Jeremy Bojczuk

Mark made several points, so far unaddressed by the 'Harvey and Lee' believers, about 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:

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After almost 60 years, the Star Telegram has not presented a single statement from any person other than Robert Oswald which would link Oswald to Stripling, in any year, much less the years as alleged by “Harvey & Lee.” Numerous opportunities have been presented, not the least of which was a teacher who taught durring the same time period and who also researched Oswald. She would have been in a prime, if not the most prime, position among Stripling witnesses of knowledge of Oswald at Stripling, and she curiously…”forgot” to mention it. In spite of the numerous times the Robert Oswald statements were printed, not a single person who taught Oswald at Stripling, or attended with him at Stripling, after seeing the articles thought they’d give their story to the paper.

Further, numerous local personalities and people connected to Oswald have spoken to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram over the years, and as mentioned, newpapers across the country. Many of them have some connection to Oswald or a story to tell, none have Stripling stories.

It is clear the Fort Worth Star-Telegram articles which reference Robert Oswald’s statements regarding Oswald as attending Stripling are blown out of proportion to increase their otherwise neglible importance. At no point over the almost 60 years of coverage does the Star-Telegram update their reporting, and continues to this day to use statements Robert Oswald gave them in 1959. The paper likely was unable to get new statements, and continues to just run with what they have.

Mark has shown that the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's coverage provides no strong evidence to support the notion that an Oswald doppelganger attended Stripling.

The burden of proof is on the 'Harvey and Lee' believers. Since Stripling is supposed to be their strongest suit, we can assume that they will be keen to put Mark right. Let's see how they respond.

Here are some instructions for working out which photos of the real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald are of the fictional character 'Harvey' and which are of the fictional character 'Lee':

1 - Take a coin; any denomination or currency will do.

2 - Toss the coin.

3 - If it's heads, it's 'Harvey'.

4 - If it's tails, it's 'Lee'.

Gene Kelly writes:

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I can’t for the life of me understand why some react so strongly to the thesis of Harvey and Lee.

The strongest reaction was probably the attempt by 'Harvey and Lee' propagandists to get their critics banned. I think we all understand why they reacted this strongly to unwelcome criticism.

Those of us who criticise the 'Harvey and Lee' theory do so for several reasons: because it is proven nonsense; because it is heavily but dishonestly promoted; and because it is liable to harm rational criticism of the lone-nut theory.

The thesis was proven to be wrong two decades before the Harvey and Lee book was even published, by the evidence of a mastoidectomy operation on Oswald's body. According to Armstrong's carefully worked-out biographies of his two fictional characters, the Oswald doppelganger who had undergone the mastoidectomy operation was not the one who was buried in the grave. But the exhumation in 1981 showed that the body was that of someone who had undergone the operation. Armstrong knew about the scientists' report of the exhumation, and knew that it disproved his theory, but he went ahead and published his book anyway. Not only that, but he dishonestly neglected to inform his readers that the mastoidectomy defect even existed.

That's the 'proven' part. The 'nonsense' part comprises, among many other far-fetched things, all the elements of 'Harvey and Lee' that distinguish it from other impersonation theories: the notion that two unrelated boys from different parts of the world were chosen for a long-term doppelganger scheme in the hope that they would turn out to look virtually identical when they grew up; that the boys magically did turn out to look virtually identical; that each boy had a virtually identical mother named Marguerite; that one Oswald doppelganger followed the other Oswald doppelganger around Dallas on 22 November and framed him for the murders of JFK and Tippit; and that one Oswald doppelganger and one Marguerite doppelganger vanished from the face of the earth immediately after the assassination. These ridiculous propositions are all essential elements of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory.

It's potentially harmful because it allows rational critics of the lone-nut theory to be depicted as a bunch of crackpots. If the general public got the impression that imaginary doppelgangers were part of the standard case against the official account of the JFK assassination, or that everyone who questions the official account also believes there were doppelganger Oswalds and Marguerites running around for a decade or more, we may as well all give up now, because without the support of the general public the case won't get resolved.

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Such staunch opposition ironically has the opposite effect on me ... it sends a message that there's substance to the H&L anomalies.

If that's the effect it has on you, you clearly aren't looking at the points the critics are making.

The only way to decide whether or not "there's substance to the H&L anomalies" is to read what the critics have to say. You could start at the top, with what the 'Harvey and Lee' believers think of as their strongest area of evidence: an Oswald doppelganger at Stripling. Check out what the critics have to say on that topic, and tell us whether you agree or disagree, and on what grounds. If you think we're wrong, it would be good to be told why by someone with his head screwed on rather than the usual bunch of propagandists.

Mark Stevens took the Stripling evidence to pieces in this thread:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/

Robert Charles-Dunne writes:

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Next we’ll hear from the good Doc that photos mean little in the grand scheme of things, after having spearheaded a campaign based upon the misreading of ONE photo.  Lesson learned?

From Cinque to Armstrong?

Alex Wilson has commented elsewhere (https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2228-doc-norwood#34074) that James Norwood used to be chairman of an organisation that's dedicated to the notion that the Altgens 6 photograph is a fake. Now Robert alludes to the same thing. Is it true?

In the interests of psychiatric research, I've checked out the website of this 'Oswald Innocence Campaign' (and had a good antiseptic rinse-down afterwards). They do indeed think that Altgens 6 was faked. And not just given a small tweak here and there, but practically rebuilt from the ground up. It was quite an achievement by whoever did it, considering that the photograph was sent out to newspapers all over the world only half an hour after the assassination.

Apparently, the purpose of faking the Altgens 6 photograph was to disguise the fact that it originally showed Oswald standing on the steps, where we now see Billy Lovelady. The figure of Lovelady, whose physical similarity to Oswald generated widespread suspicion that Oswald wasn't on the sixth floor during the shooting, is actually a fake; it was pasted over the figure of Oswald.

You see, to prevent people thinking that Oswald was on the steps, the bad guys chose to use the image of someone who looked so much like Oswald that it led people to think that Oswald was standing on the steps.

Oh, and the bad guys altered most of the other figures in the photograph too, and altered other films, and inserted figures taken from photographs that weren't processed until long after Altgens 6 had been sent all over the world. Quite an achievement!

As with the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, you wonder at first if it's all a joke. Then you start to worry that there may be people at large who actually believe this stuff.

Here's an excerpt from the insanity I found at http://www.oswald-innocent.com/anomalies.html:

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all of the anomalies center around the figure whom we refer to as Doorway Man or Doorman. That area ... is where you will find a gathering of motley figures whom Ralph refers to, affectionately, as "The Addams Family."

(1) Black Hole Man ... We assert that his face was blackened out deliberately to hide his identity. Was he the real Billy Lovelady? Yes, he was.

(2) Obfuscated Man ... we say he has been obfuscated or practically removed from the picture. And keep something very important in mind: many of these crops got enhanced behind the scenes. ... It looks like somebody put a dab of Wite-out there, doesn't it?- and that is essentially how they did it using a product called Kodak Opaque. ... you need to know that that is not a legitimate image. It is a photoshopped image. ... It just looks like a totally amorphous white blotch. Somebody put a dab of the photographic equivalent of Wite-out there. Then later, it was converted into an elbow. But that is NOT an elbow.

You might think that's not too bad, really. But there's more:

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(3) Big Afro Hair Woman, with the radiant smile, was actually standing on Elm Street, which was rather far away from the TSBD steps. ... Look how big her hair is! It's 4x bigger than that of the other African-American women near her. They gave her that large hair in order to hide what they didn't want you to see.

(4) Black Tie Man is the man standing next to Doorman on his left, which is to our right as we view the image. However, he is an impossible figure. He is seemingly standing behind Doorman, but he is also overlapping him, which is physically and anatomically impossible. Doorman's left shoulder is missing, when it should be visible. ... we show where his left shoulder should be and undoubtedly was - before the picture was tampered with.

Notice also how distorted Doorman's left ear is ... That ear got deformed by the placement of Black Tie Man into the picture. There is no other reason why it looks so bad. ... It is obviously distortion, and that distortion came from the conspirators placing Black Tie Man in there. Photographic alteration is not an exact science, and tell-tale signs are often left behind. ... We suspect that they moved the image of Black Tie Man where it is to hide the unique form of Oswald’s shirt on his left side ... How many men’s shirts come with a button loop? Do you think Lovelady's shirt was fashioned that way? They had to cover that up, which seems to be why Black Tie Man was put there.

And more:

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(5) Doorman, himself, must be considered an anomaly because of what is going on with Black Tie Man ... the modifications to Doorman's face and hairline to "Lovelady-ify" him, as best they could, must be considered an anomaly. ... Essentially, Doorman is Oswald from the eyes down, and he is Lovelady from above the eyes to the top. ...If it was done at all--and it was--it had to be to get Oswald out and Lovelady in. ... Doorman was like a centaur, except that instead of being half man/half horse, he was half Oswald/half Lovelady--and except that instead of being half and half, he was more like 90% Oswald and 10% Lovelady.

6) Fedora Hat Man and the Woman and Boy ... Another sign that the Woman and Boy were not really there is the distortion of the nose of the black woman who is in front of and below them. She has got a nose like Pinocchio, and that isn't typical of anyone, and certainly not someone of African ancestry. That distortion of her nose was due to the placement of the Woman and Boy into the picture.

After installing the Woman and Boy in the Altgens photo, they decided to install a Woman and Baby in the Towner film to confirm the former. Why they thought a Woman and Baby could pass for a Woman and Boy I do not know. But, here is how it came out. This was not a photograph of real people. It is pure techno-art.

The craziness goes on:

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(7) Finally, we are uncomfortable about the Black Man in Profile, who is right in front of and below Doorman ... But, why does Doorman's sleeve seem to be in front of Black Man and dividing his head from his torso? It doesn't make sense, and there is no way to explain it. We think it was fabricated. We suspect that Black Man was pieced in, above and below Doorman's cuff. ... So, the image of Carl Jones was pieced in, and we believe we have found the source. There is some post-assassination footage of him by Phil Willis in which Carl Jones is walking down the steps of the TSBD, on the east side of the median handrail, and he has his head turned exactly as it is in the Altgens photo. We think that is where they got the image of Carl Jones to place into the Altgens photo.

Notice that Doorman1 on the left looks slender while Doorman2 on the right looks stocky. ... They are definitely not the same man ... The image of Doorman2 was added to the film. He isn't real. The fact that he doesn't match Doorman1 tells you that he isn't real. Also, the fact that he is standing there looking straight ahead, stiff as a board, stiff as a Cigar Store Indian, and detached from the pathos of the scene tells you that he isn't real.

And on:

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But, the second Wiegman Doorman was someone else, definitely not Oswald, not Lovelady, and not the Altgens Doorman. ... We believe that 2nd Wiegman Doorman, who is supposed to be Lovelady, was inserted there to hide the fact that Oswald had already left. He had begun his trek to the lunch room. The image of 2nd Wiegman Doorman is a photographic fakery. ... the first Wiegman Doorman nd [sic] the second one. They are two different guys. The first one, who is higher up, was Oswald and the second was who knows who. They stuck him in there because Oswald left.

Returning to the Black Man in Altgens, Carl Jones, why is he turned the direction that he is? ... It's just more photographic fakery. ... Was his image implanted in the Altgens photo? Yes! ... As to why they implanted him, it may have been to hide the tattered appearance of Oswald's shirt

It concludes:

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We realize that is a lot of manipulating for one photograph. They must have had a crack team of experts waiting in the wings.

So, did they have time to make the alterations? As Jim Fetzer says, "The fact that the alterations can be seen is proof that they had time to make them."

We know now, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the Doorman was Oswald

I'm not sure about the exact medical definition of insanity, but whoever wrote that stuff must be at least knocking on the door of the asylum.

Is it true that James Norwood actively associated himself with these crackpots? If he did, how much of that paranoid drivel does he still believe?

Jim Hargrove writes:

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The assertion that the Fort Worth newspaper was just repeating information Robert Oswald had given them years before the assassination is easily dismissed.

And then he fails to dismiss it.

James Norwood does the same thing in his original post in this thread:

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(1)  Newspaper Coverage of Stripling:  It is a fact that Stripling Junior High School was identified in newspapers as one of the schools attended by Lee Harvey Oswald.  The critic attempts to discount this evidence and faults the reporters for not interviewing teachers and students to verify that Oswald actually attended classes at Stripling.  But when Stripling was first mentioned in the papers in 1959, the focus was on a United States Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union.  The reporters had no obligation to visit the schools to confirm Oswald’s status as a student.  The schools he attended were facts surrounding the greater story of a local boy turned traitor. ... The critic has failed to offer any proof that the newspaper reporting about Stripling was erroneous.

In other words, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram relied only on Robert Oswald's mistaken assumption about something of which he had no first-hand knowledge, just as Mark Stevens claimed.

The first post in the following thread is where Mark Stevens (not his doppelganger, Mark Edwards) made a good case that the Fort Worth Star-Telegram simply repeated Robert Oswald's mistaken assumption:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/

Mark made several points:

(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:

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After almost 60 years, the Star Telegram has not presented a single statement from any person other than Robert Oswald which would link Oswald to Stripling, in any year, much less the years as alleged by “Harvey & Lee.” Numerous opportunities have been presented, not the least of which was a teacher who taught durring the same time period and who also researched Oswald. She would have been in a prime, if not the most prime, position among Stripling witnesses of knowledge of Oswald at Stripling, and she curiously…”forgot” to mention it. In spite of the numerous times the Robert Oswald statements were printed, not a single person who taught Oswald at Stripling, or attended with him at Stripling, after seeing the articles thought they’d give their story to the paper.

Further, numerous local personalities and people connected to Oswald have spoken to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram over the years, and as mentioned, newpapers across the country. Many of them have some connection to Oswald or a story to tell, none have Stripling stories.

It is clear the Fort Worth Star-Telegram articles which reference Robert Oswald’s statements regarding Oswald as attending Stripling are blown out of proportion to increase their otherwise neglible importance. At no point over the almost 60 years of coverage does the Star-Telegram update their reporting, and continues to this day to use statements Robert Oswald gave them in 1959. The paper likely was unable to get new statements, and continues to just run with what they have.

Neither Jim Hargrove nor James Norwood has dealt with the points Mark made. If they want to do so, they should head over to this thread, which was set up specifically to deal with the topic:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/

Alternatively, I suppose they could try to get him banned. That's probably their best bet.

James DiEugenio writes:

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People like Jeremy seem to think the influence is the worst thing since Posner. Maybe worse.

The point I've been making is slightly different. It's that the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense has the potential to be harmful.

At the moment, the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense is very much a minority point of view, despite its heavy promotion by a small number of propagandists. But imagine what might happen if a sufficient number of gullible newcomers got the impression that Armstrong and White's preposterous long-term doppelganger scheme was part of the standard interpretation of the assassination. Even worse, imagine what would happen if Hargrove and Armstrong ever got their movie deal (if that's what it is they are working towards), and the general public started to become aware of the notion that there were two Oswalds and two Marguerites and all the associated craziness.

If enough recognition of the 'Harvey and Lee' crackpottery were to build up beyond specialist JFK assassination circles, the media would be able to use it to portray all critics of the lone-nut theory as a bunch of crackpots.

That's their preferred method of misleading the general public and avoiding discussion of the evidence, as Oliver Stone knows. Don't listen to him, he's a 'conspiracy theorist'! You know, like those people who think the world is run by a top-secret cabal of shape-shifting lizards! That's what all those JFK people are like! The 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense belongs with the lizard illuminati, but rational criticism doesn't.

Posner served the interests of power in a different way, by providing the media with an allegedly authoritative source to refer to, again so that the media could keep any discussion of the evidence to a minimum.

The real danger with all the tin-foil-hat stuff that the JFK assassination attracts (and the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense isn't the worst example) is that it is liable to prevent a genuine resolution of the case. Without the support of the general public, the case will not get resolved.

James Norwood writes:

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James W.  Douglass brings his analysis of Oswald to a close with the two Oswalds who are apprehended in the Texas Theater, one Oswald taken out the front door and the second through the rear exit in the alleyway.  Douglass's analysis closely follows the coverage of the Texas Theater of John Armstrong that was published five years prior to Douglass’s book.

And Douglass was just as wrong as Armstrong. As I explained in another thread, there is no good reason to suppose that two Oswalds were arrested in the Texas Theater, each of them giving away the plot by telling the cops that his name was Oswald (whoops!):

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/25901-two-oswalds-in-the-texas-theater/?do=findComment&comment=407170

Jonathan Cohen writes:

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Jeremy, don't forget that the overseers of the top-secret long-term doppelganger scheme also allowed the "fake" Marguerite Oswald to give an interview to a local journalist!

Indeed! As well as the fake Marguerite giving interviews (whoops!), and Robert Oswald giving the game away, twice, about his doppelganger brother attending Stripling (whoops!), there's also the incident in the Texas Theater, when both of the Oswald doppelgangers managed to get themselves arrested and each told the cops that his name was Oswald (whoops!).

Then there was the decision to publish the 5' 9" doppelganger's official Marines entrance records and the 5' 11" doppelganger's official Marines leaving records (whoops!). It does make you wonder who was in charge of this Laurel and Hardy-style top-secret long-term doppelganger scheme.

Jim Hargrove writes:

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Nothing anyone can say or do can alter the obvious facts that Robert Oswald told the local newspaper before the assassination and swore to the WC after the assassination that LHO attended Stripling School.

So you keep saying. Mark and others have presented evidence to show that these "obvious facts" are the result of a perfectly understandable but mistaken assumption by Robert Oswald. If there's a plausible everyday explanation for something, use it. These "obvious facts" are worthless. How about dealing with the points Mark made?

As several people have pointed out, here and elsewhere, how come the overseers of the top-secret long-term doppelganger scheme let Robert Oswald give away the plot not once but twice? He let the doppelganger cat out of the Stripling bag to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and then again several years later in front of the Warren Commission, no less! What sort of clown-car top-secret doppelganger scheme was this?

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their best hope of conclusively countering it all would be to pressure the Star-Telegram to print a formal retraction.

It has been conclusively countered. Read Mark's original post. If you can find faults in what he's written, tell us what he got wrong.

And why on earth would the newspaper want to print a formal retraction? It's not as though they've libelled anyone! Years ago, they printed an utterly trivial mistaken recollection that harmed no-one. The only people who care are 'Harvey and Lee' believers (as well they should).

Excellent piece of research, Mark!

But we all know what's coming, don't we? Three ... two ... one ...

What about the Bolton Ford incident?

What about the Texas Theater?

What about the 13-inch head?

(Repeat ad nauseam)

P.S. I'll take back the comment I made on the other Stripling thread about there being only one witness with a clear recollection of Oswald attending the school, namely Schubert. We can now cross her off the list too.

James Norwood writes:

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Thank you for catching a mistake that I made in an earlier post.

No problem. Always happy to help! I wasn't the first person to point out your mistake, though. And it did take quite a bit of pointing out, by several people, before you admitted you'd actually made a mistake, didn't it?

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I have returned to what I wrote, and it was sloppy writing on my part to suggest that Bobby Pitts actually recalled Oswald attending Stripling.

There are a couple of possible reasons for making your original claim, and 'sloppy writing' isn't one of them. It may have been that you weren't sufficiently familiar with the witnesses' statements, and you told us what you hoped they had said rather than what they actually said. Alternatively, it may have been that you knew perfectly well that the six witnesses didn't all claim to have "clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling," and, like Armstrong neglecting to mention the mastoidectomy defect, you hoped that no-one would notice. But everyone is liable to exaggerate things in the heat of the moment, so let's give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that the first reason applies.

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While he was not a fellow student at Stripling, Pitts' recall is important for two reasons:  (1) he explicitly recalled Oswald living at 2220 Thomas Place and (2) the time frame was during the academic year 1954-55.  Those revelations are corroborated by other eyewitnesses.

Mark Stevens has blown that suggestion apart:

- http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/

- https://gregrparker.com/essays/

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you are badly mistaken in suggesting that the evidence is "flimsy."  To the contrary, it is a substantial body of evidence that has been set forth in great detail on this thread.

The evidence may be substantial, in the sense that there is plenty of it, but it is also almost uniformly flimsy. Take away all of the items that have perfectly plausible alternative explanations, and what's left? A handful of anomalies? Anything at all?

As I've pointed out before, the quality of the evidence over-rules the quantity of the evidence. If all you have are decades-old recollections and paranoid interpretations of anomalies in documents and photographs, it really doesn't matter what sort of pattern you weave out of that evidence. You're left with nothing that is strong enough to overcome the default state of affairs: Oswald was one person and not a pair of doppelgangers.

A few pages ago, Sandy, the only 'Harvey and Lee' believer who seems to have even a grain of common sense, asked a question along the lines of "how could there be so much evidence that Oswald was a pair of doppelgangers if Oswald was actually just one person?" The answer should be obvious:
- Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable, especially when recalling events decades later.
- Newsworthy events invariably generate false memories of the central characters.
- Researchers, even honest and open-minded ones (I'll let you decide whether Armstrong belongs in that category), can prod people into recalling things that didn't actually happen or, say, into mistakenly identifying nondescript boys as youthful alleged assassins.
- Written documents frequently contain anomalies, and those anomalies can almost always be interpreted in both sinister and innocent ways. Oswald's peripatetic life is exactly the sort of thing that would generate more of these apparent anomalies than most.
- Photographs tend to contain even more anomalies than written documents, especially when interpreted by people with a limited knowledge of the practice of photography.

The question should have been: "how come there is so little evidence?" If Oswald really was a pair of doppelgangers, there ought to be far more evidence than there is. Just in the case of Stripling, only a tiny proportion of potential witnesses claimed to have remembered the Oswald doppelganger, and all of those recollections were vague. There doesn't appear to be a single piece of official documentary evidence for his attendance at Stripling: report cards, student directories and the like. There's nothing!

To return to a question that was asked earlier, why isn't there an official Marines photograph of a 5' 11" Oswald standing in front of a height chart? They took a photograph of him in front of a height chart on entering the Marines, so why not on leaving too? If one of the Oswald doppelgangers really was 5' 11" tall, where's the photograph to prove it?

The standard 'Harvey and Lee' reply to the lack of expected evidence is, of course, that the bad guys faked and destroyed that stuff over there, so they must have faked and destroyed this stuff over here too!

Another question is: "how come there are so many inconsistencies and contradictions?" If you were running a top-secret long-term doppelganger scheme, you'd really want to keep your doppelgangers under control, wouldn't you? As Jonathan Cohen pointed out earlier, why was the fake Marguerite doppelganger allowed to go around giving interviews to newspapers and FBI agents? Why did both of the Oswald doppelgangers get themselves arrested in the Texas Theater and then each tell the cops that his name was Oswald? And why did Robert Oswald, who was supposedly in on the plot, let the cat out of the bag not once but twice by telling a newspaper and the Warren Commission that his doppelganger brother attended Stripling? You'd also want to keep the documentary evidence under control. Why did the bad guys publish the official records of one doppelganger entering the Marines and the other doppelganger leaving the Marines? And so on.

We mustn't forget the big contradiction. According to Armstrong's carefully worked out biographies, the doppelganger who had undergone a mastoidectomy operation was not the one who was buried in Oswald's grave. But the body in the grave had undergone the operation. That fact alone sinks the 'Harvey and Lee' theory. It isn't surprising that Armstrong neglected to tell his readers about it.

You can weave some sort of tapestry out of any number of weak items of evidence, but the fact that the individual elements are weak will cause the structure to quickly disintegrate, as we have seen.

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I simply cannot understand why you feel so threatened by the Harvey and Lee evidence

The 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense isn't a threat to me personally. How could it be? But it is a potential threat to the prospect of ever getting the JFK assassination properly investigated by an official body.

Such an investigation will only come about with the support of a substantial part of the general public. The main way in which the media tries to defuse this threat is to pretend there is no rational argument against the lone-nut theory, and that every critic is a tin-foil hat-wearing 'conspiracy theorist'. They tried this back in the 80s by using Lifton's body-alteration fantasy. Imagine what they could do with an even more tin-foil hattish fantasy such as the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense.* Given a choice between a lone assassin and a top-secret long-term doppelganger scheme in which (for example) one doppelganger entered the Marines and the other doppelganger left the Marines, it isn't difficult to see how the rational majority of the general public would react, is it? And the case would never get resolved.

That's where the problem lies with the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense. It isn't much of a threat in that it hasn't an impact with JFK assassination specialists even after more than two decades of promotion. But it still has the opportunity to do harm.

Quote

you come across as an ... angry person

Angry? Moi? You're the one whose response to criticism was to try to get your critics banned, remember?

There are plenty of things in the world that are worth getting angry about. A political assassination that took place over half a century ago isn't one of them, all things considered. But the assassination is a serious historical event, and it's worth opposing preposterous theories about it that aren't even close to being credible and that are liable to impede genuine progress in getting the case resolved.

Quote

we all share the same goal:  the pursuit of the truth.

Well, I'll take your word for that. There's only one way to find the truth in a case like this, which contains a huge amount of evidence that can be interpreted in any number of plausible and implausible ways. It's to adopt a critical attitude to that evidence. That's what anyone who is genuinely concerned with finding out the truth would do.

Take each item of evidence and see if there's a plausible everyday explanation. If there is, use it. When you do that, the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense doesn't last long. That's why hardly anyone with an informed interest in the assassination takes it seriously.

* Of course, you could argue about whether Lifton's nonsense is more or less nonsensical than the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense. Magical bullets that are fired from the front and turn around to hit Connally in his back? Or magical mastoidectomy defects that transfer themselves from one doppelganger to another? Difficult choice, isn't it?

James Norwood writes:

Quote

Once again, you are taking the words that I have written out of context, distorting what I have written, selectively misrepresenting the words that I used, missing the bigger picture of the importance of Stripling, and failing to answer the questions that I have repeatedly asked you.

Let's see if I was misrepresenting the words you used. These are the words that you seem to think I have been misrepresenting:

Quote

In addition to the testimony of Robert Oswald, a total of six eyewitnesses (Frank Kudlaty, Fran Schubert, Richard Galindo, Mark Summers, Bobby Pitts, and Douglas Gann) clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School.

[http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26529-was-it-really-just-a-mole-hunt-about-oswald/?do=findComment&comment=422996]

It's a straightforward sentence, with no ambiguity. What you were saying was:

Quote

Frank Kudlaty clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School.

Fran Schubert clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School.

Richard Galindo clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School.

Mark Summers clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School.

Bobby Pitts clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School.

Douglas Gann clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School.

The one member of this group that we eventually got you to deal with was Bobby Pitts. I pointed out that Pitts appears to have recalled nothing about "Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School." Here, again, is the relevant passage from Scripture (The Gospel According to Armstrong, pp.102-3):

Quote

I located Bobby Pitts, who lived next door at 2224 Thomas Place during the 1954-55 school year. Bobbie [sic] was in the 10th grade at Arlington Heights High School but his younger brother, Jackie (2 years younger), attended Stripling. Bobbie [sic] remembered that when he and some of the neighborhood boys played touch football in his front yard, Lee Harvey [bold in the original] Oswald would stand on the porch at 2220 Thomas Place and watch.

Diligent exegesis of this passage of holy text reveals a remarkable thing. There is no mention of Oswald attending Stripling. But this cannot be! James has stated that Pitts did indeed recall Oswald attending Stripling, and that Pitts recalled it clearly. Where did James get his information from? Did he make it up? But that is a preposterous notion, for James is a 'Harvey and Lee' believer, and 'Harvey and Lee' believers never make things up!

If Bobby Pitts "recalled Oswald attending Stripling", he evidently did not do so "clearly". Almost certainly, he did not recall Oswald attending Stripling at all. If he had, we can expect him to have mentioned it, because Armstrong would certainly have asked him about it, and we can certainly expect Armstrong to have mentioned that Pitts mentioned it. The unavoidable conclusion is that Bobby Pitts did not recall Oswald attending Stripling, which is hardly surprising since Pitts did not attend the school himself, a fact he did see fit to mention.

Sadly, I think we may have to consider the possibility that James did indeed make it up. Pitts is not, as James claimed, a witness to "Oswald attending Stripling" but merely a witness to an event in which someone who may or may not have used the name Oswald watched some boys playing football from the porch of someone else's house, four decades earlier.

Having been caught out, James has backtracked significantly, and is now claiming that "Taken alone, Bobby Pitts' testimony does not seem significant.  Its importance becomes apparent when examined in conjunction with other eyewitness testimony." Pitts' revised recollection now merely corroborates one small aspect of a different four-decades-old recollection: someone named Oswald lived at a house near Stripling school. It forms a small part of a flimsy tapestry of weak evidence. In 'Harvey and Lee' world, quantity beats quality.

Let's look at what James ought to have written about his six Stripling eyewitnesses:

Quote

Frank Kudlaty did not recall Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School. He was, however, a buddy of Jack "the moon landings were faked" White, who helped to think up the 'Harvey and Lee' theory. White introduced Kudlaty to John Armstrong, who went on to mislead his readers by neglecting to tell them about a fact that contradicted a central element of the theory thought up by him and Jack "no planes hit the World Trade Center" White.

Fran Schubert clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School, albeit four decades after the event. Hallelujah! A witness we can rely on!

Richard Galindo did not recall Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School, not having been at the school at the same time as Oswald, but he did claim that it was "common knowledge" that Oswald attended the school, although the number of other people who also felt it was "common knowledge" is hovering dangerously close to zero.

Mark Summers taught Robert Oswald and recalled someone who may have been Robert's doppelganger brother attending Stripling Junior High School, but can't have done so clearly since the year he specified was not the year proclaimed in Scripture.

Bobby Pitts recalled nothing whatsoever about Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School, but he did have a four-decades-old memory of Oswald watching some boys playing football once, somewhere not too far from the school.

Douglas Gann recalled Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School, but not clearly as he only "believes it was 9th grade." Gann did, however, recall the boy playing basketball somewhere.

It isn't looking quite so good now, is it?

When Armstrong was looking for people who had attended Stripling at the same time as the imaginary doppelganger, there would have been something like a couple of hundred possible witnesses still alive. Look at how many he managed to find. Now consider the complete absence of any of the solid evidence that we might expect to exist, such as photographs, yearbooks, student directories and report cards.

We might also wonder how clear most of the identifications of Oswald actually were. Did the conversation go like this:

"I remember him clearly, Mr Armstrong!"

"You sure about that? I don't want to put anything in my book that isn't 100% certain. I have only the very highest standards. I'm not some unscrupulous huckster, you know."

"Definitely, Mr Armstrong! It was Oswald all right!"

Or like this:

"I remember a boy, and he may have looked a bit like that guy we saw on the TV after the assassination."

"That boy, his name was Oswald, wasn't it? Come on! It was Oswald! Tell me it was Oswald!"

"Well, I'm not sure, but I suppose it could have been."

"Great! Another clear recollection of Oswald at Stripling!"

"By the way, Mr Armstrong, are you planning to mention that mastoidectomy defect in your book?"

"Shut up about the mastoidectomy defect!"

Jim Hargrove writes:

Quote

Back in 1997, during his famous speech in Dallas, John [Armstrong] said ...

Famous speech, indeed!

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your doppelganger can do for you; ask what you can do for your doppelganger.

We shall invent doppelgangers on the beaches, we shall invent doppelgangers on the landing grounds, we shall invent them in the fields and in the streets, we shall invent them in the hills; we shall never admit that it's all a load of made-up nonsense.

Four score and seven years ago, a crazy guy who thought the moon landings were faked helped to bring forth on this continent a theory involving doppelgangers. The world will little note, nor long remember what this crazy guy said here, but it can never forget what the doppelgangers did here.

I have a dream that one day, down in Texas, with its vicious racists, one day right there in Stripling Junior High School, imaginary doppelgangers will be able to join hands with actual human boys and girls. I have a dream today!

I knew those famous speeches. Those famous speeches were friends of mine. Jim, that was no famous speech.

Sandy Larsen writes:

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How do you know that only one person had a clear recollection of Oswald attending Stripling? ... How many people are going to remember him decades later? ... It was a long time ago and people forget.

The 'Harvey and Lee' believers have put forward for our consideration only one person who appears to have a clear recollection of Oswald attending Stripling.

In an attempt to explain away the lack of witness evidence, Sandy has brought up the very reason why we should not place too much trust in the witnesses' testimony: they were recalling things that may or may not have happened four decades earlier. People don't just forget things over the years; people inadvertently invent things too.

As Robert points out, weak witness testimony is all there is.

James Norwood writes:

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You continue to misrepresent what I have written about Bobby Pitts

No, I haven't. I quoted exactly what you wrote about Bobby Pitts, and I demonstrated that what you wrote was untrue.

You wrote that Bobby Pitts (and five other people) "clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School." The only evidence we have about what Pitts recalled is on pages 102-103 of Armstrong's Harvey and Lee. It states that Pitts did not himself attend the school, and that his only recollection was of someone whom he identified, 40 years later, as a boy named Oswald standing on a porch watching some boys playing football in their front yard. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that Pitts "clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School."

Your original claim was that "a total of six eyewitnesses (Frank Kudlaty, Fran Schubert, Richard Galindo, Mark Summers, Bobby Pitts, and Douglas Gann) clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School." At best, only one of those people "clearly recalled" such a thing, and that was at a distance of 40 years. Two of the others didn't even recall Oswald at all, let alone clearly. It is striking that, out of perhaps 300 people who might have recalled a mysterious eastern European doppelganger who went by the name of Oswald, the majority of whom would still have been alive 40 years later, only one person had anything like a clear recollection of Oswald attending Stripling.

The witness evidence is very weak, as you seem to acknowledge by admitting that "Taken alone, Bobby Pitts' testimony does not seem significant.  Its importance becomes apparent when examined in conjunction with other eyewitness testimony." Pitts, instead of clearly recalling Oswald attending Stripling, now merely provides weak corroboration for one small aspect of someone else's story. That's progress, I suppose.

Quote

The main point that I explained in detail to Mark was the importance of examining the totality of the evidence.

Again with "the totality of the evidence"! The totality of the Stripling evidence would comprise a small amount of weak eyewitness evidence, plus all the documentation that we might expect to find if an Oswald doppelganger had indeed attended Stripling. But there isn't any of that, is there? No photographs, no yearbooks, no student directories, no report cards. No solid evidence at all. The totality of the evidence confirms that the only Oswald who attended Stripling was Robert.

Quote

We are answering all of your questions.

I don't think so! Here's one, posed by Robert Charles-Dunne:

Quote

So, Galindo led to a further 41 former Stripling teachers, all of whom a thorough John Armstrong tracked down and quizzed....

Excellent.

How many of them verified that it was “common knowledge” LHO attended Stripling?

Oh, it has been answered, and the answer turns out to be ... zero.

Here are a few questions that haven't yet been answered, for obvious reasons:

Question 1
Where's the photograph of your 5' 11" Oswald doppelganger standing in front of a height chart? When someone entered the Marines, his height was measured against a height chart, and a photograph was taken, as we see with the photograph of the 5' 9" real-life Oswald. Why isn't there an equivalent photograph from when Oswald left the Marines? It's because an exact height measurement isn't important at that point, isn't it?

Question 2
How come we have, according to 'Harvey and Lee' believers, official records of one top-secret doppelganger entering the Marines and official records of the other top-secret doppelganger leaving the Marines? Why would the authorities give away the top-secret plot by publishing the partial records of both doppelgangers?

Question 3
John Armstrong knew that the existence of a mastoidectomy defect on the body in Oswald's grave had debunked his theory two decades before he published his book. He knew about the scientific report of Oswald's exhumation, which mentioned the defect. He cited the report in his book, but he failed to mention the defect that he knew debunked his theory. He misled his readers. Why did he do this?

Question 4
This is the question Mark asked in the first place: take each of your "six eyewitnesses" in turn and show us how each of them "clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School."

Once you've answered these, I'm sure we'll find a few more that haven't yet been answered.

Denny Zartman writes:

Quote

I'm following this thread and I don't agree with Mark.

Fair enough, but you must have noticed the 'Harvey and Lee' believers' consistent failure to answer reasonable but awkward questions. Even by the standard of 'Harvey and Lee' propaganda threads, the amount of evasiveness here has been remarkable. That's the thrust of Mark's comment. Surely you can't argue with that?

What makes this particular thread notable is not just the amount of evasiveness but the fact that it is happening on a topic, Stripling, that was brought up by the believers themselves, presumably as their trump card (sorry for the use of foul language there). They chose this particular battleground, and even here they can't deal properly with criticism of their beliefs.

Quote

how does one explain J. Edgar Hoover's memo of June 3, 1960 [which mentions] "a possibility that an impostor is using Oswald’s birth certificate"

It is nothing but conjecture.

The "impostor" claim began when the one and only, historical Marguerite Oswald got in touch with the FBI after she hadn't heard from the one and only, historical Lee Harvey Oswald, who at this time was in the USSR. The context is explained in the preceding paragraph of Hoover's memo:

Quote

In that report [by an FBI agent, John Fain] you will note that subject's mother, Mrs. Marguerite C. Oswald, Fort Worth, Texas, advised that she recently received a letter addressed to her son from the Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland indicating that Lee Oswald was expected at the college on April 20, 1960. She stated subject had taken his birth certificate with him when he left home. She was apprehensive about his safety because three letters she had written him since January 22, 1960, have been returned to her undelivered.

Evidently the combination of Oswald's unconfirmed location and the absence of his birth certificate led to speculation ("a possibility") at FBI HQ. We know it was no more than speculation because Hoover produced no evidence that anyone was using Oswald's birth certificate. As is the way with 'Harvey and Lee' talking points, harmless speculation has been transformed into sinister fact. There's nothing to it.

Incidentally, Tracy Parnell has written a good account of the role of Oswald's birth certificate in the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense: http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-truth-about-oswalds-birth.html.

Even more incidentally, a friend of Jim's reminds us (https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2209p25-dear-jim#33915) that the account of Hoover's memo on the home page of Jim's website is inaccurate. It claims that "FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote a memo stating that someone was using Lee Harvey Oswald's birth certificate". Hoover wasn't "stating" it; he merely noted the "possibility". Naughty Jim! The moral of the story: if someone tries to sell you a far-fetched super-conspiracy theory involving doppelganger boys and their doppelganger mothers, don't believe a word of it without checking the sources.

Quote

how does one explain the multiple instances of Oswald possibly being impersonated in Dallas and in Mexico City just prior to the assassination

It does look as though Oswald was impersonated in Mexico City (the best online account of this is Bill Simpich's State Secret at https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/State_Secret.html). Oswald may well have been impersonated at the encounter with Silvia Odio in late September 1963 (for my view, see http://22november1963.org.uk/silvia-odio-visitors; for an alternative view, see https://gregrparker.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Sylvia-Odio.pdf). Each of these incidents can be explained without requiring a top-secret long-term doppelganger scheme.

Apart from that, there's nothing that can't be explained by the well-known phenomenon that big news events often generate large numbers of honest but mistaken sightings of the central characters. We shouldn't be surprised that people absorbed facts about the assassination and then claimed to have seen Oswald at a rifle range or getting his rifle fixed. And even if these specific instances were indeed impersonations, there's again no need to propose a long-term doppelganger scheme to explain them.

The 'Harvey and Lee' superstition relies on the assumption that there's no smoke without doppelgangers. But it's the other way round: unless they can prove otherwise, there's always smoke without doppelgangers. It doesn't matter how many items of evidence there are, if each item is weak. Quality is far more important than quantity.

It's essential to take a skeptical view of 'Harvey and Lee' claims; the onus is on the the believers to prove their case, not for anyone else to disprove it. If there's a plausible alternative explanation, the 'Harvey and Lee' explanation goes in the bin.

Quote

If the answers to either/both 1 or 2 are "yes, I do believe Oswald was being impersonated in 1960 and/or in 1963", then in my opinion that person should lay off calling the Harvey and Lee theory nonsense.

I understand the point you're making, but the 'Harvey and Lee' theory is clearly nonsensical no matter whether or not Oswald was being impersonated in 1960 (he almost certainly wasn't) or 1963 (he almost certainly was). The central element of the theory is the claim that these and other impersonations were the results of a long-term top-secret plot in which two unrelated boys were chosen at a young age in the hope that they would grow up to look identical years later. There's also the claim that each doppelganger boy had a doppelganger mother, and that one of the boys and one of the mothers disappeared into thin air immediately after the assassination. The notion is constructed out of decades-old witness recollections and tendentious interpretations of anomalies in the documentary and photographic records. And we mustn't forget the small fact that the theory was debunked two decades before its foundational text was published. It is obviously nonsense.

Quote

clearly there was something suspicious going on regarding his identity that deserves closer examination.

Closer examination, certainly, but not the invention of preposterous long-term doppelganger plots. The impersonation in Mexico City and the Odio incident have perfectly plausible explanations that don't require two unrelated boys to have been chosen at a young age in the hope that they would grow up to look identical years later, and all the other improbable things that the 'Harvey and Lee' theory requires its believers to swallow.

Mark Stevens writes:

Quote

This is one of the most impossible threads I've been a part of in my 25 years on discussion boards/forums.

I was foolishly going to chime in regarding the head size, I figured what would be the point though?

Instead of actually addressing my statements, the H&L group would just claim "what about the school records."

If one foolishly attempts to discuss the records the reply is "explain the witnesses then."

If one foolishly attempts to discuss the witnesses the reply is "what about the 13 inch head."

If one foolishly attempts to discuss that the reply is "well explain the dental records then."At no point is any real attempt at discussion made. It is just a vicious cycle of redirecting the flow of discussion.

I think everyone who has been following this thread will agree with Mark. We're dealing with people who will do anything to get out of admitting that they are wrong.

Whenever someone points out a problem, Jim Hargrove usually responds in one of three ways:

- ignore the criticism and answer a question that wasn't asked;
- ignore the criticism and repeat the very 'Harvey and Lee' talking point that's being criticised;
- ignore the criticism and try to move the discussion onto a different 'Harvey and Lee' talking point.

Then there's the thin-skinned James Norwood, who made the obviously incorrect claim that witnesses such as Bobby Pitts "clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School", and when challenged about it tried to bluff his way out by claiming that "I described Pitts' testimony very precisely and accurately". He was then challenged about that incorrect claim, and has so far failed to respond. Still, that was only a few days ago, so perhaps he'll be brave enough to answer the question eventually.

As someone said on another forum:

Quote

They will just carry on as if nothing happened. Shame on the mods there for letting this garbage theory pollute their forum.

It's been a disgraceful performance. Don't the 'Harvey and Lee' believers appreciate how their behaviour makes them look?

It doesn't make the Education Forum look good, either. If James Gordon is reading this and is thinking of closing down this thread, I'd ask him to reconsider. As long as this thread is open, the 'Harvey and Lee' believers are at least contained here and not filling the rest of the forum with their long-discredited theory.

Jim Hargrove writes:

Quote

The 9/3/59 USMC medical exam and the 10/12/59 Armed Forces Report of Transfer or Discharge both list LHO’s height as 5’11”.

Yes, we know that the 5' 11" height appears in official documents. Here is the question Jim is avoiding: what evidence do you have that Oswald was measured against a height chart? Where's the photograph of Oswald standing in front of a height chart, like the one that was taken when he entered the Marines?

You've been given a plausible reason to explain why no such photograph exists, and why the height is inaccurate. Exact heights would have been of no interest to the Marines when the subject was about to leave the service.

Where's the photograph? Let me guess ... it was destroyed! The bad guys destroyed the photograph to protect the top-secret long-term doppelganger scheme! They couldn't risk any information getting out that might give away the plot!

Which leads us back to the other point I made, which Jim has yet to answer. If his preposterous theory is true, we have the official records of one doppelganger entering the Marines and official records of the other doppelganger leaving the Marines. Why would the authorities give away the plot by publishing the partial records of both doppelgangers?

Of course, what we actually have are the records of one real-life person, the historical Lee Harvey Oswald, entering and leaving the Marines.

Jim was also asked to deal with the problems with the Stripling witnesses. This time, his tactic for avoiding the question was to demand:

Quote

Have you found a published retraction from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for the FIVE ARTICLES it printed saying LHO attended Stripling?

Why should we expect to find a published retraction?

The point is that a perfectly plausible reason has been put forward to explain those articles. Robert Oswald's incorrect assumption about his brother attending Stripling found its way into the first article, and the following articles simply repeated the claim.

Now, how about dealing with the problems with the Stripling witnesses?

- You could start by answering the questions Mark Stevens asked in this post, about the witnesses who supposedly "clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling": http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26529-was-it-really-just-a-mole-hunt-about-oswald/?do=findComment&comment=423175.

- Then you could answer the question Robert Charles-Dunne asked in this post, and produce evidence for the claim that it was "common knowledge" that an Oswald doppelganger attended Stripling: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26529-was-it-really-just-a-mole-hunt-about-oswald/?do=findComment&comment=423639.

John Butler writes:

Quote

Here's something for those fellows to decry.  It's a direct consequence of the head size difference

In response to one of Mr Butler's earlier masterful attempts at photographic analysis, another member wrote:

Quote

Are you completely mad or just pretending?

There is no head-size difference. It's just one more ridiculous piece of nonsense put forward by 'Harvey and Lee' believers:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1412-the-13-inch-head-explained-for-sandy

Jim Hargrove writes:

Quote

No wonder you NEVER, EVER make Mr. Parker's arguments here.  You just post a link with a few dismissive comments and hope no one takes the time to actually read the nonsense you have linked.

As we've pointed out in the past, what's the problem with posting links? That's what the web is all about. Jim himself seems happy to post links to one particular website, so why shouldn't others do the same?

Here's a link Jim might like to follow. It's to a thread dedicated to him personally, which he is welcome to participate in, if he feels brave enough:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2209p25-dear-jim#33894

In this case, I'll "make Mr. Parker's arguments here", as Jim demands. Greg makes four points:

(a) The official measurements were approximate. He provides a link (Oh no! A link! Bring the smelling salts!) to http://www.militaryspot.com/marines/height-and-weight-requirements-marine-corps, which explains that "height measurement will be recorded to the nearest inch. If height fraction is less than ½ inch, round down to the nearest inch. If height fraction is ½ inch or more, round up."

(b) Marines had their heights measured so that their overall fitness could be judged. That wouldn't matter for someone leaving the service. If Jim is claiming that official measurements were taken on exit as well as on entry, where's the photograph of our 5' 11" doppelganger standing against a height chart?

(c) Is Jim really claiming that the authorities decided that the best way to keep the top-secret doppelganger scheme secret was to provide records of one doppelganger entering the Marines and the other doppelganger leaving the Marines? Greg expresses this point well, but in terms that might not be acceptable here. I suggest you click on that link and read it for yourself.

(d) Stop with this latest distraction and face up to the problems with the Stripling witnesses, or rather the lack of witnesses.

James Norwood writes:

Quote

When you engage in name-calling like the expression "paranoid fantasists" for those of us writing about the two Oswalds

I'm not sure about the clinical definition of 'paranoid', but the popular definition surely covers people who take a series of anomalies in written documents, witness statements and photographs, and construct a far-fetched long-term doppelganger scheme run by all-powerful evil overlords in which two unrelated boys from different parts of the world magically grow up to look virtually identical years later, and each doppelganger boy has a virtually identical-looking (apart from their eyebrows) mother, and one of the doppelganger boys frames the other for the JFK assassination, and one of the imaginary boy doppelgangers and one of the imaginary mother doppelgangers each vanishes into thin air immediately after the assassination, and all the rest of it.

As well as all the far-fetched nonsense, we mustn't forget the standard 'Harvey and Lee' explanation for any item of evidence that contradicts doctrine. "It's a fake!" Paranoid, in its popular definition, is a pretty accurate word in the 'Harvey and Lee' context, I think.

Quote

Harvey and Lee was published in 2003. ... It is also important that the reader approach the material with a healthy skepticism and draw conclusions based on the evidence, as opposed to the words of the author.

I agree. Unfortunately, skepticism of the holy text is exactly what 'Harvey and Lee' believers are lacking. Take, for example, the mastoidectomy defect on the body in Oswald's grave, and the fact that this item of evidence contradicts a central part of Armstrong's theory. How many 'Harvey and Lee' believers have expressed skepticism about Armstrong's treatment of this evidence? I think you'll find it's only the critics who have brought it up. The believers have run away from it. Indeed, it was the desire to avoid discussing the mastoidectomy defect that turned this thread into a discussion of the Stripling evidence, as you'll see if you go back to the top of page 12 and follow things from there.

Let's see how skeptical the 'Harvey and Lee' believers really are. Armstrong knew about the scientists' report that mentioned the existence of the mastoidectomy defect. The report was published two decades before Harvey and Lee, and he cited it in his book. He must have known that the defect contradicted the doppelgangers' biographies that he had carefully constructed. He specifically claimed that the doppelganger who had undergone the operation was not the one who was buried in the grave.

Yet he didn't mention the crucial fact in his book. He misled his readers. A skeptic might say that Armstrong was being dishonest by not mentioning to his readers that a central element of his theory had been debunked two decades earlier. What do you think? Was Armstrong being dishonest? And how would you, in skeptical mode, resolve the contradiction between the mastoidectomy defect and standard 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine?

Tracy Parnell writes:

Quote

I've often said that using the H&L logic there could be a hundred Oswalds if you consider all of the discrepancies and false sightings.

As well as height discrepancies and false sightings, we mustn't forget the photographs. Jack "the moon landings were faked" White's montage contains 70-odd images. Using 'Harvey and Lee' logic, there are dozens of different Oswalds in there.

Simple variations in Oswald's pose are taken to define a new Oswald. In this picture, he's got normal shoulders; in that picture, he's got sloping shoulders. Those pictures show two different Oswalds! There's no other possible explanation!

In this other picture, he's standing some distance in front of a height chart, which gives the impression that he's got a 13-inch head! That's much bigger than most people's heads! That means one of the hundreds of Oswalds had an extra-large head! There's no other possible explanation!

And so on. The 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense is just one aspect of the paranoid, anomaly-hunting mentality that has infected this subject. Oswald was a fake; his mother was a fake; the Zapruder film is a fake; the Altgens 6 photograph is a fake; the wounds on JFK's body were fakes; the Jack Ruby who shot one of the fake Oswalds was a fake. Everything is a fake.

Put yourself in the shoes of an outsider who comes across this sort of nonsense for the first time. You'd probably conclude that everyone who's interested in the JFK assassination is a lunatic, wouldn't you?

David Josephs writes:

Quote

In terms of films... Towner, Muchmore, Nix, Zapruder, Bronson....  how about you give us the chain of custody for all these films and their copies....
Or explain how they were set to frame rates in the low 20's and high teens... as opposed to actual camera settings of 16 and 48 frames per second

Then again you STILL aint gonna learn what you dont wanna know...  so, whatever... right?

Yes, I know, all the films were faked. Everything's a fake.

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How many photographs of the assassination sequence do you think there are?

The point is: how many images from Dealey Plaza did the authorities think there were?

As well as explaining the mechanism of a self-authenticating photo record, Thompson pointed out that the authorities had no way of knowing how many photos and home movies actually existed. Contrary to popular belief, there was no mass harvesting of films and cameras. Many people left Dealey Plaza with their films and cameras intact, as I pointed out in this post. Some of these photographers remained unknown to the authorities until months or even years later.

And that's just the ones we know about. Others may still be unknown. The woman popularly known as the Babushka Lady is the most obvious example. She's standing close to JFK as he is shot, and is pointing a still or movie camera at him. What happened to her film? Is it out there somewhere, waiting to be discovered? Probably not, but who can say for certain? If you were going to fake, say, the Zapruder film, you'd want to eliminate that possibility, wouldn't you? And you'd want to eliminate the possibility of other images turning up, too, but you can't because you don't know how many there might be.

The authorities had no idea how many photos or home movies might turn up in the future to expose any alterations they might make to the images they knew about. Given that a single obvious discrepancy would blow the whole photo-fakery plot wide open, how many alterations would it be safe to make? You might get away with, say, spotting out a small blemish on the back of JFK's head in the Zapruder film to hide an exit wound (as has been suggested, though the Zavada report shows that this couldn't have happened). Mass fakery of home movies and still images? Come on!

James Norwood writes:

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I described Pitts' testimony very precisely and accurately, and you are misrepresenting what I wrote and once again casting aspersions that have no place in this forum.  Your argument will not persuade anyone, and you are in violation of the forum guidelines by stringing out the discussion until the thread devolves into chaos.  Please cease and desist and follow the agreed-upon rules of the Ed Forum.

How exactly was I "misrepresenting" what you wrote? This is what you wrote:

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In addition to the testimony of Robert Oswald, a total of six eyewitnesses (Frank Kudlaty, Fran Schubert, Richard Galindo, Mark Summers, Bobby Pitts, and Douglas Gann) clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School.

You were claiming that Bobby Pitts "clearly recalled Oswald attending Stripling Junior High School". What's the evidence for this claim? You didn't cite any evidence then, and you haven't done so since. Let's see whether Scripture can help us out. If we turn to pages 102 and 103 of the cult's holy book, we find Armstrong's account of Pitts' recollections:

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I located Bobby Pitts, who lived next door at 2224 Thomas Place during the 1954-55 school year. Bobbie [sic] was in the 10th grade at Arlington Heights High School but his younger brother, Jackie (2 years younger), attended Stripling. Bobbie [sic] remembered that when he and some of the neighborhood boys played touch football in his front yard, Lee Harvey [bold in the original] Oswald would stand on the porch at 2220 Thomas Place and watch.

Armstrong doesn't provide a footnote for this passage, and his CD doesn't include any documents relating to Bobby Pitts for the years 1954 or 1955. It looks as though the passage I quoted is all the evidence we have about Pitts' recollection of something that may or may not have happened 40 years earlier.

That passage of Scripture contains absolutely nothing about a boy named Oswald attending Stripling school. Pitts did not recall what James claims he recalled. What James wrote was untrue, and I did not misrepresent him when I stated:

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Pitts' recollection was (... how should I put it so that I don't get reported to teacher?) less than entirely accurately described by James

If anything, I was too generous to James. His "attending Stripling Junior High School" claim was a complete invention.

James "described Pitts' testimony very precisely and accurately," did he? I think our thin-skinned friend owes us a couple of apologies, firstly for making his untrue claim about Bobby Pitts, and secondly for accusing me of misrepresenting him:

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In my zealous desire to spread the gospel of Armstrong, praise his name, I made a claim about Bobby Pitts that was clearly untrue. I and my fellow believers knew that what I wrote was untrue, which is why we all repeatedly refused to answer Mark Stevens' reasonable questions about it. May Armstrong forgive me for making his theory even more of a laughing-stock that it was before.

Something along those lines should do it.

David Josephs writes:

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Nothing is “self-authenticating” Jon....  especially in the FBI’s grab bag of bs evidence...

How does the zfilm accomplish this Jon?   When we know for a fact it was heavily altered....?

In fact, use whatever image or film u like and please explain SELF AUTHENTICATING....

And then look up what evidence authentication means...

[All those ellipses were in David's post, by the way; I didn't edit anything. The English language has since got to its feet, and is expected to make a full recovery.]

The self-authentication concept was described by Josiah Thompson here:

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Bedrock_Evidence_in_the_Kennedy_Assassination.html

He is saying that the whole of the photographic record from Dealey Plaza is self-authenticating. Dozens of people were taking photographs and home movies in Dealey Plaza, and many of those images overlap. Photograph A was taken at the same time as, and included part of the same scene as, Home Movie B, which was taken at the same time as, and included part of the same scene as, Photograph C. And so on.

Because there is a mass of interacting images, altering one image is likely to generate discrepancies with other images, which would give the game away. The nefarious alteration of Image X is likely to require the alteration of Image Y, which will then require the alteration of Image Z. And so on.

Of course, no such discrepancies have yet been demonstrated (but that's another story, for another thread), which means that it is highly unlikely that any substantial alteration of the photographic evidence from Dealey Plaza took place.

Look at David's post again. Everything is a fake! It's hardly surprising that he ended up as a 'Harvey and Lee' believer, is it?