Jeremy Bojczuk

Chris Bristow writes: At least, until someone demonstrates that it could have been altered before being distributed to journalists on the afternoon of the assassination, we have to conclude that it wasn't altered. If the Moorman photo wasn't altered, it must show us the actual position of the limo a fraction of a second after the head shot. Insofar as the Moorman photo is consistent with what we see in the Zapruder film, the Moorman film, the Nix film, the Bronson film, and the Altgens 7 photo, these images too must show us where the limo was during the shooting. If that's the case, any witnesses whose statements do not match what we see in these mutually consistent images, must be mistaken. That group of mistaken witnesses must include the police motorcyclists, whose statements in any case are not as consistent or unambiguous as Chris seems to think. From http://22november1963.org.uk/did-jfk-limo-stop-on-elm-street: Bobby Hargis told the Warren Commission: "At that time [immediately before the head shot] the Presidential car slowed down. I heard somebody say 'Get going.' I felt blood hit me in the face and the Presidential car stopped almost immediately after that." In a later taped interview, he claimed that the car "slowed down almost to a stop." James Chaney was reported second-hand as saying that "from the time the first shot rang out, the car stopped completely, pulled to the left and stopped." According to another second-hand report, Chaney said that "the Presidential car stopped momentarily after the first shot," but also that "the automobile came to - almost came to a complete halt after the first shot - did not quite stop, but almost did." B.J. Martin stated that the presidential car stopped "just for a moment." Douglas L. Jackson stated that "the car just all but stopped ... just a moment." As we can see, Chaney's first quoted statement ("the car ... pulled to the left and stopped") is contradicted by the Moorman photo. If the Moorman photo wasn't altered, Chaney must be mistaken. It's worth noting that Hargis and Chaney contradicted each other, and made statements that cannot both be correct. Hargis claimed that the limo stopped after the head shot, which Chaney claimed that the limo stopped after the first shot. At least one of them must be wrong, unless the limo stopped twice. Witnesses make mistakes sometimes, even when riding police motorcycles!

Chris Bristow writes: I was sure I'd seen at least one newspaper containing the Moorman photo, and that I'd mentioned this in a previous thread, so I trawled through my posting history. Here's an example I'd found a while ago: https://www.downhold.org/lowry/pres48.jpg That's the front page of The Fresno Bee of Saturday 23rd. As far as I can see, that copy of the photo seems to be identical to the existing photo. If so, any alterations must have been made on the afternoon of the assassination, before the original had been copied and distributed to journalists. Although I haven't checked them all, there may well be other examples here: https://www.downhold.org/lowry/JFK-NUPFRONTS.html In addition, Richard Trask's Pictures of the Pain, p.242, implies (but doesn't state explicitly) that the photo was printed in the Friday evening edition of the Dallas Times Herald (on page A-17, in case anyone wants to look it up online or in a physical newspaper archive). Trask states that Moorman's photo was copied at the Dallas Times Herald's photo lab, the same lab that printed the Altgens photos, one of which also contradicts the claim that the limo moved into the left-hand lane. The Altgens photos were distributed shortly after 1pm, leaving virtually no time for them to have been altered. It all comes down to deciding which of two alternatives is the more likely: A small number of witnesses got a small detail wrong when recollecting a brief, stressful experience, as witnesses are known to do. Or several home movies and photographs, which corroborate each other, were altered. Since no-one has come close to demonstrating that the second option is correct, the only rational conclusion is that the first option is correct. On the plus side, Chris is at least looking to argue rationally that all of these images were altered, rather than take the usual approach of looking at a poor-quality copy, seeing a blob or squiggle that probably doesn't exist in a better-quality version, and declaring it to be proof of alteration.

Chris Bristow writes: Indeed. But since there's no good reason to suppose that the premise is true, the speculation is pointless. It only serves to encourage the 'everything is a fake' brigade. This bizarre discussion is a bit like trying to work out exactly where in Arizona the moon landings photographs were taken. Online copies exist of newspapers from the weekend of the assassination which contain the Moorman photo. I don't have a reference to hand, but I don't recall noticing any discrepancies between the images I've seen and the Moorman photo that currently exists. One way to confirm or deny that alterations were made would be to examine these newspaper images in detail. Either the photo was altered during the three hours or so before it was distributed to journalists, or it wasn't altered. If it wasn't altered, the limo didn't move into the left-hand lane, and the witnesses who claimed that it did move, simply made a mistake when recalling a trivial detail of a sudden, brief and traumatic event. In other words, they were normal human beings. And the two police motorcycles to the left of the limo must have been added, which I suspect would not be a trivial task. I doubt that it would be possible to take a convincing photo of an altered Polaroid photo using a fixed-lens Polaroid camera like Moorman's, though it might have been possible to do so with some sort of cobbled-together apparatus that used the Polaroid process. To believe that this happened, two things need to be demonstrated: (a) that such a procedure was technically feasible, and (b) that the Bad Guys had sufficient time, and access to the necessary parts, to cobble together the apparatus. What also needs to be demonstrated is that it was technically feasible to produce an altered image that didn't contain evidence that it had been altered. Would a Polaroid copy of a Polaroid original contain features, such as excessive contrast, which would confirm that it's a copy (and the absence of which would confirm that it's the original)? We know that this is the case with Kodachrome film, which is why we can be sure that the Zapruder film in the National Archives is not a copy and must be the original film that was in Zapruder's camera. It matches quite a few of the witness statements: the ones that claimed the car merely slowed down. It is also consistent with the recollections of the majority of the spectators, who apparently didn't think that the limo's slowing down was worth mentioning. The witnesses who claimed the car came to a halt were outliers. The balance of the current evidence shows that their recollections were mistaken. It's a lot of fuss about nothing.

Chris also writes: Within a year of the assassination, all of the frames were published which show the limo when it is claimed to have pulled to the left and stopped. Life magazine printed a number of frames just a week after the assassination, then again in December 1963, in October 1964, and in December 1966 (and possibly on other occasions). In September 1964, the Warren Commission published frames 171-334 in Commission Exhibit 885 (Hearings and Exhibits, vol.18, pp.1-80): https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1135#relPageId=15. As far as I'm aware, all of those printed frames match the supposedly altered film that we see today. The film-altering masterminds who supposedly removed the limo stop must have done so before those frames were published. Although the Zapruder film wasn't widely watched as a movie by the general public until the famous TV broadcast in 1975, a number of bootleg copies were in circulation from the late 1960s onwards. Many thousands of people watched these bootlegs at informal gatherings and organised events during the late 60s and early 70s. The bootlegs appear to have come from two main sources: the copy of the film used in the Clay Shaw trial, and copies made for the personal use of Time-Life executives. See David Wrone, The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination, University Press of Kansas, 2003, pp.59-61, for an account of the surprising extent of public access to the film while it was supposedly being hidden away and worked on by a team of expert, though strangely incompetent, film-altering masterminds. All the other photographic evidence that was known about at that time, perhaps. But what about the photos and films that came to light after those alterations were supposedly made (assuming there's any agreement about exactly when the hypothetical alterations were made)? And what about any images that still haven't come to light? How could the masterminds ever be sure that the photographic record was complete? There are substantial practical problems in matching an altered film with other images. For a start, consider the difficulty of actually getting hold of those images. We know of spectators who went off to other parts of the US, and abroad, very soon after the assassination. How many others, that we don't know about, might have done the same? No real effort was made by the authorities to identify the spectators in Dealey Plaza, let alone to round up any of their cameras and films, as I pointed out last year: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/24498-david-lifton-spots-a-piece-of-scalp-in-the-moorman-photo/?do=findComment&comment=442261 Each time the masterminds might hypothetically have found a photo or film that contradicted one of their alterations, what would they do? Would they destroy those images, or would they alter them to match their altered Zapruder film? I've listed the known films and photos that ought to, but do not, show the hypothetical limo-stop. If the Zapruder film was altered to remove the limo-stop, all of these images must have been altered too. Was that even physically possible? The Moorman photo, for example, is a Polaroid. Can Polaroids be altered without leaving traces that give the game away? If anyone is claiming that the Moorman photo was altered, they need to demonstrate that such a thing could actually have been done. Even if it was technically possible to alter all of these images without leaving physical traces, could it have been done in the time available? The Moorman photo was broadcast on TV shortly after 3 o'clock that afternoon, and copies were circulating among journalists soon after that. The Altgens photos were distributed shortly after 1 o'clock that afternoon. The Muchmore film was sold, unseen and undeveloped, a few days after the assassination. The practical problems with altering all of these images are substantial, and they require a detailed explanation. The whole film-and-photo-alteration idea, whether or not the purpose was to remove an incriminating limo-stop, proposes an expanded conspiracy for no good reason. There are two possibilities: A group of conspirators arranged to (a) shoot a politician and (b) frame a patsy; and a small minority of the eye-witnesses mistakenly recalled seeing the politician's car stop when it merely slowed down. Or a larger group of conspirators, which now includes photo-alteration specialists and trackers-down of home movies and photographs, arranged to (a) shoot a politician, (b) frame a patsy, (c) obtain access to dozens of photographs and home movies from locations all over the US and abroad, and (d) alter as many of those images as was necessary to remove an incriminating car-stop which a large majority of the eye-witnesses failed to mention. Which of those scenarios is the more likely?

Chris Bristow writes: If by "witnesses" Chris is referring to the limo-stop witnesses, I'd be surprised if there are more than a few thousand people in the world who are even aware of those witnesses' existence. The whole limo-stop question has always been a trivial aspect of the assassination debate, even among enthusiasts. Among the general public, its impact is surely negligible. If there's one element of the Zapruder film that the general public is aware of, it's the incriminating 'back and to the left' head snap. You'd think the first priority of any film-altering masterminds would have been to get rid of that part. What people point to is the apparent consistency between the three or four home movies which show the limo at the time it was supposed (by a small proportion of those witnesses who would have seen it) to have stopped. In other words, if the limo did stop, the following things must have happened: The Zapruder film was altered. The Nix film was altered to match the altered Zapruder film. The Muchmore film was altered to match the altered Nix film and the altered Zapruder film. The Bronson film, depending on exactly when the limo was supposed to have stopped, was altered to match the altered Muchmore film, the altered Nix film, and the altered Zapruder film. A large proportion of witnesses must have failed to notice that the limo stopped, or thought it not worth mentioning. If one also believes (as one must do, if one is being consistent) those few limo-stop witnesses who claimed that the limo pulled into the left-hand lane as it stopped, the following things must have happened: The Zapruder film was altered. The Nix film was altered to match the altered Zapruder film. The Muchmore film was altered to match the altered Nix film and the altered Zapruder film. The Bronson film, which shows two police motorcyclists riding in the left-hand lane before, during and after the time of the fatal shot, was altered to match the altered Muchmore film, the altered Nix film, and the altered Zapruder film. The Moorman Polaroid photo, which shows two police motorcycles to the left of the limo within a second of the head shot, was altered to match the altered Bronson film, the altered Muchmore film, the altered Nix film, and the altered Zapruder film. The Altgens 7 photo, which shows the limo in the middle lane immediately after the shooting, was altered to match the altered Moorman photo, the altered Bronson film, the altered Muchmore film, the altered Nix film, and the altered Zapruder film. A very large proportion of witnesses must have failed to notice that the limo pulled to the left and stopped, or thought it not worth mentioning. There's a vastly more plausible alternative explanation for all of this: What we see in the films and photos is what actually happened. Some witnesses got a small detail wrong. It's an uncontroversial fact that witnesses get details wrong sometimes. The whole limo-stop question is a lot of fuss about nothing.

Ralph Yarborough recalled: It's worth remembering not only that Yarborough was a "slowing down" witness, not a "came to a complete halt" witness, and that people in general do use the expression "stopping" to mean "slowing down".

Joseph McBride writes: I'm sure Jonathan can defend himself, but I'm just wondering what the problem is with 'nay-saying' people. When people spout nonsense, it's reasonable to point out that they're spouting nonsense. If that's what constitutes nay-saying, then nay-saying is something we should all be doing. If a lone-nut theory is nonsensical (see, for example, the currently active thread promoting the 'Hickey shot JFK by accident' theory), it's reasonable to nay-say that theory. If a conspiracy theory is nonsensical, that theory too deserves to be nay-said. I would argue that far-fetched conspiracy theories are especially deserving of the nay-saying treatment. A theory that proposes an unrealistically complicated conspiracy is liable to diminish the credibility of non-lone-nut theories in general. This is because far-fetched conspiracy theories provide ammunition for propagandists who claim that questioning the lone-nut interpretation is, for example, no different from denying that the moon landings happened. As we are constantly told, anything that is labelled a 'conspiracy theory' is by definition wrong, and anyone who promotes a 'conspiracy theory' is by definition crazy. Of course, the 'Harvey and Lee' theory was in fact dreamt up partly by someone who was a moon-landings denier. Of all the far-fetched theories that the JFK assassination has attracted, and there are plenty, the long-term double-doppelganger theory is particularly nay-say-worthy. Not only is it internally contradictory, but it has the unique distinction of having been disproved nearly two decades before the book describing the theory was published. The chronology set out in Armstrong's book (published in 2003) was fundamentally contradicted by the pathologists' report of Oswald's exhumation (published in 1984). As Jonathan pointed out, every important aspect of the double-doppelganger theory has been debated numerous times here and elsewhere, and none of it stands up. It's obviously nonsense, and hardly anyone believes it any more. It is an ex-theory. It has ceased to be. For anyone who isn't familiar with the 'Harvey and Lee' talking points, most of them are dealt with here (warning: lots of nay-saying ahead): https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/f13-debunked -- Anyway, this thread is supposed to be about Prayer Man. You can find out more about this topic here: http://www.prayer-man.com/

Mark Knight writes: That would be true only if all the shots were accidental. The ridiculous 'Hickey shot JFK by accident' theory still has Oswald up on the sixth floor (good luck proving that part), shooting at JFK. Surely the reason this nonsense ended up on TV at the time of the 50th anniversary is that it actually supported the lone-nut argument. It provided a solution to at least two problematic elements of the lone-nut theory: The head shot which, according to the pathologists at the autopsy, entered the head low down and exited above the ear, could not have been fired from anywhere as high as the sixth floor. The crazed lone gunman on the sixth floor would not have been constrained by the need to have aimed and fired a crummy old rifle three times, and reloaded it twice, by Zapruder frame 313. Although Marjan suggests that another of Hickey's accidental shots wounded Tague, it's conceivable that other proponents of this nonsense could use it to get around the single-bullet theory also, by claiming that Oswald wounded JFK, Connally and Tague with three separate bullets. I too have been contacted by people who know almost nothing about the assassination apart from what they were told on this TV show. And why shouldn't they believe what they were told? The theory wouldn't have been promoted on TV if it didn't have the approval of the relevant experts, would it? Given the appalling state of TV coverage of the assassination over the years, I wouldn't be surprised if the show pops up again in November 2023.

Bart Kamp isn't too pleased that some of his videos have been (to use a polite term) borrowed without attribution: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2409p25-fair-play-for-vince-palamara#39874 http://www.prayer-man.com/vince-palamara-stop-lifting-dpuk-videos-and-taking-credit-for-it/

Sean Coleman writes: I, too, really hope we've seen the last of any doppelganger-related nonsense here. Douglass's book is worth reading, but it's let down by his decision to build a conspiratorial narrative out of as many pieces of evidence as possible, no matter how weak those pieces of evidence are. What he should have done was dismiss all the weak evidence, and create a narrative from the solid evidence. One weak piece of evidence was the man who was escorted from the rear of the Texas Theater. As Greg Doudna points out (and as Greg Parker originally pointed out at https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2051-time-to-kill-another-myth-there-was-no-second-oswald-arrested-at-the-theater), the man almost certainly was George Applin, who had nothing to do with the assassination. Applin was just an ordinary guy who chose the wrong day to give up sniffing glue go to the movies. I summarised the problems with Butch Burroughs' story nearly three years ago, here: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/25901-two-oswalds-in-the-texas-theater/?do=findComment&comment=407170 Reasons to doubt Burroughs' story There is a perfectly credible candidate for the incident Burroughs saw: (a) George Applin, like Oswald, was a young (21-year-old versus 24-year-old) white man. (b) Applin spoke to the police on the ground floor and was escorted by them out of the building. (c) He probably left by the rear door, for several reasons: the police who spoke to him had entered by the rear door; their cars were parked in the alley by the rear door; they would almost certainly have taken Applin away in the cars they had arrived in; and none of the many witnesses at the front of the building reported that anyone other than Oswald was taken out through the front door. (d) Over the decades, Burroughs' memory of seeing Applin being taken away by the police could easily have changed into a memory of an arrest. We know for a fact that George Applin was taken away by the police, in order to give a signed and witnessed statement (see his affidavit). But no-one in the Texas Theater who would have witnessed the event Burroughs described -- not Burroughs, not Jack Davis, not George Applin himself, not any of the police officers -- reported seeing more than one such incident, apart from the arrest of Oswald. Burroughs had failed to mention his story when he was interviewed by Jim Marrs in 1987. Marrs was keen to learn whether anything even vaguely conspiratorial had occurred in the Texas Theater. He would certainly have questioned Burroughs closely, and would certainly have reported Burroughs' story if it existed in 1987, but he didn't. Burroughs' story didn't emerge until 1993, three decades after the event. Burroughs' story evolved and expanded over time: (a) 1964, Warren Commission: no arrest. (b) 1987, Jim Marrs interview: no arrest. (c) 1993, Jim Glover: arrest and taken out the back. (d) 2007, James Douglass interview: arrest, placed in handcuffs, and taken out the back. There is no reason to connect Burroughs' story with any arrest in the balcony: (a) He did not explicitly mention to any of his interviewers over the years that he had seen anyone, let alone a suspect under arrest in handcuffs and accompanied by police officers, come down the stairs from the balcony. (b) He would certainly have seen such an event, if it had happened, because we know from his Warren Commission testimony (Hearings, vol.7, pp.14-17) that he was at his concession stand, which was close to the stairs (see a plan of the building), and he had earlier seen and reported a much less noticeable incident, a woman walking up the stairs by herself (Marrs, Crossfire, p.353). Burroughs did not claim that he had seen an arrest in the balcony. The phrase in Douglass's JFK and the Unspeakable ("saw the second Oswald placed under arrest and handcuffed": p.293) in fact implies that the event he saw took place on the ground floor. Burroughs did not see an arrest take place in the balcony at all: (a) Burroughs did not tell anyone, ever, that he had seen an arrest take place in the balcony. (b) He never claimed to have gone up to the balcony. (c) He implied, according to Marrs' and Douglass's accounts, that he stayed on the ground floor and never went up to the balcony while the police were in the building. (d) He would not have been able to see into the balcony from his position on the ground floor at the back of the auditorium. Burroughs did not tell more than one interviewer that the man he saw was in handcuffs. The only mention of handcuffs is in Douglass's account, from an interview in 2007, 44 years after the event. It is an uncontroversial fact that when people recall past events, especially events from several decades earlier as in Burroughs' case, they forget some details and unwittingly add others. There is no reason to assume that Burroughs' memory was less fallible than anyone else's. One element of Burroughs' story that might well be true is of seeing Oswald arrive much earlier than the official account allows. This early arrival, along with Oswald's behaviour outside the Texas Theater, may have an innocent explanation: maybe he had arranged to meet Marina and Ruth after work, to go shopping nearby, and he decided to watch a film in the meantime. There's no need to assume that Oswald was under instructions to meet a contact, or that any other cloak-and-dagger activity was involved, or that he was aware of the post-assassination hue and cry, or even that he was aware that JFK had been killed. As with other aspects of the case, we can dismiss the lone-assassin speculation without having to invent some sort of all-encompassing conspiracy.

Jim Hargrove writes: Plenty of people, including me, have debated Jim's 'Harvey and Lee' talking points on this forum. We have done this over and over and over again, for years and years. It goes like this: Jim starts a new thread, in which he raises a talking point, usually by quoting a passage from scripture. Someone explains why the evidence in question isn't particularly convincing: the evidence may comprise documents that can be interpreted in ways that don't require doppelgangers; witnesses may be recalling events from decades earlier; witnesses may not actually have stated what 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine claims they stated; other evidence may exist which contradicts the evidence Jim has put forward; and so on. Debate ensues. Usually, Jim fails to convince his critics. Everyone loses interest, and the thread fizzles away. After a while, Jim brings up the same talking point again, usually by quoting exactly the same passage of scripture, but without acknowledging the existence of the criticisms others have already raised. People see through this technique. They dismiss Jim as a closed-minded propagandist. The 'Harvey and Lee' cult loses a few more potential converts. After a while, Jim brings up the same talking point yet again, quoting the same passage of scripture yet again. without acknowledging the existence of the criticisms others have already raised, yet again. Anyone who has debated religious fundamentalists will recognise the pattern. Apart from the first one, all of the examples Jim gives are claims, interpretations of evidence. For each of those claims, the actual primary evidence (witness statements, documents such as school records, etc) can be interpreted in ways that do not require the invention of doppelgangers. Those alternative explanations are always more plausible than Jim's interpretations, not least because they do not require the invention of doppelgangers. It really isn't controversial that alternative explanations exist for the evidence behind Jim's talking points. If Jim were genuinely interested in finding out the truth, he would acknowledge the obvious fact that these alternative explanations exist. He doesn't, because he is a closed-minded propagandist. Jim describes his "evidence" as "substantial". By this he means that there are a lot of 'Harvey and Lee' talking points. But if the evidence for each talking point is weak, and can be more plausibly explained in other ways, the amount of such evidence is immaterial. Quality beats quantity. Flat-earthers can probably come up with plenty of talking points too. Again, I and others have discussed and criticised Jim's talking points on this forum many times. We've given the matter far more time and attention than it deserves. We have shown that there's no need to believe any of Jim's claims, because more plausible interpretations exist. Until Jim can show that his interpretations of the evidence are more plausible than everyone else's, there is indeed no point in carrying on.

Jim Hargrove writes: Deniability of what? The actions of two people who use the same name. But if your goal is to produce a lone defector to the Soviet Union, you don't require two people to use the same name. You only require one person. The problem of having to create deniability doesn't arise, because there's nothing that needs denying. There was no need for any plausible deniability in the Oswald case. None of the imaginary activities of the imaginary non-defecting doppelganger need to be explained as the plausibly deniable actions of a doppelganger. Likewise, the defection of the real-life, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald does not need to be explained by inventing any doppelgangers. I take it that Jim finally accepts that there was no need for anyone to set up a long-term project involving doppelgangers in order to obtain a false defector who could understand what would be said around him. Jim must accept by now that you don't need to invent doppelgangers in order to explain Oswald's knowledge of Russian, because that knowledge was exactly what we should expect of an American who had begun learning Russian in his late teens. Oswald was neither a native speaker of Russian nor a pair of doppelgangers. It would be nice if Jim would acknowledge this fact. Repeat after me: You don't need doppelgangers; all you need is one American with a knowledge of Russian. There! That feels better, doesn't it? Can we assume that Jim also accepts the existence of plausible non-doppelganger explanations for most or all of his 'Harvey and Lee' talking points? If he does, why does he not accept them? Pretty much any explanation that doesn't require doppelgangers is going to be more believable than one that does require doppelgangers. Since alternative explanations exist that are more plausible than Jim's doppelganger explanations, there's no good reason for him to behave like a closed-minded propagandist, repeating the same old talking points over and over again, is there?

Jim Hargrove writes: Jim has replied to my question several times, but he hasn't answered it. Let's look at Jim's replies and see if he really has provided credible, honest answers to the question I asked. Here's each reply in turn: 1 - https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27729-which-came-first-the-bus-or-the-rambler/?do=findComment&comment=461957 on page 20: 2 - https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27729-which-came-first-the-bus-or-the-rambler/?do=findComment&comment=461817 on page 19 is an exact copy of the previous non-answer: 3 - https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27729-which-came-first-the-bus-or-the-rambler/?do=findComment&comment=460564 on page 12 is a passage from holy scripture, written by the Venerable Master himself, the prophet Armstrong (doppelgangers be upon him!), about plausible deniability: 4 - https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27729-which-came-first-the-bus-or-the-rambler/?do=findComment&comment=460563 on page 12 also mentions plausible deniability: As I've already explained, these replies do not answer my question. Jim makes three points: The doppelganger who defected could "secretly understand more of what was being said in Russian by people around him." Recruiting "a youth who already understood the Russian language had a huge advantage over anyone who might begin taking instructions as an adult." Using doppelgangers provides "total DENIABILITY for any and every action taken by either" doppelganger. Point 1: Understanding Russian can be done just as well by a native English-speaking American who had learned a reasonable amount of Russian. You don't need doppelgangers for this, because you don't need to be a native speaker of Russian in order to understand Russian. Point 2: There was no "huge advantage" in using doppelgangers. There was no advantage at all, because the hypothetical "youth who already understood the Russian language" must have known exactly the same amount of Russian as the real-life Oswald. The real-life, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald's Russian was entirely consistent with that of someone who had begun learning Russian in his late teens. Again, you don't need doppelgangers for this. Point 3: Plausible deniability is only necessary if you have doppelgangers. It is a solution to a non-problem. If you don't have doppelgangers, you don't have any need for plausible deniability. And because plausible non-doppelganger explanations exist for the incidents in question, there's no good reason to believe that any doppelgangers were involved. Jim still hasn't answered my question. He still hasn't explained why his OSS or CIA masterminds would have decided to recruit doppelgangers rather than choose the utterly obvious and far simpler alternative: just recruit one American and get him to learn Russian. Why would they not have done that? There's no answer to that question, is there? If, as Jim proposes, his OSS or CIA masterminds had planned in the 1940s to send to the Soviet Union several years in the future a false defector who understood Russian, they would simply have recruited an American and got him to learn sufficient Russian. Jim's double-doppelganger project could never have happened. -- I'm curious to find out why Jim hasn't acknowledged that plausible alternative explanations exist for most or all of the talking points he has been regurgitating over the past few years. Does he think they don't exist? They've been pointed out to him numerous times, so he must be aware that they exist. If Jim knows that plausible alternative explanations exist for his talking points, why doesn't he accept them? He surely understands that when an item of evidence has both a complicated, unrealistic explanation (big project involving lots of doppelgangers!) and a simple everyday explanation (no project, no doppelgangers, just one person!), it's irrational to prefer the complicated explanation over the simple explanation. As I pointed out in an earlier comment: Is Jim just a closed-minded propagandist? Or will he admit that plausible alternative explanations exist for his talking points?

Jim Hargrove writes: As for producing a future defector with a working knowledge of Russian, I've already pointed out numerous times that the OSS or the CIA could have achieved this without going to all the trouble of setting up a long-term project involving two pairs of doppelgangers. If they wanted a false defector with a working knowledge of Russian, someone who could understand what would be said around them in the Soviet Union, all they needed to do was recruit one American and get him to learn Russian. It's a far simpler, cheaper and more obvious way to achieve their goal. The real-life, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald defected a decade and a half after Jim's imaginary project is supposed to have been set up. That would be more than enough time to learn Russian to the necessary level. Jim still hasn't explained why those masterminds would have decided to go for the doppelganger solution when they would surely have been aware that a far simpler, cheaper and more obvious alternative existed. No explanation appears to exist for this decision, which indicates that the decision didn't happen. Until Jim or anyone else can come up with a credible account of why those masterminds decided to go for the complicated solution over the simple solution, he isn't justified in claiming that they did so. As for plausible deniability, I've already pointed out that this would only apply if doppelgangers existed. Without doppelgangers, there would be nothing that needed to be plausibly denied. It's a solution to a self-generated problem. I'm determined to find out why any rational organisation would have set up such a ridiculously complicated scheme, when it's clear that they didn't need to do so. If there was no good reason for their supposed decision to use doppelgangers, they didn't use doppelgangers. This is something that needs to be sorted out before discussing EVIDENCE, because the EVIDENCE has more than one explanation. As I've also pointed out numerous times, all or almost all of Jim's 'Harvey and Lee' talking points possess plausible explanations that don't require doppelgangers and certainly don't require a long-term scheme involving two pairs of the things. Does Jim accept that all or almost all of his talking points have plausible, alternative explanations? A straightforward answer to this question would be appreciated. If he does accept this obvious fact, it is up to him to explain why we should prefer his doppelganger-based explanations. To do this, he needs to explain why a complicated double-doppelganger scheme would have been set up when there was no need to set it up. What would have been the thinking behind the decision to set it up? Why would the masterminds not have decided to recruit one American instead of four doppelgangers? If he doesn't accept the obvious fact that plausible alternative explanations exist, there is no point in discussing the matter. Jim will be just like a flat-earther or a religious fundamentalist, pretending that his EVIDENCE can only be explained in the way he wants to explain it.

Jim Hargrove writes: The question I've been asking is: Why would the OSS or the CIA have decided specifically to use doppelgangers when they did not need to do so? Jim has not yet provided a coherent answer to that question. He has dodged around it by suggesting, several times, that the masterminds wanted to obtain a false defector who was able to understand Russian (or learn about Russian culture!). But doppelgangers aren't required for any of that. Jim needs to explain the masterminds' thinking process. Since those masterminds could have achieved their goal without using doppelgangers, why did they decide specifically to use doppelgangers? You don't need to be a doppelganger to be able to understand what is being spoken around you in the Soviet Union. You don't need to be a native Russian speaker to be able to understand what is being spoken around you in the Soviet Union. All you need is to have learned Russian to a reasonable (but not native-speaker) level. The only thing the masterminds needed to do was recruit one person, an American, and get him to learn Russian. Why didn't they do that? What was their thinking when they supposedly decided to use doppelgangers despite the existence of a much simper solution? Why can't Jim answer this question? It's because no answer exists, isn't it? There appears to have been no good reason for deciding to use doppelgangers at all, let alone setting up a preposterously complicated and implausible scheme involving two pairs of them, and keeping that scheme running for a decade and a half. Any number of intelligent, motivated Americans could have learned sufficient Russian in much less time than that. That's the first problem Jim faces: no-one knows why his double-doppelganger scheme could ever have been implemented. If no good reason existed for implementing that scheme, no rational organisation would have implemented it. The second problem is that all (or, to be generous, almost all) of the examples Jim keeps regurgitating from holy scripture have plausible alternative explanations. These explanations don't require the use of doppelgangers. They certainly don't require the implementation of a long-term project involving two pairs of doppelgangers. We've just seen this in the case of Oswald's use of a Russian-English dictionary and his Russian exam. As I pointed out on this page, both of these examples can be plausibly explained as the actions of one American who had begun learning Russian in his late teens while in the Marines. If we have an incident that can be explained in more than one way: a complex explanation involving a long-term double-doppelganger project, or aliens from another planet, or the lizard people, and a simple explanation involving one real-life human being but no aliens or doppelgangers or lizard people, we should use the simplest explanation, shouldn't we? That's the only rational thing to do. Unfortunately for the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, pretty much any explanation that doesn't involve doppelgangers is going to be much simpler, and thus more plausible, than an explanation that does involve doppelgangers. Does Jim accept that plausible alternative explanations exist for most or all of his 'Harvey and Lee' talking points? If he doesn't accept this obvious fact, there really isn't much point in continuing this discussion, because he will have admitted that he is just a closed-minded propagandist. These alternative explanations have been pointed out to him numerous times, so there's no excuse for denying their existence. But if Jim does accept that plausible alternative explanations exist for his talking points, could he tell us why, in principle, he prefers complicated and implausible explanations over much simpler and more plausible explanations? And if he does insist on believing that sinister masterminds in the OSS or CIA actually set up a long-term project involving two pairs of doppelgangers, could he tell us why, specifically, they decided to use doppelgangers when they had no need to do so?

Jim Hargrove writes: There's a good case to be made that the real-life, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald's defection was not genuine, and that he was acting under instructions from one or another US intelligence organisation. He may or may not have been a formal employee of that organisation. Whether all of that makes him "a spy" depends on one's definition of the word. He may have been sent over there to report on his experiences of Soviet life, or on the places he visited, or on the workplaces he was assigned to by the Soviet authorities, or on his treatment by those authorities, or for some other relatively mundane reason. He wouldn't have found it easy to do much traditional spying, such as smuggling top-secret documents out of the country, since he was openly an American defector. He could expect his movements to be closely tracked, and his Russian language skills were not those of a native speaker. And he couldn't drive, so he wouldn't have had access to a bullet-proof Aston Martin. Needless to say, nothing Oswald did over there required him to have been an alien from another planet, or one of the lizard people, or a member of a long-term project involving two pairs of doppelgangers that had been set up for no good reason a decade and a half earlier when he was a young boy.

Let's see if Jim has finally managed to explain the central element of his double-doppelganger theory. Why would those masterminds have decided to use doppelgangers when they didn't need to use doppelgangers? Over to Jim: Oh well. He still can't tell us why that imaginary double-doppelganger project would have been set up. So the doppelganger who defected was recruited as a young boy in order to learn about Russian culture. If that was "the whole idea", it makes no sense at all. You don't need to be a doppelganger to learn about Russian culture. Learning about Russian culture is one more item on the list of things that don't require doppelgangers. The party line up to now has been that the doppelganger was recruited as a young boy so that he could use his native knowledge of Russian to understand what was being said around him when he eventually defected, a decade and a half later. That was the foundation of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory. But cracks appeared in those foundations when it was pointed out that: You don't need to be a native speaker to understand what is being said around you. The real-life Lee Harvey Oswald's Russian was not at the level of a native speaker. By definition, the imaginary Oswald doppelganger defector likewise cannot have been a native speaker of Russian. Since those mythical masterminds at the OSS or the CIA cannot have decided to set up their imaginary double-doppelganger project for reasons of language or culture, the question remains: Why use doppelgangers when you don't need to use doppelgangers? The simplest way for the defector to have the same experiences as a genuine American would be for him to actually be a genuine American. Isn't that obvious? If you need someone with a genuine American background and genuine American experiences, who could possibly be better than a genuine American? Again, why use doppelgangers when you don't need to use doppelgangers? If you're going to recruit a pair of doppelgangers, of course they need to look similar (apart from their earlobes). But that requirement only arises if you decide to recruit doppelgangers. It doesn't have anything to do with why those masterminds would have decided to use doppelgangers in the first place. Why use doppelgangers when you don't need to use doppelgangers? Let's have another look at the list of things that don't require doppelgangers: You don't need to be a doppelganger in order to learn about Russian culture. You don't need to be a doppelganger in order to understand what is being said around you in a foreign language. You don't need to be a doppelganger in order to impersonate someone. You don't need to be a doppelganger in order to have a plausible American background. Jim can't think of anything that required doppelgangers. If there was nothing that required doppelgangers, the 'Harvey and Lee' theory cannot be correct, can it? If there was something that did require doppelgangers, what was it? Why would those masterminds have decided specifically to use doppelgangers?

Jim Hargrove writes: We are to believe that it was the real-life, one and only, native English-speaking Lee Harvey Oswald who took those language tests, and not some imaginary doppelganger with poorly defined language skills and a 13-inch head. It was explained to Jim a couple of years ago that the tests Oswald took in English and Russian were not of the same standard. The Marine Corps offered extra pay to native English-speaking Marines with skills in foreign languages. Their Russian language tests were not aimed at native speakers of that language. Their English language tests, however, were aimed at native speakers of that language. Equivalent marks in each language would denote a higher level of skill in English than in Russian, which is exactly what we should expect to see if the person taking the test was a real-life native English-speaking American who began learning Russian in his late teens. There's nothing suspicious about Oswald's exam scores. Jim has been told this already. He knows that doppelgangers are not required in order to explain Oswald's exam scores. Jim continues: This point too has been explained to Jim in the past. Oswald was using the Russian-language newspaper not to find out what was going on in the world, but to help himself learn the language. It's a standard method: once you have acquired a basic competence in a language, you improve your reading knowledge by using a newspaper or magazine in combination with a dictionary. Oswald's Marine buddies testified that this is exactly what Oswald did. He used newspapers in combination with a Russian-English dictionary. Here's Mack Osborne: Why else would Oswald have used a Russian-English dictionary in combination with a Russian-language newspaper? He was a native English-speaker learning Russian, not a native Russian-speaker brushing up on his English vocabulary. There's nothing suspicious about Oswald's use of Russian-language newspapers. Jim has been told this already. He knows that doppelgangers are not required in order to explain Oswald's use of Russian-language newspapers. Back to Jim: It is very likely that Oswald was given training in Russian. See this article by Greg Parker and Jim Purtell: http://www.jfkconversations.com/lee-oswald-russian-language That article provides a plausible scenario in which Oswald learned Russian in two ways: by himself, and through official tuition while he was in the Marines. You don't need imaginary double-doppelganger projects to explain any of this. Oswald was a native English-speaking American who began learning Russian while in the Marines, at least partly in preparation for his false defection. Oswald's level of Russian did not require him to have been a doppelganger. Why, then, would the masterminds in the OSS or CIA have decided to use doppelgangers when they didn't need to use doppelgangers?

Jim Hargrove writes: Yes, I'm aware of that piece of doctrine: the masterminds are supposed to have set up a double-doppelganger project in order to produce a defector who understood Russian. That would have been the ultimate purpose of the imaginary double-doppelganger project, if it had existed. What I'm interested in is the specific purpose. The question I've been trying to get Jim and his fellow cult members to answer is: Why doppelgangers? Why, specifically, would those masterminds at the OSS or CIA have decided to achieve their ultimate goal by using doppelgangers? What would have been the thinking behind that decision? Firstly, I'm not sure that a five-year-old would normally be described as a "youth". Secondly, the five-year-old, had he existed, would have been recruited with only a five-year-old's understanding of the language, and would have lived in an English-speaking community for the next 14 years or so, until he defected. What advantage would there have been in: recruiting a five-year-old, with only a five-year-old's understanding of Russian, and recruiting a doppelganger boy for that five-year-old, and recruiting the doppelganger boy's mother, and recruiting a doppelganger for the doppelganger boy's mother, and recruiting assorted hangers-on, and paying to keep the show on the road for a decade and a half, all the while crossing their fingers and hoping that the unrelated boys would end up looking virtually identical (apart from their earlobes), rather than simply recruiting one person and spending a fraction of the time and money in getting him to learn Russian? On the face of it, no-one in their right mind would have decided to implement such a complicated and uncertain scheme, when a far simpler alternative would have been available. Recruiting one American would have been such an obvious solution that no-one would even have considered the possibility of using doppelgangers. To justify all that trouble, expense and uncertainty, the masterminds must have decided that there was a significant advantage in using four doppelgangers instead of one American who understood Russian. Why would they have made that decision? What would their thinking have been?

The remaining cult members are still unable to come up with a plausible explanation for their cult's central point of doctrine. They claim that either the OSS or the CIA recruited two pairs of doppelgangers back in the mid-1940s or thereabouts. They claim that one pair of doppelgangers was made up of one American boy and one eastern European boy, and that the latter was recruited because of his knowledge of Russian. Admittedly, they're not quite sure whether it was the OSS or the CIA who set up this unlikely project. They're not quite sure when the unlikely project was set up. They're not quite sure where in eastern Europe the doppelganger boy came from, or what his real name was, or how he reached the US. They're not quite sure how old he was when he was recruited: he may have been three years old, or ten years old, or something in between. They're not quite sure whether this boy's knowledge of Russian was that of a three-year-old, or of a ten-year-old, or of someone in between. It all looks rather like guesswork. More importantly, the cult members are not sure why the project would have been set up. They used to think that the purpose was to produce someone who: spoke Russian like a native, and could claim to possess a plausible American background. But that can't have been the purpose, because the person whom the project supposedly produced, the real-life, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald, did not speak Russian like a native. So what was the actual purpose of the project? What was the thinking behind setting up a project that started out with two pairs of doppelgangers and ended up with someone who did not speak Russian like a native?

John Butler writes: What documentary evidence exists to show that this imaginary doppelganger was "a native of Russia somewhere in the area of Minsk"? By the way, Minsk is in Belarus, not Russia. What documentary evidence exists to show that this imaginary doppelganger was taken from "the area of Minsk" when he was young? And who was it who took him? What documentary evidence identifies this person? What documentary evidence suggests that this imaginary doppelganger was Jewish? What documentary evidence exists to show that this imaginary doppelganger was taken to Switzerland? What documentary evidence is there of this imaginary doppelganger's date of birth? What documentary evidence exists to show that this imaginary doppelganger travelled through those countries? What documentary evidence exists to show that these particular Hungarians spoke Russian? How good would their Russian have needed to be in order to keep a five-year-old's Russian "workable" in an otherwise English-speaking community? This is just standard 'Harvey and Lee' stuff: a story constructed out of a huge amount of speculation and a minimal amount (if that) of solid documentary evidence. ----- The point I've been trying to get the 'Harvey and Lee' faithful to understand is that they need to produce a plausible model of their theory. A collection of supposed biographical events, all of which (or, to be generous, almost all of which) have plausible alternative explanations, is worthless if no coherent framework exists. The faithful have proposed that one or other organisation (maybe the OSS, maybe the CIA; they'll get back to us when they've worked out that part) set up a long-term project involving two pairs of doppelgangers, and that more than a decade later this project produced a false defector who spoke Russian less well than a native adult speaker. But the faithful have not explained how that project produced that defector: If the defector's Russian was that of a native adult speaker when he went into the project, why was it not at that level when he came out a decade or more later? If the defector's Russian was not that of a native adult speaker when he went into the project, what reason was there for recruiting him and the other three doppelgangers? The faithful need to explain the thinking behind their supposed double-doppelganger project. Why was the decision made to recruit two pairs of doppelgangers? What was the goal? If the goal was to produce someone whose Russian was that of a native speaker, why did it fail to achieve that goal?

Sandy Larsen writes: I realise that the cult's three remaining believers are just making up doctrine as they go along, but surely someone should have sorted all of this out long ago. It's been two decades now since Armstrong published his novel. The essential element of that work of fiction is an imaginary long-term project involving two pairs of doppelgangers. But there's still no agreement about why the OSS or CIA (delete as appropriate) would have decided to set up that imaginary project. There's still no coherent explanation of why any doppelgangers of any age would have been recruited. Jim has plucked from some unmentionable location a doppelganger Oswald who was recruited at the age of five or younger. Sandy has plucked from another unmentionable location a doppelganger Oswald who was recruited as a ten-year-old. And John, the world's most incompetent photo analyst, has implied that his own doppelganger Oswald had been recruited by the age of three, since two photos of the real-life Lee Harvey Oswald from around that age supposedly show the infant Oswald with differently sized earlobes, measurements of which John has not yet supplied. If our three remaining members of the 'Harvey and Lee' brains trust want to be taken seriously, please could they at least put their heads together and come up with a scenario, however far-fetched and implausible, that they all agree on? Or, if they insist on retaining their doctrinal differences, perhaps each of them could come up with a coherent scenario that explains their different blind guesses about the age at which their imaginary doppelganger Oswald was recruited. Jim - why did the OSS recruit a Russian-speaking five-year-old, and how did the CIA end up with someone whose Russian was worse than that of a native adult speaker? Sandy - why did the CIA recruit a Russian-speaking ten-year-old, and how did they end up with someone whose Russian was worse than that of a native adult speaker? John - why did the OSS recruit a Russian-speaking three-year-old, and how did the CIA end up with someone whose Russian was worse than that of a native adult speaker? Whatever the age of the imaginary Oswald doppelganger, the theory makes no sense, does it? Why would the CIA or the OSS or any other rational organisation have set up a long-term scheme involving two pairs of doppelgangers, only to end up with a defector to the Soviet Union whose Russian was indistinguishable from that of the real-life, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald, who began learning Russian in his late teens? Why would anyone have gone to all that trouble when they could simply have recruited one American and got him to learn Russian?

The fundamental problem remains: the defector was not a native speaker of Russian. If the real-life Lee Harvey Oswald who defected was not a native speaker of Russian, the imaginary Oswald doppelganger who defected must also not have been a native speaker of Russian. But the 'Harvey and Lee' double-doppelganger project required its defecting doppelganger to have been a native speaker of Russian. Even if the project had been set up without a future defection in mind, it must have involved the recruitment of an Oswald doppelganger who was a native speaker of Russian. There is only one way in which such a project could have ended up with a defecting doppelganger who was not a native speaker of Russian. The boy in question must have been a native speaker of Russian when he was recruited, but the OSS/CIA must have allowed him to forget so much of his Russian that he resembled a non-native speaker. That scenario cannot realistically have happened, can it? The OSS/CIA would not have invested so much time and manpower in a project, only to negate the essential purpose of the project by allowing its native Russian speaker to lose the very ability he was recruited for in the first place. Is there any credible scenario in which the OSS/CIA would have set up a double-doppelganger project and ended up with a defector who was not a native speaker of Russian?

Jim Hargrove writes: It's possible that he got the whole thing wrong, as he did for Stripling school. According to the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, Robert was in on the deception and would surely have been told not to give the game away. But he kept on giving the game away. That's one more aspect of the theory that makes no sense. No, the simplest explanation is that there was only one of him, and that most of the alleged impersonations had more plausible, everyday explanations, links to which I'll be happy to supply. The few strong claims of impersonation also have a plausible non-doppelganger explanation: they were ad hoc impersonations to implicate Oswald as the sort of person who might go on to shoot a president. Take away the claims that can be explained as faulty memories, or misinterpretations of documentary evidence, or genuine but ad hoc impersonations, and there's virtually nothing left (and I'm being generous with 'virtually'). Impersonations do not require doppelgangers, and certainly do not require long-term projects involving two pairs of doppelgangers, let alone five-year-old doppelgangers. John Butler disagrees: I think John is pulling our collective leg! The earlobes look different? Those are two photos of the one and only Lee Harvey Oswald. John should stick to identifying back-to-front cars and three-legged men in poor-quality copies of the Zapruder film. Even among the faithful, there is no agreement about the doppelgangers' physical differences and similarities. The range of claims that have been made about this is laughable. One of the doppelgangers had sloping shoulders. One of them had a 13-inch head. One of them was 5' 11" tall, then shrank to 5' 6", then grew back to 5' 11". The doppelgangers were so similar that even their friends and families couldn't tell them apart. The doppelgangers were so different that eagle-eyed researchers decades later can easily tell them apart just by looking at photos. It's ridiculous, and it sums up the 'Harvey and Lee' cult's cherry-picking approach to the evidence. Sandy Larsen writes: See the second post from the top of this page.

Sandy Larsen writes: The real-life, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald did not speak Russian like a native. Therefore the 'Harvey and Lee' theory's equivalent imaginary doppelganger also did not speak Russian like a native. It really is not controversial that Oswald's Russian was not at the level of a native speaker. We settled this a couple of years ago on this forum. Several of Oswald's Marine buddies testified that he was teaching himself the language by using recordings, newspapers, and a Russian-English dictionary: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26571-oswalds-language-abilities-and-evidence-related-to-his-soviet-soujourn-1959-63/?do=findComment&comment=427120 He did poorly in a Russian-language exam while in the Marines: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26571-oswalds-language-abilities-and-evidence-related-to-his-soviet-soujourn-1959-63/?do=findComment&comment=427361 Even after having lived among native speakers for more than two years, Oswald made frequent grammatical mistakes: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=39#relPageId=138 None of this is controversial. Oswald's Russian was poor at first, it improved, it became very good, but it was never at the level of a native speaker. The Oswald-was-a-real-person theory can explain this: Oswald began learning Russian in his late teens while he was in the Marines, via a combination of self-tuition and official tuition: http://www.jfkconversations.com/lee-oswald-russian-language. The Oswald-was-a-pair-of-doppelgangers theory cannot explain this. The 'Harvey and Lee' theory requires the equivalent Oswald doppelganger to have been a native speaker of Russian. It requires that doppelganger to have been recruited specifically for his native ability to speak Russian. But the real-life Lee Harvey Oswald was not a native speaker of Russian. The theory is incoherent.