Paul Jolliffe

Jim, I am a little confused here: my post above was in response to David Joseph's good question asking how in the world did our "Oswald's" picture wind up on the visa application forms on Sylvia Duran's desk in the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City? While none of us know for certain (and since we all agree that our "Oswald" was not in Mexico City), I offered what I thought were two reasonable possibilities: 1. The impostor already had the "Oswald" photos with him, ready to go, and then attached them himself. In this scenario, neither Duran nor Azcue noticed the discrepancy. 2. The impostor really did submit photos of himself, but those photos were later switched (somehow) by U.S . intelligence assets/operatives before they entered the JFK investigation evidence stream. (Simply tear off the impostor's photo, and staple "Oswald's" photo in its place. Can't be that difficult, right?) I am open to other ideas, and I assumed the purpose of this forum was to explore any and all evidence. Thanks for posting the 1977 report with Estes.

Paul B., It's technically true we don't know with absolute certainty where our "Oswald" was between late September and early October, and therefore he might not have been in either Mexico City or visiting Sylvia Odio in Dallas at her apartment. However . . . the Odio episode is very, very revealing, if we take the time to dissect it fully. Remember, it involves two parts: the visit to her apartment door in Dallas on Thursday, Sept. 26, PLUS a follow up phone call a day later. 1. During the actual visit, NOTHING was said or implied to Sylvia Odio about "Oswald" as a potential presidential assassin. While he was standing right there, no one said anything aloud, nor even hinted it! If this visit (in the company of two other men) was by someone only pretending to be our "Oswald" to further portray the patsy as a future assassin to potential witnesses, they could not have done a worse job. Nothing in anyone's behavior that night - when "Oswald" was standing right there! - indicated this "Oswald" was a future killer! That night, the framers - all three of them, if none of them were truly our "Oswald" - framed no one! A logical absurdity, if none were really our "Oswald." 2. It was only a day later during the follow-up phone call to Odio that "Leopoldo" revealed all the incriminating details about "Oswald" as a crazy potential killer of JFK. In other words, "Leopoldo" described "Oswald" as an assassin only when "Oswald" was not there to refute it! Leopoldo even explicitly stated to Odio that this "Oswald" was not knowledgeable of everything "Leopoldo" and "Angelo" had in mind for him: "You know our idea is to introduce him to the underground in Cuba . . ." Logically, we should conclude that the effect of the Odio episode was to implant in the witness's mind the belief that the "Oswald" she met in person was a potential assassin. But we must remember that effect required two parts: a physical visit (so that she could see "Oswald") and then the phone call (in which "Oswald" was described as a JFK hater/assassin.) Why was it done that way? Because our "Oswald" really did accompany "Leopoldo" and "Angelo" to the Sylvia Odio's door at 1024 Magellan Circle in the Crestwood Apartments in Dallas during the evening of Thursday, September 26, 1963. And he had to be kept ignorant of the patsy role that he'd already been selected to play.

David asked: " Below that are the words of Duran and Azcue - both describing a person who was definitely not our Oswald.... so if this is the case, how did Oswald's photos get onto the applications Duran took...?? David, we don't know for sure, but the best guess is that the "Oswald" impostor had them with him, ready to go when he arrived for the first time on Friday, September 27 at the Cuban Consulate. As I recall, Sylvia Duran (Tirado) first gave him the forms to fill out with the requirement for a photograph. The "Oswald" impostor then left and returned some time later with the photo. (Yet the FBI was unable to locate a photo shop anywhere even remotely close to the Cuban offices at which the photo could have been taken - "Oswald's" departure and return to the consulate was a charade.) So why didn't the "Oswald" impostor readily produce the photo the first time? Well, I can't say for sure, but I bet it was too risky to pull a photo out of his pocket that wasn't him. She would have to staple it to the application forms right there, and she would probably look at the photo somewhat. The risk of scrutiny was reduced if our impostor took the form with him and then returned with the photo already stapled and ready to go. (Maybe a little crumpled or smudged, too.) Another possibility is that once U.S. Intelligence got their hands on copies of the "Oswald" visa application, they switched the original photo of the impostor with a photo of our "Oswald". Either way, our fall guy wasn't down in Mexico City, making an ass of himself at the Cuban and Soviet Consulates. Remember, the CIA told the Mexican DRF to torture Sylvia Duran (Tirado) . . . twice! . . . to make sure she would "identify" the man with whom she interacted was "Oswald." Azcue denied "Oswald" was that man right from the start, and Duran later told Anthony Summers that our Dallas "Oswald" was NOT the guy she saw/talked to/argued with at the Cuban Consulate on Friday, September 27, 1963. Just my guess, but then, not even the Warren Commission could say where the photo came from. They didn't even try.

Bill, Clarify something for me: were any actual phone calls placed by the "Oswald" impostor to either consulate in Mexico City? Or, were the tapes of "Oswald's phone calls "(translated by Mr. and Mrs. Boris Tarasoff) created after the assassination and then hidden? Do the extant transcripts themselves represent real phone calls from the impostor on September 27, 28 and October 1, or are they artifacts, created later to replace the original transcripts? Why the hell do the extant transcripts read as if everyone involved was a moron?

I agree. I tend also to agree with those who wonder if there was some other, "legitimate" intelligence operation in Mexico City using the visits to the Cuban and Soviet Consulates, one not originally intended to frame our man as a future presidential assassin? After all, what kind of murderous frame-up using the patsy's intercepted, taped phone calls to the Commies reads like a bad parody of Abbott and Costello?

David wrote: " So I began to really wonder whether a real live person went to this embassy posing as Oswald, or was it possible that this was a cobbled together story using elements of truthful encounters with people in these places, just not Oswald and just not what they claim occurred." I have wondered the same, but for now, I tend to believe that a real person, intentionally posing as "Oswald", confronted both Sylvia Duran and Eusebio Azcue in the Cuban Consulate on Friday, September 27. If that unknown man had not used the name "Oswald", then the Cuban officials almost certainly would not have made the connection later to our "Oswald"! We know that our "Oswald" wasn't there, and we have no reason to believe that the physical resemblance between the Mexico City Cuban Consulate impostor and our "Oswald" was so strong that it would have left an indelible impression on Duran and Azcue. Indeed, the physical likeness did not! They both later said the man they so memorably encountered was NOT our "Oswald"! No photo in Mexico City of anyone who might plausibly have been mistaken for our "Oswald" has ever surfaced. Instead, the impersonation counted on the name "Lee Harvey Oswald". That's what Duran and Azcue remembered. And therefore, the use of the name "Lee Harvey Oswald" means a deliberate, specific impersonation for some calculated purpose. Yet, as I asked earlier, are we certain that impersonation at that moment was solely to frame our "Oswald" as a future presidential assassin? If so, why in the world were the transcripts of the intercepted phone calls so . . . innocuous, so blah, so bland? What kind of murderous frame-up makes the patsy sound like a bad parody of Abbott and Costello?

Ed, Thanks for posting this in its entirety. You certainly raised some good questions. Am I correct in inferring that our "Oswald" (whoever he was) never actually lived at 1026 N. Beckley? Moreover, his supposed "presence" there was really the result of a mash-up of both muddled memories and records of Herbert Leon Lee, plus the deliberate falsifications (both destruction and creation!) of records by witting police framers and opportunists such as Gladys Johnson or Earline Roberts? You've made a great point that FBI agent Hosty should absolutely have known "Oswald's" address by early November once he got the phone number from Ruth Paine. But officially, Hosty never went to 1026 N. Beckley before the assassination . . . Hosty was no fool. Can we conclude he went somewhere else? To what house or apartment did he truly go when checking on "Oswald"? I can't visualize a scenario in which the 1026 N. Beckley address was seized upon as a spur-of-the-moment improvisation by cops desperate to hide some other, more sensitive address for our "Oswald." Yet, this seems to be what you are implying. (I am not saying you are wrong, merely that I can't think of such a scheme.) If 1026 N. Beckley was a cover for some other address, then surely the plan to substitute that address for our "Oswald's" real address must have been in place or some time, right? Or not? Was it a hasty contrivance by somebody at DPD, frantically covering tracks? Also, I can't tell from your essay what you think about 214 Neely. Did our "Oswald" and his wife live there for seven weeks or so in March and April of 1963, or not? If so, why in the world did our "Oswald" deny it to Will Fritz? (Or, are you skeptical of Fritz's report? I don't trust Fritz, but this one makes no sense. It would seem Fritz wrote it because that's what "Oswald" said: he denied ever living at 214 Neely!) FWIW, as you may know, Joachim Joesten wrote that "Oswald'" mother told him that "Oswald" never lived at 214 Neely. Instead, "Oswald" mother claimed that Marina lived there with another man! Bizarre as that claim sounds, it might be psychologically possible - Marina would later claim to have been beaten by "Oswald" between November of 1962 and March of 1963, while she and he shared the residence at 604 Elsbeth, just around the corner from Neely. Did Marina leave Elsbeth in March of 1963 and move to Neely for a brief period that spring? Is that plausible?

David, Am I correct in summarizing your thesis that there is no evidence at all that either our "Oswald" or anyone calling himself "Oswald" traveled to or from Mexico in any manner even remotely close to that described in the Warren Report? (That was my takeaway from reading your series on Mexico City some years ago.) I have long suspected that the person who appeared at the Cuban Consulate on Friday, September 27 was neither our "Oswald" nor the real LHO. Further, it has been argued (by others) that visit - approved by some level of U.S. Intelligence - was in furtherance of some unknown operation that may/probably had nothing to do with the impending assassination. Instead (goes this argument), that visit was then seized upon by the conspirators (also in U.S. Intelligence) as a way to implicate "Oswald" as a tool of the KGB by manipulating the transcripts of the ensuing wiretapped phone calls to the Soviet Consulate. While I personally am not sold on this theory, it might explain why the extant transcripts of the phone calls are not that ominous - if these calls were made by an impostor looking to frame "Oswald" as a future presidential assassin, he could have made them much more sinister. But still, as I said, the Mexico City "Oswald" phone calls/appearances are pretty mysterious.

David, I agree. I, too, wondered about those some time ago. You are absolutely right that people wear these around public pools, showers, locker rooms, etc. Now, conceivably, he could have had them since his USMC days, but those things wear out pretty quickly, right? One other thing: after reading Lillian Murret's testimony, I was struck by her description of her nephew's appearance. She testified that "he was very poorly dressed." Also that "Lee didn't seem to have anything to wear . . . all he had on at the time was a T-shirt and pants, and I think he had only about two T-shirts with him." This is very reminiscent of the south Texas "Oswald" description from Oct. 3-5. Same guy? (The real LHO?) https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh8/html/WC_Vol8_0072a.htm

Fair enough, but the south Texas incidents really happened, they covered a wide geographic area in a very limited time period (on days when our "Oswald" was lying very low - at least one night at a YMCA), and several different witnesses tied the LHO they encountered to either San Antonio or Houston specifically (and not just Alice, Texas!) I think, though, that we are in danger of overemphasizing "Oswald's" Dallas roots. I believe that if we looked only at "Oswald's" biography through the end of 1962, then we would conclude he was a primarily a creature of Fort Worth, not Dallas. After all, until he moved to 604 Elsbeth in November of 1962, "Oswald" was working in and living with Marina (and June) in Fort Worth. Before that, "Oswald" lived in the USSR. Before that, he was in the USMC but traveling home to Fort Worth. He went to Arlington Heights High School (Fort Worth) and Stripling Jr. High (Fort Worth.) As a little kid, he bounced around (supposedly) between New Orleans, Fort Worth and NYC. "Oswald's" connection to Dallas was not strong: nothing would have raised red flags in anyone's mind had the assassination happened somewhere else. "Oswald" was universally described as "rootless" after 11/22/63, NOT as a Dallas native. Hardly anyone in Dallas knew him, not even his co-workers! As far as George DeMohrenschildt goes, his primary focus was on "Oswald" in Fort Worth. Within a month or so of the "Oswald" family arrival in Dallas at the end of November, 1962, GDM handed off the babysitting/handling/manipulating duties to Ruth Paine, and then in April of 1962, he exited "Oswald's" life, never to see him again. Ruth Paine was an Irving resident, not of Dallas itself. Maybe I'm cutting a fine line here, but my impression is that Ruth was prepared to manipulate the "Oswald" family to whatever location was selected by the conspirators. I don't think there is any compelling evidence that Dallas had been chosen as the site before October 5, 1963. Yes, "Oswald" was being framed/groomed as a potential fall-guy long before then, but the final location was still up in the air.

I agree, David. The Chicago Plot sure seems real to me - the fact that no arrests were made until just after JFK canceled his planned trip to Chicago (on Saturday morning!) tells me the assassination was a "go" until that moment.

Jim, You and I agree that our "Oswald" was the pre-selected patsy. I think though we have been too long misled about the certainty of "Oswald's" movements immediately after New Orleans. None of us can say for sure exactly when or how "Oswald" left New Orleans, nor precisely where he next went. (He did NOT go to Mexico City!!!) (David Josephs proved that beyond any doubt years ago.) I can't comment specifically on the legitimacy of the threats to JFK in Chicago or Miami, but they seemed to be real. Perhaps they were feints to fool JFK's security, but honestly, what's the evidence for that opinion? However there is NO evidence that the "Oswald" sightings between October 3 and 5 in south Texas/Alice were illegitimate - those witnesses really believed they had encountered someone calling himself "Lee Oswald." Those sightings were entirely consistent with a possible assassination in either San Antonio or Houston, but not Dallas. Which is precisely why those sightings later had to be ignored, distorted or suppressed! That is very powerful evidence that the final city had not yet been decided. As far as the Bringuier episode in New Orleans goes, well honestly, there is NOTHING in that entire scenario that meant that DALLAS was the selected city! That whole New Orleans Bringuier charade/debacle in August merely set up our "Oswald" as the patsy, NOT that DALLAS had already been chosen! If you believe otherwise, please show me the evidence.

Ron, We can't say for certain specifically when or how our "Oswald" left New Orleans. We don't know precisely where he went. We all agree (I think) that he did NOT go to Mexico City, but exactly where he was in late September is murky. I personally do believe he really was in Dallas by Wednesday, September 25 - the Sylvia Odio story about meeting "Oswald" in the company of two unknown men outside her Dallas Circle Apartments is persuasive to me. Jim Hargrove and I agree that our "Oswald" did indeed stay at the Dallas YMCA on Thursday, October 3. Was he staying at the Dallas YMCA the entire 8 days? I think it is likely, but any evidence of that (if he was there) is long gone. I think there is pretty good evidence (from our discussion last week) that the Alice/South Texas "Oswald" sightings on October 3 and 4 were the vestiges of an assassination plot in either San Antonio or Houston. I argued (persuasively, in my humble opinion) (!) that such sightings were the backstory to "Oswald's" movements had the plotters opted for either city. Since the last known south Texas "Oswald" sighting was on October 5 (a hitchhiking "Oswald" rode from San Antonio to Leming, Texas), I think it is safe to say that as of October 5, the final site - Dallas - had not yet been selected. Why San Antonio or Houston? Because those were the two cities on JFK's Texas tour on November 21, 1963. However, once Dallas was selected, then all the south Texas/Alice witnesses had to be "mistaken" or ignored. Their statements were no longer useful to the emerging narrative; actually their statements were dangerous to it. Note that I am not arguing that our patsy "Oswald" was actually driving around in south Texas on October 3-5, merely that he was being impersonated by someone who may have resembled him somewhat. I think if San Antonio or Houston had been selected, then our "Oswald" would have been placed at a job along the motorcade route in one of those cities. Once Dallas was selected, our patsy "Oswald" then started work at the TSBD on October 16, and that was that. Also, as far as Allen Dulles in Dallas is concerned, David Talbot wrote in The Devil's Chessboard that Dulles' infamous book tour promo stop in Dallas was on October 29, 1963. This fits perfectly with what I've argued: Dallas was selected (from a list of possible cities) sometime between October 5 and October 15 (the day Ruth Paine placed her call to Roy Truly at the TSBD.)

Jim, You asked " Even if Dallas was only selected later from among several candidates, isn't it possible that Nagell only knew about the Dallas plot?" The answer of course, is theoretically yes, Nagell may have known only of the Dallas plot. However, I highly doubt that. Nagell never met our "Oswald", although he may (MAY) have met the real LHO. Nagell claimed to the FBI that he met LHO in both Texas and Mexico City. We know that the Dallas "Oswald" never went to Mexico City, and the evidence that the real Lee Oswald went there in late September of 1963 is not very good either (no pictures, no clear witness identifications, no clear travel records - thanks David Joseph! - no good hotel records, nothing . . .) So, who (if anyone) did Nagell meet, and when? Well, if Nagell really was in Mexico City and really did encounter the real LHO, then it had to be before September 20, 1963, the date of Nagell's arrest in El Paso. That is vaguely possible because we have two witnesses who also state that the LHO they met had been in Mexico: the barber Clifford Shasteen, and (much more dubiously) Robert Clayton Buick. Shasteen, the Dallas barber who claimed to have cut LHO's hair on several occasions in the early fall of 1963, stated that LHO had a pair of yellow house shoes that he had purchased in "Old Mexico" for a "dollar, a dollar and a half." "I'll get you a pair the next time I am down there" said this LHO to Shasteen. Since the timing did not fit, the FBI placed no credence in Shasteen's account (especially since Shasteen had LHO driving a vehicle which seemed to be from Ruth Paine's house.) Yet we know that Shasteen's account fits the H&L scenario perfectly. Further, most researchers have no idea what to make of the convict/B.S.'er/felon/spy? Robert Clayton Buick's account of meeting LHO in Mexico City in September of 1963. I suppose it just might (MIGHT) have some truth to it: Buick really may have met LHO there then. And if so, that just might support Nagell's claim to have met LHO. Neither man could have met our "Oswald" in Mexico City, but it is possible they met someone - the real LHO at some point. So, the real LHO may have been in Mexico City in the early/mid part of September, 1963. However, neither the Warren Commission nor the FBI nor anyone else ever came up with any good evidence at all that either our "Oswald" or the real LHO was there between September 26 and October 2, 1963. I doubt that either LHO was there - if either one was there, that evidence would have been presented long, long ago. Instead, we are left with the crappiest, flimsiest pieces of . . . to work with. To sum up: Jim, we have powerful evidence that the assassination plot involved multiple possible cities: Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Miami, Chicago (possibly Washington D.C.?), etc. We have no evidence that Dallas had been selected in time for Nagell to have known of it. I doubt he had been told of the location, although he may have met the real LHO at some point, possibly in early September in Mexico City. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10601#relPageId=2&tab=page http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/12/robert-c-buick.html

Jim, A few things: 1. I agree that IF Richard Case Nagell did interact with either LHO, it had to be Lee. I've never understood how in the world the Soviets could possibly have uncovered an assassination plot against JFK using LHO well before Nagell was arrested in El Paso on September 20, 1963! That seems awfully improbable. What was absolutely impossible was Nagell's later claim (while in custody) that "he did not want to be in Dallas." We know that Dallas was not selected finally as the city until long after Nagell was arrested. So unless someone believes that Nagell was still collecting information on the impending assassination while he was sitting in federal jail (!), then any such claim (that he was privy to the assassination location) is false. 2. I agree that Sonny Stewart's identification does seem to be based on physical recognition, but since I can't find police/FBI/Secret Service statement with him, we can't say for certain upon what exactly Steward based his identification of "Oswald." We have no other real evidence that our "Oswald" was actually in South Texas in early October. 3. If, as I suspect, our "Oswald" did indeed stay at the YMCA in downtown Dallas for a week or so before Thursday, October 3, then I am certain the FBI would have destroyed any evidence of that. After all, they were trying to make the case that "Oswald" had made this bizarre trip to Mexico City right at that very moment, and NOT holed up at the YMCA in Dallas! But I agree, we don't have any evidence one way or another where he stayed in the nights before October 3. But since he was in Dallas on Wednesday, September 25 (at the Dallas Circle Apartments) and in Dallas (at the Y) on October 3, and since we have no other credible sightings for him in the interim, I think it remains a solid bet he was at the Y the whole time. 6. This Atlanta LHO sighting (from an unknown date, but recorded on December 4, 1963) is provocative. Permit me to speculate here: The witness, a Mrs. Elaine Glosson, claimed that "Oswald" stayed at her Atlanta-area motel for a few days at some point before the assassination. Her description matches the South Texas/Alice LHO ("cocky", shabbily dressed, unshaven), but with a pearl-handled revolver. This LHO apparently had some connection to Birmingham, Alabama. That makes me wonder if this LHO appeared in Atlanta/Birmingham sometime in the late spring/early summer of 1963. After all, JFK's famous Civil Rights Speech of June 11, 1963, was in response to Bull Connor's violence directed at Civil Rights protesters that spring. We've all seen the images - did the plotters anticipated that JFK might make an appearance in Birmingham and/or Atlanta at some point? And could this LHO appearance have been in preparation for such a visit? Sounds possible to me, but without further evidence, we just can't say for sure. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/24964-is-this-something-most-researchers-are-aware-of/

Hmm. Thanks for posting this, David. Was the FBI hinting that Ekdahl may have been a bigamist? After all, if everything was above board, then the divorce records should have been found in the county in which it took place. Yet they were not there. If Edwin and Rasmine Ekdahl never legally divorced, then his subsequent marriage to Marguerite Claverie Pic Oswald was null and void. Massachusetts does not recognize a second simultaneous marriage as valid. Yet, I doubt that - Ekdahl went through the expense and trouble of hiring Fred Korth to represent him at the 1948 divorce proceeding. So, is it possible that Edwin and Rasmine Ekdahl never legally married? (And therefore, never divorced?) (And therefore, she got nothing in the will?) I dunno. David, as to your question about whether our mysterious woman caller might have mistakenly assumed that Ekdahl was "Oswald's" father in 1953, well I doubt that, too. The woman caller might have known (we hope) the "Oswald" from Yorkville, but not the Lee Oswald from Texas. Yet Ekdahl married the mother of the Lee Oswald from Texas, not the "mother" of the boy from Yorkville. We have no connection between Ekdahl and our "Oswald" (Harvey), either in NYC or elsewhere. The connection was between the real Lee Oswald and Ekdahl. Granted, both Ekdahl and Lee were in NYC for about five months between August of 1952 and January of 1953 (Ekdahl's death), but I can't imagine that the two of them together (even assuming they ever met under any circumstances that fall) would have engaged in anything that might have been mistaken for or remembered later as "Communist activity." The old guy was dying of a bad heart that fall, not hanging out with the youngest son of his ex-wife, a woman from whom he was bitterly divorced!

Honestly John, I really don't see any physical resemblance to our "Oswald" (Harvey) other than facial expression. However, your post prompted me to take a look at this "professional xxxx" (in Linus Pauling's words) a bit more closely. Budenz was, as you know, a longtime FBI informant, one whom testified that he made $70,000 as a witness in 1953! It was Budenz's allegations about reds in government that made its way to Joseph McCarthy. What does strike me though is the similarity of language used by both the mysterious woman caller and Budenz when describing the goals of the Communists: "Uncover a red doing his stuff on a college faculty and a hue and cry is raised over ‘academic freedom,’ as though these people had a God-given right to infect our children with their made-in-Moscow virus….We should understand that this ’cause of peace’ as peddled by the reds is the destruction of the government of the United States.” -Louis Budenz, November 1951. This suggests to me that our woman caller shared Budenz's general outlook (paranoia?), regardless of whether she and he had any social or professional connection. Further, Louis Budenz and Elizabeth Bentley were both paid FBI informers (and both testified before Congress) as former Communists. They both shared the same outlook on the communist threat with the mysterious woman caller. Now, I seriously doubt that Elizabeth Bentley could be mistaken for speaking with an eastern European accent, so I don't think she is a viable candidate to be the mysterious woman caller herself. (Bentley did speak French and Italian, but neither language was mentioned by Mrs. Jack Tippit.) However, here is a tantalizing clue that Elizabeth Bentley and the mysterious woman caller just might have known each other: On December 3, 1963, three days after the mysterious local phone call by the unknown woman from New Haven Connecticut, the ex-commie-turned-professional- anti-commie-stooge Elizabeth Bentley died of abdominal cancer . . . in Grace New Haven Hospital, in New Haven, Connecticut. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bentley

Hmm. Since "Oswald" did NOT shoot anyone, who cares what influence comic books and/or pop culture had on him growing up? Why does any of that matter?

John, Thanks for tracking down Russ Geck, even though no hard new information developed about a possible connection between "Oswald"and Emil Gardos, Grace Gardos, Fred Blair or Louis Weinstock. You may have already asked this of them, but do either Andi Geck or her mother (Mrs. John Gardos) have any idea at all why the mysterious woman in 1963 referenced "Oswald", Emil Gardos, Fred Blair, Louis Weinstock, "father", "brother-in-law", "Hungarians", "Communists", Yorkville and the 1950's in the same frantic phone call? Can they make any guesses about any of it? Had they ever seen or heard about the FBI report before you showed Russ Geck? Do either of these two women have the slightest inkling about WHY the mysterious woman connected "Oswald" (somehow) with a man deported in early 1950?

Jim, 1. The simplest explanation is that the photo supplied by the Cubans to the HSCA was an artifact and not a real image captured outside the Cuban Consulate in 1963. Instead, at some later date, some CIA operative substituted the image of the "real Oswald impostor" (Lee? Someone else?) with this image of Leonov. The Cubans innocently then gave this switched image to the HSCA, even though it was inauthentic. However, that "simple" explanation is not very convincing to me. Another possibility is that the image at the top of your webpage is not, in fact of Leonov at all, but of a Leonov impostor, probably from the CIA. This has a kind of logic to it: the plotters knew that our "Oswald" (Harvey) never went to Mexico City, but they deliberately planned the impersonation there to FAIL , thus revealing that the "Oswald" impersonator was . . . a known Soviet operative/official! A man who was a close personal confidant of both Castro and Khrushchev - a perfect patsy himself! Thus implicating the USSR in the assassination, somehow . . . But I don't like that one, either. Too messy, and anyway, the guy doesn't merely resemble Leonov, he is the spitting image of Leonov! Maybe Dick Russell was on to something when he wrote that Richard Case Nagell was working with Soviet intelligence to kill Oswald and stop the assassination. I don't fully trust Nagell as a source, but could the Soviets have been aware that something funny involving somebody posing as "Oswald" was going on inside the Cuban Consulate on Friday, September 27? And if they did, would they react immediately once they realized that "Oswald" had this bizarre history in the USSR himself? Could a highly trusted Spanish speaking Soviet official have been dispatched by Khrushchev himself to investigate??? That seems doubtful, too, but I just don't have any other ideas at the moment. We'll have to leave it for now with the agreement that, whoever he was, he sure looked a heckuva lot like Leonov! 2. The identifications by the radio station guys as our "Oswald" may not be 100% based on their memories of the man's appearance, but instead may be based on the fact that the guy used the name "Lee Oswald." After all, Parker did note a difference in hair color, a difference picked up by several witnesses. You and I agree that the south Texas LHO was not our "Oswald" up in Dallas, being interviewed by Laura Kittrell at TEC. 3. and 4. You and I agree that our Dallas "Oswald" was very probably outside Sylvia Odio's door in Dallas on 9/25/63. We agree that our "Oswald" was at the TEC in Dallas on Thursday, October 3. We agree that there is no convincing evidence that our "Oswald" went to Mexico City at all in the interim. So, since he really was at the Dallas YMCA the night of Thursday, October 3, isn't it probable that his handlers had put him up there for the entire week before while his doppelganger was down in Mexico City? (There is no reason why they should have put him up in a nicer lodging for a few days, and then switched him to the YMCA for the last night. Instead, I bet he was there all along.) 5. I don't know what language the "wife" of LHO was speaking down in south Texas/Alice, but nobody claimed it was Russian. There is no reason to assume the Marina impostor was speaking Russian. She and her "husband" may have been speaking something as simple as garbled Spanish. (Or not, but it doesn't matter. It wasn't Marina.) 6. You wrote "does that mean there was a fellow, perhaps going by the name “Lee Oswald,” being prepared for a job in a building along the parade route? Would someone who looked like him have gone to local rifle ranges to shoot at other people’s targets, and so on? Mrs. Paine called Roy Truly on Oct. 15 to start the process in motion to put Classic Oswald® in the TSBD, so the timing here makes complete sense." Yessir! That's exactly what I think! Had the plotters decided on San Antonio or Houston, then you bet there would have been a host of weird "Oswald" sightings wielding a rifle in either city! These south Texas/Alice sightings below were some of the CIA's "backstopping" of the tentative (and ultimately discarded) "Oswald" San Antonio story: I. The unnamed, not interviewed by the FBI waitress at the B.F. Cafe in Freer Texas whose boss told the FBI that the "Oswald" she met wanted a job in Freer, and asked specifically how far it was to San Antonio. When told it was 100 miles, this "Oswald" reacted in surprise. (The FBI did NOT want any confirmation of this one!) II. Martha Doyle and Joan Dunsmore of the San Antonio International Airport statement: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=96293&relPageId=4&search=Martha_Doyle https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=96293&relPageId=7&search=Joan_Dunsmore III. The Stanley Moczygemba account about picking up a hitchhiking "Oswald" early on Saturday morning, October 5 in San Antonio and driving south to Leming, Texas. And here are some examples of witness statements about the CIA's tentative and ultimately discarded plan to backstop the "Oswald" in Houston story: From John Armstrong's 1997 speech to C'OPA: I. A few days later an "Oswald" applied for a job at the Continental Oil Company in Houston. This person identified himself as "Lee Oswald" and was interviewed by Mrs. Sheppard. He told her he had just returned from Mexico with a friend and that they had tried to proceed from Mexico to Cuba. Oswald told her he was staying at the Savoy apartments two blocks away. II. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=9986&relPageId=63&search=Continental_oil Company III. A Houston Chronicle article stating that Oswald stayed at the Savoy for a few days in late September of 1963 while interviewing at Conoco. https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Before-it-turned-into-Holiday-Inn-Savoy-Hotel-4583519.php#item-85307-tbla-25 IV. George Ryan, manager of the Stop-N-Go drive-in grocery in Houston told the FBI that Oswald tried on three successive days to cash a $65 check at his store. He told the Houston Press he was under orders from the FBI not to discuss the case. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10477&relPageId=662&search=George_Ryan So, I am positive that in the Alice/south Texas stories we are looking at the vestiges of the unused backstopped stories of "Oswald's" movements in the days before he would have settled in with a job in either San Antonio or Houston. But once the plotters decided on Dallas (after October 5 but before October 15), then none of these sightings of the false "Oswald" in south Texas/Alice were useful to the plotters. And so these witnesses were ignored. "Backstopping" has long been a very important intelligence concept: http://intelligenceref.blogspot.com/2010/08/backstop.html

Jim, A few things: 1. I agree with you that Nikolai Leonov does not look much like our "Oswald". My point was that Leonov is the spitting image of the man shown in profile on the second picture at the top of your website - the Mexico City "Oswald"! (Regardless of whether Leonov actually pretended to be our "Oswald" or not, he sure looks like the guy on your website!) 2. The descriptions of LHO's appearance in both Mexico City and around Alice are suspiciously similar: short, dirty, blond, unshaven, and sloppily/very casually dressed. Probably (but NOT certainly) the same guy, in at least a few cases. 3. I agree that Laura Kittrell's first encounter with "Oswald" on October 3 does sound very much like Harvey. If so, then "Oswald" (Harvey) probably could not have been in Alice or south Texas on October 3. Still, the whole spending one night at the Dallas YMCA thing is bizarre - why would poor, parsimonious "Oswald" spend $2.25 to stay for a Thursday night in Dallas when Irving was only 15 miles away? (Unless actually he had been there for a week or so, ever since leaving New Orleans several days prior?) 4. If it really was our "Oswald" (Harvey) in Dallas on October 3 at the TEC, and since we can't account for his whereabouts between New Orleans and Dallas in late September, isn't it possible that our "Oswald" (Harvey) really was at the Dallas Circle Apartments outside Sylvia Odio's door on Wednesday, September 25? After all, at that meeting, "Oswald" didn't say anything incriminating. It was only during the follow-up phone call with "Leopoldo" in which "Oswald" was described as "loco", and capable of shooting the president. 5. I am struck by the fact that none of the south Texas witnesses claimed the language in which "Oswald" and his "wife" conversed was Russian. If it was an "Oswald" impostor on October 3 and 4, then it is plausible to me that his "wife" was not necessarily Russian. Actually, there was an FBI report in which a customer at the Carousel Club claimed that Lee Oswald was "dating" one of Ruby's strippers. She was described as "Mexican". While that would seem to be a poor fit for a duplicate Marina, maybe not. Many Mexican women have lighter hair, and I'm sure this stripper was young and attractive. If the real Lee had hooked up with this stripper, then it's possible that quick, quiet conversations in garbled Spanish/Spanglish/Texican (long recognized as a culturally significant linguistic artifact) or possibly some other language might have remained unintelligible to eavesdroppers. (And honestly, finding a stripper saddled with a young child in tow is not difficult . . .) https://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/02/us/it-s-english-and-it-s-spanish-and-it-s-officially-a-problem.html 6. So the big question remains: what the hell was this all about? Well, I suspect we are looking at the traces of a set-up to have "Oswald" in place to be the patsy if the assassination were to take place in either Houston or San Antonio. Here's President Kennedy at the Brooks Medical Research Center in San Antonio on November 21, 1963. Here's President and Mrs. Kennedy greeting a crowd in Houston on November 21, 1963. I am convinced that had the plotters decided on either Houston or San Antonio, then the Alice/south Texas charade would have paved the way for the "Oswald" family to be in place to be framed. But once the plotters settled on Dallas (apparently sometime between October 4 and October 15), then the whole south Texas/Alice pretense was quietly scrapped. After all we never would have known of it had not various witnesses made noise in the local press.

Thanks, David. A strange coincidence. We can rule out Edna Margaret Lloyd Keating as our impostor "Marguerite" too. Have a look: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/102509084/edna-margaret-keating#view-photo=72849193 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/102509084/edna-margaret-keating#view-photo=80021436 It did occur to me that the 1956 New Orleans phone book anomaly might have been unknown to Margaret Emma Keating Oswald (Robert Sr.'s first wife). It was in the cross directory, right? She might never have noticed it. Do you think there's any chance the 1956 phone book cross directory "Margt Oswald" listing for 120 N. Telemachus was a cover scheme created by the "Harvey Project" handlers as a way to account for the other two Marguerite Oswald's (but both pretending to be the same person) living in New Orleans at the same time? Three Marguerite's but with two different addresses (real address for real Marguerite, but 120 N. Telemachus and "Margt Oswald") would satisfy/confuse/screw up anyone who might stumble across any of them - one would conclude (wrongly) that there just happened to be three women with the same name, not that two of them were supposed to be the same exact woman.

Jim, It is a puzzler. These incidents, as related in Chris Courtwright's fine article, may NOT have all been false "Oswald" sightings - I suspect some of them really were just mistaken identity. Particularly those from Chris's page four summary of the "George Parr" allegations. Those appear to be just a crock, with no evidence at all. William Weston pointed out that our "Oswald" was never positively identified at the Russian or Cuban Consulates in Mexico City a week earlier. I think it notable, however, that the description of the Alice "Oswald" and the Mexico City "Oswald" are similar: dirty, blond, inelegantly dressed and unshaven. Also this "Oswald" was never identified as being more than 5'8" tall. Actually, Sylvia Duran believed he was around 5'3! On the Harvey & Lee homepage http://harveyandlee.net/ is a picture (second from left) of a man who was the spitting image of a known Soviet agent/asset and politician: Nikolai Leonov. Leonov was posted in Mexico City and was an extremely close confidante of Nikita Khrushchev. He served as a translator for Khrushchev and Castro. He was at very near the apex of the Soviet government in 1963. https://alchetron.com/Nikolai-Leonov Nikolai Leonov is a poor candidate for the Alice sightings, but a good one for at least some of the Mexico City sightings. If it was the same man in both Mexico City and around (some) of the alleged sightings in south Texas in early October, than the Alice sightings were very likely an impostor. However, it is possible these sighting were not of the same man. In a couple of the Alice sightings, the name "Oswald" was mentioned, which makes the possibility of an innocent coincidental lookalike very remote. The William Weston thesis is that our "Oswald" was NOT in Dallas on October 3 and 4. The documents Jim reproduced were created by a false "Oswald", argued Weston. (See below.) So, I have to ask: while the Dallas documents from October 3 and 4 are real, what evidence did the Warren Commission produce to show they were written/created by our "Oswald", and not an impostor (possibly even the real LHO!)? Here is William Weston's take on the issues: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=48701#relPageId=8&tab=page

David, When (if ever) did Margaret Keating sell 120 N. Telemachus? Who bought it? When? Did she own it and live in it until she died in 1972? When Celia died in 1953, Margaret was (presumably) now the sole occupant of 120 N. Telemachus. I agree that the strange entry in the New Orleans phone book for 1956 which lists the owner/resident of 120 N. Telemachus as "Margt Oswald" is very intriguing. She had been divorced from Robert Oswald for a quarter century at that point! Why would the name "Oswald" suddenly pop up? Yet the sole photo we have of her rules her out as our "Marguerite" impostor. Margaret Emma Keating Oswald was born, bred and died in New Orleans. But the "Marguerite" impostor, according to her biographer Jean Stafford, had an accent indistinguishable from New Jersey and parts of NYC (the "Al Smith" accent.)

David wrote: "Call was about 11:30 am on “INSTANT DATE” – what does that mean?" According to Wikitionary, it is an old reference to the current month. I suspect our FBI memo writer misused it: he meant the current date (i.e. November 30, 1963.) I remember that Richard Case Nagell used "instant" in the same way in one of his notes to Dick Russell. It may have been more commonly used by men of that generation. From Wikitionary: Of the current month. Synonym: inst. (abbreviation) I refer to your letter of the 16th instant in regard to traffic disruption