Jeremy Bojczuk

Mathias Baumann writes: Actually, I was wrong. One of the defectors was not a native speaker of English, but I'll come back to that later. There doesn't seem to be much detailed information on many of the other defectors apart from three mentioned in HSCA Report, Appendix 12, pp.435-473 (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=84#relPageId=439) : - Bruce Frederick Davis (p.441) had spent five years in the US Army before defecting, first to East Germany and then to the Soviet Union, in 1960. - Vladimir Sloboda (p.448), like Davis, had been in the US Army in West Germany before defecting first to East Germany and then to the Soviet Union in 1960. Sloboda had been born in Ukraine but ended up in the USA after the war as a displaced person, and became a US citizen. His native language was almost certainly Ukrainian rather than Russian, since he was placed in Lviv in the Ukrainian-speaking western part of Ukraine after his defection. The Russian-speaking minority was mostly confined to the eastern part of the country and to Crimea. - Robert Webster (p.449) had been in the US Navy but was a civilian at the time of his defection, which coincided almost exactly with that of Oswald. I've seen references to seven other men with military-type backgrounds who defected in the 18 months or so before 1960: one more from the Navy, four more from the Army, and two from the National Security Agency. I'm not aware that any of them were given Russian tests. In short, probably the only military-type defector to have been given Russian tests was the one and only Lee Harvey Oswald. As you point out, his performance in the tests was hardly consistent with that of someone whose native language was Russian. Oswald was clearly a native speaker of English. Among all the military defectors, Vladimir Sloboda was the ideal candidate for the role given by the 'Harvey and Lee' believers to the imaginary Oswald doppelganger, since Sloboda was the only defector who was a native member of the language community in which he lived after his defection.

Sandy Larsen writes: I'm sure Sandy is exaggerating for effect. What Jim offered was 0% proof: pure speculation, without any supporting evidence at all. If someone is making a claim about an important aspect of their theory, I think it's reasonable to ask them to provide a little more than pure speculation. Jim tried to resuscitate Armstrong's theory by claiming that "Hoover just altered a report or two to make the medical histories match". Which "report or two" is Jim referring to? That's a reasonable question to ask, isn't it? If you're making a claim like Jim's, it's up to you to at least identify the documents you think were altered. Once Jim has told us which documents he thinks were altered, we can then examine those documents to see whether or not his speculative claim has any merit. We wouldn't need 100% proof either way; the balance of probabilities will do. Which documents relating to Oswald's mastoidectomy did the FBI alter? Until Jim or anyone else puts forward more than speculation about which documents the FBI altered in this instance, we are obliged to assume that no documents relating to Oswald's mastoidectomy were altered. And if that's the case, the medical evidence shows that a central aspect of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory is wrong. Armstrong knew that the body exhumed from Oswald's grave had undergone a mastoidectomy, contradicting a central element of his theory. He knew that his theory had been debunked two decades before he published his book. He deliberately withheld this information from his readers. Armstrong was pushing something he knew to be untrue. He was behaving like a cheap snake-oil salesman, wasn't he?

I'm not sure the 'Harvey and Lee' believers have thought this whole thing through. Just on one page, they offer two different accounts: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26644-the-far-reaching-influence-of-%E2%80%9Charvey-and-lee%E2%80%9D/page/2/ The first comment is by the thin-skinned James Norwood, who, in a rare break from trying to get his critics banned, wrote: But the final comment on that page, by Jim Hargrove, offers a different opinion: Was the subject of their improbable long-term doppelganger scheme a "flawless" (i.e. native or near-native level) speaker of Russian, or was he just "reasonably fluent"? John Armstrong seems to think that the defecting doppelganger needed to be a native speaker: As I understand it, 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine requires that one of the doppelgangers was a native speaker of Russian; the purpose of this was that the doppelganger who defected should be able to understand what was being said around him in Russian. But this native-speaker requirement fails for two reasons, practical and theoretical: The practical reason: It is far from certain (and that's being charitable) that the defector was actually a native speaker of Russian. Recordings survive of Oswald speaking English. He appears to have been a native speaker of English, just like the other US military types who defected at around the same time, none of whom were involved in an improbable long-term doppelganger scheme. The theoretical reason: You don't need to be a native speaker, or anywhere near that level, to be able to understand the language that's being used around you. Anyone who has learned a foreign language to a reasonable level knows this. The native-speaker requirement was unnecessary; Jim's "reasonably fluent" is all that's needed. Perhaps 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine does not require the defecting doppelganger to have been a native speaker of Russian. In this case, all that was needed was a native English-speaker who had learned sufficient Russian to understand what was going on around him, and the long-term doppelganger scheme was redundant. To put the problem another way: - If your long-term doppelganger scheme requires a native speaker, why did you choose someone who wasn't a native speaker? - If your long-term doppelganger scheme does not require a native speaker, what's the point of the scheme? Why waste time and money maintaining a decade-long charade involving two Oswalds, two Marguerites, and an unknown number of officials employed to fake and destroy inconvenient evidence? Why not just send a defector who had learned Russian in his teens, like ... ooh, I don't know, let's pick an example at random ... the real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald? The speculative notion of a long-term doppelganger scheme was internally inconsistent, or it was redundant. Either way, it fails. Incidentally, one of Oswald's Soviet friends, Ernst Titovets, shows that the defector was learning Russian, and speaking it imperfectly, while in the Soviet Union, contrary to 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine: http://johndelanewilliams.blogspot.com/2013/07/did-oswald-speak-russian-while-living.html While we're on the subject of internal inconsistencies in the linguistic area of 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine, Greg Parker makes a good point here: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2228-doc-norwood#34340 I think James Norwood is a member of that forum. I'd be interested to see what he has to say to Greg over there.

Mathias Baumann writes: Exactly. And even on Oswald's return to the USA after spending two and a half years in the company of native Russian speakers, he was frequently making grammatical mistakes. The mistakes were such that even a non-native speaker like Ruth Paine picked up on them. The fact that Oswald's Russian improved over the years, yet remained imperfect, shows clearly that he wasn't a native speaker. The claim that he was a native speaker of Russian seems to be the result of two main errors: Firstly, cherry-picking the evidence: selecting those witnesses who praised Oswald's Russian while ignoring those who pointed out his frequent mistakes. There are plenty of reasons why someone might describe Oswald's Russian as better than it actually was (e.g.: being polite; only describing one aspect of it; only witnessing a small amount of it). But there aren't many plausible reasons why a native speaker would consistently make grammatical mistakes, as Oswald did, even after having lived among genuine native speakers for years. Secondly, the argument from incomprehension: I simply can't understand how anyone could pick up Russian so quickly! The words are all different! And the alphabet looks funny! But it is a fact that some people happen to be much better than others at learning languages, just as some people are much better than others at athletic and artistic pursuits. With a certain amount of natural aptitude, sufficient motivation, and perhaps some tuition, there's nothing earth-shatteringly remarkable about Oswald's Russian.

I can't believe anyone is still repeating Jack 'the moon landings were faked' White's long-debunked 13-inch head nonsense! Oswald did not have a 13-inch head. Details here: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1412-the-13-inch-head-explained-for-sandy If the Oswald doppelgangers were genuinely distinct in appearance, and any apparent differences were not due to obvious factors such as different lighting conditions, poses, or quality of photographic reproduction, it should be possible to identify those differences consistently in the photographic record. For example, one of the doppelgangers might have a more pointed chin and the other a more rounded chin. Or his eyebrows or mouth or ears might be longer or shorter or fatter or thinner than those of the other doppelganger. In each case, these differences would be visible consistently across many images. All the images of 'Harvey', for example, would show his wider mouth and thinner lips, or whatever features contrasted with those of 'Lee'. Would a 'Harvey and Lee' believer care to enlighten us as to the physical differences between the doppelgangers? Once you've done that, take Jack 'no planes hit the World Trade Center' White's old montage of 70-odd mugshots and tell us which images are of which doppelganger. If there are differences, those differences will be consistent across the photographic record. After all, the whole point of Jack 'I helped to think up the Harvey and Lee nonsense' White's montage was to show that there were two Oswalds. Alternatively, if you aren't able to point out any consistent differences in the photographs of 'Harvey' and 'Lee', what do you think are the odds that two unrelated boys from different parts of the world, chosen at a young age in the hope that they would end up looking identical when they grew up, did indeed turn out to look identical? Lee Harvey Oswald was one real person and not a pair of imaginary doppelgangers, wasn't he?

Jim Hargrove writes: And on page 14 I pointed out weaknesses in all of Jim's speculative scenarios: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26644-the-far-reaching-influence-of-%E2%80%9Charvey-and-lee%E2%80%9D/?do=findComment&comment=426790 So far, Jim hasn't responded to the points I made, although he has provided us with a couple of unrelated 'Harvey and Lee' talking points, which was nice of him. Here's what appears to be Jim's favourite speculative scenario: I asked Jim two questions, so far unanswered, about this speculative scenario: - Which documents did Hoover alter? - What evidence can Jim produce to show that these documents were altered? These questions are perfectly reasonable, aren't they? Jim should be able to cite evidence to support his claims. So let's see that evidence. As I pointed out in my reply on page 14, I asked Jim the same questions the previous time he speculated in this way, and on that occasion too he failed to produce any evidence: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26529-was-it-really-just-a-mole-hunt-about-oswald/page/12/ Until Jim comes up with something solid to support his speculations, we are left with the conclusions that one mastoidectomy was performed on one Oswald, and that the theory Armstrong put forward in Harvey and Lee was wrong. I'll try again. If "Hoover just altered a report or two to make the medical histories match", which documents did the FBI alter?

Let's see if we can prise an answer out of Jim on the main question that he has been working hard to avoid answering. His guru, John Armstrong, withheld information which proved that a central element of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory was false. Why did he do this? Here are a few possible answers: Answer A Armstrong forgot. He was so busy with other things, such as tossing a coin to decide which of the many photographs of Oswald belonged to which of his two imaginary doppelgangers, that it slipped his mind. He was going to include that information, honest, he really was, but he was so busy, you know how it is, and he just forgot. Answer B There wasn't room in Armstrong's book. Harvey and Lee contains only 900 or so pages of text, and there was simply no room to squeeze in one extra sentence along the lines of: Or, as it might have appeared in his book: Also, the dog ate his last sheet of typing paper, so he couldn't have mentioned it even if he wanted to. Answer C Armstrong hadn't read the scientists' report, and didn't know that it disproved a central element of his theory. OK, so he mentioned the report several times in his book, but those passages in his book were fakes, inserted by the FBI to make him look like a cheap snake-oil salesman. Answer D Armstrong was dishonest. He knew that a central element of his theory was false. He deliberately failed to mention the fact that the body in Oswald's grave had undergone a mastoidectomy. He hoped that his readers wouldn't know that his theory had been disproved two decades before he published his book. Which of those answers does Jim find the most persuasive?

Jim Hargrove speculates: Which reports did Hoover alter? What evidence can Jim produce to show that these reports were altered? Jim made the same claim in an earlier thread. Even after repeated prompting, he was unable to produce these supposedly altered documents, let alone show that they were altered. I helped him by producing a few candidates myself, but he still couldn't do it: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26529-was-it-really-just-a-mole-hunt-about-oswald/page/12/ To accommodate his speculative switcheroo, Jim needs to rewrite John Armstrong's biographies of his two fictional doppelgangers. Armstrong goes into a lot of detail early in Harvey and Lee, making it clear that the mastoidectomy operation must have been performed on imaginary doppelganger A. How would Jim transfer the operation to imaginary doppelganger B? He can't just click his fingers; he needs to reconstruct the biographies of the two imaginary doppelgangers. How would he go about doing this? Jim also speculates: Where is the documentary evidence for this? Where is the medical report that states the name of the hospital, the name of the surgeon, and the date of the operation? We have such a report for a mastoidectomy operation carried out on the real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald. It's Warren Commission Exhibit 2218 (Hearings, vol.25, p.118). You can find it online at https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1141#relPageId=148. Where is the equivalent report for Jim's imaginary doppelganger? All Jim has produced is a decades-old recollection of a completely different medical treatment, at a hospital that hadn't been built at the time mentioned in that decades-old recollection. Jim's third speculation: If this unlikely event happened, we are missing one set of medical reports for a mastoidectomy operation on a boy named Lee Harvey Oswald. We are also missing a body, complete with a mastoidectomy defect, of a Lee Harvey Oswald. We should have two of each, but we only have one. Where is the missing medical report? Where is the missing body? Jim likes the idea of evidence, or as he often puts it, EVIDENCE! Would he be kind enough to produce the relevant physical EVIDENCE! to support the speculations he has given us? In the absence of such EVIDENCE!, all we have is one medical report of one mastoidectomy operation carried out on one Lee Harvey Oswald, and one body exhumed from one grave of one Lee Harvey Oswald bearing one mastoidectomy defect. The only rational conclusion is that the one medical report applies to the one body, and that Oswald was one person and not a pair of doppelgangers. If there was only one mastoidectomy, as the current EVIDENCE! indicates, the theory put forward in Harvey and Lee is wrong. And then there is the question Jim won't answer, the one about his guru John Armstrong's apparent dishonesty. Armstrong deliberately neglected to mention in his book the mastoidectomy defect that falsified the biographies of his imaginary doppelgangers. The obvious explanation would be that he did this in the hope that his readers wouldn't notice that his theory had been debunked two decades earlier. Will Jim admit that his guru, John Armstrong, appears to be no more honest than a snake-oil salesman? Or does Jim have a less unflattering explanation for Armstrong's failure to mention the mastoidectomy defect?

Sandy Larsen writes: What we have is one set of medical records, and one body to which those records might apply: - One set of records for a mastoidectomy operation carried out on someone with the name Lee Harvey Oswald. - One body exhumed from a grave in which someone with the name Lee Harvey Oswald had been buried. - One mastoidectomy defect on that one body. If there were two Lee Harvey Oswalds, each of whom had undergone a mastoidectomy operation, we should have two sets of medical records and two bodies with mastoidectomy defects. But we don't; we only have one of each. The rational conclusion is that the one set of medical records applies to the one body with the one mastoidectomy defect. This isn't difficult to understand, surely? If you want to propose the existence of a second Lee Harvey Oswald who underwent a second mastoidectomy operation, you really need to explain a few things: - Where and when did the second operation take place? - What happened to the medical records for the second operation? - What happened to the second Lee Harvey Oswald, on whom the second mastoidectomy operation was performed? Until Sandy or anyone else can offer plausible answers to these questions, and not just empty speculation, the only rational conclusion continues to be that only one mastoidectomy operation was carried out on only one Lee Harvey Oswald. And if there was only one mastoidectomy operation, the theory put forward in Harvey and Lee is wrong. The words of the prophet Armstrong are written on the ROKC walls: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2208p25-dear-sandy#34311

James Norwood writes: Since the 'Harvey and Lee' believers have used the word 'screed' more than once recently, I decided to dust off my old hardback dictionary, to see if the word possessed a meaning of which I was unaware: A "long or prolonged ... piece of writing" is what I guess they find objectionable. The post of mine that James objected to contained ... let me just add it up ... 255 words. Was that too much for James to take in at one sitting? I notice that his reading comprehension skills are somewhat lacking when it comes to "Charles Dunne" (real name: Robert Charles-Dunne). Jim's reply to my post contained 836 words. Does that count as a screed? It looks like three-and-a-bit screeds, if you ask me. Of course, the objection isn't really to the number of words, is it? What the believers are objecting to is having to face up to a serious problem with their beloved yet nonsensical theory. John Armstrong's variation on the old Oswald doppelganger notion was debunked by solid scientific evidence two decades before he published his book. You can understand why they don't like to be reminded of this. As for "analysis of the evidence", that is precisely what I was doing, and precisely what Jim avoids doing by repeatedly depositing piles of 'Harvey and Lee' talking points. Jim seems to be under the misapprehension that the strength of the evidence is determined by its quantity. If I put forward 16 pieces of evidence and the unbelievers only put forward 15, I win! I'm certain he isn't really as stupid as his behaviour makes him look. Jim surely understands that you can't argue against the mastoidectomy evidence by piling up a load of talking points that have nothing to do with the mastoidectomy evidence. Again, he is reduced to doing this because his only other option is to admit that Armstrong was wrong and apparently dishonest. Since James is so keen on "analysis of the evidence", let's see what he can do with the mastoidectomy evidence. So far, three 'Harvey and Lee' believers, including the guru himself (praise be unto him!), have offered three analyses, each of them faulty: 1 - John Armstrong: the doppelganger who underwent the operation was not the doppelganger who was buried in Oswald's grave. We know this is incorrect, because it is contradicted by solid scientific evidence. Armstrong himself knew that what he wrote was incorrect. 2 - Sandy Larsen: both doppelgangers underwent the operation. Unfortunately, Sandy has produced neither a second set of medical records nor a second doppelganger with a mastoidectomy defect, so that's the end of that idea. (Incidentally, is it true that Sandy is now a full professor?) 3 - Jim Hargrove: the doppelganger who underwent the operation was the one who was buried in Oswald's grave. Promising, but Jim has failed to explain how his speculation fits with the rest of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense. He needs to rewrite the biographies of the two fictional characters, something that may not be possible. Would James Norwood like to have a go? It involves some "analysis of the evidence", so I'm sure he'll be keen to add his opinion, fully supported by relevant evidence, of course. If John Butler is reading this, let's see what he has to say, too. When James has done that, perhaps he can do what Jim has been reluctant to do, and tell us what he thinks of Armstrong's apparent dishonesty in failing to mention the mastoidectomy defect on the body in Oswald's grave. As I put it in the post Jim deliberately avoided answering: (Oh dear. I think I've done another screed. James won't be pleased.)

Jonathan Cohen writes: It makes you wonder who he thinks he's going to convince by repeatedly avoiding awkward questions. Let's bombard them with Scripture until they see the light! Praise Armstrong! Why is Jim trying to make 'Harvey and Lee' look even more like a fundamentalist cult? At the tail end of page 12, I pointed out the five main tactics of the 'Harvey and Lee' believers when confronted by criticism they can't answer: (a) Ignore the alternative explanations that the critics have given. (b) Repeat the claim that has just been contradicted, as though the alternative explanations don't exist. (c) Change the subject by throwing in a few unrelated 'Harvey and Lee' talking points. (d) Try to get the critics banned (copyright James Norwood). (e) Cut your losses, abandon the thread, and start a new one at tactic (b). Sure enough, Jim followed the script in his very next post, just four posts after the one in which I described his modus operandi. I'd guess it's only a matter of time before they cut their losses on this one and start yet another 'Harvey and Lee' propaganda thread. Intellectual honesty! Good luck with finding any of that. The believers know that once they admit a weakness with something as central as the biographies of the two fictional doppelgangers, the whole pile of nonsense collapses. "Actual debate and discussion" is the last thing they want. Incidentally, in the thread you linked to, it only took James Norwood three pages before he went running to the teacher, complaining about someone who had dared to disagree with him. What's the matter with the guy? Why is he so afraid?

Sandy Larsen writes: I'm sure Robert can answer these accusations for himself, but I'd just like to make a couple of points. Firstly, in the pot and kettle department, it takes a bit of nerve for a 'Harvey and Lee' believer to accuse someone else of being an ideologue. The 'Harvey and Lee' cult requires its disciples to believe that persons unknown set up a long-term doppelganger scheme in which a number of preposterous things happened. For example: - two unrelated boys from different parts of the world, native speakers of two different languages, were chosen at a young age in the hope that when they grew up they would turn out to look virtually identical; - and, magically, the two unrelated boys did turn out to look virtually identical a decade or so later, apart from the fact that one of them had a 13-inch head; - and each of the unrelated but virtually identical boys had a mother named Marguerite, each of whom was unrelated but virtually identical to the other; - and one of the unrelated but virtually identical Oswalds followed the other unrelated but virtually identical Oswald around Dallas on the day of the assassination, framing him for the murders of JFK and Tippit; - and the unrelated but virtually identical Oswald who framed the other unrelated but virtually identical Oswald blew the lid on the long-term doppelganger scheme, not only by getting himself arrested in the same place at the same time, but by telling the cops that his name, too, was Oswald; - and one of the unrelated but virtually identical Oswalds, together with one of the unrelated but virtually identical Marguerites, vanished without a trace immediately after the assassination, possibly into the witness protection program, which didn't exist at the time. It's all a bit silly, isn't it? People who question that sort of nonsense are not ideologues. People who proclaim that sort of nonsense are ideologues. Secondly, what was the purpose of the ridiculous long-term doppelganger scheme, in Sandy's opinion? By the way, congratulations to Sandy on his new professorship!

Jim also writes that I Jim has misunderstood what I've been saying. Different aspects of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory fail for different reasons, but the mastoidectomy is noteworthy for two things. Firstly, the fact that the body in Oswald's grave had undergone a mastoidectomy operation proves that the theory John Armstrong put forward in Harvey and Lee is wrong. The biographies of Armstrong's two fictional characters are a central part of his theory. He claimed specifically that the body in the grave was not that of the imaginary doppelganger who had undergone the operation. But the exhumation report showed that the body in the grave had in fact undergone the operation. Armstrong was wrong. Secondly, it appears to show that Armstrong was dishonest. He knew that his fictional biographies were wrong, because in his book he cited the scientists' report of the exhumation. But he went ahead and included the biographies in his book anyway. Not only did he claim to be true something he knew to be false, but he failed even to mention the existence of the mastoidectomy defect, a crucial fact that disproved his theory. By doing so, he misled his readers. Armstrong's apparent dishonesty leads to two questions that have been following Jim from thread to thread, and which he has avoided answering many times: Since Armstrong knew about the defect, he must have misled his readers deliberately. Would Jim agree that this shows Armstrong to be dishonest? If not, what alternative explanation can Jim put forward for Armstrong's behaviour?

We disposed of Sandy's explanation for the existence of the mastoidectomy defect on the body in Oswald's grave. What's Jim's explanation? After two decades of pimping Armstrong's nonsensical theory, Jim has finally noticed that it's nonsense. Well done, Jim! Unfortunately, getting out of this particular bramble patch isn't straightforward. Jim can't just click his fingers and transfer biographical details from one imaginary doppelganger to another. Armstrong's biographies of his fictional characters may have been complete inventions, but he did at least try to create a consistent scheme. He traced the progress of the imaginary doppelganger who, he claims, underwent the mastoidectomy operation at the age of six, from before the operation all the way to the day of the assassination (after which the imaginary doppelganger vanished, but that's another matter). Would Jim be kind enough to explain where, exactly, in each doppelganger's biography John Armstrong (praise his name!) went wrong? How would Jim reconstruct those two fictional biographies to make his own scheme work? According to the single set of medical records,* a mastoidectomy operation was carried out at Harris Hospital in Fort Worth in February 1946, on a six-year-old boy named Lee Harvey Oswald, who lived at Grandbury Road, Route no.45, Benbrook, Texas, and who was the step-son of Edwin A. Ekdahl of that address. Armstrong goes into detail about this period of doppelganger A's life in the first 30 pages or so of Harvey and Lee. How would Jim go about transferring this biographical detail to doppelganger B? What was happening to doppelganger A while all of this was going on? According to Jim, the boy who had the operation was a Russian-speaking eastern European, perhaps a Hungarian refugee, perhaps a Russian war orphan; no-one really knows because the boy entered the US without leaving a trace in the immigration records, as fictional characters tend to do. If this imaginary doppelganger entered the US before 1946, how much time did this allow him to have learned Russian before he arrived? * Source: Warren Commission Exhibit 2218 (Hearings, vol.25, p.118): https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1141#relPageId=148

Jim also writes: Indeed there are. By far the most logical explanation is that the one set of medical records applies to the one person who was exhumed from Oswald's grave bearing a mastoidectomy defect. What makes this explanation the most logical is that it does not require the invention of a preposterous long-term doppelganger scheme in which: - two unrelated boys from different parts of the world, native speakers of two different languages, were chosen at a young age in the hope that when they grew up they would turn out to look virtually identical; - and the two unrelated boys somehow did turn out to look virtually identical a decade or so later, apart from the fact that one of them had a 13-inch head; - and each of the unrelated but virtually identical boys had a mother named Marguerite, each of whom was unrelated but virtually identical to the other; - and one of the unrelated but virtually identical Oswalds followed the other unrelated but virtually identical Oswald around Dallas on the day of the assassination, framing him for the murders of JFK and Tippit; - and the unrelated but virtually identical Oswald who framed the other unrelated but virtually identical Oswald blew the lid on the long-term doppelganger scheme, not only by getting himself arrested in the same place at the same time, but by telling the cops that his name, too, was Oswald; - and one of the unrelated but virtually identical Oswalds, together with one of the unrelated but virtually identical Marguerites, vanished without a trace immediately after the assassination. Take away all that ridiculous nonsense, and you have one person, Lee Harvey Oswald, who underwent a mastoidectomy operation in 1946, was buried in 1963, and was exhumed in 1981, complete with a mastoidectomy defect.

Jim Hargrove writes: To continue the sporting metaphors, Jim's reply is par for the course: (a) He ignores the alternative explanations that have been given. (b) He repeats his claim as though the alternative explanations didn't exist, and ... what's the other thing Jim keeps doing? (c) Ah, yes. When he doesn't have an answer, he tries to change the subject by throwing in a few unrelated 'Harvey and Lee' talking points. These are the actions of a propagandist, not someone who genuinely wants to find out whether the 'Harvey and Lee' theory is viable. The two 'Harvey and Lee' tricks missing on this occasion are: (d) Try to get the critics banned (admittedly, that's usually James Norwood's department). (e) When in trouble, cut your losses, abandon the thread and start a new one, starting again from tactic (b). I fear a brand new 'Harvey and Lee' propaganda thread may be on its way very soon! As for Jim's "missing tooth" claim, I gave links to two threads in which several plausible alternative explanations have been given for the evidence Jim cited. How about actually dealing with the points that were made? Here, for any casual readers who want to find out what happened the last time Jim tried to push his "missing tooth" claim, are the other threads: - http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26512-arguments-against-the-harvey-lee-theory-the-missing-tooth/ - https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t227-armstrong-s-magic-tooth-and-the-facts-about-harvey-at-beauregard Jim shows no inclination even to acknowledge, let alone deal with, the alternative explanations. Until he or another member of the 'Harvey and Lee' cult comes up with a convincing reason to doubt these alternative explanations, we are left with one conclusion: there was no missing tooth.

Jim Hargrove writes: Roll up! Roll up! It's time for another trip on the 'Harvey and Lee' merry-go-round! Jim asked exactly the same rhetorical question a couple of months ago on a different 'Harvey and Lee' propaganda thread. Since he is such a big fan of copying and pasting, here is a slightly amended version of my reply from last time: There are plenty of reasons to doubt that Oswald lost a tooth. That's what the infamous http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26512-arguments-against-the-harvey-lee-theory-the-missing-tooth/ thread was all about. That's the thread in which Jim gloated on page 1: The evidence is so strong that it proves beyond any doubt that the real Oswald (or one of Jim's imaginary doppelgangers) had a missing tooth! Unfortunately, it quickly turned out that all the evidence for the apparently "missing tooth" had a perfectly ordinary explanation (in fact, in the case of Oswald's Marine dental records, two perfectly ordinary explanations) that did not require Oswald to have had a missing tooth. You can find out more by reading the thread I just mentioned, or this one: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t227-armstrong-s-magic-tooth-and-the-facts-about-harvey-at-beauregard There is now no good reason to suppose that the real Lee Harvey Oswald (or either of the fictional Oswald doppelgangers) had a missing tooth. One more piece of 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine bites, as it were, the dust. 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine also demands that the body in Oswald's grave was that of the fictional doppelganger 'Harvey', the one who had not undergone a mastoidectomy operation. Unfortunately, we have known for decades that the body in the grave, which was of course that of the real and historical Lee Harvey Oswald, had in fact undergone a mastoidectomy operation. The body cannot have been that of the fictional doppelganger 'Harvey', contrary to 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine. A central element of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory is contradicted by solid scientific evidence. But we've known that for decades. John Armstrong knew about the mastoidectomy defect nearly two decades before Harvey and Lee was published. He knew his theory was wrong even as he was writing his infallible holy text. All of this leads us back to the question that Jim has so far refused to answer many, many times. Armstrong knew that the pathologists' report contradicted a central element of his theory, yet he failed even to mention the existence of the mastoidectomy defect on the body in the grave. Why did he do this? It was so that his readers wouldn't realise that his theory had been seriously undermined nearly two decades before he published his book, wasn't it? His behaviour makes him look an awful lot like a snake-oil salesman, doesn't it? Or does Jim have an alternative explanation for Armstrong's apparently dishonest behaviour?

According to Sandy, the dog ate one set of medical records, and one of the Oswald doppelgangers might be living in the FBI's Home for Retired Gangsters in Arizona. Hmmm. That sounds plausible. Sandy doesn't know what happened to his missing hypothetical doppelganger. He doesn't know where or when a hypothetical mastoidectomy operation was performed on his hypothetical doppelganger. No-one else seems to know, either. Why does no-one know? Because there is no physical evidence for either of these things. There are no medical records showing that a second Oswald doppelganger underwent a mastoidectomy operation. There is no record of a second Oswald doppelganger who ended up in the witness protection program, or in a shallow grave, or in a nursing home on the planet Zog. What follows is the sum total of the physical evidence we have about mastoidectomy operations carried out on people named Lee Harvey Oswald: 1 - One set of medical records regarding an operation carried out in Harris Hospital in February 1946. 2 - One body, containing a mastoidectomy defect, that was exhumed from Oswald's grave in 1981, proving that that person had undergone the operation. The only conclusion an open-minded, rational person would draw from that evidence is that item 1 and item 2 refer to the same person. Less open-minded and less rational people, on the other hand, might explain the evidence in far-fetched ways, using improbable inventions such as imaginary doppelgangers, creatures from distant planets, and shape-shifting lizards. They could invent a creature from the planet Zog, named Lee ZOG. They could claim that the only set of medical records in fact refers to a mastoidectomy carried out on Lee ZOG. They could invent a shape-shifting lizard, named Harvey LIZARD, whose body, complete with mastoidectomy defect, was exhumed from the grave of the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald. They could invent a couple of imaginary mother doppelgangers: the dumpy Marguerite ZOG and the slender Marguerite LIZARD. The possibilities are endless! If they had a rationality-challenged friend who thought the moon landings were faked and that no planes hit the World Trade Center, they could write a 1000-page book about their inventions, and call the book Lizard and Zog. The book might earn them a remunerative deal with a TV company for a JFK assassination-related science-fiction cop-buddy series of that name, a sort of paranoia-friendly Starsky and Hutch. Once they've got their remunerative TV deal, they could leave the JFK assassination alone, so that rational people could try to get the case resolved without the risk of guilt by association. Unfortunately for our less rational friends, the default state of affairs is that a human being is one person and not a pair of doppelgangers or a combination of shape-shifting lizards and creatures from distant planets. Until anyone produces proof to the contrary, such as a second set of medical records or a second Oswald with a mastoidectomy defect, one person named Lee Harvey Oswald underwent a mastoidectomy operation in 1946, and his was the body exhumed in 1981.

Let's recap, and see if we can prise answers from the 'Harvey and Lee' believers to the latest bunch of questions that they have avoided answering. James Wilcott James Wilcott's 'Oswald project' contradicts three items of 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine: - He implied that Oswald was one person. 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine claims that Oswald was a pair of doppelgangers. - He claimed that his 'Oswald project' began when Oswald was in the Marines. 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine claims that the doppelganger scheme began much earlier, several years before Oswald entered the Marines. - He claimed that Oswald was taught Russian while in the Marines. 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine claims that the Oswald who spoke Russian (either flawlessly or merely well enough to understand what was being said around him, depending on the state of the theory on any particular day) was a native speaker. How would the believers resolve these contradictions? Oswald's Mastoidectomy We have one set of medical records, one exhumed body, and one mastoidectomy defect. Sandy claims that these refer to two people, who each underwent a mastoidectomy operation. In that case, we should have two sets of medical records and two bodies showing two mastoidectomy defects. But we don't. - Where is the missing set of medical records? - Where is the missing body with its mastoidectomy defect? Alternatively, if Sandy is mistaken and these items of evidence actually refer to one person, how do the believers resolve the problem of the wrong doppelganger being buried in Oswald's grave? Also, why did John Armstrong mislead his readers by not mentioning in his book the existence of the mastoidectomy defect on the body in Oswald's grave, a fact that was confirmed by reputable scientists and that debunked Armstrong's theory two decades before his book was published?

James Norwood writes: That's because it isn't. That's why I didn't mention it. Even if, as Wilcott claimed, there was an 'Oswald project', Wilcott himself defined the project in a way that precludes it being part of the 'Harvey and Lee' fantasy. As I pointed out, the essence of the 'Harvey and Lee' fantasy is a long-term doppelganger scheme involving two boys co-opted at a young age, one of them a native speaker of Russian.* Wilcott specifically claimed that his 'Oswald project' began when Oswald was in the Marines, not several years earlier as prescribed by 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine. Wilcott claimed that his 'Oswald project' required Oswald to have been taught Russian while he was in the Marines, again contrary to 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine, which requires the defector to have been a native speaker of Russian.* Wilcott said nothing about a second Oswald. For Wilcott, there was just the one Oswald, a native English-speaking American who was recruited into a CIA false defector scheme in his late teens and was taught Russian while in the Marines. The 'Harvey and Lee' believers took something that vaguely resembled the far-fetched scheme of their imaginations (CIA; defector), and misrepresented it by ignoring the parts that contradicted their pet theory (one person; native English-speaking American; recruited in his late teens; given Russian lessons). And the passage quoted by James includes absolutely no mention at all of any doppelganger Oswalds, decade-long schemes involving unrelated boys from different parts of the world, or native speakers of Russian*, as prescribed by the 'Harvey and Lee' theory. The unique selling point of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory is that there was a long-term doppelganger scheme involving two unrelated boys who magically grew up to look virtually identical (plus all the other 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense I described in my earlier post). If Oswald's name was consistently inverted in the documentary record, one explanation might be that in some instances one or another intelligence agency was doing so for nefarious reasons. But again, this does not imply that any of the 'Harvey and Lee' doppelganger nonsense isn't nonsense. Inverting Oswald's name does not necessarily imply that he was two people; or that his mother was two people; or that the Oswald who defected was a Hungarian refugee or Russian war orphan or whatever other phantom the 'Harvey and Lee' believers conjure into existence next; or that the doppelganger who was buried in Oswald's grave was not the doppelganger who had undergone a mastoidectomy operation, thereby refuting the 'Harvey and Lee' theory two decades before the Harvey and Lee book was published. In the same way, inverting Oswald's name is consistent with the idea that he was both a shape-shifting lizard and a creature from the planet Zog, but it doesn't necessarily imply that he was both a shape-shifting lizard and a creature from the planet Zog. It is entirely ridiculous. A scheme that lasted a decade or more, involving strangers who turned out to look virtually identical, with virtually identical mothers, all done just to place a false defector in the Soviet Union so that he could overhear what was being said around him. It's tin-foil hat stuff: a preposterous and unnecessarily complex conspiracy to explain a body of facts that have a much simpler explanation. Tell that to an intelligent member of the public who doesn't know much about the JFK assassination, and he or she is likely to think you're a crackpot. You get a gold star for the umlaut, though. * Or possibly a merely competent but less than perfect speaker who was able to understand what was being said around him. The 'Harvey and Lee' brains trust doesn't appear to have reached a conclusion on that point of doctrine yet, after a couple of decades' deliberation.

Jim Hargrove writes: Seriously? Perhaps Jim can tell us how he managed to start from here: and end up here: There was no implication that Jim was "here under a false identity" or anything of the sort. The point I made was that using James Wilcott to support the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense can't be excused on the grounds of ignorance, since Wilcott's HSCA testimony was transcribed by Jim himself. I wondered, in jest, whether the Jim Hargrove who transcribed the testimony was not the Jim Hargrove we all respect for his skeptical attitude to blatant nonsense, but a different, doppelganger Jim Hargrove, who was ignorant of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense and thus wouldn't have been aware that Wilcott contradicted essential elements of the 'Harvey and Lee' fantasy. It's a play on the doppelganger concept. Jim likes his doppelgangers. I think Jim needs to get on the waiting list for a sense of humour transplant.

Sandy Larsen writes: What we actually have is this: (a) Medical records for one mastoidectomy operation carried out on one person named Lee Harvey Oswald. (b) One mastoidectomy defect on one exhumed body that had been buried under the name of Lee Harvey Oswald. That's one operation, one defect, one body, and one name. If, as Sandy speculates, items (a) and (b) refer to two different people, two important items of evidence are missing, namely: 1 - The body of Lee Harvey Oswald Doppelganger A, complete with mastoidectomy defect, the subject of the medical records in item (a). 2 - Medical records for a mastoidectomy operation carried out on Lee Harvey Oswald Doppelganger B, the exhumed body in item (b). If Sandy's speculation is correct, we ought to have physical evidence for two operations, two defects, and two bodies. But we only have one of each. Where are the missing medical records? Where is the missing body?

James Norwood writes: James Wilcott's phrase 'Oswald project' was appropriated by the 'Harvey and Lee' belief system and given a new meaning involving a long-term doppelganger scheme. In his appearance before the HSCA, Wilcott explained what his 'Oswald project' involved: Wilcott said and implied nothing about doppelgangers at all, let alone: - that a long-term doppelganger project was set up involving two unrelated boys from different parts of the world who were chosen at a young age in the hope that they would turn out to look virtually identical a decade or more later; - or that the boys did magically turn out to look virtually identical; - or that each boy had a virtually identical mother named Marguerite Oswald; - or that one of the boys had a 13-inch head; - or that one of the boys followed the other around Dallas on the day of the assassination to frame the other for the murders of JFK and Tippit; - or that both of the Oswald doppelgangers got themselves arrested in the Texas Theater and each told the cops that his name was Oswald, thereby giving the game away; - or that one of the Oswald doppelgangers and one of the Marguerite doppelgangers disappeared from the face of the earth immediately after the assassination; - or any of the other far-fetched speculation that makes up the 'Harvey and Lee' theory. James Wilcott said nothing about any of that. Wilcott certainly never claimed, as John Armstrong did, that one of the Oswald doppelgangers had undergone a mastoidectomy operation and that the other doppelganger was the one buried in Oswald's grave, despite knowing that this claim was untrue, the claim having been debunked by Oswald's exhumation two decades before Armstrong wrote his book. Tracy Parnell has written an informative article about James Wilcott, which includes links to Wilcott's HSCA testimony in which Wilcott mentions the 'Oswald project' and explains what he meant by the term: http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/03/james-wilcott.html Here's Wilcott's testimony: http://www.jfklancer.com/Wilcott.html There's even less excuse for the 'Harvey and Lee' believers to misrepresent Wilcott when you consider that the above version of his HSCA testimony was prepared by the 'Harvey and Lee' belief system's Chief Evangelist, a Mr Hargrove (unless our Mr Hargrove is actually one item in a pair of doppelgangers). Here's Wilcott's unpublished manuscript, 'The Kennedy Assassination': https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=260#relPageId=9 On pages 16 and 17, Wilcott writes: Two aspects of Wilcott's account specifically contradict 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine: - He claims that Oswald was recruited while in the Marines during his late teens, not as a young boy as part of a long-term doppelganger scheme. - He claims that Oswald was taught Russian while in the Marines. 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine, on the other hand, claims that the Oswald doppelganger who defected was a flawless, native speaker of Russian (or a very good speaker, or a moderately good speaker; they can't seem to agree), and certainly not a native English-speaking American who was taught Russian in the Marines. In short, James Wilcott said nothing about doppelganger Oswalds, and specifically contradicted two other important elements of 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine. - https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2248-deceptions-and-errors-of-fact-the-early-lives-of-harvey-and-lee - https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2250-deceptions-and-errors-of-fact-frank-wisner-and-world-war-ii-refugees There's plenty more information about the 'Harvey and Lee' theory here: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/f13-the-harvey-lee-evidence

Sandy Larsen writes: [Slaps forehead] I have a theory that the person known to history as Lee Harvey Oswald was in fact two different entities: a shape-shifting lizard who underwent a mastoidectomy operation at Harris Hospital in 1946, and a creature from the planet Zog who took human form, then had a mastoidectomy operation before being beamed down to Earth, and was later buried in Oswald's grave in Fort Worth. And lo and behold! The evidence of the medical file and the exhumation report prove my case! The medical file shows that Oswald was a shape-shifting lizard, and the exhumation report shows that he was also a creature from the planet Zog! That's two Oswalds: a shape-shifting lizard and a creature from the planet Zog! Now, some cynics might object to this, on the grounds that the evidence can be explained perfectly well as applying to one human being: the real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald. They would say that I'm making it all up, creating a far-fetched fantasy to satisfy my paranoid view of the world, just like a 'Harvey and Lee' believer. But it's true! On a serious note, the question I was asking was: where is the second medical file, the one for the second mastoidectomy operation? So far, we have documentary evidence for one mastoidectomy operation, and one body that had undergone a mastoidectomy operation. If you want to claim that the only body is not that of the person to whom the only medical file applies, let's see the documentary evidence for the operation that was carried out on that body: - What's the name of the hospital? - What's the name of the surgeon? - What was the date of the operation? There's nothing. There isn't even a second body.

Jim Hargrove writes: It in [sic] not simply enormous. It in [sic] very weak. That evidence was taken to pieces by Mark Stevens here: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/ To avoid dealing with Mark's analysis, the 'Harvey and Lee' believers abandoned that thread and created a new one. Now that their new thread has become contaminated by Mark's analysis, they've created yet another. I suppose it's easier than actually dealing with the points Mark made. Let's remind them of the points Mark made, starting with his account of Robert Oswald and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: (a) The first mention of Stripling by Robert Oswald was in the 31 October 1959 edition, in response to the apparent defection of the one and only, historical Lee Harvey Oswald. Robert was accosted by a reporter while at work. (b) The following day, Robert was interviewed at home. The paper included a statement by Robert that his brother had attended Arlington Heights for a year, but did not mention Stripling. Presumably the paper would have mentioned Stripling if Robert had done so. (c) The relevant passage from the second article was then repeated word for word in a third article later that week. (d) Mark reproduced six further Fort Worth Star-Telegram articles (from 1962, 1963, 1980, 1999 twice, and 2006) which mention Oswald attending Stripling. Each uses virtually identical wording. Two of the articles (from 1999 and 2006) use the phrase "including awkward teenage years at Stripling Junior High School and Arlington Heights High School". Clearly the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, like every newspaper, was in the habit of recycling earlier reports. (e) None of these articles mentions any pupils or teachers who recalled Oswald at Stripling. (f) A Fort Worth Star-Telegram article from 1992 does mention a teacher who taught at Stripling at the time the imaginary Oswald doppelganger is supposed to have been there: Beulah Bratton, who taught English and journalism at Stripling from the 1940s to the 1970s. Under the headline, "Teacher Recalls Famous Students", the article actually states that "After President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963, Bratton was asked to do research on Lee Harvey Oswald's family for the New York Times." If an Oswald doppelganger had attended Stripling, and especially if that fact was "common knowledge" as the 'Harvey and Lee' believers claim, there's a pretty good chance Ms Bratton would have uncovered the fact and mentioned it to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, wouldn't you think? But it appears that she didn't. Mark concluded: The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's evidence is next to worthless. It provides only very weak support to the fanciful claim that an imaginary Oswald doppelganger attended Stripling. Stripling is supposed to be the 'Harvey and Lee' believers' strongest area of evidence. The onus is on them to prove their case. How will they deal with Mark's analysis this time? Ignore it? Start yet another new thread? Perhaps they'll come clean and admit that the Fort Worth Star-Telegram evidence really isn't very strong at all. Let's see.