Mathias Baumann

Paul, You could just as well link both Hemming and Sturgis to Howard Hunt or Mitch Werbell. But games of "who knew who" is not going to lead us anywhere. Sometimes I get the feeling that everybody somehow knew everybody in the far right / anti-Castro underground. But there's one thing that makes me think that none those aforementioned played a central role in the assassination. Because all of them lived to tell their fancy stories. If we want to know who killed Kennedy we should follow the trail of blood. Who died an untimely death? George de Mohrenschild, Dorothy Killgallen, David Ferrie, Eladio del Valle, Johnny Roselli...

Paul, Loran Hall and Larry Howard were most certainly not the men who visited Silvia Odio. She never identfied either of them. However, in 1964 she confided to a Catholic priest that one of the visitors had been Eugenio Cisneros, a gun runner and leading member of JURE.

Oswald applied for admission at this university: Further information can be found here: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-11-05/news/1995309007_1_patrice-lumumba-dream-school-moscow The university was opened in February 1960, several months AFTER Oswald had arrived in Russia. Could Oswald have been aware of Soviet plans to establish a universtiy for foreign students when he decided to desert? Doubtful. But I think there can be no doubt that this place would certainly have been of great interest to US intelligence.

Jim, we may disagree about where and when Oswald learned Russian (and about the number of Oswalds! ). But you certainly have a point here. The official story about how Oswald managed to get a passing grade on his Marine Corps test is not believable, if you and Sandy are right and he only had a few months to prepare himself. If I may quote myself: Of course I could be wrong - the target level may have been much lower and/or Oswald maybe have been a genius. But I think all in all this is a pretty educated guess. By the way, did Oswald speak Spanish or not? The evidence seems to be contradictory.

Joe, if Richard Case Nagell is to be believed there was also a plot in Los Angeles:

Paul, I don't think that General Walker was more influential than the national syndicate of organized crime. And the Mafia had two powerful allies: the exile Cubans and CIA assassination specialists such as Bill Harvey and David Morales. It also had two very important motives to kill JFK: 1) Getting back Cuba and their multi-billion dollar business there. 2) Ending the Kennedy brothers' war on organized crime. The assassins who carried out the ambush in Dealey Plaza were most likely battle-hardened Cuban exiles trained for Operation Mongoose. And the ambush was planned by Bill Harvey and David Morales. I also think you're forgetting that JFK's brother was killed too. Who was behind that? General Walker?

Paul, the assassination could have happened anywhere. Think of the plots that failed in Chicago and Tampa. It was probably just a stroke of luck that it worked in Dallas. I just chanced upon his highly interesting article that gives a lot of background information on the previous plots I'd been looking for a long time: https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-three-failed-plots-to-kill-jfk-the-historians-guide-on-how-to-research-his-assassination The similarities are striking: Chicago Tampa You're right there had to be a leader. But why General Walker? Why not, say Santos Trafficante or Carlos Marcello? We know that Mafia boss Johnny Roselli was friends with both David Morales and William Harvey, the CIA's experts in assassination. And we know that quite a number of mafia big shots were "silenced" when investigators started asking questions about the CIA-Mafia plots against Castro.

Jim, some thoughts on this: 1) Setting up a high-class language program from scratch takes many years. Curricula need to be developed, teachers need to be trained ,school books need to be written etc. I highly doubt that elementary school Russian language class in Hungary was very effective shortly after the war. Although English was introduced in German elementary schools about 15 years ago quality still varies greatly from place to place, for instance. In many schools it consists of singing English songs two or three times a week. 2) I don't think that the cyrillic letters are the greatest hurdle in learning Russian. Hungary belongs to a completely different family of languages, it is much more closely related to Finnish than to Russian. So grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation vary greatly. 3) I don't think that the Russian alphabet would be taught alongside the Roman one in elementary school, especially since many letters look identical in both alphabets but stand for different sounds (CCCP = SSSR!) That would obviously be highly confusing to the students. The logical approach would be to teach the cyrillic letters not until the students possess a firm command of the Roman alphabet. 4) According to this paper Russian was not taught until the 5th grade and was not compulsory until 1950, which would prove right my point 3): http://ludens.elte.hu/~deal/pages/novelty/htm2/vol91/lukacs.html At what age did Harvey leave Hungary according to your theory? How long could he have learned Russian if he started in grade 5?

Jim, I recently stumbled upon this: Excerpts from Oswald's essay on Minsk and the factory. (c. June 1962) ( Source: CE 92 & CE 94) Upon his return to the USA in 1962, Oswald hired a secretary to type and correct his handwritten essay about Minsk. He ran out of money before all the pages could be typed. These are excerpts from both the typed and handwritten pages, in a version correcting the grammatical and spelling errors that Oswald's dyslexia caused in his writings. This factory manufactures 87,000 large and powerful radios and 60,000 television sets in various sizes and ranges, excluding pocket radios, which are not mass-produced anywhere in the USSR. It is this plant which manufactured several console model combination radio-phonograph-television sets which were shown as mass-produced items of commerce before several hundreds of thousands of Americans at the Soviet Exposition in New York in 1959. After the Exhibition, these sets were duly shipped back to Minsk and are now stored in a special storage room on the first floor of the Administrative Building--at this factory, ready for the next International Exhibit. I worked for 23 months [ a typo. Oswald worked 28 months ] at this plant, a fine example of average and even slightly better than average working conditions. The plant covers an area of 25 acres in a district one block north of the main thoroughfare and only two mile from the center of the City with all facilities for the mass production of radios and televisions. It employs 5,000 full time and 300 part-time workers, 58% women and girls. Five hundred people during the day shift are employed on the huge stamp and pressing machines where sheet metal is turned into metal frames and cabinets for television sets and radios. Another five hundred people are employed in an adjoining building for cutting and finishing of rough wood into fine polished cabinets. A laborer's process, mostly done by hand, the cutting, trimming and the processes right up to hand-polishing are carried out here at the same plant. The plant also has stamp-making plant, employing 150 people at or assisting at 80 heavy machine lathes and grinders. The noise in this shop is almost deafening as metal grinds against metal and steel saws cut through iron ingots at the rate of an inch a minute. The floor is covered with oil used to drain the heat of metal being worked so one has to watch one's footing; here the workers' hands are as black as the floor and seem to be eternally... For a good cross-section of the Russian working class, I suggest we examine the lives of some of the 58 workers and 5 foremen working in the experimental shop of the Minsk radio plant... The shop itself is located in a two-story building with no particular noticeable mark on its red brick face. By 8:00 A.M. sharp all the workers have arrived and at the sound of a bell sounded by the orderly, who is a worker whose duty it is to see the workers don't slip out for too many smokes, they file upstairs, except for 10 turners and lathe operators whose machines are located on the first floor. Work here is given out in the form of blueprints and drawings by the foreman Zonof and junior foreman Lavruk to workers whose various reliability and skills call for them, since each worker has with time acquired differing skills and knowledge Source: http://www.russianbooks.org/oswald/minsk4.htm This certainly doesn't read like an ordinary diary. Surely Oswald wrote that report with the intention to convey information to someone else.

Tracy, if Phillips used Alvarado to falsely link Oswald to the Cubans he would try to conceal that, wouldn't he? The fact of the matter is that Alvarado's whole story was phony from start to finish yet Phillips completely failed to see that. So he was either grossly incompetent or he was playing a false game. About Jane Roman: I can't say I'm surprised about that statement. But you cannot deny the fact that headquarters withheld vital information from the Mexico City station. Why was that done? Is it not likely that Oswald was part of a CIA operation against the FPCC and that someone wanted to conceal this? Oswald presented newspaper clippings and photos from his exploits in New Orleans to Silvia Duran in order to get a visa. So is it not possible that New Orleans and Mexico City were somehow part of the same clandestine operation? You also did not address the other questions I've raised: Why did the CIA lie about destroying the tapes of the phone calls? Who impersonated Oswald on the phone? And why? Why are there no photos of Oswald? Why did the CIA falsely state that the cameras were out of order?

Thank you for that link Tracy. Greg Parker thinks that Oswald suffered from Asperger's. That is an intriguing idea that I guess might be the key to some puzzles surrounding Oswald, such as how he was able to learn Russian that quickly. On the other hand Asperger's patients are often described as socially reclusive while Oswald seems to have been quite outgoing. He often deliberately sought the limelight. Also there's scant evidence in his school records that he was particularly interested in languages, which you would expect. On the other hand he was an avid reader and indeed some people said that "he kept to himself". So all in all I think that's a real possibility, although I don't think there's enough evidence available to decide this matter either way.

Tracy, the important thing about the file is that only a handful of high-ranking officers in counterintelligence were privy to its full content. In the file Mexico City received from headquarters recent events from Oswald's activities in New Orleans (in fact everything since he returned from Russia!) were deliberately left out. Jane Roman stated that this was evidence of "operational interest" in Oswald. ->https://www.history-matters.com/essays/frameup/WhatJaneRomanSaid/WhatJaneRomanSaid_1.htm And what about the fake phone call? Phillips could very well have been behind that. We know he'd played similar tricks before. What's your theory on this? Who made that call and why? About the false story: I'm talking about Alvorado and his claim he saw Oswald in the Cuban embassy receiving money from a Cuban. Phillips played a decisive role in promoting his phony story. You can read about that in "Our Man in Mexico", starting at page 219. Phillips hid the fact that he knew Alvarado was working for both the CIA and Nicaraguan intelligence. He also embellished his report by claiming Alvarado possessed great knowlegde about the Cuban embassy's personnel while in fact Alvarado could not identify a single employee when he was shown photos. So all in all the evidence suggests that this was another of Phillip's ruses.

Tracy, I have some questions for you personally as well regarding your articles on Veciana. You seem to think that we should not trust anything he says. Fair enough, so do I. When reading the "Last investigation" I had the feeling that he was playing a false game of some sort. If Phillips was Bishop but Veciana didn't want to confirm for fear of his life why did he not just say so? Instead he just muddied the water with nebulous remarks. But your conclusion that Veciana and/or Fonzi made the entire story up is not credible in my opinion. You seem to forget all the other pieces of evidence that link Phillips to Oswald and the assassination, such as his campaing against the Fairplay for Cuba Committee, the false stories he planted about Oswald's links to Castro, the repeated lies about the Mexico City story. And of course his close relationship to David Morales. In that context Veciana's story makes a lot of sense. Let me ask you this: if you think there's nothing to the "CIA-did-it-story" then why did CIA counterintelligence have a top secret file on Oswald? Who impersonated him in Mexico City? (And so linked him to Kostikov!) Why did the CIA lie about destroying the tapes from this phone call? Why are there no photos of Oswald when we know for a fact that the cameras were working? Why did Phillips plant a false story linking Oswald to Castro? Why has the CIA tried to sabotage the HSCA investigation? (even Robert Blakey has come to admit this --> see the addendum to the interview: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/interview-g-robert-blakey/ The CIA IS HIDING a dark secret about its relationship to Oswald, there can be no doubt about it, in my opinion.

Tracy, some of the rebuttals in your last link are fairly convincing, others not so much. Surely hearsay coming from a disgruntled ex-employee should be viewed with caution. But at a second glance some others lack substance, such as: There's of course a lot more to this. Oswald's leafletting in New Orleans took place at a time when both the CIA and FBI were planning a smear campaign against the Fairplay for Cuba Committee. The radio debate in which Oswald was confronted with his time in Russia was definitely staged to expose him as a communist sympathizer and a Soviet stooge. We also know that the FPCC was one of David Attlee Phillips primary targets. And the same David Attlee Phillips later tried to plant false stories linking Oswald to the KGB and Fidel Castro and was caught repeatedly lying to the HSCA about the circumstances of Oswald's trip to Mexico. And then there's of course the curious fact that the Mexico City station was deliberately kept in the dark about Oswald's actions in New Orleans and that counterintelligence had a top secret file on Oswald... And it was Joannides' job to make sure that a lid was kept on all of this. I think this is one of the most powerful pieces of evidence that Oswald part of a bigger plot. It was almost right after Oswald had been taken off the list that things got into motion. Look at this timeline: October 3, 1963: Oswald returns to Dallas. October 8, 1963: Gheesling takes Oswald off the FBI's watch list - for reasons unknown. October 10, 1963: a memo is created, compiling the latest information on Oswald http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1565#relPageId=2&tab=page. Only six senior CIA officers had access to it. http://jfkfacts.org/did-the-cia-track-oswald-before-jfk-was-killed/ October 15, 1963: Oswald gets the job at the Book Depository. Rents a room under a false name. So clearly the plotters had access to this kind of information, which indicates that the plot involved people within the intelligence community. With Oswald still being on the watch list they could not reasonably expect the assassination to succeed. So they either had to know that Oswald was off the list or maybe even possessed the influence to get him off it. And knowledge of Oswald's contact with Kostikov (plus the fact that Kostikov was a KGB terror agent) was the decisive factor in choosing Oswald in the first place. My personal hunch is that the conspirators had also learned about Oswald's failed assassination attempt on General Walker. George de Mohrenschildt may have been their source. We know he had wide-ranging intelligence connections. So the plotters knew Oswald was a violent person that could be incited to commit political murder. Hello Jim, no I haven't seen that movie but it surely sounds interesting. I do believe that Oswald had connections to US intelligence, but I think merely saying that Oswals was a "spy" raises more questions than it answers. Such as: Which agency was he working for? ONI, CIA, FBI? What was he used for? A source of intelligence? Agent provocateur? Disinformation agent? A "dangle"? I that context I have two question for you: First, when Oswald came to Russia he wanted to attend Patrice Lumumba University. Do you know if there was anything special about this University? Could it have been a worthwhile target for US intelligence? And, secondly, what is your opinion on Kerry Thornley? (Please see my post from Wednesday at 06:48 PM ) Have a nice weekend!

Sandy and David, I think you cannot both be right at the same time. Because if BOTH Marina and Lee had been spies, don't you think one of them would've found out about the other sooner or later? And I must admit I find it hard to see Oswald as some sort of spy. I think that's what he wanted to be in his imagination. Others might have taken advantage of his naivety and used him as an agent provacateur or a "patsy", but for a real intelligence operative his whole lifestyle and demeanor seems to be too conspicuous, don't you think? He stuck out like a sore thumb wherever he went. Marina on the other hand I can imagine pretty well eavesdropping on fellow Russian émigrés. Maybe that was the reason she was allowed to leave for America? To spy on the Russian community there? Because that was in fact one of the KGB's primary objectives (see the link in my post above). @ Sandy: Thanks for that link. I enjoyed "Oswald and the CIA" very much. I'm glad to see that John Newman has published some new material. I hope I'll soon have some spare time to study it.

Jim, I'm also enjoying this conversation, I find it very enlightening When Oswald applied for a job in New Orleans in the spring of 1963 he also gave his height as 5’ 9”, which coincidentally is the height of a certain Kerry Thornley. I think Thornley is a deeply suspicious character. By his own admission he knew Guy Banister and David Ferrie, became friends with John Roselli years later, wrote a book about Oswald BEFORE the assassination... and he was in New Orleans at the time of the Bolton Ford incident and was one of the few people who knew that Oswald was living in Russia at that time. But somehow I just don't know where exactly he might fit in. What do you make of him? Marina being a KGB informer would explain a lot, but would she really have been of much use being a stay-at-home mom under FBI surveillance? Also, the KGB might not have been all that interested in Oswald after all: http://www.russianbooks.org/oswald/kgb.htm

Jim, to answer your question: "One story illustrates how strong this resemblance was between Oswald and Webster. Robert Webster met Oswald’s future wife Marina Prusakova at the American Exhibition held in Moscow during the summer of 1959. They saw each other again in 1960. Curiously, Marina spoke English to Webster, while she only spoke Russian when she came to the United States with Oswald.[ 2 ] On one occasion, Marina even confused Webster with Oswald. Webster and Oswald were used to loosen Soviet tongues, and they may have never realized it. Marina wasn’t the only woman confused by the two men. In the 1990s, the Assassination Records Review Board interviewed Joan Hallett, the widow of the former naval attaché at the American Embassy in Moscow. Hallett remembered seeing Oswald at the Embassy on September 5, right at the end of the American Exhibition. No one could understand the discrepancy between her strong and clear recollection and the September 5 date. The solution is simple - Hallett was mistaking Webster for Oswald. Webster disappeared on 9/10/59 – six days after the Exhibition ended. Oswald didn't arrive in Moscow until a month later. [...] The physical differences between Oswald and Webster were blended for molehunt purposes The following discussion is important because it shows the game that was played by blending the identities of Oswald and Webster. I am convinced Fain misrepresented some of the “minor details” that Marguerite Oswald told him, as part of an approved CI-SIG operation conducted for molehunt purposes by Angleton’s division. Keep in mind that Angleton’s job was to prevent penetration of the CIA, and he had been focused on the Soviet branch since the blowing of the Popov operation. Here’s Marguerite’s supposed description of Lee to Fain: "5' 10", 165 lbs., light brown and wavy hair, blue eyes". Except for the hair color, this is a description of Robert Webster, not Oswald. Webster's job application in 1957 describes him as five feet ten, 166, blond hair, blue eyes. Oswald’s weight never got anywhere close to Webster’s 165 pounds. Although Oswald was known to exaggerate and write that he weighed 150 or 160 on two separate occasions, Oswald’s documented weight for the last seven years of his life varied between 131-140 pounds.[ 23 ] Webster's hair was slightly wavy. Oswald also had slightly wavy hair. However, in contrast to Webster’s 5 feet, 10 inches, Oswald's height was generally described as 5 feet, 9 inches, as shown in this photo. After Fain’s memo, Oswald's height is only described as 5' 10" in one fateful event - a critical memo about an Oswald sighting in Mexico City shortly before the assassination, with Egerter as an acknowledged co-author. As we will see, the way that Oswald was described in Mexico City will take us to the heart of the drama in Dallas. Oswald exaggerated his height to 5 feet, 11 inches starting with his application to the Switzerland college in March 1959 and continuing until his return from the Soviet Union. After his return, Oswald reported himself as 5 feet, 9 inches to prospective employers…except when dealing with government officials, where he described himself as 5 foot 11. This maneuver kept his records with the government consistent. It doesn’t prove that Oswald was a government spy. It indicates that Oswald was a spy in his own mind, and would exaggerate his own description. There is no record that Oswald ever described himself as “5 foot 10, 165”.[ 24 ] CI-SIG may have noticed that Oswald was toying with his own measurements, which may have elevated him in their eyes as a prime candidate to have his biographical data used in a molehunt. This phony description of Oswald as “5 foot 10, 165” came back into play three years later. In Mexico City, Oswald tried again to get an instant visa – this time, to visit Cuba and the Soviet Union. On October 10, 1963, Egerter was the co-author of two memos describing a man known as “Lee Henry Oswald” – the name that Egerter had used for him back during his time in the Soviet Union. The first memo describes Oswald with the blended/Webster description from his time in the USSR...Five feet ten, 165, hair is light brown and wavy, eyes blue. (Memo 1, directed to Mexico City) The second memo blends this description with the photo of a six foot man who was a probable KGB officer. Six feet, receding hairline, age 35, athletic build. (Memo 2, directed to the headquarters of the FBI, State Dept., and Navy - and note that the KGB officer was 35 years old and well built.) Egerter prepared these two memos with two different descriptions of Oswald that went to different agencies. One said that he was a defector seeking to re-enter the US. The other one, responding to the Mexico City station, added that the realities of life in the USSR had a "maturing effect" on Oswald. The reasons why will be explored in the Mexico City chapter. My conclusion about the blending of their identities was to get the Soviets to talk about Webster when Oswald was on the scene, since they looked so similar. Webster was used in a dangle designed to ensure that US defense capabilities were not being undercut by the Soviets in the plastics and fiberglass fields. What the US got from the Webster operation was peace of mind. The US was ten years ahead in these areas. Similarly, Soviets who knew the two men might talk about Oswald when Webster was on the scene. In either instance, more intelligence would be obtained. After the downing of the U-2 on May 1, 1960, Oswald the man had little value in any dangle for the Soviets. It was a good time for Egerter and Fain to turn to Oswald’s file for use in a molehunt." Bill Simpich, State Secret: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/State_Secret_Chapter1.html About Marina Prusakova: I wonder why she felt attracted to American defectors. Is it possible she saw them as a way to leave Russia and start a new life in the West? For all I know it was not Marina's idea to leave for America, but Oswald's. So I guess it is more likely she was some sort of informer. That might also explain why she was given consent to leave Russia.

Jim, thank you for that interesting information concerning the photos. Do we know how Oswald got hold of that camera? I imagine it was very expensive and hard to find... About Oswald's report: I'm sure Russian exiles could've provived a far more detailed insight into Russian life than Oswald could during the short time he lived in Russia. We know Oswald always wanted to be some sort of spy and I think he wrote that report with this idea in mind. But I'm convinced that he was used for a different purpose, although I only have a vague idea what it could have been. However I think it might somehow be connected to Webster's defection and how his and Oswald's identities were merged in Oswald's CIA file. And then there's the curious coincidence that Marina might have known Webster too... What's your theory on this? Was Marina a KGB informer spying on US defectors? Has she ever explained why she had Webster's address in her address book? Is there any link between her and defector Marvin Kantor? She once studied at the university where Kantor taught Slavic languages.

Jim, not all points on your list sound convincing to me. But I think this is a good one. I remember reading in Gaeton Fonzi's book that years later the FBI claimed they had found photos of a military installation taken with Oswald's camera. Do you know more about this?

Tracy, if you read my previous posts carefully you'll see that I'm not saying it's impossible. With regular professional instruction Oswald could've passed the test. And if he was an autodidactic genius maybe even without. But there's no evidence that he was a language prodigy. So the more reasonable assumption is that he received some form of training. But I think the even bigger enigma is how he reached ILR 5 in just one to two years. That is extremely remarkable. To get to CEF level C1 (which is I think somewhere between ILR 4 and 5) you need about 1000 - 1400 lessons if you start from zero. And I'm talking about the German courses we're offering here at our school. So the students live here in Germany and attend class every day from Monday to Friday for about a year. And yet a lot of them never reach that level. Russian is a level 3 language, one notch above even German in terms of difficulty. So Oswald managed this feat without professional instruction? Possible. But I think it's more likely that he had already undergone extensive training before he got to Russia. Sandy, I think that the purpose of the "False Defector Program" (if it existed) was to divert attention from something really secret. Being watched closely by the KGB Oswald could not do any useful intelligence work. So I guess he was some sort of disposable pawn. His loss would not have hurt the CIA (ONI? FBI? or whoever sent him to Russia) if the Russians had decided to send him to Siberia.

Tracy, I work as a language teacher. I know plenty of people who've lived here in Germany for many years and they're nowhere close to a native speaker's level. In fact some people never reach it. So yes, if Oswald's Russian was good enough to fool native speakers that fact is very remarkable. You're also forgetting that Oswald passed the Marine Corps exam (allegedly) without proper preparation. And that test was probably level L2/R2, which would've required at least 100 to 200 lessons of preparation. So was Oswald a language genius? I could find no evidence in his High School records that would support this. By the way, how long did it take Marina to become fluent in English? That's not a trick question, I'm actually curious about this.

I guess if Oswald had scored an A+ we would never have heard of him. They'd have recruited him for some sort of super secret intelligence work. They would not have sent him to Russia because they had to know the KGB would not be fooled by such a threadbare ruse. Whatever the reason was they sent Oswald to Russia for it did not involve any spying.

Jim, it's hard to say anything exact about Oswald's proficiency level without access to the actual exam papers. But this might give you an idea what L2/R2 actually means: In the US, an influential proficiency measure is the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale, developed by the US State Department. It identifies five levels of language proficiency: Level 1 – Elementary – Can fulfill the basic needs in a language, such as ordering meals, asking time, and asking for directions. Level 2 – Limited Working Proficiency – Can fulfill routine social demands, such as small talk about one’s self, one’s family, and current events. Level 3 – Professional Working Proficiency – Can discuss a variety of topics with ease and almost completely understand what others are saying. Level 4 – Full Professional Proficiency – Can participate in all manners of conversations with ease and only rarely makes grammatical mistakes. Level 5 – Native or Bilingual Proficiency – Can use the language the way an educated native speaker of the language would. Additionally, a person in between levels might be at a 1+, 2+, 3+, or 4+ Level. Source: http://www.languagesurfer.com/2013/05/29/all-about-language-proficiency-and-language-fluency/ Level 2 in reading and listening on the ILR scale is what the U.S. military expects today as a minimum. I don't know what kind of scale they used in the 1950s but my guess is that the skills they expected were quite similar. And as you can see this is still a pretty basic level, far from that of a native speaker. It's certainly not inconceivable that Oswald could've reached that level within a 5 months timeframe if he received regular training. My ballpark guess is that he'd have needed about 5 to 10 lessons per week plus about the same time for preparation at home. But to make a really educated guess we'd have to know what the test looked like. It's not by any chance hidden somewhere in the Warren Report? Or is there any way of getting access to similar tests from that time? (By the way, it just occured to me that Oswald was probably a dyslexic. It would be very interesting to see if some of the mistakes he made in the tests could be attributable to dyslexia. That might partly explain his rather poor result.) But I have another question for you: Have you looked into the question if Oswald attended the Monterey language school? The Warren Commission looked into that rumor. Do you know where exactly it originated? http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.de/2011/09/monterey-language-institute-presidio.html

I'm not yet convinced of the two Oswalds theory, but I think the question how Oswald learned Russian so quickly does merit some serious consideration. First of all I asked myself: How difficult was the test Oswald took? So I did some googling on U.S. Military language tests and I found this bit of information: "People wishing to work as military language analysts are required to maintain at least L2/R2 proficiency." Source: https://www.german-way.com/levels-of-language-proficiency-my-life-in-germany/ L2/R2 is the level of an advanced beginner, which I think roughly equates to the A2 level of the Common European Framework (CEF). You need to take on average 80 to 120 individual (one-on-one) lessons (a lesson being 45 minutes) or 400 lessons of a group course to reach this level in the German language (provided that you already know the Roman Alphabet). These numbers do not include the time you need for homework, mind you. And Russian is even more difficult than German. It's considered a level 3 language (German is level 2): https://www.thebalance.com/defense-language-aptitude-battery-3332702 So considering Oswald was of average intelligence I estimate he would've needed at least somewhere between 100 to 200 lessons of instruction plus about the same amount of time to prepare for the lessons in order to pass the Marine Corps test. And that is a low and optimistic estimate. But maybe Oswald was highly intelligent and able to learn foreign languages more quickly than others? I took a look at his school career. It turns out he was rather intelligent: Lee scored an IQ of 118 on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. According to Sokolow, this indicated a "present intellectual functioning in the upper range of bright normal intelligence." 67 Sokolow said that although Lee was "presumably disinterested in school subjects he operates on a much higher than average level." 68 On the Monroe Silent Reading Test, Lee's score indicated no retardation in reading speed and comprehension; he had better than average ability in arithmetical reasoning for his age group. 69 Source: https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-7.html#newyork But I found no evidence that he ever learned a foreign language at school, so I presume he was unfamiliar with the necessary techniques. On the other hand Nelson Delgado is supposed to have taught Oswald Spanish, which might indicate that Oswald learned languages quickly. But the important point here is that he had an instructor - Delgado. Language is all about communication, so without an interlocutor it is very hard to learn a language, because actual practice is an integral part of the whole process. So my conclusion is that Oswald would not have passed the test without intensive regular instruction.

I found his website at Northwestern University: http://www.slavic.northwestern.edu/people/emeritus-faculty/kantor-marvin.html complete with phone number and e-mail address