Jeremy Bojczuk

Sandy Larsen writes: Unfortunately, Jim has not yet managed to answer the question, for obvious reasons. If an answer to my question existed, I'm sure that either Jim or Sandy would have produced it for us by now. Jim's and Sandy's repeated failure to answer the question makes it clear that they accept the obvious conclusion: the far-fetched 'Harvey and Lee' long-term double-doppelganger scheme was unnecessary.

Jonathan Cohen writes: Indeed. We know that Oswald was teaching himself Russian at least partly with the help of newspapers and a Russian-English dictionary, because his Marine buddies saw him doing so. We also know a couple of other things: (a) In the early stages of learning the language, his Russian was, unsurprisingly, not very good. He scored poorly ("his rating was poor throughout") on what appears to have been a fairly basic test in Russian. (b) He frequently made grammatical mistakes in Russian even after having spent two and a half years living among native speakers. Each one of these three points makes it blindingly obvious that Oswald was not a native speaker of Russian, contrary to what the 'Harvey and Lee' faithful seem to be implying. I'm not sure why they are still beating this particular dead horse. Not only did the task Oswald was supposedly given not require him to be a native speaker of Russian, but it makes no difference whether he was a native speaker or not: - If he was a native speaker, the 'Harvey and Lee' far-fetched long-term double-doppelganger scheme was unnecessary. - If he wasn't a native speaker, the 'Harvey and Lee' far-fetched long-term double-doppelganger scheme was unnecessary. It was unnecessary because the masterminds behind the hypothetical false defector scheme had a far easier and more obvious method to achieve their goal, a method which did not require native speakers of Russian or two pairs of doppelgangers. All they had to do was recruit one genuine American serviceman with a genuine American background and a knack for learning languages, and ensure that he reached a reasonable level in Russian. The masterminds would have had thousands of suitable candidates to choose from. Recruit him, get him up to speed with Russian, then send him off to Moscow. Why would they not have done this?

Jim seems to be unable to answer my question, so let's give Sandy a go. Let's put ourselves in the shoes of the imaginary masterminds behind the 'Harvey and Lee' double-doppelganger scheme. They wanted to infiltrate a false defector, ideally an American serviceman, into the Soviet Union, so that he could secretly understand the Russian that was being spoken around him. The masterminds needed to work out a way to achieve that goal. How would they go about it? Firstly, they would have worked out what they needed: 1 - They needed an American serviceman, and they had at least 2.5 million to choose from. 2 - They needed someone with a convincing American background. Almost all of those millions of servicemen would have fitted the bill. 3 - They needed someone who was able to understand spoken Russian to a reasonable level, but who did not need to be a native speaker. Among those millions of American servicemen with genuine American backgrounds, there must have been many thousands of people with a talent for languages, who could have learnt or been taught Russian to the required level. Then they would have worked out the most obvious and efficient way to achieve their goal: (a) Identify and recruit one American serviceman with a talent for languages. (b) Allow that person to learn Russian to a reasonable level, and perhaps provide some formal tuition if he needed it. (c) Give him a cover story and point him towards Moscow. The masterminds had an obvious and efficient way to achieve their goal. No long-term double-doppelganger scheme was required. Can Sandy think of a reason why the masterminds would not have used this obvious and efficient procedure? Can Jim?

As I have pointed out several times now, it makes no difference whether or not Oswald was a native speaker of Russian (which he clearly wasn't). Either way, the same problem arises: the 'Harvey and Lee' theory's far-fetched long-term double-doppelganger scheme was unnecessary. Credit to Jim for not waving the white flag and heading for the hills, unlike his more timid confrères, Messrs Larsen, Norwood and Butler. Jim's technique to avoid facing up to the problem is slightly different to theirs. Instead of running away and thereby admitting that he has no solution to the problem, he ignores it and pretends that it doesn't exist. Let's see if we can prise a constructive reply out of him this time. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that some masterminds in the CIA (or wherever) decided to infiltrate a false defector into the Soviet Union. Let's also assume, as 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine proposes, that the defector needed to have a plausible American background and that he needed to know enough Russian to be able to understand what was being said around him. How would the masterminds go about this? The defector needed a plausible American background, so it would make sense to use a real American. The defector needed to have a reasonable knowledge of Russian, but did not need to be an expert, so again it would make sense to use an American, one with a natural talent for languages who could have reached the required level within a relatively short time. Perhaps, to make the defection plausible, the defector needed to be an active American serviceman, which would have suited the masterminds because they had millions to choose from in the 1940s and 1950s. The masterminds would select one American serviceman from among the thousands who would have had the motivation and aptitude to learn Russian to a reasonable level. The masterminds would allow him to learn Russian by himself, perhaps providing tuition if any was needed to get him to the required level. Then they would have supplied him with a cover story and sent him off to Moscow. The masterminds had an obvious and plausible way of achieving their dastardly plan. It would have cost very little, would have involved few people, and could have been completed in a relatively short time. Here's the question for Jim: Why would they not have done this?

Jim Hargrove writes: As Jonathan points out, the real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald didn't use the newspaper in order to find out what was going on in the world; he used it to help himself learn Russian. Using a foreign-language newspaper to help yourself learn that language is a very common technique. If Jim had actually read the post of mine that he was replying to, he would have seen this statement by Oswald's Marine buddy, Mack Osborne: Oswald was teaching himself to read Russian, using the newspaper and a Russian-English dictionary. If he was teaching himself Russian, he cannot have been a native speaker of Russian. Not that it matters one way or the other, because ...

Jim Hargrove writes: As I pointed out elsewhere, the historical Lee Harvey Oswald learned Russian at least partly by teaching himself while in the Marines. We know this because several of his Marine buddies said so (Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits, vol.8: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=36) . James Anthony Botelho (p.315): "It was common knowledge that Oswald had taught himself to speak Russian." David Christie Murray (p.319): "When I knew him, he was studying Russian." Henry J. Roussel (pp.320-1): "I remember that Oswald could speak a little Russian ... I knew of Oswald's study of the Russian language ... I am under the impression that prior to studying Russian ..." Mack Osborne (pp.321-2): "Oswald was at that time studying Russian. He spent a great deal of his free time reading papers printed in Russian ... with the aid of a Russian-English dictionary. ... Because of the fact that he was studying Russian, fellow Marines sometimes jokingly accused him of being a Russian spy." We can be sure that the one and only, real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald was not a native speaker of Russian, because: - He learned Russian at least partly through self-study. This has been public knowledge since 1964. - He took what appears to have been a fairly basic test in Russian, in which he did far worse than a native speaker would have done: "his rating was poor throughout" (Hearings, vol.8, p.307: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=36#relPageId=315) . - Even after having spent two and a half years living among genuine native speakers, he still made frequent grammatical errors (e.g. Hearings, vol.3, p.130: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=39#relPageId=138) and spoke with an accent (e.g. http://22november1963.org.uk/george-de-mohrenschildt-i-am-a-patsy-chapter02) . The point I've been making is that it doesn't matter whether he was or he wasn't. To be a false defector who is able to understand the language that's being spoken around you, you don't need to be a native speaker of that language and you don't need to be a member of a long-term double-doppelganger scheme. (Not that efficient eavesdropping was actually the point of the real-life Oswald's defection, but that's another matter.) As we saw a few posts ago, Jim himself seems to agree, though for different reasons, that it doesn't matter whether the defector was or was not a native speaker of Russian. Whatever the reasons and whatever the means by which Oswald learned Russian, the 'Harvey and Lee' double-doppelganger scheme was unnecessary. If your goal is to send a false defector to the Soviet Union who can understand the Russian that is being spoken around him, you don't need to set up and maintain a decade-long scheme by recruiting two Oswalds, two Marguerites, and all the other people who would be needed to keep the show on the road. All you need is to recruit one American with a talent for languages, allow him to study Russian, and provide whatever other tuition was required. As a bonus, your American defector will have a genuine American background, which disposes of another bizarre, pointless and imaginary requirement of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense. We now have two scenarios which explain the 'Harvey and Lee' theory's requirement for the defector to be able to understand Russian. Which should we choose? Here they are: (a) A far-fetched doppelganger scheme, carried on for over a decade and involving two virtually identical though unrelated Oswalds and two virtually identical though unrelated Marguerites, along with assorted administrators, document-forgers and document-destroyers. (b) A plausible scheme, lasting perhaps a year or two, involving one American serviceman with a knack for learning languages, and perhaps a modicum of language tuition. No long-term doppelgangers are required. If we have a choice between a far-fetched scenario and a plausible scenario, we are obliged to choose the plausible one, aren't we? Edited to add: If you have a link followed by a closing bracket and then a full stop, colon or semi-colon, you end up with a smiley-face of one type or another. It only happens with links, for some reason. Adding a space after the closing bracket solves the problem, but I keep forgetting to do that. Grrr!

Jim Hargrove writes: I've never claimed that Armstrong (praise his name!) was an actual snake-oil salesman. I have, however, claimed that his behaviour in neglecting to tell his readers about Oswald's mastoidectomy looks remarkably similar to that of a snake-oil salesman. I've asked Jim several times if he had an alternative explanation for Armstrong's behaviour. Jim hasn't managed to come up with anything. So I'd guess Jim agrees with me that Armstrong's behaviour looks dishonest. You see, the existence of a mastoidectomy defect on the body in Oswald's grave disproves a central element of Armstrong's theory. He claimed specifically in Harvey and Lee that the doppelganger who had undergone the operation was not the doppelganger who was buried in Oswald's grave. But a report by reputable scientists proved that Armstrong's detailed biographies of his two fictional characters cannot have been correct. Armstrong was aware of the scientists' report which noted the mastoidectomy defect on the body. We know this because he quoted that report, published in 1984, in his book, published in 2003. He must have been fully aware that it invalidated his theory. But he failed to mention the evidence to his readers, no doubt hoping that they wouldn't be aware of what was in the report. I'm sure Mr Armstrong is a perfectly pleasant guy and that he is entirely honest in his personal and business life, but in this instance it looks as though he knowingly palmed his readers off with a faulty product. 'Snake-oil salesman' seems like a fair description. Unless Jim can come up with an alternative explanation, of course.

Sandy Larsen writes: So the fictional doppelganger was a native speaker of Russian, even though the scheme did not require him to be a native speaker of Russian. Is that correct? Current 'Harvey and Lee' thinking seems to be that it was immaterial whether or not the defecting doppelganger was a native speaker of Russian. It would have been like whether he was left-handed or right-handed, or whether he wore size-whatever shoes. It didn't really matter. If he was a native speaker, it would have been a convenient bonus. If he wasn't, no big deal, we'll go with a non-native speaker. It doesn't make any difference, does it? We are still left with the fact that the long-term double-doppelganger scheme was redundant. There was no point in setting up and maintaining an expensive, decade-long charade when you could acquire a suitable false defector far more easily and cheaply, and with less risk of detection. As I observed earlier: So far, none of the 'Harvey and Lee' faithful have offered a reply to that observation. It looks as though they recognise that the long-term double-doppelganger scheme explains nothing that can't be explained in a far simpler and more plausible way.

James Norwood writes: What James means is that there is some evidence that can be interpreted in that way. As with every area of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense, that evidence can also be interpreted in other, more plausible ways which do not require the existence of a far-fetched and internally incoherent long-term double-doppelganger scheme that was debunked two decades before the Harvey and Lee book was published. Plenty of those alternative, more plausible explanations can be found here: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1588-harvey-lee-links-to-alternative-explanations Others can be found here: http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/f13-the-harvey-lee-evidence James is a member of that forum, as far as I'm aware. He should try to argue his case there, and let us know how he gets on.

Sandy Larsen writes: James Norwood concurs: John Butler agrees: We established several threads ago that none of you have answers to the points I've just raised. When you started this thread, what were you expecting me to do? Were you expecting me not to raise those points again? Did you think I was going to wave my hands in the air, shout "Praise Armstrong!", and apply for my Harvey and Lee Fan Club membership cards (two per member, of course)? James thinks that One of my interests in being here is to question nonsensical theories. I looks as though there aren't any answers to my questions about the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense. There was no long-term double-doppelganger scheme, and Lee Harvey Oswald was one person and not a pair of doppelgangers. I'm glad we've finally sorted that out. Does anyone have an answer to the points I made about Lifton's body-alteration nonsense?

I wrote: Jim Hargrove disagreed: But in another thread, I asked for clarification on this point of doctrine, and Sandy confirmed that "John Armstrong's H&L theory states that Oswald was a native Russian speaker." (The emphasis was Sandy's.) So what is the accepted wisdom? Was the defecting doppelganger a native speaker of Russian or not? Either way, there's a problem for the 'Harvey and Lee' faithful: - If the doppelganger was a native speaker of Russian, why was this necessary if his task was to understand the people around him who were speaking Russian? You don't need to be a native speaker to do this. - If the doppelganger was not a native speaker of Russian, why was the long-term doppelganger scheme necessary? You don't need such a scheme in order to send to the Soviet Union a false defector who understood spoken Russian. Whether the defecting doppelganger was a native speaker of Russian or not, the long-term doppelganger scheme was redundant. The masterminds behind the scheme needn't have bothered recruiting two Oswald doppelgangers, two Marguerite doppelgangers, and all the background staff required to make the scheme work. They needn't have spent a decade and who knows how much money keeping this unnecessary show running. All the masterminds needed to do was recruit one American with a talent for languages. There were 2.5 million American servicemen active at the time of the real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald's defection, of whom 175,000 were Marines. There must have been any number of candidates who were capable of learning sufficient Russian for the task. Not only that, but the chosen candidate would have had a genuine American background, thereby eliminating the need for the defecting doppelganger to fake the identity of the non-defecting doppelganger, and causing another requirement of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory to go up in smoke. Once the 'Harvey and Lee' brains trust has finally agreed on whether its fictitious doppelganger was or was not a native speaker of Russian, perhaps it could get its collective heads together and decide on what, exactly, the point of the 'Harvey and Lee' double-doppelganger scheme was, and why it was necessary.

Sandy Larsen writes: What? The "massive government coverup" isn't implausible at all. Political cover-ups happen all the time. There is plenty of evidence that a cover-up happened in the JFK assassination. There are plausible explanations for the behaviour of the people involved in that cover-up. Body-alteration schemes and long-term doppelganger schemes, on the other hand, do not happen all the time. There is no serious evidence for either of them that does not have an alternative, more plausible, explanation. More importantly, both the body-alteration nonsense and the long-term doppelganger nonsense contain internal contradictions, as I pointed out in the thread which seems to have prompted Sandy's outburst (http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26441-dieugenio-cranor-and-the-mole-my-mole-33120/). Let's look at each in turn. According to David Lifton's body-alteration theory, the wounds in the rear of JFK's head and torso were manufactured in order to implicate Oswald as the lone gunman firing from the sixth floor. But that can't be true, because the pathologists' location of the wounds, when combined with other, uncontroversial evidence, showed that the wounds were too low to implicate a sixth-floor gunman, whether Oswald or anyone else. Lifton also claimed that all the shots were fired from the front. But that can't be true either, because we know that a bullet struck Governor Connally in his back and came out of his chest. As we discovered on the thread I mentioned, Lifton seems to think that Connally's wounds were manufactured too. According to John Armstrong's 'Harvey and Lee' theory, the long-term doppelganger scheme required the defector to be a native speaker of Russian so that he could understand the language that was being spoken around him when he defected a decade or so after the scheme had been set up. But that can't be true, because you don't need to be a native speaker of a language in order to understand that language. The hypothetical long-term doppelganger scheme was unnecessary, as I explained in these two comments: - http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26571-oswalds-language-abilities-and-evidence-related-to-his-soviet-soujourn-1959-63/?do=findComment&comment=427301 - http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26441-dieugenio-cranor-and-the-mole-my-mole-33120/?do=findComment&comment=428197 Since JFK's wounds did not do what Lifton's theory claimed they did, the theory is internally inconsistent. Since Armstrong's theory required the doppelganger to be a native speaker of Russian in order to perform a task which did not require him to be a native speaker of Russian, that theory too is internally inconsistent. If a theory is internally inconsistent, it cannot offer a correct explanation, and should be discarded. The "government coverup" which prevented an honest investigation of the assassination: (a) was perfectly plausible, since cover-ups are a common feature of the political world; and (b) made sense on its own terms, since there are obvious institutional reasons to explain why it was done. Sandy's theories, on the other hand: (a) were implausible, since presidential body-alteration schemes and long-term doppelganger schemes are not common features of the known world; and (b) did not make sense on their own terms, since the wounds were put in the wrong places and the defecting doppelganger did not need to be a native speaker of Russian. As I've pointed out, there's more than enough reason already to discard both of these far-fetched theories. If Sandy wants to try to rescue them, that's fine with me. He could start by returning to the unanswered question which seems to have generated this thread, and explain why the 'Harvey and Lee' theory required its defecting doppelganger to be a native speaker of Russian in order to perform a task which did not require him to be a native speaker of Russian. Sandy is to be commended for admitting that those far-fetched theories have problems. I don't recall Jim Hargrove ever admitting to such a heretical notion. Perhaps Jim could try to restore his credibility by answering the reasonable question posed by Mark Stevens here: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26571-oswalds-language-abilities-and-evidence-related-to-his-soviet-soujourn-1959-63/?do=findComment&comment=427419

Jim Hargrove writes: There's no need for paranoia! I'm not attacking Jim, just pointing out problems with the ridiculous theory he has been promoting for "more than 20 years" (a brave admission for anyone to make). I was just curious about Jim's failure to react in his usual way to a couple of related points on a different thread. Firstly, there's an unanswered question from Mark Stevens about the need for Jim to update his website: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26571-oswalds-language-abilities-and-evidence-related-to-his-soviet-soujourn-1959-63/?do=findComment&comment=427419 Secondly, on that thread we established two points of 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine: (a) the hypothetical defecting doppelganger was a native speaker of Russian; and (b) the purpose of the hypothetical double-doppelganger scheme was to allow the defector to understand what was being said around him in Russian. But there's an obvious problem here. You do not need to be a native speaker to understand the language that is being used around you. This is a central feature of 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine, and it doesn't make sense. Doctrine required the defecting doppelganger to be a native speaker of Russian in order to perform a task that did not require him to be a native speaker of Russian. The masterminds who supposedly set up the hypothetical long-term double-doppelganger scheme could not have done so for the purpose Jim and others have claimed. Perhaps, instead, the defecting doppelganger was not a native speaker of Russian but merely a "reasonably fluent" speaker, as Jim suggested elsewhere: A "reasonably fluent" non-native speaker would be suitable for the task prescribed by 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine, and would overcome the native-speaker problem. But there's a problem here, too. If a "reasonably fluent" speaker is all that's required, there would have been no need to go to all the trouble and expense of setting up and maintaining the hypothetical long-term double-doppelganger scheme, with its two Oswalds, two Marguerites, and who knows how many assistants and administrators. The masterminds could have saved themselves a decade or more of bother simply by recruiting one person with a talent for languages from among the 2.5 million American servicemen active at the time of the real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald's defection. As a bonus, almost all of these 2.5 million candidates would have had a genuine, watertight American background, thereby disposing of yet another requirement of the hypothetical 'Harvey and Lee' double-doppelganger scheme. We're left with a problem. If the defector needed to understand Russian, it doesn't matter whether he was or was not a native speaker of Russian. Either way, the long-term double-doppelganger scheme was unnecessary. How would Jim resolve this problem? He should feel free to reply to the points raised by Mark Stevens and me on whichever thread he prefers.

Chris Barnard writes: That's true, but it's worth pointing out that most of the far-fetched tin-foil-hat theories will be put forward by people who genuinely believe that stuff, rather than by bad guys trying to muddy the waters. Sandy Larsen writes: I'm very much in favour of providing plausible explanations for inconsistencies and contradictions in the evidence. The problem with far-fetched tin-foil-hat theories like the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense and Lifton's body-alteration nonsense is that the explanations they provide are implausible. Not only that, but the theories themselves are incoherent. If there are reasonable, everyday explanations for inconsistencies in the evidence, it's irrational to use far-fetched explanations such as long-term doppelganger schemes or presidential body-snatching squads. A good way to tell whether an explanation is likely to be correct is to look at its basic premise. If the premise is internally coherent and is compatible with how the world normally works, the explanation is worth exploring. If not, it's very unlikely to be correct. Example one: Lifton's body-alteration explanation. This proposes that the wounds in JFK's back and head were surgically altered to implicate Oswald as the lone gunman, firing from the sixth floor of the book depository. But the wounds did not do what the theory says they did. The locations of the wounds, as given by the pathologists who examined the body, were too low to have been caused by shots fired from the sixth floor, by Oswald or anyone else. Lifton's theory is internally incoherent. Unless his body-alteration scenario was very incompetently implemented, it cannot have happened. Example two: Armstrong's double-doppelganger explanation. This proposes that a long-term scheme was set up involving two virtually identical Oswalds and two virtually identical Marguerites so that one of the Oswalds, by definition a native speaker of Russian, would be able to understand what was being said around him in Russian when he defected a decade or so after the scheme was set up. But you don't need to be a native speaker of Russian in order to understand Russian. A non-doppelganger American with a good knowledge of Russian would have been perfectly adequate for the task. The proposed scheme was extravagantly unnecessary. Armstrong's theory is internally incoherent. Unless the authorities set up a long-term doppelganger scheme for no purpose, it too cannot have happened. In each case, there will be inconsistencies in the evidence, mostly witnesses who say one thing versus other witnesses who say a contradictory thing. Whichever set of witnesses you decide to discard, a straightforward explanation is available: people often make mistakes when recalling things, especially traumatic events such as presidential assassinations and events that are supposed to have happened decades earlier, such as the non-existent Oswald doppelganger attending Stripling school, the prime 'Harvey and Lee' talking point which was comprehensively debunked by Mark Stevens here: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/ The body-alteration nonsense and the double-doppelganger nonsense each rely on placing too much reliance on apparent inconsistencies in the evidence and too little reliance on obvious everyday explanations. In the case of the double-doppelganger nonsense, we know the likely culprit; the nonsense was partly invented by Jack White, who also believed that the moon landings were faked: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/5911-jack-whites-aulis-apollo-hoax-investigation-a-rebuttal/ Someone who thinks that the moon landings were faked would be a perfect match for the media's propaganda definition of 'conspiracy theorist'. Blatant nonsense like body-alteration and doppelgangers encourages the media to attach that label to critics of the lone-nut theory. That's why it needs to be opposed, at least when the nonsense is heavily promoted. On that note, does Sandy know why Jim Hargrove is taking a break from spamming threads with 'Harvey and Lee' talking points? Has he finally accepted that 'Harvey and Lee' is a lost cause? There is one possible explanation here: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2208p50-dear-sandy#34511 Chris Barnard also writes: Indeed we do, Chris. Indeed we do.

I've never come across a plausible explanation of why Oswald would be flaunting two ideologicaly opposed newspapers in the backyard photographs, if he actually was the left-winger he claimed to be. It's like someone claiming to be a religious believer, and flaunting both a Bible and a Quran. Either Oswald's understanding of the ideology was very superficial indeed, or he was pretending. Since he associated in New Orleans in the summer of 1963 with so many right-wingers and so few left-wingers, I think we know the answer to that one.

Thanks for that, James. I'd guess you're referring to one or more of the images on my website's single-bullet theory page. You're welcome to use any of them, of course. If larger versions would work better, let me know; I may be able to find some. One of the media's techniques for deflecting criticism of the lone-nut theory is to portray all critics as raving crackpots: 'conspiracy theorists', in the pejorative sense of the phrase. Far-fetched theories that are obviously wrong and strongly promoted, such as Lifton's body-alteration nonsense or Armstrong's double-doppelganger nonsense, have the potential to be used for this purpose, as indeed Lifton's was in the 1980s. Anyone who questions the lone-nut theory should also be questioning the high-profile genuinely crackpot theories. I replied to Lifton on page 15: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26441-dieugenio-cranor-and-the-mole-my-mole-33120/?do=findComment&comment=418937. If he'd like to continue the conversation, that's fine with me.

Richard Booth writes: As Richard points out, the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense hasn't been thought out properly. We have the real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald openly learning Russian, as several of his Marine buddies testified. We have him taking what appears to have been a fairly basic test in Russian and not doing particularly well in that test. We have him making frequent grammatical mistakes in Russian even after having spent two and a half years living among genuine native speakers of Russian. Clearly, he was not a native speaker of Russian, contrary to 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine. Nor was he concerned about keeping his knowledge of Russian a secret, which also contradicts 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine. Not only that, but the basic idea behind the 'Harvey and Lee' long-term doppelganger scheme is incoherent. The idea is that the doppelganger who defected must have been a native speaker of Russian, so that he could secretly understand what was being said around him. But you don't need to be a native speaker in order to understand what is being said around you. All you need is a reasonably good command of the language. The whole purpose of the top-secret long-term doppelganger scheme was for a native speaker to do something a non-native speaker could have done. The scheme was unnecessary. There was simply no need to set up and maintain a scheme involving two Oswalds, two Marguerites, and all the other people who would have been necessary to keep the show on the road for a decade or more. If US intelligence wanted a false defector who could understand Russian, they could easily have found one from among the 2.5 million US servicemen who were active in the year of Oswald's defection. Take an intelligent, motivated person with a knack for languages, provide whatever additional training was required, and give him a ticket to Helsinki. The problem is: - If the defector Oswald was not a native speaker of Russian, the 'Harvey and Lee' theory breaks down because the theory requires him to have been a native speaker. - And if the defector Oswald was a native speaker of Russian, the 'Harvey and Lee' theory breaks down because the long-term doppelganger scheme was not necessary to fulfil its own stated purpose. Worryingly, people have been peddling this theory for twenty years or more, and none of them appear to have actually examined the theory's basic premise.

Cliff, Interesting. Harriman is someone I haven't given much thought to. I'll look into it. Sandy, That's good to know! But I think official 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine is that one doppelganger was in the second-floor lunchroom while the other was up on the sixth floor, shooting at Kennedy. Mathias, I suppose the danger of discovering evidence of involvement would depend on who was behind the assassination and on how many levels of insulation they had put in place between themselves and the people on the ground. A thorough and honest investigation could only come about through public pressure, then and now. Immediately after the assassination there wasn't sufficient public pressure for anything like that to happen. The politicians and administrators had no desire to rock the boat. Bureaucrats can easily be persuaded to cover things up if they believe that their institutions might be at risk. Although I wouldn't rule it out completely, I'm not aware of any convincing evidence that Oswald had an active role at all. The notion that he took a rifle to work is strongly contradicted by Frazier and Randle's consistent claims that Oswald's paper bag was much too short to have contained the rifle. The notion that the rifle was stored in the garage relies on dubious statements by Marina Oswald under duress, and on an even more dubious connection between the rifle and the blanket found in the garage. As Andrej points out, there are a number of plausible stories that might have persuaded Oswald to sneak a rifle into the building. The balance of the evidence, however, suggests that he did not do so. Given the ease of access to the book depository by outsiders, let alone insiders, it's not at all far fetched to suppose that the rifle was placed there without Oswald's knowledge.

Mathias Baumann writes: That might be true if the lone-nut scenario was part of the original plan. But this scenario was imposed on the investigating authorities after the event by political administrators like Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover in Washington (Gerald McKnight's Breach of Trust gives a good account of this). Whoever was behind the assassination may well have been happy for it to be interpreted as a conspiracy. If that's the case, the conspirators did not need to know, and wouldn't have cared, where Oswald was. The presence on the sixth floor of a rifle that could be traced to Oswald was enough to link him to the assassination. Oswald's apparent links to the Soviet and Cuban regimes would serve to link one or both of them to the assassination, and that would imply a conspiracy, whether Oswald was on the sixth floor or anywhere else. There's no need to suppose that Johnson, Hoover and others imposed the lone-nut scenario because they themselves were implicated in the assassination. They would have done so for straightforward institutional reasons. If the general public became convinced that a conspiracy had occurred, the public's distrust of established political institutions would increase, as indeed it did to some extent. If people get dangerous ideas in their heads, who knows what might happen? The Washington insiders would simply have been trying to preserve the institutions they identified with. When the shots were fired, Oswald could have been standing on the White House lawn, dressed as the Statue of Liberty and singing 'the Star-Spangled Banner', and he would still have been implicated in the assassination. That's true. We can't rule out the bystander option, and there are one or two other TSBD employees who weren't otherwise accounted for beyond any doubt. But there are good reasons to suppose that the figure in the doorway may be Oswald: (a) It looks not unlike him, in many people's opinion. It appears to be a man, dressed in casual clothing like that worn by Oswald, and with a hint of Oswald's receding hairline. (b) It fits with what we know of Oswald's movements at around the time of the assassination. There is only weak evidence placing him on the sixth floor during the shooting, and strong evidence placing him on the ground floor immediately before the shooting. (c) It also fits with his alibi, especially since the discovery last year of James Hosty's handwritten account of the alibi: http://www.prayer-man.com/then-went-outside-to-watch-p-parade/. On the other side of the argument, none of the people known to have been on the steps identified the figure as Oswald. Equally, they didn't identify the figure as anyone else either. The only way to be know for sure whether it is or isn't Oswald is to examine a good-quality copy of either the Darnell or Wiegman films: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26666-petition-darnell-and-wiegman-films/ These days, it's only Warren Commission defenders and 'Harvey and Lee' believers who need Oswald to have been on the sixth floor. For everyone else, having him conclusively identified as the figure on the steps would be the biggest positive development in the case for decades.

Mark Stevens writes: Jim should change this sentence from his website: To this: Not quite as snappy as Jim's version, but a lot more accurate.

Sandy Larsen writes: But that isn't a fact. It's speculation which is contradicted by the evidence I just mentioned in my reply to Jim. If anything is a fact, it's that the real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald was not a native speaker of Russian. So, on the one hand, the hypothetical designers of the hypothetical 'Oswald Project' deliberately chose someone who did not have an American accent. But on the other hand, the hypothetical point of the hypothetical 'Oswald Project' was to convince the Soviet authorities that the defector was a hypothetical American and not someone who was a native speaker of Russian. It doesn't quite add up, does it? If you want to convince the Soviets that your defector is an American, an American accent is precisely what your defector needs to have. Someone who speaks Russian without an American accent is precisely what you do not want. Then add the problem I mentioned in an earlier comment: the hypothetical 'Oswald Project' did not, in hypothetical practice, require someone who was a native speaker of Russian. The hypothetical defector only needed to understand the language that was being spoken around him. You don't need to be a native speaker to do that. A non-native speaker could have done the hypothetical job perfectly well. The long-term doppelganger scheme was unnecessary. The 'Harvey and Lee' theory is self-contradictory nonsense, isn't it?

Jim Hargrove writes: If you go back to the second comment on page 9, you'll see quotations from four of Oswald's Marine buddies who seemed certain that he was teaching himself Russian while in the Marines. I'd guess the answer to Jim's question is: yes, every rational person believes that Oswald taught himself Russian while in the Marines. It's undeniable that Oswald was teaching himself Russian. Now, if he learned Russian at least partly through self-study, and if he performed less than outstandingly in a basic Russian language test, and if he was making frequent grammatical mistakes in Russian even after having spent two and a half years surrounded by native speakers of Russian, it's equally undeniable that he cannot have been a native speaker of Russian himself. And if he was not a native Russian speaker, the 'Harvey and Lee' theory is wrong.

Sandy Larsen writes: Problem 1: Belief is all it is. What evidence is there to support the notion of "multiple missions in Russia" in which "speaking [Russian] without an American accent would prove useful"? Problem 2: What sort of missions might these have been, given that the doppelganger's original mission involved him pretending to be an American? Was he supposed to re-defect, this time speaking perfect Russian with a native Russian accent, perhaps wearing a wig and fake glasses? Or, during his one trip to the Soviet Union, was he supposed to switch after a year or two as an American to the guise of a native Russian speaker? How would any of this be possible, since there was no way for the 'Harvey and Lee' masterminds to predict where in the Sovet Union the defector would be sent by the authorities? Also, did any of these missions involve the use of a bullet-proof Aston Martin with machine guns in the headlights and an ejector seat? Problem 3: The phrase 'Oswald Project' was coined by James Wilcott, whose concept contradicted all of the crazy features that are essential and unique elements of 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine. His Oswald was one person with one mother (not a pair of doppelgangers, each with a doppelganger mother), a native speaker of English (not of Russian), and was recruited while in the Marines (not several years earlier). Problem 4: When Oswald returned to the USA after two and a half years in the Soviet Union, he was still making frequent grammatical errors in Russian. How is this consistent with the notion that he was a native speaker of Russian? If the defector was not a native speaker of Russian, that's the end of the line for the 'Harvey and Lee' theory. Problem 5: How does Sandy's notion fit in with the thinking of John Butler, who is perhaps the leading theoretician currently working in the field of 'Harvey and Lee' studies? John's in-depth research and clear critical thinking lead him to conclude that there may have been three Oswalds, and that two of them were in the Soviet Union at the same time. Firstly, there were plenty of servicemen to choose from. According to https://historyinpieces.com/research/us-military-personnel-1954-2014, there were around 2.5 million US servicemen (of whom 175,000 were Marines) in 1959, the year of the real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald's defection. Finding a suitable defector wouldn't have involved much in the way of luck. Secondly, the mission wasn't particularly dangerous. The Soviet authorities executed some of their own traitors, but they wouldn't have done that to American false defectors. Thirdly, an American accent is precisely what would be expected of a defector with Oswald's cover story; see https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2208p25-dear-sandy#34400. Fourthly, it wouldn't have been difficult to find (and, if necessary, train) an American able to understand Russian to the level that 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine demanded. We are left with the problem that 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine required its defecting doppelganger to be a native speaker of Russian in order to perform a task that did not require a native speaker of Russian. The theory has been going for two decades or so. Did none of the believers ever think this stuff through?

Mathias Baumann writes: That's very likely. What sort of native speaker takes a basic test in his own language and then doesn't get full marks in that test? If that's the sort of native speaker the 'Harvey and Lee' long-term doppelganger scheme recruited, the scheme could have managed just as easily with a non-native speaker. And if it only needed a non-native speaker, it might as well not have existed, which of course it didn't. Joe Bauer writes: Mark Stevens writes: Those subtleties are exactly the things that distinguish native from non-native speakers, except in very rare cases of thoroughly assimilated non-native speakers. But we know that Oswald cannot have been a thoroughly assimilated native Russian speaker because of his relatively poor result in his Marines language test, not to mention the fact that he was still making grammatical mistakes in Russian after having lived in the Soviet Union for two and a half years. He was a native speaker of English, not a native speaker of Russian. And since he wasn't a native speaker of Russian, he cannot have been part of the imaginary 'Harvey and Lee' long-term doppelganger scheme. Incidentally, the 'ask/aks' switch is an example of metathesis, a well-known historical feature of many, if not most or all, languages. The modern English verb 'to ask' had in fact been through this process once before, when it was the Anglo-Saxon verb 'axian'. One linguistic community somewhere in medieval England began transposing the consonants, as Oswald's American linguistic community was to do hundreds of years later, and it caught on and became the accepted pronunciation.

Official 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine is that the long-term doppelganger scheme required its defecting doppelganger to have been a native speaker of Russian, so that he could understand what was being said around him in the Soviet Union. I'm glad that's been settled. Unfortunately, it leaves the believers with a problem. The doppelganger who was required to be a native speaker of Russian was given a task which did not require him to be a native speaker of Russian. The masterminds could have sent someone who had only a reasonably good level of Russian. The hypothetical long-term native-speaker doppelganger scheme was redundant. There was no need to have spent years recruiting and maintaining two virtually identical Oswalds, one of whom was a native speaker of Russian, not to mention two virtually identical Marguerites, their support staff, and all the other unlikely elements of this far-fetched scheme. Why bother? Surely there would have been plenty of American servicemen (or women) sufficiently intelligent and motivated to learn Russian to a reasonably good level, given official encouragement. All that the masterminds had to do was find one and provide him (or her) with whatever extra tuition was required. The 'Harvey and Lee' theory is both internally incoherent and unnecessary. You don't need to invent a top-secret long-term doppelganger scheme in order to account for Oswald's competence in Russian, or to explain his defection as some sort of intelligence operation, and certainly not to interpret the JFK assassination as a conspiracy.