Hemming: "Oswald's first intent was to go to Cuba."

[Greg Burnham]

Brief introduction to the telephone conversation/ interview here.

[David Andrews]

No knock against Greg, but it's at points like this in Hemming's Homeric song that I feel like Hemming is reciting a prepared narrative. The stuff about Col. Prusakova, the MVD, and the SAM missles seems to roll off in a non-Hemminglike meter.

Greg, it might be useful to hear the conversation with Hemming before and after this point. The clip sort of ends "just as it was getting good."

Edited July 9, 2014 by David Andrews

[Greg Burnham]

What is a "non-Hemminglike meter?" I knew Gerry very well. He had many "meters" indeed. Stand by for the next segment of this conversation.

[Greg Burnham]

Hey David,

I will add an introduction page to my website for this, but for now here's the next portion of the conversation. BTW: I don't post YouTubes that are long anymore because many people have a short attention span. So I do them in segments.

[Thomas Graves]

Brief introduction to the telephone conversation/ interview here.

If it's true that Oswald wanted to go to from Russia to Cuba right before the Missile Crisis, and that Marina's uncle, Col. Ilya Prusakov of the MKVD, changed the Oswald family's destination from Cuba to the United States, it suggests to me that Col. Prusakov knew that Oswald was a U.S. intelligence agent.

--Tommy

Edited July 10, 2014 by Thomas Graves

[David Andrews]

I mean that he's suddenly less conversational, and more recitative, when he's retailing the Oswald-to-Cuba info - and that's not his usual Hemming-way with words. Thanks for the extended clip, Greg.

Edited July 11, 2014 by David Andrews

[Greg Burnham]

Here's the introduction to the clip.

[Paul Trejo]

I found this interview intriguing because Hemming half-heartedly suggests that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting on US Intelligence orders to leave the USSR and situate himself in Cuba, right around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, at a time when the US had very few information assets in Cuba.

The suggestion that I hear -- that harmonizes with other statements by Gerry Patrick Hemming -- is that Oswald was acting as a spy for the USA -- not necessarily as a full-time spy, but something like a spy trainee.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

[Greg Burnham]

Intelligence Officer.

[Paul Trejo]

Intelligence Officer.

Well, Greg, if Lee Harvey Oswald was indeed a full-fledged, full-time Intelligence Officer, it is surprising that he lived in dire poverty, and struggled to keep every low-paying job he could find. He seems to have received a $200 monthly stipend from the FBI as an informal, low-level informant -- but that's very little money, even in those days.

It seems to me that Lee Harvey Oswald sought full-time employment as an Intelligence Officer, and that's how he found himself in the position of the Patsy in the first place. His "handlers," who were crooks and rogues, pretended to be CIA Agents, and offered him money.

Jim Garrison suggests this (i.e. that Clay Shaw gave Oswald money from time to time) and so does Harry Dean (e.g. Guy Gabaldon gave Oswald $500 in Mexico City). Both Shaw and Gabaldon were low-level CIA assets, but not full-time CIA Agents. Yet they both evidently pretended to be CIA Agents to Lee Harvey Oswald, who apparently bought their act.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

[Greg Burnham]

Dire poverty could potentially fit perfectly with his legend of being a malcontented, generally misanthropic, communist (or communist sympathizing) loner.

[Thomas Graves]

" [Oswald] seems to have received a $200 monthly stipend from the FBI as an informal, low-level informant -- but that's very little money, even in those days."

-- Paul "A.J." Trejo

Bull Pucky as usual.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, $200 in 1963 had the purchasing power of more than $1,500 in today's dollars.

http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

--Tommy

[Greg Burnham]

According to the 1963 US Census, the median income for a male was $4500/year or $375/month. That would make a payment of $200/month by itself more than half of the total.