Jeremy Bojczuk

Jonathan Cohen writes: When a theory is dismissed by someone who once suggested that gunmen were hiding in papier-mâché trees on the grassy knoll, that's a pretty good sign that it's time to re-think the theory. Perhaps the double-doppelganger nonsense was too ridiculous even for Lifton, or perhaps Lifton just resented the fact that his body-alteration theory had been out-crackpotted by Armstrong and White's invention.

Benjamin Cole writes: It's true that the eyewitness evidence for a gunman on the sixth floor is jumbled. But we know that a gunman was seen several times over the 15 minutes or so before the shooting. We also know that Oswald was on the ground floor around five minutes before the shooting, when he saw James Jarman and Harold Norman enter the building by one of the rear entrances (http://22november1963.org.uk/lee-harvey-oswald-alibi) . If Oswald was the (or a) gunman, he must have started out on the sixth floor; then, at almost the exact time the motorcade was due to pass by the building, and not knowing that it was running late, he must for some unexplained reason have dashed, unnoticed, down to the ground floor, where he saw Jarman and Norman; then he must have dashed, again unnoticed, back up to the sixth floor to take his potshots at Kennedy; and finally he must have dashed back down to whichever floor Officer Baker was actually on when he noticed the presence of someone who didn't match Oswald's description. Placing Oswald on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting is fundamental not only to the lone-nut argument but also to many conspiracy-based alternative scenarios. The balance of the evidence very strongly suggests that he simply wasn't there.

John Butler writes: Sorry to disappoint Mr Butler, but the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense was finally put out of its misery last year. Although 2020 wasn't a very good year in many ways, it was good for rational critics of the lone-gunman fantasy: there is now one less piece of ammunition available for those who want to depict all of us as tin-foil hat-wearing crazies. We discovered that the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense cannot be true, because every aspect of it that has been examined in detail has been shown to have a perfectly plausible alternative explanation. For example: (a) The 'Oswald doppelganger' arrested in the Texas Theater wasn't a doppelganger, and he wasn't even arrested: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/25901-two-oswalds-in-the-texas-theater/?do=findComment&comment=407170 (b) The notion that an 'Oswald doppelganger' attended Stripling school, which was touted as the definitive proof of the dastardly plot, was thoroughly dismantled by Mark Stevens and others: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/ (c) The 'Oswald doppelganger' who had a tooth knocked out ("game, set and match for the Harvey and Lee theory", according to Jim Hargrove before he went into hiding) turned out to have not one but two plausible alternative explanations: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t227-armstrong-s-magic-tooth-and-the-facts-about-harvey-at-beauregard and https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26512-arguments-against-the-harvey-lee-theory-the-missing-tooth/ (d) The 'Oswald doppelganger' who had a 13-inch head turned out, unsurprisingly, not to have had a 13-inch head: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1412-the-13-inch-head-explained-for-sandy Not only do we know that the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense cannot be true, but we also know why it cannot be true. The purpose of the elaborate double-doppelganger scheme was, apparently, to produce an American who could understand spoken Russian to a reasonable level. I pointed out the fatal problem with this idea last September (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26056-evidence-for-harvey-and-lee-please-debate-the-specifics-right-here-dont-just-claim-someone-else-has-debunked-it/page/86/ ) : If Mr Butler has an answer to this question, he should feel free to continue the conversation on that thread: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26056-evidence-for-harvey-and-lee-please-debate-the-specifics-right-here-dont-just-claim-someone-else-has-debunked-it/page/86/ Incidentally, there's a plausible explanation of Oswald's acquisition of Russian here: http://www.jfkconversations.com/lee-oswald-russian-language No doppelgangers required!

Bill Fite writes: I'm not claiming that a fictional defector would have started at the age of 19. I suspect you're confusing the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald's acquisition of Russian with that of the fictional Oswald doppelganger imagined by 'Harvey and Lee' believers. The point I was making was that if (as 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine proclaims) the masterminds at the CIA were planning in the late 1940s or early 1950s to send over a false defector whose job it was to eavesdrop on Russian conversation, it would have been vastly more practical for them to recruit a single genuine American with a talent for languages rather than set up and maintain a long-term scheme involving two pairs of unrelated doppelgangers. Recruiting a genuine American is such an obvious solution, and the double-doppelganger scheme so far-fetched, that they would never even have considered the latter. There were 2.5 million US servicemen active at the time of the real-life Lee Harvey Oswald's defection, and more than three million at around the time the fictional 'Harvey and Lee' double-doppelganger scheme was supposedly set up. No doubt none of the 2.5 or 3 million servicemen had the natural ability of, say, Powell Janulus, who claimed to be able to learn two or three languages to a high level in a year, but there must have been plenty whose ability to learn languages was much greater than that of the average person. If the masterminds couldn't locate someone who they thought might be capable of learning Russian to a good but non-expert level in two years, how about three years, or four, or five? I'm sure they wouldn't have had any trouble finding at least one native English-speaking American who could have reached the required level within five years. According to 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine, the double-doppelganger scheme was set up no less than seven years before the real-life, historical, one and only Oswald's defection (and possibly much earlier if one of the imaginary doppelgangers was given an unnecessary mastoidectomy operation at the age of six). If the masterminds had been happy to wait seven years for their plans to come to fruition, they would have had many thousands of suitable candidates to choose from. The double-doppelganger scheme becomes even more unlikely. The point is that however long it took to get the chosen candidate up to speed, it was far easier to do this than to set up and maintain a double-doppelganger scheme. Even if the masterminds messed up and chose someone who took a decade to learn sufficient Russian, the double-doppelganger scheme would still never have been set up. They had a far more obvious way of achieving their goal. The question remains: since such a practical and obvious solution would have been available, why would the masterminds not have chosen it?

There's a serious problem with the basic premise of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense. Surprisingly, although the theory has been going for two decades or more, none of its believers appear to have been aware of the problem until recently. I've mentioned it on at least three other threads (here and here and here), and so far the faithful have not been able to come up with a reply. Since this thread was set up by the chief 'Harvey and Lee' evangelist to discuss the specifics of his beloved theory ("right here"), I thought I might as well mention the problem right here too, and try to shame the believers into confronting it. The problem is to do with the purpose of Oswald's defection; not the actual purpose, of course, but the purpose according to 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine. In 'Harvey and Lee' world, the CIA wanted to send into the Soviet Union a false defector who was able to secretly understand the Russian that was being spoken around him. The defector needed to have a plausible American background, ideally as a serviceman, so that the Soviet authorities wouldn't suspect his true role. There was a straightforward way for the CIA masterminds to get hold of a suitable defector. All they had to do was: (a) look at the 2.5 million or more US servicemen who were active in any given year in the 1950s; (b) find one with an aptitude for languages; (c) and allow him to learn Russian to the level at which he could understand what was being said around him, perhaps adding some tuition if required. The task could have been accomplished in a year or two. According to 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine, however, the CIA masterminds did not choose this obvious and efficient method of recruiting a US serviceman who could understand spoken Russian. Instead, the masterminds decided to set up a long-term scheme involving two pairs of doppelgangers. They recruited two unrelated but virtually identical Oswalds (one of whom vanished without trace immediately after the assassination) and two unrelated but virtually identical Marguerites (one of whom also vanished without trace immediately after the assassination), as well as all the people needed to keep the show on the road for more than a decade. According to doctrine, one of the Oswald doppelgangers had learned Russian as a child. Doctrine isn't clear about whether the doppelganger picked up the language instinctively, before he reached school age (making him a native speaker), or after he started school (making him a non-native speaker). Doctrine isn't clear either about how well the doppelganger knew Russian, although the implication is that his Russian was at least very good, and far better than it needed to be. If your task is only to understand what is being said around you, you don't need to be an expert speaker or anywhere near that level. Whether the doppelganger was a native or non-native speaker of Russian, the problem is the same. The scheme was unnecessarily complex, expensive and inefficient. The possibility of setting it up would surely not even have occurred to the masterminds. The 'Harvey and Lee' theory's preposterous long-term double-doppelganger scheme could never have been implemented. The masterminds had a much simpler, cheaper, and more efficient way to achieve their goal: find an American with a knack for languages, get him up to speed in Russian, then send him off to Moscow. Here's the question the 'Harvey and Lee' faithful have been unable to answer: Why did the masterminds not do this?

Bill Simpich has just informed us that part 12 of his excellent Legend series is now online at https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Oswald_Legend_12.html. Simpich deals with several of the apparent instances of Oswald being impersonated shortly before the assassination. He makes a very plausible case that Jack Lawrence, the short-term car salesman colleague of Albert Bogard, went out of his way to publicise the reckless test drive by someone who may or may not have been Oswald. Greg Doudna writes that the "14-year-old boy" seen by Cliff Shasteen might have been the 19-year-old Buell Wesley Frazier. That's possible, but Simpich is inclined to go with Greg Parker's suggestion that the boy was William Hootkins, who had been studying Russian with Ruth Paine and whose physique matched that of the boy ("husky" was Shasteen's description, which didn't match Frazier at all). See: - https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1952-william-hootkins-is-innocent - http://www.jfkconversations.com/supplement-lee-harvey-oswalds-cold-war Incidentally, Hootkins went on to become an actor and featured in a BBC radio play about the man himself, Oswald in Russia: https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/8a1f3c3a9837441cb1d96d5648414889. The apparent impersonations of Oswald in the Dallas area can be accounted for in various ways: some may have been genuine, some were cases of mistaken identity (sightings of Oswald at the Carousel Club or with Jack Ruby were surely of Ruby's handyman, Larry Crafard), and some featured the one and only, real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald himself. Any that were genuine would have been ad hoc events, created specifically to portray him as the type of person who might want to kill a president. The least likely interpretation is that any of this was connected to a preposterous long-term double-doppelganger scheme which, as we have seen, could never have been implemented in the first place because those in charge of the scheme had a far more plausible way to achieve their hypothetical goals.

Jim Hargrove writes: But they weren't. Nothing in the JFK assassination story requires the existence of doppelganger Oswalds. Everything can be plausibly explained without the use of doppelgangers, and especially without the use of the far-fetched and internally incoherent 'Harvey and Lee' long-term fake Oswald and fake Marguerite double-doppelganger scheme. Impersonators are not the same thing as doppelgangers. The impersonation of Oswald in Mexico City didn't involve a doppelganger. If, as Greg Doudna points out, any of the incidents in Dallas were more than cases of mistaken identity, they didn't require doppelgangers either, just impersonators. I'm sure Jim understands this. And so on. Repeating poorly supported 'Harvey and Lee' talking points isn't the same thing as demonstrating that doppelgangers were involved in any of these scenarios. Perhaps Jim would like to take one example and demonstrate why his double-doppelganger explanation is the only possible explanation, or even the most plausible explanation. Until he does, the 'Harvey and Lee' theory is superfluous; it explains nothing that doesn't have a plausible alternative explanation. Robert Charles-Dunne has already put Jim right on this point. Does Jim genuinely believe that questioning the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense makes one a supporter of the lone-nut theory? If so, he is seriously misinformed. Or does he know, like everyone else surely does by now, that almost all the critics of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense are also critics of the Warren Commission? If so, it would be dishonest of him to imply otherwise. Which is it? Here is the passage in the McAdams article to which I was referring: That illustrates the point I was making: far-fetched speculation such as the 'Harvey and Lee' fantasy allows lone-nut supporters such as McAdams (or whoever wrote the article) to lump legitimate Warren Commission critics with those who peddle crackpot theories. P,S. On the shaky subject of bus and taxi naysayers, there's a whole lot of naysaying going on here: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2286-are-you-a-naysayer

Jim Hargrove writes: In other words: The Oswald who defected might have been a native speaker of Russian, if he had learned the language instinctively as a pre-school-age child. Or he might have been a native speaker of English who had learned an indeterminate amount of Russian uninstinctively, during his school years. We haven't made our minds up about that. But because the defector forgot some, or most, or all of his Russian (we haven't made our minds up on that either), he had to start learning it all over again in his late teens. Fortunately, he had a head start because he had learned it years earlier, one way or another. We know he can't have started from scratch in his teens because we can't imagine ourselves picking up Russian as quickly as Oswald did, and if we couldn't do it, no-one else could either. We can't run a sub-four-minute mile or compose a symphony or perform surgical operations, which proves to us that no-one else can either. The masterminds in the CIA decided to go with a long-term double-doppelganger scheme rather than simply use an American with a knack for languages because, um ... because ... we're not quite sure, so we'll get back to you when we've made our minds up. The usual objections apply: (a) It is perfectly possible for a native English speaker with a talent for languages to pick up Russian as quickly as Oswald appears to have done. There is no need to suppose that he was anything other than a native speaker of English who began learning Russian in his teens. (b) There is no reason to assume that a proposed long-term doppelganger scheme would have recruited as its future defector a quasi-native speaker of Russian who had forgotten some of the language he had learned instinctively as a young child. There was a far easier and more obvious method available which did not require any doppelgangers at all, whatever their history with the Russian language. The Witnesses All of Jim's witness statements are consistent with the common-sense idea that Oswald was a native English-speaking American: Rosaleen Quinn, who had recently begun a Berlitz course in Russian, "commented that she thought OSWALD spoke Russian well for someone who had not attended a formal course in the language" (WC Hearings, vol.24, p.430 ). In other words, he was better than she had expected, but he gave her no reason to suppose that he was not a native English speaker with a talent for languages. Erwin Lewis said that Oswald "could read, write and speak Russian". Lewis gives no indication that he knew any Russian himself. He almost certainly wouldn't have been able to tell a beginner from an expert, and couldn't have known how good Oswald's Russian was. Zack Stout had no memory of Oswald speaking or learning Russian in Japan and the Philipines nearly 40 years earlier. So much for Mr Stout. Richard Bullock shared a bunkhouse with Oswald and 74 other men, didn't often work in the same section as Oswald, didn't socialise with him, didn't recall the names of any of Oswald's other Marine buddies, and didn't recall known events in Oswald's life in Japan. He thought the Oswald he saw on TV in 1963 looked different to the man he recalled. His memories, too, were several decades old. He had nothing to say about Oswald's Russian. So much for Mr Bullock. Or ... just as you would expect from someone who began learning a foreign language in his teens and then lived among native speakers for two and a half years. De Mohrenschildt's description is of a native English-speaking American who, by the time of his return to the US, had learned Russian to a reasonable level. Why Bother with Doppelgangers? Jim's suggestion doesn't make the double-doppelganger scheme any less incoherent. The notion of a defector Oswald who had somehow learned Russian as a child, but who had forgotten much of it, doesn't add up. Why recruit someone as a future defector, keep him in the doppelganger scheme for several years while allowing his Russian to wither away, and then get him to brush up his Russian only a year or so before his defection? If his native or near-native Russian was what made him suitable as a future defector, why let it wither away? Surely the masterminds would have been able to supply him with enough practice so that he could retain the very skill which led him to be chosen in the first place? Why devise a long-term doppelganger scheme to provide your non-American defector with a false but plausible American background when you could use a genuine American with a genuine American background instead? The point I've been making still stands: whether Oswald's Russian was that of a native speaker or not, the 'Harvey and Lee' long-term double-doppelganger scheme would never have been set up. The masterminds behind the scheme could have achieved their goal in a far simpler, quicker and more practical way. They needed someone with a plausible American background who could understand spoken Russian. They had millions of genuine Americans to choose from, many thousands of whom must have had sufficient motivation and aptitude to learn Russian to a reasonable but far from expert level in a relatively short time. The obvious solution was to recruit an American with a talent for languages, get him up to speed in Russian, and send him off to Moscow. Why did the masterminds not do that?

As Robert also points out, there's nothing miraculous about Oswald's acquisition of Russian. Oswald began poorly and gradually got better, like every non-native speaker, but he never stopped making mistakes. At least some of his knowledge was acquired by self-study, with the help of Russian newspapers and a Russian-English dictionary. There was ample opportunity for him to have received tuition while in the Marines. And it is an uncontroversial fact that some people are naturally much better than others at learning languages. Just because people can pick up a foreign language more easily and quickly than Jim, doesn't mean that they didn't start from scratch, like Oswald. It is undeniable that Oswald began learning Russian in his teens, and was not a native speaker. I mean, what sort of native speaker of Russian takes a test in his own language and does poorly in that test (official verdict: "his score was poor throughout": WC Hearings, vol.8, p.307 )? Or sits around the barracks teaching himself his own language (Hearings, vol.8, pp.315-322 )? Or can't read a newspaper in his own language without the help of a Russian-English dictionary (Hearings, vol.8, p.321 )? Or makes frequent grammatical mistakes in his own language after spending two and a half years living among actual native speakers? His mistakes were obvious even to Ruth Paine, a non-native speaker whose own knowledge of Russian was not great (Hearings, vol.3, p.130 ). Why does any of this cause Jim such a problem? As he told us last week, the 'Harvey and Lee' theory does not require Oswald to have been a native speaker of Russian. So why insist that he was? Has 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine changed in the last few days? We've seen that it makes no difference whether Oswald was or was not a native speaker of Russian. Either way, the double-doppelganger scheme was unnecessary and would never have been implemented, because a far more practical, efficient and obvious method was available which did not require doppelgangers. Could Jim please explain why he requires Oswald to have been a native speaker of Russian when 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine does not require this?

Robert Charles-Dunne writes: There's a remarkable number of things which can be explained plausibly without needing to use the 'Harvey and Lee' double-doppelganger theory: (a) Oswald's impersonation in Mexico City and Dallas - no doppelgangers are required in order to explain this. (b) The framing of Oswald for the assassination, before and after the event - no doppelgangers required. (c) The assassination itself and the murder of Officer Tippit - no doppelgangers required. (d) The assassination as a conspiracy - no doppelgangers required. (e) Oswald's leaving the book depository after the assassination - no doppelgangers required. (f) Oswald's connection with one or more intelligence agencies - no doppelgangers required. (g) Oswald's false defection - no doppelgangers required. (h) Oswald's knowledge of Russian - no doppelgangers required. None of these things require the existence of a long-term double-doppelganger scheme. The theory adds nothing worthwhile to our understanding of the assassination. On the plus side, it does give the more paranoia-inclined folks a nice big conspiracy to play with. Against this, it allows lone-nut enthusiasts to portray all critics of the lone-nut theory, even the non-paranoid ones, as a bunch of crackpots (e.g. http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/2oswalds.htm) .

Bill Fite writes: Learning Russian to a reasonable but far from expert level may not be easy for you or me, but it's certainly within the reach of those lucky people who have a greater natural aptitude for languages than we do. 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine (or at least last week's version of it; it seems to change from time to time) was that the defector didn't need to be a native or expert speaker of Russian. He just needed to be able to understand spoken Russian: a much lower level of attainment. It's perfectly possible for a native English speaker with a talent for languages to learn Russian (or any other language that's related to English) to the level required by the theory in far less time than the long-term doppelganger scheme took. According to the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, masterminds within the CIA were faced with the task of sending a defector to the Soviet Union at some point in the future so that he could eavesdrop on what was being said around him. This was back in the late 1940s or early 1950s, long before the real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald defected. According to the theory, the masterminds needed to set up a double-doppelganger scheme involving fake Oswalds and fake Marguerites, and then maintain it for a decade or so. But, as I've pointed out, they didn't need to do this. All they needed to do was identify one American serviceman with a talent for learning languages, and ensure that he reached a reasonable level in Russian, whether through self-study or tuition or a combination of both. As I also pointed out, there were millions of American servicemen with the right background, and among those millions there must have been many thousands with a sufficient aptitude for learning languages. The masterminds had a straightforward, practical solution to their problem. The 'Harvey and Lee' long-term double-doppelganger scheme was unnecessary. The masterminds would not have even considered the possibility of such a complicated and far-fetched scheme when there was a far easier, more efficient, and more obvious alternative. The 'Harvey and Lee' believers seem to accept that their long-term doppelganger scheme would never have been implemented. So far, I've raised this question on at least two other threads beside this one (with more to come, no doubt), and they haven't been able to come up with an answer: Why would the masterminds not have used the most obvious and efficient method to achieve their goal?

The question remains: why would the masterminds behind the 'Harvey and Lee' false-defector scheme not have used the most obvious and practical means to achieve their goal? No hypothetical doppelgangers were required. The masterminds had no need for the 'Harvey and Lee' theory's two virtually identical but unrelated Oswalds and two virtually identical but unrelated Marguerites. All the masterminds needed was one American with a knack for languages. This is all they needed to do: (a) Identify and recruit one American serviceman with a talent for languages. (b) Allow that person to learn Russian to the required level, and perhaps provide some formal tuition if he needed it. (c) Give him a cover story and point him in the direction of Moscow. Why would they not have done this? Any ideas?

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.