Jim Hargrove

Ah, but it makes a lot more sense once we understand that we're talking about two different guys, which we clearly are. The first fellow was wearing a short sleeved white shirt and he got into a Nash Rambler. The second guy was in a long sleeved brown shirt and he got on a bus and then entered a taxi. Very little about "Oswald" on 11/22/63 makes sense until that basic fact is understood.

You’re leaving out a few details here. At the end of October, 1962, Kennedy ordered stopped all operations of Task Force W (the CIA’s corner of Operation Mongoose). But William Harvey put guerrilla teams in Cuba ready to strike as part of a U.S. military operation. Just a week later, on Nov. 8, one of these teams blew up a Cuban industrial facility. When Robert Kennedy learned what Harvey had done, he issued orders to McCone to cease all operations against Cuba. He also sent Lansdale to Miami to oversee the end of Operation Mongoose.* But in direct contradiction to the Commander in Chief’s directions, the CIA continued to conduct secret anti-Castro operations from No Name Key. This strikes me as treason. *Source: U.S. Government Printing Office, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders (Washington) 1975, p. 147-148.

I wouldn’t rely on McWatters very much because he didn’t seem to remember the brown-shirted Oswald very well. But cab driver Whaley remembered him nearly perfectly, and Whaley said Oswald wore a jacket over the brown shirt. The Tenth and Patton Oswald wore a short sleeve white shirt, and allegedly dropped a Eisenhower-style jacket near the crime scene. It looks a lot like the jacket worn in this 1958 photo taken by Robert Oswald. The man shown in this photo, we believe, is the Oswald who wore a short sleeve white shirt on 11/22/63.

LOL.

Yeah, the jacket is confusing. Marina said her husband owned two jackets, one light blue and the other gray. For the brown-shirted Oswald who took the bus and taxi ride, McWatters, Roy Milton Jones, and Whaley all said he had on a grey/light blue jacket. Then, of course, there were several witnesses who called the brown shirt a brown jacket. It’s probably best to stick to the shirt colors, because that it what clearly differentiates the bus/taxi Oswald (long sleeve brown shirt) from the Nash Rambler Oswald (short sleeve white shirt).

Outstanding! Thank you for this. Everyone needs to watch Helms squirm under the courageous questioning. If there is more to this interview, I'd love to see it.

Yes, I agree with that brief summary of the white-shirted Oswald seen by Mrs. Reid inside the TSBD and who soon got into the Nash Rambler. But I’d rather not rely on those fuzzy and controversial images outside the TSBD to discuss the brown-shirted Oswald, because eyewitness testimony will do nicely. In his WC testimony, Marrion Baker said the Oswald he encountered in the TSBD had a “light brown jacket” but then, just a few seconds later, described it as a “brown-type shirt that was out… I could have mistaken it for a jacket.” As we know, that heavy brown shirt—which eventually became the arrest shirt--could easily be mistaken for a jacket. Before leaving the Book Depository, the brown-shirted Oswald apparently picked up his jacket from the domino room and carried it outside. Although some people believe Mrs. Bledsoe was not credible about her description of Oswald on McWatters bus, she surely described that brown shirt: “He had on a brown shirt… Hole in the sleeve right here.” Cab driver William Whaley also described Oswald wearing a brown shirt over his t-shirt and under a jacket. Whaley’s desciption of the brown-shirted Oswald was spot-on. He even described Oswald’s bracelet to the WC. “Yes, sir: he had on a bracelet of some type on his left arm. It looked like an identification bracelet....I always notice watchbands, unusual watchbands, and identification bracelets like these, because I make them myself ... It was just a common stretchband identification bracelet. A lot of them are made of chain links and not stretchbands. Stretchbands are unusual because there is very few of them." On my website, John Armstrong wrote: “Oswald's bracelet is listed on a DPD property form, found in Box 1, folder 8, item 1 at the Dallas Archives. It is identified as ‘One I.D. stretch band with 'Lee' inscribed.’”

My prediction: There is no evidence for this!

Evidence for the Terrible Twosome at the TSBD may be stronger than you think. An awful lot of people saw a fellow in a white or light colored shirt parading around on the sixth floor of the TSBD just before the assassination. Although most people in the Book Depository saw Oswald in a long-sleeved brown shirt, Mrs. Reid saw Oswald in a short sleeve white shirt? Was that a mistake? The real evidence for two Oswalds at the TSBD, though, is how they left. Many people on this forum have completely discarded Oswald’s bus and taxi ride portrayed in the Warren Report because, among a few other reasons, bus driver McWatters clearly didn’t remember him. Would you expect him to? On the other hand, Whaley clearly remembered our boy getting into his cab, just as you would expect he would. This Oswald was wearing that familiar long-sleeved brown shirt. On the other hand, the Roger Craig/Robinson/Cooper/Forest/Pennington witnessing of an Oswald getting into the Nash Rambler is equally strong, but this Oswald was wearing a short-sleeved white shirt. You can trace the white shirt/brown shirt Oswalds from the TSBD to the Texas Theater; a surprising number of witnesses correctly remembered the clothing distinction.

I’m not familiar with any of the “Olga Patricia” story, but Artime’s connection to FRD is pretty well known. Many people are unaware that a stated goal of the Friends of Democratic Cuba was to raise funds for FRD, and so via Banister and Tujague and the whole NOLA/FDC crowd, this was getting really close to “Lee Harvey Oswald,” the Patsy.

I just realized the above link may not work for many on the Ed Forum. If it doesn't work for you, try this.... Go to the web page of your local library. Find online databases and, within that menu, newspapers. There may well be a link for newpaperarchive.com, perhaps called "Newspaper Archive". Select that database and do a keyword search for Edwin Walker, Arizona Republic, December 1961.

The full text of Major General Edwin Walker’s December 1961 Dallas address was reprinted in the Phoenix Arizona Republic newspaper on December 17, 1961. A link to the full page-and-a-half article, not behind a paywall, is below. (A large screen monitor is best to read this page.) Here’s the link: Walker Speaks Out on U.S. Policy

On this forum on April 9, 2006, the late Jack White wrote about his experience testifying before the HSCA. He said, in part: Everything was mapped out in advance by them. I was only allowed to testify regarding TWO SUBJECTS of the many I showed them...the backyard photos and the MC rifle. Attached is one of my slides they enlarged into a large easel exhibit and asked me to explain. I WANTED TO TESTIFY ABOUT MY TWO OSWALD RESEARCH, which I had showed them. I was told that if I tried to do so, BLAKEY WOULD HAVE ME HELD IN CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS. However, that was a bluff, because at the end of my testimony I was ASKED IF THERE WAS ANYTHING ELSE I WANTED TO SAY BEFORE ENDING. I might have changed history if I had the courage to speak up about the two Oswalds. Jack's post can be seen in its original context here: A few years before Jack made the post above, he and John Armstrong worked to create a poster called "The Evolution of Lee Harvey Oswald," in which 77 photos from the National Archives currently identified as "Lee Harvey Oswald" were placed side by side. WC loyalists have no choice but to say these images are all of the same person, but clearly they are not. Judge for yourselves!

Many witnesses said they saw two men on the sixth floor of the Book Depository just before the assassination. Among them were Ruby Henderson, Carolyn Walther, Ronald Fisher, Robert Edwin Edwards, Tom Dillard, and many inmates from the county jail, which had a direct line of site into the 6th floor TSBD windows. One of those county inmates, Johnny Powell, said, “Quite a few of us jail inmates saw two men in the 6th floor window of the Book Depository.” Most of the witnesses saw a man in a white or light top and a second man dressed differently. A man in the 6th floor window appears in the Dillard film just seconds after the shooting. The face is far too fuzzy to identify, but notice what appears to be a distinctive hairline in the closeup still from the film. Now note the hairline in this image of his brother that Robert Oswald took in 1958. This does not appear to be the hairline of the “Lee Harvey Oswald” killed by Jack Ruby. John Armstrong believes that the man born as Lee Harvey Oswald and photographed by Robert Oswald in 1958 had been working for weeks to set up as a patsy for the JFK hit the Russian-speaking man who shared his identity for a decade or so. And this Oswald was on the sixth floor of the Book Depository. But if the other Oswald, the real Oswald, was on the sixth floor at the time of the assassination, how did he escape without being seen by many witnesses in the building? To read John Armstrong’s theory, click on the link below: ESCAPE FROM THE SIXTH FLOOR Spoiler alert: John thinks he rode down on top of the elevator ceiling. It is just a theory, of course, but there is a bit of evidence for it.

It is. Watching the video was what prompted me to post it again. Many people forget the open warfare going on between JFK and the CIA when Kennedy was killed. Large elements of the CIA clearly hated him for the Bay of Pigs and undoubtedly hated the fact that he had ordered the withdrawal of U.S. "advisers" from Vietnam.

I think so, and so do many others. Many in the CIA were still bitter about the Bay of Pigs. David Atlee Phillips and others in the Agency did everything in their power to blame the assassination on Castro and thereby provoke a U.S. invasion of the island nation. According to CIA accountant James Wilcott, the "Oswald Project" was a creation of the CIA and it's cryptonym was RX-ZIM. In weeks prior to the assassination, the war between the Kennedy Administration and the CIA had even spilled into U.S. daily newspapers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Washington Daily News, Wednesday, October 2, 1963, p.3 'SPOOKS' MAKE LIFE MISERABLE FOR AMBASSADOR LODGE 'Arrogant' CIA Disobeys Orders in Viet Nam By Richard T. Starnes SAIGON, Oct.2 - The story of the Central Intelligence Agency's role in South Viet Nam is a dismal chronicle of bureaucratic arrogance, obstinate disregard of orders, and unrestrained thirst for power. Twice the CIA flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, according to a high United States source here. In one of these instances the CIA frustrated a plan of action Mr. Lodge brought with him from Washington because the agency disagreed with it. This led to a dramatic confrontation between Mr. Lodge and John Richardson, chief of the huge CIA apparatus here. Mr. Lodge failed to move Mr. Richardson, and the dispute was bucked back to Washington. Secretary of State Dean Rusk and CIA Chief John A. McCone were unable to resolve the conflict, and the matter is now reported to be awaiting settlement by President Kennedy. It is one of the developments expected to be covered in Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's report to Mr. Kennedy. Others Critical, Too Other American agencies here are incredibly bitter about the CIA. "If the United States ever experiences a 'Seven Days in May' it will come from the CIA, and not from the Pentagon," one U.S. official commented caustically. ("Seven Days in May" is a fictional account of an attempted military coup to take over the U.S. Government.) CIA "spooks" (a universal term for secret agents here) have penetrated every branch of the American community in Saigon, until non-spook Americans here almost seem to be suffering a CIA psychosis. An American field officer with a distinguished combat career speaks angrily about "that man at headquarters in Saigon wearing a colonel's uniform." He means the man is a CIA agent, and he can't understand what he is doing at U.S. military headquarters here, unless it is spying on other Americans. Another American officer, talking about the CIA, acidly commented: "You'd think they'd have learned something from Cuba but apparently they didn't." Few Know CIA Strength Few people other than Mr. Richardson and his close aides know the actual CIA strength here, but a widely used figure is 600. Many are clandestine agents known only to a few of their fellow spooks. Even Mr. Richardson is a man about whom it is difficult to learn much in Saigon. He is said to be a former OSS officer, and to have served with distinction in the CIA in the Philippines. A surprising number of the spooks are known to be involved in their ghostly trade and some make no secret of it. "There are a number of spooks in the U.S. Information Service, in the U.S. Operations mission, in every aspect of American official and commercial life here, " one official - presumably a non-spook - said. "They represent a tremendous power and total unaccountability to anyone," he added. Coupled with the ubiquitous secret police of Ngo Dinh Nhu, a surfeit of spooks has given Saigon an oppressive police state atmosphere. The Nhu-Richardson relationship is a subject of lively speculation. The CIA continues to pay the special forces which conducted brutal raids on Buddhist temples last Aug. 21, altho in fairness it should be pointed out that the CIA is paying these goons for the war against communist guerillas, not Buddhist bonzes (priests). Hand Over Millions Nevertheless, on the first of every month, the CIA dutifully hands over a quarter million American dollars to pay these special forces. Whatever else it buys, it doesn't buy any solid information on what the special forces are up to. The Aug. 21 raids caught top U.S. officials here and in Washington flat-footed. Nhu ordered the special forces to crush the Buddhist priests, but the CIA wasn't let in on the secret. (Some CIA button men now say they warned their superiors what was coming up, but in any event the warning of harsh repression was never passed to top officials here or in Washington.) Consequently, Washington reacted unsurely to the crisis. Top officials here and at home were outraged at the news the CIA was paying the temple raiders, but the CIA continued the payments. It may not be a direct subsidy for a religious war against the country's Buddhist majority, but it comes close to that. And for every State Department aide here who will tell you, "Dammit, the CIA is supposed to gather information, not make policy, but policy-making is what they're doing here," there are military officers who scream over the way the spooks dabble in military operations. A Typical Example For example, highly trained trail watchers are an important part of the effort to end Viet Cong infiltration from across the Laos and Cambodia borders. But if the trailer watchers spot incoming Viet Congs, they report it to the CIA in Saigon, and in the fullness of time, the spooks may tell the military. One very high American official here, a man who has spent much of his life in the service of democracy, likened the CIA's growth to a malignancy, and added he was not sure even the White House could control it any longer. Unquestionably Mr. McNamara and Gen. Maxwell Taylor both got an earful from people who are beginning to fear the CIA is becoming a Third Force co-equal with President Diem's regime and the U.S. Government - and answerable to neither. There is naturally the highest interest here as to whether Mr. McNamara will persuade Mr. Kennedy something ought to be done about it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks, Paz. I tried to watch this a few days ago but couldn't find enough time. I'll try again tonight.

Exactly! Walker clearly testified that he did NOT tell the Deutsche National Zeitung reporter that Oswald shot at him. “It was much later that they began to tie Oswald into me, and I didn't even know it yet,” Walker said in answer to Liebeler’s question about the 11/24/63(!) call from the German reporter. The Permindex/CMC ties may not be all that obscure. Hans Seligman, the local financier who organized the establishment of the Permindex office in Basel, had clear ties to Allen Dulles as well as Ferenc Nagy. Armstrong wrote, “Seligman had a reputation of cooperating with fascists during WWII, and was closely linked to CIA Director Allen Dulles' law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell.29 The Consul learned, in confidence, that the principal source of funding was the J. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation--a prime depository of CIA monies throughout the 1950's and 1960's. Prior to his role as CIA Director, Allen Dulles was Schroder Banking Corporation's General Counsel.” [H&L, p. 149] The model for Permindex was clearly Clay Shaw’s International Trade Mart in New Orleans, as the local press noted at the time. Nagy announced in 1958 the creation of the Permindex affiliate in Rome, Centro Mondiale Commerciale deRoma (CMC). Clay Shaw was appointed to the Board of Directors. Several Italian papers, including Paesa Sera, and at least one other in Canada, claimed it was a “creation of the CIA.” In 1963, CMC was forced to leave Italy and was re-established in Johannesburg.

Megathanks to Paul Brancato for introducing some integrity into the subject of Edwin Walker, sorely lacking around here lately. Although I believe high-ranking CIA officials were largely responsible for planning the execution of President Kennedy, I'd just like to take a... uh... potshot at the so-called "evidence" linking "Lee Harvey Oswald" to the Walker shooting. Note the image of the two bullets below. CE 573 was supposedly dug out of Walker's house after Oswald shot at him. CE 399 is the so-called "Magic Bullet" allegedly fired by Oswald. Don't they look similar? Both, clearly, are copper jacketed bullets. But as you can see below in the original report filed by Dallas police, it was a steel-jacketed bullet dug out of Walker's house. Somehow, perhaps while at the National Archives, it transformed itself into a copper jacketed bullet! This evidence is about as believable as attempts to blame Edwin Walker for the assassination of JFK.

Hi, Linda.... Thank you for your post and for your effort to give James Wilcott (and his wife Elsie) a semblance of the respect they both deserve on findagrave.com. Do you have more information on an actual polygraph exam taken by Mr. Wilcott for the HSCA, or are you referring to the "Cuban [voice] stress analysis" mentioned in the staff notes? The only information I have is that he appeared to be more than willing to take a polygraph examination.

And here are some HSCA staff notes about Wilcott that are really fascinating....

I think the evidence shows the Oswald Project was run by the CIA. Here's a list of reasons I keep refining... 21 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. Antonio Veciana said he saw LHO meeting with CIA’s Maurice Bishop/David Atlee Phillips in Dallas in August 1963. 3. 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. 4. 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. 5. Richard Sprague, Richard Schweiker, and CIA agents Donald Norton and Joseph Newbrough all said LHO was associated with the CIA. 6. 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. 7. Kenneth Porter, employee of CIA-connected Collins Radio, left his family to marry (and probably monitor) Marina Oswald after LHO’s death. 8. 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. 9. For his achievements, Joannides was given a medal by the CIA. 10. 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. 11. Oswald’s lengthy “Lives of Russian Workers” essay reads like a pretty good intelligence report. 12. Oswald’s possessions were searched for microdots. 13. Oswald owned an expensive Minox spy camera, which the FBI tried to make disappear. 14. 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. 15. 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. 16. 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. 17. 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…. 18. 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! 19. 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.” 20. 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." 21. 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.

Steve, The petroleum connections are interesting, though I'm not sure where they lead. I'm not sure either how military intel fits into the White Russians Oswald was hanging with in Dallas, though we surely can't rule it out. What seems much more obvious with a number of these ex-Russkies was their apparent CIA affiliations. DeMohrenschildt and his so-called South American walking trip, his close association with Operation Zapata, his friendship with CIA's J. Walton Moore and attorney Max Clark, who also just happened to be Peter Paul Gregory's attorney. DeMohrenschildt couldn't seem to remember whether it was Moore or Clark who told him "Oswald was OK," or words to that effect, despite our boy's sterling commie pedigree. How were they supposed to know he was OK? Then there's Declan and Katya Ford, who brought the Oswalds and so many of the Dallas White Russians together at a post Christmas party at their home in 1962. Just a coincidence that, according to the HSCA, Declan Ford's brother was the subject of an applicant investigation for the CIA in 1947. Small world down there among the White Russians in Dallas. And to my mind, at least, the obvious connections all point to a certain Agency. This post was a little rushed. Sorry....

Yeah, there appears to have been a connection between TEC employees and Oswald’s introduction to Peter Gregory. Another TEC employee who may have been involved in steering Oswald toward Gregory was Mrs. Annie Laurie Smith. But there is, naturally, a complication even to this relatively simple story.... In the fall semester of the 1954-55 school year, both Oswald and Peter Gregory’s son, Paul Gregory, attended Stripling School in Fort Worth. The fact that LHO attended Stripling School for a time was common knowledge among area residents both in 1963 and today, but the Stripling attendance is totally denied by WC loyalists because records published by the WC indicate that LHO attended Beauregard junior high school in New Orleans at the same time. Nevertheless, there is a tremendous amount of evidence that LHO attended Stripling. Peter Gregory’s home was just a few blocks from the school, on Dorothy Lane. Evidence from 1962 indicates that LHO was closer to Paul Gregory than to Paul’s father, and this may well trace all the way back to 1954 at Stripling.

Obviously written by a man who has never read Harvey and Lee and has no idea of what is in it. The full title of the book Karl claims to hate so much is "Harvey & Lee: How the CIA framed Oswald." John accuses high-ranking CIA officials of planning the pubic execution of JFK; specifically ex-CIA director Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, JJ Angleton, David A. Phillips, and Howard Hunt. One of the main reasons for the hit was to provoke an invasion of Cuba. Many other JFK researchers agree with these conclusions. Karl thinks he will find full documentation of two Oswalds in CIA files? He thinks that with a straight face? Actually, it was Hoover's job to HIDE evidence of the two Oswalds, because it would expose what CIA accountant James Wilcott called "the Oswald Project," a creature of U.S. Intel. Why on earth do you suppose Hoover sent out agents to confiscate "Oswald's" grade school records and teen-aged employment records before even determining whether other U.S. officials were targeted for assassination of if there were co-conspirators involved in the Kennedy case? Nevertheless, it is difficult to make an entire life disappear, and Hoover made plenty of mistakes. By working with the documents he neglected to hide or alter, we can learn the truth. Karl apparently gets himself all enraged over the question of whether there were two Oswalds, as John and I believe, or "4 to 6 Oswalds," as he says he believes. How many times does a fellow have to get impersonated before Karl begins to wonder if there is a simpler solution? Half a dozen times? Two dozen times?