mexico City?

John Armstrong on Black Op Radio on the Mexico City Oswald impersonation. Just takes 5 minutes to see....

A very brief overview of the Oswald impersonation in Mexico City in less than two minutes:

Sandy, Cliff, Cory…. The only trouble letting disinfo stand without challenge is that the material on this forum is all searchable by the major engines, and probably will be for a long time. Who knows how many unsuspecting people will come across some of these threads and dive in. The ideologues are surely here to keep all this conspiracy stuff from getting out of hand—or at least keep the facts controversial. Reminds me of the cigarette wars from a few decades back. Are we to let them crap all over the truth unchallenged?

I think it had to be both, sort of, at least to provoke an invasion of Cuba as well as sheep-dip the patsy-to-be. Russian-speaking Oswald moved back to New Orleans in 1963 for no apparent reason whatsoever—until we understand that it was to take part in that whole charade painting him as a Castro-loving commie. The plot was already underway, and it continued with the impostor(s) in Mexico City, although Hoover saw through that and reported it to LBJ immediately after the assassination. Interesting how his conversation with LBJ was hidden for so long. Did the plotters know that LBJ would quash any real investigation because of a fear of World War III with the commies? I don’t know, but they surely knew they had to have a patsy; otherwise, the search from them would be relentless and they eventually would be caught. Holmes was definitely an FBI informant (Dallas T-2). Yeah, it was fast, but it also evolved over time. (They back-dated some docs to make it look otherwise, but they couldn’t change the daily newspaper reports.) It took them a week to get the price of the rifle correct, which is interesting because they claimed the very night of the hit that it was definitely “Oswald’s” handwriting on the order. More magic….

I could only speculate about the Agency, Sandy, but Holmes was provably an active informant for the FBI (Dallas "T-2"). He was also the only non-law enforcement officer allowed to sit in during one of Oswald's interrogations, which occurred on Nov 24. Among the participants of that interview, Holmes alone heard Oswald say he went to Mexico City. In his testimony, Holmes told Belin all sorts of things Oswald supposedly did in MC. No one else present appeared to hear that. In H&L, John wrote that four months before his WC testimony, on Dec. 17, 1963, Holmes wrote a detailed "Memorandum of Interview" which mentioned nothing about a trip to Mexico. As you probably know, Holmes was instrumental in "finding" the Magic Money Order®, or one of them anyway, with a series of ever-changing stories about his discovery. He would be my nominee as runner-up to Ruth Paine as as the most helpful finder of desperately needed "evidence" in this case.

HSCA: "I will show you those two photographs (133-A & 133-B) which are marked JFK Exhibit 1 and JFK Exhibit 2, do you recognize those two photographs?" Marina: "I sure do. I have seen them many times." HSCA: "What are they?" Marina. "That is the pictures that I took." HSCA: "Did you hold it [the Imperial Reflex camera] up to your eye and look through the viewer to take the picture?" Marina: "Yes." HSCA: "When you took the first picture you held it up to your eye?" Marina: "Yes."38 HSCA: "This camera, do you recall whether to take pictures with this camera, you would look down into the viewfinder or whether you would hold the camera up to your eye and look straight ahead?" Marina: "I just recall I think it is straight." HSCA: "You would put the camera up by your eye." Marina: "Yes."39 Here is the view Marina couldn't remember: Thanks to David Josephs for the image above.

Your statement that it is an “indisputable fact” that the backyard photos are genuine doesn’t deserve an answer. Whether they are genuine is one of the most contentious issues in this field and has been disputed endlessly. I’m not going down the bottomless rabbit hole of that debate, other than to say from at least her HSCA testimony it was clear Marina didn’t have the slightest idea how to use a view camera such as the Imperial Reflex, nor was that camera among Oswald’s original possessions seized by the Dallas cops. On my website, John Armstrong writes: “On the evening of the assassination Robert and Patricia Hester, who worked for National Photo Labs, saw several backyard photos in the hands of an FBI agent, one day before they were "officially" found by Dallas Police detectives in Ruth Paine's garage. That same evening one of the backyard photographs was seen by Michael Paine and Washington Evening Star reporter Jeremiah O'Leary at Dallas Police headquarters. But how did the FBI and Dallas Police get their hands on the backyard photos a day before they were found in Ruth Paine's garage?”

We're rompin' and stompin' on the WC apologists! It might have been very interesting to have Dorothy Kilgallen's notes. She was promising to blow the case wide open. Then, of course, she died. Pretty funny, eh?

Interesting that every single word "Lee Harvey Oswald" spoke was in English in this recording apparently from Russia. The other speaker on the tape was Prof. Ernst Titovets, a Russian who came to the United States recently and brought, he said, the recording with him. Prof. Titovets seemed to arrive in the United States among a flurry of intrigue in order to contradict the assertion by John Armstrong that "Lee Harvey Oswald" hid his fluency in Russian while in the Soviet Union. Titovets claimed that Oswald spoke Russian openly in the USSR. But did he? Millicent Cranor wrote an expose of Prof. Titovets which included this: Titovets considers the idea that Oswald was connected to either American or Russian intelligence the “wildest speculation.” “A James Bond fantasy.” He ignores the evidence of Oswald’s connections to American intelligence as revealed in many books, and seems to hope his readers will ignore it as well, thereby effectively cutting the marionette’s wires. Why didn't "Oswald" speak Russian in the recordings Titovets provided us. Was Titovets a CIA apologist? Read Millicent Cranor's expose here: IS US EFFORT TO BLOCK OSWALD FRIEND AND HIS “REVELATIONS” ANOTHER DECEPTION?

Thanks for your posts, Robert. You make some good points, which in part prompts this: While David Von Pein and François Carlier continue to bore us by extolling the alleged virtues of the Warren Commission and, currently, the Magic Money Order® that allegedly paid for the Magic Rifle® that allegedly fired the Magic Bullet®, let’s talk about how many people died suspiciously shortly before the truth about the assassination of JFK had at least a second chance of being uncovered. John Simkin, who I believe founded this forum, made the following post on April 18, 2005: When the Select Committee on Intelligence Activities and Select Committee on Assassinations began investigating Kennedy's death in the 1970s the deaths of potential witnesses increased dramatically. This included several criminals with possible links to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Those who were killed or who died in suspicious circumstances during this period included Malcolm Wallace (1971), Lucien Sarti (1972), Charles Willoughby (1972), Thomas Davis (1973), Richard Cain (1973), Dave Yarras (1974), Sam Giancana (1975), Jimmy Hoffa (1975), Roland Masferrer (1975), Johnny Roselli (1976), George De Mohrenschildt (1977), Charlie Nicoletti (1977) and Carlos Prio (1977). William Sullivan, the main figure in the FBI involved in the Executive Action project, and the person in the FBI who investigated Oswald, was shot dead near his home in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, on 9th November, 1977. Sullivan had been scheduled to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Sullivan was one of six top FBI officials who died in a six month period in 1977. Others who were due to appear before the committee who died included Louis Nicholas, special assistant to J. Edgar Hoover and his liaison with the Warren Commission; Alan H. Belmont, special assistant to Hoover; James Cadigan, document expert with access to documents that related to death of John F. Kennedy; J. M. English, former head of FBI Forensic Sciences Laboratory where Oswald's rifle and pistol were tested and Donald Kaylor, FBI fingerprint chemist who examined prints found at the assassination scene. Several important figures in the Central Intelligence Agency died before they could give evidence to the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigations. William Harvey, head of the ZR/RIFLE project, died as a result of complications from heart surgery in June, 1976. William Pawley, who took part in Operation Tilt, died of gunshot wounds in January, 1977. David Morales, who some believe organized the assassination, died aged 53, on 8th May, 1978. John Paisley was deputy director of the Office of Strategic Research. On 24th September, 1978, John Paisley, took a trip on his motorized sailboat on Chesapeake Bay. Two days later his boat was found moored in Solomons, Maryland. Paisley's body was found in Maryland's Patuxent River. The body was fixed to diving weights. He had been shot in the head. Police investigators described it as "an execution-type murder". However, officially Paisley's death was recorded as a suicide. According to the journalist, Victor Marchetti, Paisley was a close friend of Yuri Nosenko. Marchetti also claimed that Paisley knew a great deal about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and was murdered during the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation because he was "about to blow the whistle". To me, the most astounding number of dead potential HSCA witnesses were the six top FBI officials who died in a six month period at about the time the HSCA was being founded. These six men knew EVERYTHING about the FBI/WC cover-up of JFK's assassination.

HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH! That “indisputable fact” was denied within hours of the assassination of JFK by Oswald himself when, in police custody, he allegedly told the Dallas cops that the so-called “Backyard Photo” was a picture of someone else with his (Oswald’s) face pasted on the body... and many experts today think he is correct. "No one can ever deny that"??????????? Do you know ANY of the basics of this case?