Jeremy Bojczuk

February 16, 2019

François Carlier has now provided us with the justification for his dogmatic assertion that "it has been proven" that Oswald was inside during the shooting:

Quote

I have two people (Marrion Baker and Roy Truly) who say that they saw Oswald inside the building. ... Besides, there is another person who provides me with confirmation : Lee Oswald himself. Yes, not only did he say to the press that he was "in the building at that time" and he never, ever said that he had been outside (neither to the press, not to his brother or wife !!!!!!), but Fritz's notes show that Oswald admitted to the second floor encounter ("claims 2nd floor Coke when officer came in").

Now, you may say that Fritz's notes are fake. But then, why would you trust Hosty's notes ?

You can pretend that Oswald was "prayer man" only by accusing Marrion Baker and Roy Truly of lying. That's bad. That's defamation. That's an easy cop out. That's really shameful.

The "proof" is this:

(a) - Baker and Truly said so, and it is inconceivable that they didn't tell the truth.
(b) - Oswald told a reporter that he was in the building when the president was shot.
(c) - Oswald never claimed that he had been outside.
(d) - According to Fritz's notes, Oswald admitted that the second-floor encounter was true.

I'm surprised that M. Carlier didn't mention Howard Brennan, one of the least reliable witnesses in the whole JFK case, who claimed that he saw Oswald in the sixth-floor window, then changed his mind, then changed his mind again.

(a) - Baker and Truly told the truth

Is it really inconceivable to M. Carlier that Baker and Truly might have been put under pressure to change their story by transposing an encounter on the first floor to the second floor? As I pointed out, we know that other aspects of the story changed over time: Oswald was said to have encountered Baker when drinking a Coke, when purchasing a Coke, when sitting at a table, and when in the vestibule. At least three of those four accounts must have been wrong.

There is a court case here in England at the moment to do with the Hillsborough disaster, in which 96 people were crushed and suffocated to death in a football stadium in 1989, largely due to the incompetence of the police who were on duty that day. There is a good account of it here: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/apr/26/hillsborough-disaster-deadly-mistakes-and-lies-that-lasted-decades. Its relevance to this case is that no fewer than 164 statements by police officers were found by an official investigation to have been fabricated. Almost all of these statements were fabricated not to protect the officers themselves but to protect their superiors and the institution they were part of.

Not only that, but the police repeatedly blamed the deaths on the behaviour of the victims, despite knowing that this claim was false. As in the JFK case, the false statements were repeated uncritically by the press and by politicians and others who identified with the interests of the police. Many of these people reacted to suggestions that the police may have been less than entirely honest in much the same way as M. Carlier reacted ("That's bad. That's defamation. That's an easy cop out. That's really shameful.").

As bad as the South Yorkshire police were in the 1980s, the Dallas police in the early 1960s were worse. Will Fritz famously had a 98% conviction rate, not because his officers were super-human investigators or because the criminals in Dallas were especially incompetent, but because of the institutional culture which involved, among many other things, falsifying evidence. Twisting the arms of Baker and Truly would have been utterly trivial when compared to what else the Dallas police routinely got up to. Several witnesses in the JFK case claimed to have been put under pressure to either keep quiet or change their stories, including Buell Frazier, as Vanessa Loney points out on page 21 (http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/25532-then-went-outside-to-watch-the-p-parade/?do=findComment&comment=394708). What's so special about Baker and Truly?

(b) - Oswald admitted that he was in the building

Bart Kamp dealt with that one earlier, on page 2 of this thread (http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/25532-then-went-outside-to-watch-the-p-parade/?do=findComment&comment=394161😞

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Reporter: inaudible as another reporter is asking “Did you shoot The President”

Oswald: “I work in that building”

Reporter: “Where you in the building at the time?”

Oswald: “Naturally if I work in that building, yes Sir.”

Oswald was not claiming that he was in the building when the president was shot.

(c) - Oswald "never, ever said that he had been outside"

But he did. That's what this whole thread is about! Oswald specifically stated that he went outside to watch the parade. As I pointed out, Oswald's statement is consistent with statements by Carolyn Arnold, James Jarman, Harold Norman and Billy Lovelady, not to mention the Darnell and Wiegman films. There is a solid body of evidence to support what we now know Oswald to have claimed: that he visited the second floor briefly, that he descended to the first floor, that he saw Jarman and Norman enter the building at around 12:25, and that he finally went outside to watch the parade.

(d) - Fritz's notes

Here is the relevant section of the notes in full:

Quote

claims 2nd Floor coke when
off came in
to 1st fl had lunch
out with Bill Shelley in
front

A perfectly reasonable interpretation of these notes is that Oswald is claiming that he got a Coke from the second floor, and that when the officer entered the first floor of the building Oswald was having his lunch outside, at the front of the building, and that Bill Shelley was there too. The only element which differs from Hosty's version is that, according to Fritz, Oswald may have claimed that he was still having his lunch while standing outside watching the parade. The person in the doorway who looks like Oswald may well have been having his lunch; he appears to have something in his hand, and a Coke bottle was later photographed in that location on the steps. There is no significant discrepancy between Hosty's notes and Fritz's.

Who is claiming that Fritz's notes were faked? I certainly didn't. If the notes contain inaccuracies, that might be because they were written after the event and were based on James Bookhout's notes (which no longer exist, unless they are sitting in the National Archives, waiting to be discovered), as Sean Murphy pointed out in 2013: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/20354-oswald-leaving-tsbd/?page=40.

"It has been proven that he was inside"

Does M. Carlier really think that what he has put forward amounts to "proof"? It is nothing of the sort. As any rational person can see, it has not remotely been proven that Oswald was inside during the shooting. There is some evidence which suggests that he was inside, and there is some evidence which suggests that he was outside. If someone thinks that the first set of evidence makes more sense to them than the second set, fine. But it does not amount to proof of anything.

François Carlier's "proof" is merely his subjective interpretation of an ambiguous body of evidence. The fact that he puts this subjective interpretation forward as a dogmatic assertion tells us that he is seriously lacking in critical thinking skills, and that his mental processes are no different from those of a religious fundamentalist.

February 14, 2019

On 2/12/2019 at 6:20 AM, François Carlier said:

I know what Kamp is claiming, namely that Oswald was outside when the shots were fired, which is wrong, since it has been proven that he was inside.

"It has been proven" that Oswald was inside the TSBD during the shooting? Really? I would be interested to see this proof, if M. Carlier would be so kind as to provide it.

Hosty's notes are now the earliest known account by Oswald of his movements at around the time of the shooting. They contradict later accounts, including the FBI agent James Bookhout's version of the interview in question (Warren Report, p.619), which has Oswald performing the following sequence of actions:

1 - shortly after the shooting, he bought a drink in the second-floor lunchroom;
2 - he was accosted by the policeman Marrion Baker;
3 - he took his drink down to the first-floor domino room, where he ate his lunch;
4 - he went outside and "stood around for five or ten minutes";
5 - and finally he went home.

We can be sure that Bookhout's sequence of events is incorrect, for two reasons. Firstly, the earliest and most reliable statements by two TSBD employees have Oswald eating his lunch before, not after, the shooting (Eddie Piper: Warren Commission Hearings, vol.19, p.499; Charles Givens: Commission Document 5, p.329, and http://22november1963.org.uk/meagher-the-curious-testimony-of-mr-givens). Secondly, Bookhout's version requires Oswald to have hung around the book depository for far longer than anyone has been able to demonstrate. It is certainly incompatible with the official account of Oswald's movements, which has him leaving the building only three minutes after the shooting, far too soon for Oswald to have performed all the actions Bookhout described.

Hosty's notes surely provide an accurate version of what Oswald claimed to have done:

1 - before the shooting, he visited the second-floor lunchroom, where he bought a drink;
2 - he went down to the first-floor domino room to eat his lunch;
3 - and finally he went outside to watch the parade.

Not only is Oswald's genuine alibi more coherent than the later version of it put forward by the authorities, but there is evidence to support each element of the alibi:

1 - Carolyn Arnold claimed to have seen Oswald in the second-floor lunchroom at around 12:15 (http://22november1963.org.uk/carolyn-arnold-witness-oswald; if you prefer her earlier account, of seeing him on the first floor at around 12:25, that too exonerates Oswald). Oswald's behaviour was not unusual; that day, another warehouse employee bought a drink on the second floor and then went down to the first floor (James Jarman: Hearings, vol.3, p.201).
2 - Bookhout's account includes a remark by Oswald that he had seen "two Negro employees", of whom one was called 'Junior' and the other was short, in the vicinity of the domino room while he was eating his lunch. James 'Junior' Jarman (Hearings, vol.3, pp.201-202) and the vertically challenged Harold Norman (Hearings, vol.3, pp.189-190) testified that they had entered the building at around 12:25, using the rear entrance, which would have taken them right past the domino room.
3 - There is photographic evidence of someone who looks remarkably like Oswald, standing by the front doors of the TSBD during the shooting.

It all fits: Oswald went up to the second-floor lunchroom briefly to buy a drink, he returned to the first floor and ate his lunch in the domino room, he was there until at least 12:25, and then he went outside to watch the parade.

If that is what happened, the second-floor encounter with Baker and Roy Truly almost certainly didn't. It is conceivable that Oswald went back inside immediately after the shooting, dashed up to the second-floor lunchroom, and bought a drink, all in time to meet Baker and Truly. This seems unlikely, though, because it would require Baker and Truly to have gone up to the second floor noticeably later than the official account claims, and because Oswald had already been up there to obtain a drink, probably less than half an hour earlier.

There are other reasons to doubt the reality of the second-floor encounter:

- Marrion Baker's earliest account fails to mention it, a surprising omission considering that Oswald was actually in the room with him when Baker wrote his account (Hearings, vol.3 pp.257-258), though Baker does mention an encounter on the third or fourth floor with someone who did not match Oswald's description.
- The official account of the second-floor encounter was ridiculously malleable, going through several versions as each placement of Oswald was found to be incompatible with the timing of the alleged assassin's dash downstairs. First of all, Oswald was in the lunchroom, drinking a Coke. Then he was merely purchasing the Coke. Then he was sitting at a table. Finally, he wasn't actually in the lunchroom at all but in the vestibule on his way into the lunchroom.
- Oswald apparently did mention an encounter with a policeman in a vestibule, but this was the vestibule by the main entrance to the building, not the one by the lunchroom (Harry Holmes: Hearings, vol.7, pp.302, 305-306). Oswald's account is corroborated by Billy Lovelady, reported at second-hand by James Jarman, who witnessed an encounter between Oswald and a policeman by the main entrance as Oswald was on his way out of the building (see my post above for a transcript of Jarman's recollections).

I used to assume that the second-floor encounter had actually happened, partly because I wasn't aware of any reason to question it and partly because it didn't make sense for the authorities to invent an account which pretty much rules out Oswald as the sixth-floor gunman (see Howard Roffman, Presumed Guilty, chapter 8: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/PG/PGchp8.html). But I'm finding it difficult now to avoid the conclusion that Oswald's encounter with a policeman by the front doors was transposed to the second floor as a desperate (and, as it turned out, not very successful) way of negating Oswald's alibi.

Now, where's the proof that Oswald was inside the whole time?

February 14, 2019

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Are you sure it was Jarman who said that, Vanessa? I searched through his HSCA testimony and couldn't find it.

Jarman's remarks were in an interview, unpublished as far as I can tell, given on 25 September 1977 to William Brown and Albert Maxwell. There is a transcript online at https://www.thenewdisease.space/james-jarman-hsca . This is the relevant portion:

Quote

And, after we was inside the building after that, I heard that Oswald had came [sic] down through the office and came down the front stairs and he was stopped by the officer that had stopped us and sent us back in the building and Mr. Truddy [sic] told them that that was alright, that he worked here, so then, he proceeded own [sic] out the building and we wondered why he stopped us.

...

Well, there was a billy love lady [sic] standing out there, he was on the steps, see.

...

And, Oswald was coming out the door and he [Lovelady] said the police had stopped Oswald and sent him back in the building, billy love lady [sic] said that Mr. Trudy [sic] told the policeman that Oswald was alright, that he worked there, so Oswald walked on down the stairs.

It looks as though Oswald's encounter with a policeman by the front doors took place some time after Marrion Baker's encounter on the third or fourth floor with someone who did not match Oswald's description. As Vanessa points out, the fact that Jarman was quoting Lovelady, who was certainly on the steps during the shooting, adds credence to his account.

January 7, 2019

13 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Has anyone ever done an inventory of the "bang...bang-bang" witnesses?

Yes: Andrew M. Mason, 'Witness Evidence in the JFK Assassination' at http://www.spmlaw.ca/jfk/shot_pattern_evidence.pdf (PDF: 90kb), found 47 or so witnesses who either explicitly or implicitly claimed that the final two shots were noticeably closer together than the first shot. Mason quotes their testimony, and gives sources.

One thing Mason fails to take into account is that most of these witnesses' accounts date from some time after the media had been consistently promoting the doctrine that three and only three shots had been fired. Nevertheless, it's good evidence that there was a noticeable gap between the first shot (or group of shots) and the final two shots (or groups of shots).

Mason makes two worthwhile arguments against the long-discredited single-bullet theory:

- Firstly, that the 'bang ... bang bang' pattern is incompatible with the standard version of the theory. This has the shots occurring at Zapruder frames 160, 223 and 313, with a gap of around three seconds between shots one (which missed) and two (which hit JFK and Connally), and a gap of around five seconds between shots two and three.

- Secondly, that all the relevant witness evidence is consistent with the first shot (or group of shots) occurring after the Betzner photograph which was taken at frame 186. A shot at frame 186 would occur almost exactly two seconds before frame 223 (37 frames at 18.3 seconds per frame), too soon for both shots to have been fired from the sixth-floor rifle.

Mason's own theory is a version of the FBI's original account of the assassination: three shots were fired, and all three hit either JFK or Connally. According to Mason, the first shot was fired at around frame 200, and wounded only JFK. The second shot was fired at around frame 271, and wounded only Connally. On page 22 of his article he writes that "Such a shot at frame 271 is consistent with Oswald firing all three shots and all three shots striking within the President's car", though he does admit that this is unlikely: "The time between the second and third shot (frames 271 to 313 - 42 frames) is 2.29 seconds, very close to the minimum which the FBI said was needed to fire, reload, aim and fire again." I'm not sure how many people believe Mason's theory.

PS: He doesn't mention the T3 entrance wound or the bunching of JFK's jacket. Sorry about that.

August 29, 2018

Sandy Larsen writes:

Quote

Is the Oswald Innocence Project different from the Oswald Innocence Campaign?

Absolutely. For a start, there's no such thing as the Oswald Innocence Project. The organisation to which this petition relates, the Innocence Project ( https://www.innocenceproject.org/ ) has been campaigning for the last 26 years to rectify cases of mistaken convictions, and has so far exonerated more than 200 people.

The so-called 'Oswald Innocence Campaign' ( http://www.oswald-innocent.com/ ) is something else altogether. It's an attempt to revive the long-refuted claim that the Altgens 6 photograph shows Lee Oswald, rather than Billy Lovelady, in the doorway of the book depository during the assassination. This claim, originally made by Harold Weisberg and repeated by Gerald McKnight and David Wrone, was based on the similarity of the shirt worn by the figure in the photograph to the shirt worn by Oswald after his arrest. Unfortunately for this claim, the evidence contained in two films, a home movie by John Martin and a news film by Charles Buck of WFAA-TV, proves that the shirt was identical to that worn by Lovelady. For a detailed account, see http://22november1963.org.uk/oswald-on-tsbd-front-steps .

Hardly anyone these days would use the shirt-similarity argument to claim that the figure in Altgens 6 is Oswald. Indeed, the 'Oswald Innocence Campaign' relies on a completely different argument, namely that the Altgens 6 photograph has been manipulated. If you need a laugh, check out http://www.oswald-innocent.com/anomalies.html :

Quote

We assert that his face was blackened out deliberately to hide his identity ... Obfuscated Man is the man whose face is obliterated with that amorphous, unintelligible, cloud-like blotch of white ... they did it using a product called Kodak Opaque ... 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. ... It is obviously distortion, and that distortion came from the conspirators placing Black Tie Man in there ... they moved the image of Black Tie Man where it is to hide the unique form of Oswald’s shirt on his left side, ... 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 ... 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 ... 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 ... We realize that is a lot of manipulating for one photograph. They must have had a crack team of experts waiting in the wings.

There's plenty more like that. It's utterly, utterly bonkers.

There are a couple of worrying aspects to the so-called 'Oswald Innocence Campaign'. Firstly, it claims on its website's home page to have the support of a number of respected JFK researchers and others, such as McKnight, Wrone, Michael Parenti and the late Mark Lane. I'd be very surprised if any of these people have taken seriously (or have even been aware of) the ludicrous photo-alteration argument that the 'Oswald Innocence Campaign' uses. Admittedly, there are a number of other supporters who probably would be inclined to believe that the Altgens 6 photograph was a fake. The late Jack White, for example, believed that all sorts of things, up to and including the moon landings, had been faked. Another of the Campaign's 'senior members' (it doesn't appear to have any members apart from 'senior members') is described as believing "that the man who shot Oswald was not Jack Ruby, but rather, a Ruby impostor. Of course, the real Jack Ruby was slipped into the scene in due course."

The second problem is the effect that this sort of paranoid drivel might have on the public perception of the JFK assassination debate. If enough people can be persuaded that the only objection to the lone gunman theory is the easily disproved nonsense that the Altgens 6 photograph is a fake, the subject will never be taken seriously. The particular danger here is that people will associate the claim that Oswald was in the doorway with the 'Altgens 6 is a fake' craziness rather than the far stronger evidence in the Wiegman and Darnell films. I just hope that the 'Oswald Innocence Campaign' is genuinely as crazy as it appears to be, and that it isn't a deliberate attempt to muddy the waters.

May 19, 2018

Eddy Bainbridge writes: "Would you be willing to provide a guide to the work of Chris (math rules) Davidson. I have asked him to explain his thread .... He doesn't however seem to have a desire to appeal to the masses."

For the benefit of Eddy and everyone else who is confused by that neverending parade of cryptic equations, there is a clear explanation here:

http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1744-skunk-smells-math-sucks

May 8, 2018

Mervyn - You write that "I have been assured that the 'London Airport' triangular stamp refers specifically to Heathrow Airport." What is the evidence for that? I'm not doubting you, by the way. I think it's likely that the stamp was unique to Heathrow and not shared by Gatwick. If we can definitively rule out Gatwick as Oswald's point of departure for Helsinki, we will finally have acquired one solid fact about his time in England.

There doesn't seem to be a single piece of evidence about what Oswald did between passing through immigration at Southampton on 9 October 1959 and arriving in Helsinki the following day. We don't know how he travelled to Heathrow, if that's where he went. We don't know where he spent the night: in Southampton or in London? Unless he took an early flight the next day, my guess would be Southampton, since he probably got ashore at around 8 or 9 in the evening and then had to spend some time dealing with customs and immigration, and because the train journey to London takes close to three hours these days and presumably wouldn't have been any quicker in 1959. We don't know which flight or flights he took to Helsinki, or where or when he bought his ticket, although it's a reasonable assumption that he bought the ticket at whichever airport he flew from. So if we can establish that Oswald definitely flew from Heathrow, that would at least give us something.

On the subject of Oswald's ticket to Helsinki, the Warren Report claims in its summary of Oswald's finances that the ticket cost precisely $111.90:

Quote

Oswald could certainly have made the entire trip on less than $1,000. The ticket on the ship he took from New Orleans to Le Havre, France, cost $220.75; it cost him about $20 to reach London from Le Havre: his plane fare from London to Helsinki, where he received his visa, cost him $111.90; he probably purchased Russian "tourist Vouchers" normally good for room and board for 10 days for $300; his train fare from Helsinki to Moscow was about $44; in Moscow he paid only $1.50 to $3 a night for his room and very little for his meals after his tourist vouchers ran out.
(WR, p.257: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=946#relPageId=281 )

The Report cites evidence for most of its claims about Oswald's finances, but not for the claim that the ticket to Helsinki cost $111.90. Does anyone know where this information came from? Incidentally, it's noteworthy that in its desire to demonstrate the affordability of the trip, the Report fails to mention that the perennially budget-conscious Oswald's stay in Helsinki involved five nights at two top-of-the-range hotels, and that Oswald purchased the most expensive class of ticket available for his train journey from Helsinki (Anthony Summers, Not in Your Lifetime, p.136, citing an interview with Rimma Shirokova).

Incidentally, Summers speculates on p.136 that the purpose of a detour to Stockholm might have been for Oswald to visit the Soviet Embassy there and to convince the Soviets that he was sympathetic to their cause. The Soviet Consul in Helsinki, Grigori Golub, was authorised by Moscow to give visas "in a matter of minutes" if he thought the applicant was "all right" (HSCA Report, p.212: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=800#relPageId=242 ).

Earlier, I mentioned Chris Mills' article, 'A Flight of Fancy' as it appears at http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/fancy2.txt . The article originally appeared in the Dealey Plaza Echo, July 1996, pp.25-6 ( https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=16233#relPageId=29 ). The two versions contain different conclusions. The McAdams website version concludes as follows:

Quote

In conclusion it would seem that it is more likely than not that Oswald took a commercial flight from London to Helsinki. The real questions to be answered seem to be:
(a) Why take this route at all?
(b) How was this trip financed?
Theories surrounding these questions abound but as yet no hard proof has emerged to answer them.

The Dealey Plaza Echo version, on the other hand, concludes as follows:

Quote

In 1964, the CIA was asked by the Warren Commission to investigate the route taken by Oswald at the time of his defection. They returned with the answer that it was possible that Oswald had taken a connecting flight and that they planned to investigate further. To the best of my knowledge, they did not. This begs [sic] the question: If, with limited resources and a thirty-year time lapse, *I* could find the above information, why could the CIA not? The logical answer is that they did! Not only *must* they have known that the above mentioned routes were possible, unlike me, they also had access to the passenger lists of those flights. It is my belief that Oswald was on one of them and the CIA knew it!

Why then would the CIA deliberately withhold information from those requesting it? Is it possible that any flight list naming Lee Oswald as a passenger could also hald the name(s) of other individuals who could prove an embarrassment to the Agency? (Note LHO trip to Mexico City - CIA agent Gaudet holds the next issued entry visa). Maybe leaving the question unanswered, and having researchers argue over the feasibility of Oswald's supposed route was preferable, and less damaging, than to offer up the passenger list for scrutiny.

May 5, 2018

Mervyn,

Yes, the Warren Report's claim that "on the same day, he flew to Helsinki" is incorrect. The stamps in Oswald's passport show that he arrived in the UK on the 9th and left on the 10th. Compared to what else the Warren Report gets wrong, it's a trivial mistake, and I don't think we should read too much into it.

As Jason points out, Oswald sailed on two ships to reach England: the Marion Lykes from New Orleans to Le Havre, and the Liberté from Le Havre to Southampton.

Jason,

Thanks for uploading the images. They should make things easier for people to follow.

I agree with you that Oswald was unusually determined in making his way alone to Helsinki, particularly if it involved travelling across London to reach Heathrow, which can be a real pain these days and presumably wouldn't have been any less awkward in 1959.

You write that "My hunch is Oswald imagines himself a 007 James Bond-type figure even though his actual intelligence connections are slight at best." The significance of Oswald's route to reach the Soviet Union lies not in his use of England as a stop on the way but in his choice of Helsinki as his entry point. Helsinki was the only place where a Soviet tourist visa could be acquired quickly, a fact known to US intelligence agencies but (as far as I'm aware) not to the general public. Unless he chose Helsinki impulsively, which seems incompatible with what we know of his normal behaviour, this is pretty convincing evidence that a real connection existed between Oswald and US intelligence and that his defection was part of an intelligence operation.

The question of whether Oswald flew from Heathrow or Gatwick is just a curiosity with no obvious bearing on the JFK assassination. If the triangular "London Airport" stamp was unique to Heathrow, he definitely flew from there; if the stamp was also used at Gatwick, he may have flown from there. I imagined that some sort of online passport-stamp enthusiasts might exist who could resolve the question, but I haven't been able to track any down, sadly.

May 4, 2018

The Warren Report deals with Oswald's trip in Appendix XIII. It states only that "Oswald disembarked at Le Havre on October 8. He left for England that same day, and arrived on October 9. He told English customs officials in Southampton that he had $700 and planned to remain in the United Kingdom for 1 week before proceeding to a school in Switzerland. But on the same day, he flew to Helsinki, Finland." (p.690: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=946#relPageId=714 ). The evidence for this is in note 478 (WR, p.862: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=946#relPageId=886 ), which cites:

- Commission Exhibit 2711, p.39 (Hearings and Exhibits, vol.26, p.85: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1142#relPageId=121 ), an FBI memo giving the dates of Oswald's transatlantic journey. The ship, the SS Marion Lykes, arrived in La Rochelle on 5 October, left the following day, and arrived in Le Havre on 8 October. Three passengers disembarded at 12:06pm.
- CE 946, p.7 (H&E, vol.18, p.162: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1135#relPageId=176 ), a photograph of a page of Oswald's passport containing five immigration stamps: entering and leaving France at Le Havre on 8 October, entering the UK at Southampton on 9 October, leaving "London Airport" on 10 October, and entering Finland at Helsinki on 10 October.
- CE 2676, p.1 (H&E, vol.26, p.32: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1142#relPageId=68 ), a memo from Helms to Rankin noting that "according to a reliable source" Oswald's first night in Helsinki was 10 October.

As far as I'm aware, the only detailed discussion of Oswald's time in England is Chris Mills' article, 'A Flight of Fancy' ( http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/fancy2.txt ). Mills points out that the ship which took Oswald from Le Havre to Southampton, a large liner named the Liberté, is unlikely to have docked at Southampton merely to offload a few passengers. Instead, the passengers would have been picked up by tugs in the harbour. Depending on which tug Oswald used, he would have arrived in Southampton at either 7:50pm or 8:40pm. Mills also implies, however, that Southampton was the Liberté's final destination on its journey from New York via Le Havre. In this case, the ship would presumably have needed to dock at Southampton. Either way, we can assume that Oswald arrived in England at some point during the evening of 9 October.

Mills and every other writer I'm aware of assumes that Oswald flew to Helsinki from Heathrow Airport, London's main airport in 1959. But I wonder if Oswald flew instead from Gatwick Airport. The only practical way for Oswald to travel from Southampton to "London Airport" was by train. The train line from Southampton, on the south coast of England, to London doesn't (and didn't) go near Heathrow, which is a few miles west of central London, but it does (and did) go through Gatwick, which is roughly 30 miles south of London (and, incidentally, just down the road from where I'm typing this).

There has been a railway station at Gatwick since the 1890s, when the site was occupied by a racecourse. Gatwick Airport itself dates from the mid-1930s. It underwent serious renovation 20 years later, and in its current form was officially opened on 9 June 1958, just over a year before Oswald's arrival.

According to a couple of local history websites, the first airline to use Gatwick Airport was Transair:

- http://www.gatwickaviationsociety.org.uk/history.asp
- http://www.british-caledonian.com/Gatwick_Airport_-_The_History_P3.html (which includes an aerial photograph of the airport with its railway station in 1958)

A Transair press release from 1958 includes this information: "Tranair's services include trooping services to Malta and Gibraltar, newspaper and mail services covering the whole of Europe, and Inclusive Tour Services to many of the popular Mediterranean destinations" (quoted in http://www.british-caledonian.com/1958_Transair_at_Gatwick.html ).

I doubt that any Transair flight schedules from 1959 survive. But the airline was in operation at the time of Oswald's brief visit to England, and it did fly all over Europe from Gatwick Airport, and Oswald almost certainly took a train that went through Gatwick. I'm not sure we should rule out the possibility that he flew to Helsinki from Gatwick after spending the night in Southampton, rather than from Heathrow after spending the night somewhere in central London.

March 23, 2018

Gene Kelly writes:

Quote

I've always found it difficult (and strange) that no pictures of Zapruder standing/filming on that famous pedestal exist. ... unlike others who told of having their cameras seized in the aftermath, he escapes with a movie camera no less.

There are in fact several photographs and films which show Abraham Zapruder and Marilyn Sitzman standing on the pedestal. A quick flip through Richard Trask's Pictures of the Pain, an essential resource for anyone interested in the photographic aspects of the assassination, reveals the following:

- Betzner no.3 (p.161)
- Willis no.5 (p.171)
- Nix film (p.185)
- Moorman no.5 (pp.235, 247, 257)
- Bronson no.3 (pp.285, 304, and rear cover)

There may well be others. In addition, the Bell film (p.268) and Altgens no.8 (p.317) show Zapruder and Sitzman immediately after they climbed down from the pedestal. Several other films and photographs taken just after the shooting also show a couple of figures (perhaps Zapruder and Sitzman, perhaps the Hesters) in front of the pergola. Difficult though it might be to believe, Abraham Zapruder really did film the assassination from a pedestal in Dealey Plaza.

How many photographers "told of having their cameras seized in the aftermath"? Well, there was Mary Moorman, who was accosted shortly after the shooting by a Dallas Times Herald reporter who wanted her photograph for his paper. There's also the dubious claim by Beverley Oliver that her home movie film, though not the camera itself, was seized two days after the assassination. But the vast majority of the photographers didn't have their cameras seized:

- Oscar Bothun didn't: "Shortly after the shooting Mr Bothun apparently went back to work. He seems not to have been stopped or questioned as a witness at the scene" (Trask, p.157).
- Hugh Betzner didn't; he went out of his way to make himself and his photographs known to the police.
- Phil Willis didn't: "Remaining around the area for about an hour after witnessing the shooting, none of the family was questioned by law enforcement personnel" (Trask, p.179). Willis made his own way to the Kodak plant to get his film processed, and didn't have his camera seized there either.
- Orville Nix didn't; like Zapruder, he walked out of Dealey Plaza with his home movie camera. He returned later to take some more footage, and again left the scene without having his camera seized.
- Marie Muchmore didn't; she retained her camera and film until she sold the film to UPI three days after the assassination.
- Wilma Bond didn't; she wasn't even contacted by the authorities until February 1964.
- Jim and Tina Towner didn't; they stayed in Dealey Plaza for a while, then went home with their cameras.
- Robert Croft didn't; he left Dealey Plaza and went home to Denver with his camera.
- Mark Bell didn't; he walked across Dealey Plaza with his home movie camera and went back to work. There is no evidence that the authorities even knew of the existence of Bell's film until several years after the assassination.
- Robert Hughes didn't; he too left Dealey Plaza without having his home movie camera seized. The first thing the authorities knew about Hughes's film was when he voluntarily handed his film to the FBI two days after the assassination.
- Charles Bronson didn't; he left Dealey Plaza with his still and home movie cameras, and returned the next day to take more footage and still photographs, and again left without having his cameras seized.
- James Altgens didn't; he waited for a short while in Dealey Plaza and then walked a few blocks to the local newspaper office to get his film developed.

And so on. Those are just the better-known photographers in Dealey Plaza. In short, there's nothing noteworthy about the authorities' attitude to those who had taken films or photographs of the assassination, and there's nothing noteworthy about the fact that Zapruder left the scene of the crime without having had his camera seized.

March 16, 2018

Michael Clark seems to be obsessed about Michael Walton, for some weird personal reason. Was he bullied at school by someone called Michael Walton? Did someone called Michael Walton pip him to first prize in the local fruit and vegetable growers' largest-pumpkin competition? I think we should be told.

Mr Clark writes:

Quote

All you really talk about, all you focus on, is the opinions and works of forum members who have found a place on your hit list.

But it is the other way around: it's Mr Clark, not Mr Walton, who does little other than write about forum members (or at least one forum member), while Mr Walton does little other than deal with the JFK assassination, the topic we are all meant to be discussing. Perhaps, instead of making yet another personal attack, Mr Clark could offer an opinion about the question Mr Walton raised:

Quote

So tell me - from the time the hearse left Parkland - in broad daylight and around the general public - until the coffin was hauled up the steps into 26000 how did the Mad Doctors open up the coffin, take the body out, put it into a body bag and hide it - somewhere(!) - and not a single person in that caravan has ever come forward to say "Yes, I saw it happen" 54 years on?

Exactly how, where, when and by whom was JFK's body switched, Mr Clark? And, more to the point, how much direct evidence (i.e. documentary evidence and witness testimony) exists to support the speculative notion that the body was switched? There isn't any, is there? There are no films or photographs that can be interpreted as showing the body being switched. As Mr Walton pointed out, not a single person claimed to have seen the body being switched. Don't you find the absence of direct evidence for the most fundamental part of Lifton's theory to be even a little worrying?

Here's another question for Mr Clark: why, in your opinion, would anyone even need to alter the wounds on JFK's body? The only reason I can think of, and the only reason Lifton could think of, is that the wounds were manipulated to disguise the fact that all the shots were fired from in front of JFK. Here's what Lifton had to say on the matter (Best Evidence, Signet edition, p.400):

Quote

to be able to shoot the President, retrieve the bullets, and insure that afterward it appeared the shots came from behind, the real bullets had to be fired from the front.

Unless all the shots had come from the front, there was no need for any sort of elaborate body-switching and surrogate surgery. Unfortunately for Lifton's speculative theory, we know for a fact that not all the shots came from the front. The shot which wounded Governor Connally hit him in the back and came out of his chest. That shot must have been fired from behind, not from the front, mustn't it? Perhaps Mr Clark could point out where in Best Evidence David Lifton discusses this rather severe problem for his theory. He doesn't mention it, does he? Isn't that, too, a little worrying?

For a concise but potent critique of Lifton's body-alteration fantasy, go to your bookshelves, take down your copy of David Wrone's The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003), and turn to pages 134-138. Prof. Wrone concludes by making the obvious point that the only people to benefit from this sort of outlandish everything-is-a-fake nonsense are those who want to portray every critic of the lone-nut hypothesis as a tin-foil-hat-wearing lunatic.

December 23, 2017

Jim writes:

Quote

I hear from many well-known JFK researchers who accept Harvey and Lee as gospel. You will recognize their names, but they don’t want to get involved in the anti-H&L vitriol so many engage in, and so I won’t mention their names here.

The only way the 'Harvey and Lee' fantasy can be accepted is as gospel. You need to suspend all of your critical faculties and believe in the word of the prophet. Do you believe? I said, do you believe? Yes, Lord! I believe! I believe there were two Oswalds! I believe that one of them was a Hungarian refugee who spoke Russian! I believe that each Oswald had a mother named Marguerite! I believe that each Oswald and each Marguerite sort of looked alike sometimes but didn't look alike at other times!

I'd be surprised if there are any "well-known JFK researchers" who take the fantasy seriously, unless we are talking about people like the late Jack White, who not only believed in and promoted the 'Harvey and Lee' fantasy but also believed that the moon landings were faked. That's the type of person who is attracted to the 'Harvey and Lee' fantasy: people who will look for anomalies in the evidence and then jump to the most far-fetched explanation for those anomalies.

Michael and Tracy are correct: Jim or Sandy or any of these mysterious "well-known JFK researchers" should make an effort to persuade a respectable journalist of the merits of the fantasy. After all, there are still a few such journalists around. But we know what will happen:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1582-harvey-and-lee-cult-the-interview

November 5, 2017

Jim writes:

<blockquote>Only "cult" members would believe the FBI faked evidence about the Kennedy assassination? Really, Mr. Bojczuk?</blockquote>

No, and as I'm sure Jim is aware, that wasn't what I was claiming. The point I made was that it is irrational to bring up the 'it was faked' explanation whenever you're confronted by evidence which contradicts the 'Harvey and Lee and Marguerite and Marguerite' theory. It makes the theory unfalsifiable: it simply isn't possible to disprove the theory, because there is no longer any conceiveable type of evidence which could disprove it. If a piece of evidence is consistent with the theory, it is valid. If a piece of evidence is inconsistent with the theory, it is fake. Like a con artist working a three-card trick, you can't lose.

Of course, if there is an independent piece of evidence to support a particular instance of fakery, that's a different story. A memo from J. Edgar Hoover which mentions the need to surgically alter the body in Oswald's grave might make the mastoidectomy evidence go away. A comment by a CIA official about the need to mess about with Oswald's passport application form (although why on earth they'd want to do that, who knows) might help with the problem of one fictional character's photograph appearing on a form filled out by the other fictional character. A whistleblower who claimed to be involved in either piece of fakery would help too. But nothing along those lines exists, does it? Independent evidence survives which points to other instances of fakery, as Jim himself has pointed out, so please don't claim that every piece of incriminating evidence must have been destroyed.

Sandy writes:

<blockquote>What's the "common sense" answer that explains the school records showing Oswald attending both Public School 44 in the Bronx, and at the same time Beauregard Junior High School in New Orleans, during fall semester 1958? The school records do show that. What's your explanation?</blockquote>

The notion that two Oswald clones attended two schools at the same time is not something that exists in the data, the school records. It is merely your far-fetched explanation of the data. There is another, common-sense explanation for that data, which you have been shown numerous times.

Here is a list of alternative, common-sense explanations for all the main 'Harvey and Lee' talking points:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1588-harvey-lee-links-to-alternative-explanations

Now, is there even one piece of the 'Harvey and Lee' evidence that doesn't have a common-sense explanation?

November 4, 2017

In his latest post, Jim admits that a photograph which the cult attributes to the fictional character, 'Lee', is attached to a passport application form which the cult attributes to the other fictional character, 'Harvey'. On the face of it, that contradiction invalidates the whole theory. As with the mastoidectomy defect on the body in Oswald's grave, we have something that ought to be unique to one fictional character (the photograph of 'Lee') incongruously appearing with something that ought to be unique to the other fictional character (the passport form of 'Harvey').

Fortunately, Jim provides a solution: "many of the official photos have been messed with." That's handy! If a piece of evidence contradicts your case, simply claim that the evidence has been faked. It's utterly irrational, but that's what cults are like. As with the mastoidectomy defect on the body in Oswald's grave, it's best to be as vague as possible about the actual procedure by which the evidence has been faked, and hope that no-one looks too closely.

The common-sense explanaton, of course, is that the photograph was that of the same person who filled out the passport application form. I was wondering what thinking processes led the cult to attribute that particular photograph to that particular fictional character. How does the cult identify 'Lee' in photographs, and how does it identify 'Harvey'? I think I've worked it out. It's all about belief.

Jim recently brought up the late Jack 'the moon landings were faked' White's infamous montage of photographs of the one and only historical Lee Harvey Oswald. According to Jim and Jack, there are actually two Oswalds depicted in that montage.

I'm not so sure. Let's have a closer look at the montage and see how many 'Oswalds' we can find. I won't be doing anything like taking accurate measurements, of course, because that's too rational. I'll be applying some good old 'Harvey and Lee' logic instead. If I want to see differences between the photographs, and if I do in fact see differences, then those differences must be real, and the photographs must be of different people.

If you don't have a copy of Jack White's montage, you can find it here: http://cdm17178.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/po-jfkwhite/id/3204/rv/compoundobject/cpd/3221/rec/1 .

Let's start with the example Jim gave. Photograph 23 shows Oswald with a thick neck. Photograph 24 shows him with a thin neck. That's two Oswalds. OK, so in one picture he's facing forward and in the other he's facing sideways, but that doesn't matter. I've proved, positively and beyond any doubt at all, that there were at least two people who called themselves Lee Harvey Oswald!

Now compare photograph 23 with photograph 20, the one in which Oswald's head is absolutely, definitely 13 inches tall. In photograph 23, he has a thick neck and a wide face. In photograph 20, he has a thick neck but a narrow face. That proves that there were three Oswalds: thin-neck Oswald, thick-neck Oswald, and narrow-face Oswald.

Now compare photograph 23 with photograph 38. He has a thick neck in both pictures, but his face is even wider in photograph 38 than it is in photograph 23. That proves that there were four Oswalds: thin-neck Oswald, thick-neck Oswald, narrow-face Oswald and fat-face Oswald.

There are lots of photographs in Jack 'the moon landings were faked' White's montage, and I'm sure that the careful viewer could apply 'Harvey and Lee' logic to identify many more than four Oswalds. If you desperately want to see differences, and if you aren't very particular about sciencey nonsense like taking measurements and compensating for different camera angles, different poses and different lighting conditions, and if you aren't bothered by working with very poor-quality photographs, you could probably identify a dozen or more Oswalds. I have no doubt that most of these Oswalds were Hungarian refugees who mysteriously left no trace in US immigration records and that they were all involved in a really exciting plot! Oh, and each of them had a mother named Marguerite who was also involved in the plot!

That's how the irrational 'Harvey and Lee' cult mentality works. You identify a possible anomaly in a photograph or written document or witness statement, you ignore all the obvious common-sense explanations, and you come up with an explanation that hints at a sinister, all-encompassing plot. It's no surprise that this idiotic theory was partly dreamed up by some guy who thought that the moon landings were faked.

As we have seen in this thread and elsewhere, there are common-sense explanations for all the main 'Harvey and Lee' talking points: the school records, the Bolton Ford incident, the Taiwan/Japan thing, Marguerite's house-buying, the photographs which show four or more Oswalds if you want to see them, and so on. Anyone is entitled to prefer a particular far-fetched explanation over the equivalent common-sense explanation, but until the cult members put forward something that genuinely doesn't have a common-sense explanation, everyone else is correct in treating the 'Harvey and Lee and Marguerite and Marguerite' theory as far-fetched paranoid speculation.

Is there even one piece of the 'Harvey and Lee' evidence that doesn't have a common-sense explanation?

October 29, 2017

As I pointed out several pages ago, anyone who still believes that the mastoidectomy evidence is in any way faked really needs to provide some sort of cogent argument to support that proposition. So far, we've been given a variety of implausible scenarios, all of which rely on nothing more than assertion.

It's telling that, as Bernie has pointed out, even the cult members themselves can't agree on which implausible scenario to support. These seem to be the current possibilities:

1 - A genuine mastoidectomy operation was performed in an unknown hospital somewhere in Eastern Europe on an unknown Russian-speaking Hungarian boy, or possibly an unknown Russian World War Two orphan, at some point before one or the other boy moved to the United States without leaving any trace in US immigration records.

2 - An unnecessary mastoidectomy operation was performed on the unidentified Hungarian or Russian boy by an unknown surgeon in 1952 or 1953 in a hospital in New York that wasn't built until 1955, without leaving any trace in the medical records.

3 - The body in Oswald's grave was surgically altered to show, falsely, that it had undergone a mastoidectomy. This surgical procedure was carried out by an unknown surgeon at some undetermined point between the body's burial in 1963, in front of a crowd of onlookers, and its exhumation in 1981, also in front of a crowd of onlookers.

4 - The body in the grave did not actually have a mastoidectomy defect until it was surgically altered shortly after its exhumation, while it was in the custody of several reputable scientists, who must have been complicit in the forgery and who knowingly published a false article in a reputable scientific journal.

5 - The body in the grave has never had a mastoidectomy defect. The photograph of the defect was faked by persons unknown. The scientists who examined the body were coerced into knowingly writing a false article, and perhaps the editors of the scientific journal were coerced into publishing the article.

6 - The body was beamed up to an alien spaceship and replaced by that of a clone, complete with a mastoidectomy defect. Fortunately, no-one noticed the spaceship and it was able to get back safely to its home solar system.

Are there any other implausible scenarios that I've missed? More importantly, is there any documentary evidence to support any of these scenarios? So far, there doesn't seem to be any evidence, just the fact that one of them must be true because, if not, the 'Harvey and Lee and Marguerite and Marguerite' theory is dead.

It's time for the few remaining cult members to get their heads together and agree on which of these scenarios they think is the least implausible. Jim? Sandy? Anyone else? Which implausible scenario are you going to go for?

Once there's agreement on the chosen scenario, the next stage is for the cult members to provide some sort of documentary evidence to support their chosen scenario, or at least to start looking for some evidence. There must be something, ideally medical records or a photograph of the spaceship.

As for Bernie's suggestion of a structured debate between Jim Hargrove and Greg Parker, it's a good idea but can anyone really see Jim being brave enough to agree to that?

October 27, 2017

8 hours ago, Kathleen Collins said:

The first man is Harvey. Someone touched up the photograph. The second is a young Donald Trump. The third might be "Ralph Geb," someone told me years ago. And, of course, Harvey himself, Judyth Baker's lover.

Brilliant, Kathleen! Satire is exactly what the ridiculous 'Harvey and Lee and Marguerite and Marguerite' theory deserves.

Bernie made a good point when he wrote that "more people believe the Queen of England is a lizard than believe in H&L." I wouldn't be surprised if some of the members of this minuscule cult believe that the queen actually is a lizard. After all, one of the founders of the theory, the late Jack White, believed that the moon landings were faked. People whose view of the world is essentially paranoid will gravitate towards anything that matches that view.

One of the problems caused by the failure of the authorities to perform a sincere investigation is that the JFK assassination is open to any sort of paranoid, speculative and evidence-free interpretation. The existence of idiotic nonsense such as the 'Harvey and Lee and Marguerite and Marguerite' theory allows the authorities to portray serious critics of the lone-gunman line as crazy, paranoid fantasists. It would be nice if the people Kathleen and Bernie are making fun of would leave the JFK assassination alone and turn their attention to making equally stupid but much less harmful claims, for example that the earth is flat or that the moon landings were faked.

October 26, 2017

Of course the photographs are of the same person, Michael! What's telling is the methodology that the crazies use to determine which photographs are of which fictional character: well, this picture kinda sorta looks a bit different to that other one, and that's all the evidence I need. It's interesting that, as far as I'm aware, no cult member has yet compiled a definitive list of which photographs are of 'Harvey' and which are of 'Lee'.

Back on page 114, I pointed out an example of a photograph of the real, historical Lee Harvey Oswald that a distinguished late member of the cult had attributed to the fictional character, 'Lee'. The photograph shows Oswald smiling, with a full set of front teeth. Unfortunately, 'Harvey and Lee and Marguerite and Marguerite' doctrine requires 'Lee' to have had one of his front teeth knocked out.

What explanation would allow the cult members to cling onto their belief in the face of this evidence? Perhaps the fictional character, 'Lee', had been fitted with a false tooth. But there's nothing in the medical records to indicate this. 'Lee' is supposed to have enlisted in the marines at some point, and would have been given a medical examination, which would have generated two medical reports. We know this because the real, historical Lee Harvey Oswald's enlistment generated two medical reports. So what do 'Lee's' medical reports claim about the state of his teeth? We'd expect the reports to mention a false tooth, if 'Lee' actually had a false tooth. We'd expect the reports to mention a missing tooth, if 'Lee' was actually missing one front tooth.

As it happens, there are no medical records for 'Lee's' enlistment in the marines. That's because the real, historical Lee Harvey Oswald had, of course, only one set of medical records, and the cult's holy book allocated this set of medical records to the fictional character, 'Harvey'. There was nothing left for the other fictional character, 'Lee'. The sole set of medical records do not appear to mention either a missing tooth or a false tooth.

According to doctrine, 'Harvey' had a full set of front teeth and had not undergone a mastoidectomy. According to doctrine, 'Lee' had had a tooth knocked out and had undergone a mastoidectomy. According to doctrine, 'Harvey' was buried in the real, historical Lee Harvey Oswald's grave. According to solid scientific evidence, and unfortunately for the cult's doctrine, the body in the grave had a full set of front teeth and a mastoidectomy defect.

I realise that almost no-one with a real interest in the JFK assassination takes the 'Harvey and Lee and Marguerite and Marguerite' theory seriously. Perhaps we're wasting our time pointing out the theory's many contradictions and weaknesses, since we aren't likely to persuade the cult members and there's almost no-one left who can't already see for themselves that the theory is a steaming pile of speculation and paranoia.

Perhaps we aren't wasting our time, though. The assassination is in the news today, with the release of the final batch of documents. You all know the standard line in news reports: anyone who doubts the lone-gunman theory is a crazy, paranoid 'conspiracy theorist'. Of couse, a rational case can be made against the lone-gunman theory, but it's the likes of the irrational 'Harvey and Lee and Marguerite and Marguerite' theory that allows the media to keep pushing that particular message.

October 24, 2017

As an aside to Bernie's comment near the bottom of page 113, Lobster magazine is actually still going. It has published a fair amount on the JFK assassination over the years, mostly in the form of book reviews. See https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/JFK.html . Issue 47 included a review of the 'Harvey and Lee' book, reproduced here: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/19762-harvey-and-lee-john-armstrong/ . The latest issue includes three JFK-related articles, all currently available as PDF downloads: https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/issue74.php .

Years ago, I read a short book by Robin Ramsay on the JFK assassination (latest edition: http://www.pocketessentials.co.uk/who-shot-jfk ). As far as I recall, he pushed the 'LBJ did it' line and gave serious consideration to the improbable (to put it mildly) claims of Lol Factor and Mac Wallace. The last but one issue of the magazine included a review of Joan Mellen's Faustian Bargains in which Ramsay questioned Mellen's dismissal of the Mac Wallace evidence. Chauncey Holt too gets a lot more credence from Ramsay than most researchers would give.

October 22, 2017

Jim writes:

<blockquote>Perhaps Mr. Bojczuk can tell us how "Lee Harvey Oswald's" front tooth regrew in his grave!</blockquote>

For the umpteenth time, his front tooth did not need to regrow, because it was never knocked out.

According to the cult's respected former member, Jack 'the moon landings were faked' White, the fictional character, 'Lee', had a full set of front teeth when he was in Japan in 1958. According to cult doctrine, the other fictional character, 'Harvey', also had a full set of front teeth. According to a report by several respected scientists, the exhumed body of the real, historical Lee Harvey Oswald also had a full set of front teeth. The medical records of the real, historical Lee Harvey Oswald do not mention a missing tooth or a false tooth.

So much for the 'missing tooth' nonsense. There was no missing tooth.

Now let's get back to the mastoidectomy defect on the body in Oswald's grave, which disproves the 'Harvey and Lee and Marguerite and Marguerite' theory. Unless it can be shown that the defect was faked, the theory is dead.

Perhaps the cult members could begin by putting their heads together and agreeing on exactly when and where and how they think the mastoidectomy defect on the body in the grave was faked. Jim speculated that it was done in 1952 or 1953 by an unknown surgeon in a hospital that hadn't been built yet, but he has so far been unable to produce any documentary evidence to support this piece of speculation. Sandy speculated that it was done at around the time of the exhumation in 1981, but he wasn't sure if it was the body that was faked or the scientists' report that was faked, and he too has been unable to produce any evidence to support his speculation. Jack 'the moon landings were faked' White probably thought it was little green men who did it. James Norwood doesn't seem to have offered an opinion on the matter before he went missing when challenged to a debate:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1573-invitation-to-dr-norwood

Let's see if we can prise some straight answers from our remaining cult members:

- Was the body in the grave surgically altered? If so, when and where was this done? Back in the 1950s in a non-existent hospital in New York? In 1981 in Texas, shortly before the body was exhumed, surrounded by dozens of witnesses? Or in 1981 in Texas, shortly after the body was exhumed, surrounded by dozens of witnesses?

- Was the scientists' report faked? Was the scientists' photograph of the mastoidectomy defect faked? If either or both of these were faked, were the scientists aware that the documents were faked?

Now for the hard part: show us the evidence!

October 21, 2017

Sandy writes:

<blockquote>If Oswald had a missing tooth -- as the preponderance of evidence show -- this fact in and of itself proves not only that the exhumation evidence was faked, but that there were indeed two young Oswalds.</blockquote>

It's that "preponderance of evidence" again! The preponderance of evidence actually shows that Oswald did not have a missing tooth. There are only two pieces of evidence to support Sandy's belief: the tentative statement by Ed Voebel that he thought (but wasn't sure) that Oswald's tooth had been knocked out, and a tiny detail in one poor-quality photograph which may indicate that up to three teeth were missing, or that up to three teeth were pushed out of position, or that Oswald's tongue was covering his teeth, or that Oswald was wearing a tooth splint (as Jake Sykes points out here: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1603-lillian-murret-the-dentist ), or it could be nothing more sinister than an artefact of the photographic reproduction process.

Against this, there are statements by Bennierita Smith and Lillian Murret who each claimed that Oswald's tooth merely penetrated his lip, and who each failed to mention that the tooth was knocked out. The fact that Oswald was taken to the dentist doesn't imply that the tooth was knocked out, as Greg Parker makes clear in Tracy's post halfway down page 109.

The score is 2-2. What tips the balance is the missing evidence:

1 - If Oswald had actually had a front tooth knocked out, we might expect this fact to be reported in Oswald's medical records. As far as I'm aware, the medical records do not mention either a missing tooth or a false tooth. Anyone with a copy of the cult's holy book should turn to page 146, which cites two reports of a medical examination attributed to the fictional character, 'Harvey', on his enlistment in the marines in Dallas in 1956. No dental discrepancies are mentioned. Incidentally, one thing that is mentioned is a scar from a mastoidectomy operation, which proves that any alteration to the body in Oswald's grave must have been carried out no later than 1956. I'd be interested to read Sandy's opinion of exactly when and where the body was altered, which I'm sure he will be able to corroborate with documentary evidence.

2 - We might also expect at least one or two of the hundreds of people who had met Oswald to point out that the guy they remembered was missing a front tooth whereas the guy on the television after the assassination had a full set. As far as I'm aware, no witnesses came forward to point out the dental discrepancy.

3 - We might also expect one or more photographs to show clearly and unambiguously that Oswald was missing a front tooth. As far as I'm aware, no such photograph exists.

The score is now 5-2, and the referee is about to blow the whistle for full-time. If Sandy (or anyone else) wants to convince anyone other than his fellow cult members that Oswald really had a tooth knocked out, he needs to produce the missing item in Oswald's medical records, or some of the missing witnesses, or one of the missing photographs. If he can't do that, he needs to provide a reasonable explanation for the missing evidence. By 'reasonable explanation' I don't mean the 'Harvey and Lee and Marguerite and Marguerite' cult's usual, flimsy excuse: the Bad Guys faked Oswald's medical records and they faked the photographs and they forced all the witnesses to keep quiet.

P.S. After a quick search I found two photographs which seem to show 'Lee' with a full set of front teeth. The portrait at http://harveyandlee.net/H&L multiple.jpg in the top row under '1957' shows a smiling 'Lee', three years after he supposedly had one of his front teeth knocked out. This reproduction is poor, but a clearer version exists in a composite image on the Baylor University site (at http://cdm17178.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/po-jfkwhite/id/3204/rv/compoundobject/cpd/3221/rec/1 ). It is labelled as number 25, with the caption "May 1958(?). Said to be Atsugi, Japan (maybe Mississippi?). Broad chin." There is a tooth where the Voebel photograph has a gap. The same composite image contains a portrait of a smiling Oswald, with a full set of front teeth clearly visible, labelled as number 27 with the caption "Japan, on guard duty with rifle. Date unknown (possibly 1958?)." According to the cult's doctrine, it was 'Lee' who went to Japan minus one of his front teeth. According to this photograph, 'Lee' went to Japan with a full set of front teeth. So much for the cult's doctrine.

Incidentally, this large composite was made by the late Jack White, who inspired the 'Harvey and Lee and Marguerite and Marguerite' theory and who thought not only that Oswald was faked but that the Zapruder film was faked and the moon landings were faked. That's right, the guy who helped to think up the 'Harvey and Lee and Marguerite and Marguerite' nonsense actually believed that the moon landings were faked. You probably don't have to be completely barking to be a member of the cult, but it certainly helps.

More here:

- https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Jack_White

- http://www.aulis.com/jackstudies_index1.html

October 21, 2017

Jim seems to think that the full set of front teeth on the body in Oswald's grave is evidence that the body is actually that of a fictional character, 'Harvey', who had been operated on in 1952 or 1953 by an unknown surgeon in a hospital that wasn't built until 1955.

The unknown surgeon at the non-existent hospital is supposed to have operated on the fictional 'Harvey' in order to make 'Harvey's' body match that of 'Lee', an unrelated boy who had undergone a mastoidectomy and who supposedly had had a front tooth knocked out.

The unknown surgeon at the non-existent hospital supposedly went to the trouble of fabricating evidence of a mastoidectomy, but for some reason did not take the easier step of removing one of 'Harvey's' front teeth. We know that the unknown surgeon must have ventured into the fictional 'Harvey's' mouth during the operation at the non-existent hospital because, as Bernie has pointed out, the surgeon also went to the trouble of duplicating 'Lee's' fillings.

There would have been little point or urgency in faking the mastoidectomy, which would only be discovered if 'Harvey's' body were exhumed and dissected after his death. But it would have been essential to fake the missing tooth, which would be visible to anyone who encountered 'Harvey' during the rest of his lifetime. Is there a reasonable explanation for the unknown surgeon's failure to remove the tooth during the operation at the non-existent hospital?

The existence of a full set of teeth on the body in Oswald's grave tells us that, if that body had been surgically altered to match the body of another boy, that second boy must also have had a full set of front teeth, contrary to 'Harvey and Lee and Marguerite and Marguerite' cult doctrine.

The body in Oswald's grave possessed a full set of front teeth which matched the historical Lee Harvey Oswald's dental records. The body possessed a set of fillings which also matched the historical Lee Harvey Oswald's dental records. The body possessed a mastoidectomy defect which matched the historical Lee Harvey Oswald's medical history. There was no 'Harvey', and there was no 'Lee' who had had a front tooth knocked out, just as there was no surgeon at the non-existent hospital. The body in the grave was that of one person, Lee Harvey Oswald, who underwent a genuine mastoidectomy in 1946 and who was buried, with a full set of front teeth, in Fort Worth in 1963.

October 19, 2017

Sandy did well to dig out the testimony of Lillian Murret, aunt of the historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald. Unfortunately, Lillian Murret does not support Ed Voebel's claim that Oswald had had a tooth knocked out in a fight at school. In fact, she corroborates Bennierita Smith's account of the fight. This is what Bennierita Smith said:

"I guess because there was this boy - he wasn't going to Beauregard, this boy he had the fight with, and he was a little guy. I think his name was Robin Riley. He hit Lee, and his tooth came through his lip ... it actually tore the lip." (WCHE vol.8, p.22: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=36#relPageId=30 )

And this is what Lillian Murret said:

"There were boys in back of him and one of them called his name, and he said, 'Lee', and when he turned around, this boy punched him in the mouth and ran, and it ran his tooth through the lip, so she [Marguerite Oswald] had to go over to the school and take him to the dentist, and I paid for the dentist bill myself, and that's all I know about that." (WCHE vol.8, p.124: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=36#relPageId=132 )

Neither of the women claims that a tooth was knocked out, but both of them claim that a tooth penetrated Oswald's lip. Against this, we have one poor-quality photograph and Ed Voebel's statement that he thought (but wasn't sure) that Oswald had had a tooth knocked out.

If Oswald had in fact had a tooth knocked out, there ought to be plenty of evidence for it:

- Dozens, if not hundreds, of people who had met Oswald must have seen his picture on television and in newspapers after the assassination. Apart from Ed Voebel, did any of them point out the inconsistency that the person they remembered had one of his front teeth missing yet this guy had a full set?

- Are there any other photographs of Oswald which even suggest that he had a front tooth missing?

- Do any of the medical records made during Oswald's lifetime, such as those from his enlistment in the marines, mention a missing front tooth?

- Did the body in Oswald's grave have a front tooth missing?

Unless anyone can produce some evidence to answer these questions, the only reasonable conclusion is that Oswald's fight at school did not result in one of his front teeth being knocked out. Yet another piece of the 'Harvey and Lee and Marguerite and Marguerite' fantasy bites (as it were) the dust.

More here: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1603-lillian-murret-the-dentist

October 17, 2017

There's an interesting newspaper article here, which includes a photograph of the exhumation:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1599-oswald-autopsy-articles

I can make out 22 people in the photograph. It doesn't capture the whole scene, and the article mentions that a number of security guards were present, so I think we can assume that there must have been many more than 22 people in attendance altogether.

Unless the Bad Guys were able to twist the arms of those 22 people plus the photographer plus the other security guards plus whoever else happened to be in the area at the time, we can rule out the notion that the body in the grave was switched during the exhumation.

We can also rule out Jim's preferred solution, that an unnecessary mastoidectomy operation, for which no trace exists in the medical records, had been performed in 1952 or 1953 on a Russian-speaking Hungarian refugee boy, for whom no trace exists in US immigration records, by a surgeon whose name is unknown, in a hospital that wasn't built until 1955.

That leaves just one realistic explanation for the existence of a mastoidectomy defect on the body in the grave. It was the little green men. They beamed up the body into their invisible spacecraft and replaced it with a surgically modified clone, before depositing the original body at Roswell. That's the realistic explanation. There's also this far-fetched explanation: the body in the grave was that of the historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald, who had undergone a genuine, properly documented mastoidectomy operation at the age of six.

October 17, 2017

Jim is claiming that one of his fictional Oswalds had a tooth knocked out in a fight at school. He reproduces a poor-quality photograph (WCHE vol.16, p.804: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1133#relPageId=828 ) and cites Ed Voebel, a classmate of the historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald: "I think he even lost a tooth from that. I think he was cut on the lip, and a tooth was knocked out." (WCHE vol.8, p.3: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=36#relPageId=11 )

This evidence isn't quite as strong as Jim would like it to be. For some reason, Jim doesn't mention another of Oswald's classmates, Bennierita Smith, who remembered the fight but did not claim that Oswald had had a tooth knocked out: "I guess because there was this boy - he wasn't going to Beauregard, this boy he had the fight with, and he was a little guy. I think his name was Robin Riley. He hit Lee, and his tooth came through his lip ... it actually tore the lip." (WCHE vol.8, p.22: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=36#relPageId=30 )

There are also several items of evidence which ought to exist but which don't seem to exist. Jim implies that his fictional version of Lee Harvey Oswald went through the rest of his life with a front tooth missing. Are there any other photographs of this particular fictional Oswald? Do they show a missing tooth? If not, why not? Are there any statements from people who met this fictional Oswald which mention a missing tooth?

One of the fictional Oswalds, 'Harvey', is supposed to have had his body surgically altered to match that of the other fictional Oswald, 'Lee'. It was 'Lee' who supposedly had his tooth knocked out, and who had undergone a mastoidectomy operation at the age of six. It was 'Harvey' whose body was supposedly exhumed from Lee Harvey Oswald's grave in 1981. The body showed evidence of a mastoidectomy, but not of a missing tooth. Why did the Bad Guys who ran the fictional two-Oswald scheme go to the bother of fabricating evidence of a mastoidectomy but neglect to remove a tooth? I'm no surgeon, but I'd guess it's a lot easier to take out a tooth than it is to fabricate evidence of a mastoidectomy. And the mastoidectomy would only be discovered if the fictional 'Harvey' ever got dug up after his death, whereas the missing tooth would be visible to the world for the rest of his life. Would Jim (or any of the other believers in this ridiculous nonsense) care to explain why the tooth wasn't removed?

More here: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t227-armstrong-s-magic-tooth-and-the-facts-about-harvey-at-beauregard

October 17, 2017

After carefully analysing all the evidence, Jim seems to agree with his critics that the exhumation of Oswald's body wasn't faked, and the scientists' report wasn't faked. The reason for the existence of a mastoidectomy defect on the body in Oswald's grave, according to Jim, is not that the historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald was given a mastoidectomy operation in February 1946, as medical documentation shows us, but that a fictional character, 'Harvey', was given an unnecessary mastoidectomy "in late 1952 or early 1953" in New York City. Where exactly was the unnecessary operation carried out? Jim doesn't say, but he throws in a mention of Jacobi Hospital, presumably to imply that the operation was carried out there:

<blockquote>To me, it's most likely that Harvey had the procedure done in late 1952 or early 1953, when he was a teenager living in New York City and habitually truant from Public School 117. Louise Robertson, "Marguerite Oswald's" housekeeper, told the FBI that Mrs. Oswald said she had brought her son to New York so that he could have mental tests performed at Jacobi Hospital.</blockquote>

According to the official New York City government website, however, Jacobi Hospital didn't open until 1955: http://www.nyc.gov/html/hhc/jacobi/html/about/history.shtml

So the operation couldn't have been carried out there. Which hospital was it, then? Are there any records from any hospital in the New York City area in 1952 or 1953 which indicate that a mastoidectomy was carried out on a 13-year-old Russian-speaking Hungarian refugee, or possibly a 13-year-old Russian World War Two orphan? If no such records exist, why do they not exist? I bet it was those Bad Guys again, destroying and faking the documentary record to disguise their dastardly plan!

I wonder how much effort has gone into looking for the missing hospital records. I suspect that Jim and the leader of the cult (praise be his name!) haven't actually bothered to look for those records, for the obvious reason that they know perfectly well that no such operation was carried out.

More here: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t688-jacobi-hospital

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Jeremy Bojczuk

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Posts posted by Jeremy Bojczuk

Then went outside to watch the P. parade

Then went outside to watch the P. parade

Then went outside to watch the P. parade

Dan Rather and Gerald Posner analyze the shots that killed JFK

Petition to request the Innocence Project to take up exoneration of Oswald

Russell's question

What is known about Oswald's time in England?

What is known about Oswald's time in England?

What is known about Oswald's time in England?

Focus your research on Zapruder, he is the key

David Lifton teases Final Charade on the Night Fright Show

If Oswald was 5'11" why show him 5'7" ??

A Couple of Real Gems from the "Harvey and Lee" Website

A Couple of Real Gems from the "Harvey and Lee" Website

A Couple of Real Gems from the "Harvey and Lee" Website

A Couple of Real Gems from the "Harvey and Lee" Website

A Couple of Real Gems from the "Harvey and Lee" Website

A Couple of Real Gems from the "Harvey and Lee" Website

A Couple of Real Gems from the "Harvey and Lee" Website

A Couple of Real Gems from the "Harvey and Lee" Website

A Couple of Real Gems from the "Harvey and Lee" Website

A Couple of Real Gems from the "Harvey and Lee" Website

A Couple of Real Gems from the "Harvey and Lee" Website

A Couple of Real Gems from the "Harvey and Lee" Website

A Couple of Real Gems from the "Harvey and Lee" Website

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