John Kowalski

20 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

If the only way to answer the issue immediately above involves printed Manhattan telephone directories, can we find an inexpensive NYC researcher willing to go to the NYPL and search for us?  I’ll try to contact the library next week about this.

Can you think of any other relevant issues I’ve neglected to list above?  I’d like to keep a running list of these issues.

Jim:

Even though we do not know his birth name I would add refugee societies to the list. These would include Hungarian immigrants providing assistance to refugees from Hungary, the American Red Cross and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration which provided relief and resettlement camps for war victims. Their headquarters was in NYC. They are no longer in existence but their documents are at the United Nations archives. 

Let me contact the NYPL before looking for a researcher. Have a list of items from the Weinstock papers that I want to   review, and will add the New York telephone directory for 1945-1949 to the list. Will also inquire about Yorkville community newspapers and alternatives to the city directory.

Link is for a story about the Mauser by James Day.

https://jamesfday.medium.com/the-jfk-assassination-hunting-down-the-mauser-6c30c8f6c6e5

15 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

For the third time, p. 136, second-to-last paragraph.

Do not recall seeing this in your posts. If it was in one of them it was buried in one of your many irrelevant posts about the Cold war and hence I did not see it.

5 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

No one has found out, prior to me, that Weinstock met Gardos in 1959 in Hungary before the latter went into the USSR.  

Matt: what is your source for this?

11 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

When you refer to the NYC City Directory, is that different than the Manhattan telephone directory  (or phone books for the other boroughs)? Also, did the NYPL provide an answer about the years 1945-1949?  If memory serves, the 1945 directory I found Grace Gardos listed in was online from the NYPL.

Yes they are different. Much more information in a city directory than there is in the telephone book you found online. A directory will provide the names of all people who live at an address not just the name of the person whose telephone number it is. NYPL got back to me  and said that the directories were no produced after 1934.

18 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

The fact that you personally may not understand the implications is no cause whatever to deny others who do understand the implications from adding to them here.  If mods want to lock the thread, and keep it a fiefdom amongst you three, perhaps you ought to request that.

This forum has many threads in which forum members discuss various aspects of JFK's assassination. Each thread has one topic. Sandy started a separate thread with your posts. You can discuss the Cold War with anyone on this forum who is willing to discuss it with you.

18 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

You completely ignored all of the salient points in my response to your question, all of which tie directly to the persons identified in the call.  I'll just say if you want to solve the mystery of who Lee Harvey Oswald was, you need to understand the Cold War. 

Did not ignore the salient points of what you said. As you can tell by the posts on this thread, what we are trying to achieve here is to determine the identity of the man who was accused of assassinating JFK. Our main lead is the Bentley call. We do not have to understand the Cold War to find his identity, what we must do is search for documents that will lead to his identification.

Deleted by author.

10 minutes ago, Matt Cloud said:

I have explained that several times already on this thread and the other.  In short, if indeed E. Bentley made the call to the Tippits of CT sveral things unfold from that.  

1.  Obviously it indicates that the famous Red Spy Queen has knowledge of Oswald in the 40s in NYC.  Bad for the official story.

2.  It opens up investigation into the Tippits.  Tried that here before -- no one seems to want to go where that goes.  

You are obviously very interested in the Cold War but this thread is not about that. It is about John A's book Harvey and Lee in which he proves that a man took on Lee Harvey Oswald's identity and then defected to the Soviet Union. In this thread, the significance of the call to me is about what it can tell us about young Harvey, the boy Bentley told Tippit about. This is why Jim, Paul and I have been doing research on the Tippit family in Connecticut and the Gardos in NYC. 

22 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

A search for "1946 Manhattan phone book" or something similar produced multiple working sources, including the NYC Public Library and several others.  Looking virtually inside the 1946 phone book worked beautifully on several sites, but when I tried for 1948, there was just a brick wall.  Lots of references, lots of libraries to visit in person, but no ability to look inside the 1948 book online.  My bet is it is either a copyright exclusion or a limit to how many people are willing scan and publish that many pages.  

Jim:

What we need is the NYC City Directory. This directory will provide the names of each person living at an address listed in the directory. NYPL has city directories online up to the year 1934. Contacted them today regarding obtaining copies of the directory for 77nd avenue and 2nd avenue for the years 1945-1949.

5 minutes ago, Matt Cloud said:

Hinging further discussion and analysis to whether say Fred Blair walked on the sidewalk on 2nd Avenue in Yorkville at some point in 1948 or not is beside the point, and avoids discussing the full significance of the call.

What do you think is the significance of the call?

2 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Any help would be appreciated.

Jim:

Checked Ancestry, they do not have the Manhattan 1947 or 1948 telephone directory.

20 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Was it normal back then to register for the draft when in your forties?

Maybe they wanted to know where all men were even though they may not ask them to serve.

6 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

How 'bout some books?  

Free digitized copy of Clever Girl is available on Internet Archive.

19 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

John -- That's quite a file, but it seems to end in the 1950s, at least from what I've browsed through so far.  Do you know of anything else on Bentley that goes to or approaches 1963?  Or do you think much more was unlikely after she changed teams? 

Do not have anything else on her except her will that is been sent to me by mail.

22 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Do either of you know how to access the Manhattan phone book after 1946 or 1947?  It was simple to gain access to the 1946 book, but I spent an hour trying to look through the 1948 edition without success.

How did you access 1946? Have you tried Ancestry for the 1948 one?

Paul.

Have you know who George and Margaret Paecoast are? According to an FBI document Bentley lived with them in Westport CT for 4 months in 1950. Their address is about 12 miles from where Tina Tippit lived.

The document is on pg. 916 of an FBI Bentley file which is over 2,000 pages.

https://archive.org/details/bentleyelizabethterrillhqandnyc/page/n915/mode/2up?view=theater

33 minutes ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

If so, then the bizarre wording on both of their obituaries becomes much more understandable - they really were husband and wife all along.

That makes sense, they probably never divorced. When Edwin married Marguerite on May 5, 1945 he became a bigamist.

Jim and Paul:

Found Bentley's will. Probate Court will not email it to me but will send it by mail. Will upload it when received.

41 minutes ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Can you find a divorce record for Edwin and Rasmina? 

Did research on Ekdahl years ago. Did not find his divorce record. His WWII draft registration card states that he is living with Rasmina at 109 First Ave in Nyak. The draft card is not dated but at the bottom it says D.S.S. Form 1 Revised 4-1-42. He says his age is 46 and was born on September 26, 1895, which suggests that he signed it sometime before his 47th birthday in 1942.

Do not know the name of the woman that he had an affair with but John A in one of his podcasts mentioned that Marguerite caught Ekdahl with a woman.

18 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

(I cannot find a divorce record from Rosmina. Nor could the FBI, apparently. Rosmina seemingly vanished.)

Paul:

She died in Nyak, New York on May 31, 1961.

12 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Successfully searching for Emil or Grace Gardos in Manhattan 1945 telephone directory:

Thank you Jim.

On 3/8/2024 at 12:18 AM, Sandy Larsen said:

Hidell appears to be an alternate spelling of the German surname Heidel. People sometimes do change the spelling of their name, for various reasons, when they move to a country that speaks another language.

Found a reference to a Hidell name variant at the Black Vault website. The person's name is Joseph Hydell.

Another person with a name variant is Fred Blair. His grandfather's name is Andrew Blais and he was born In Quebec. When they moved to the US their name changed to Blair.

After reading about the Tunheim document that suggests that Marguerite Oswald may have had some association with Nazis during WWII, I did some research on right wing activities in that area and found a FBI document regarding Robert Edward Edmonson who was described as sympathetic towards Germany and who received donations from many people, one of which was Joseph Hydell.

https://archive.org/details/Hydell

19 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

The site has a 14 day free trial, but I used up mine a couple of years ago to get access to its newspaper database.

Try your local library, they could have a subscription to Ancestry that you can use for free. My local library has one and the archives has one a as well.

The Mormons also have a genealogy website and its free.

https://www.familysearch.org/search/?cid=PC-00038602&keyword=family history lds&gad_source=1

2 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Paul J. is apparently working on researching Elizabeth Bentley’s NYC contacts in the 1940s and is hoping for some information within a couple of weeks.

I’m helping John K. with his continuing work to locate Mrs. Tippit’s original notes, which may not be as impossible as it sounds, and I’m also going to try contacting the NYU library early next week to see what can be learned from the Weinstock Papers without actually traveling to NYC.  

Jim:

If Bentley had a will it could provide the names of people she knew. It may also mention if she left her personal papers with someone or to a library or archive. If she did leave her papers with someone, they would be invaluable to our research.

NYU library should have a copying service for people who can't visit the library. They may also have a list of researchers who will copy documents for a fee. Can you let me know what they tell you about it.