Who Wrote the Walker Letter?

[Tom Neal]

My daughter tells me her first semester Russian language students would not make the mistakes of this letter. They wouldn't because she would have taught them not to make such mistakes. IOW, in my daughter's view, and she is an American expert on the Russian language, whoever wrote this note did not know written Russian well.

LHO was quite eloquent in English speech, especially for his young age. In comparison his written efforts in English are those you would expect from an illiterate. IMO his spelling errors reflect some sort of disability beyond his less than average formal education. As David Lifton stated, LHO may have been an aural learner by nature, or possibly he was only taught to speak Russian with little or no time and effort spent on the written language.

IIRC Oswald's written errors were more in spelling than in grammar. He frequently used the wrong word when the spelling and meaning were different, but when spoken would sound the same.

Jon, germane to the above, did your daughter specify what type of errors were made by the author of the note?

Considering the following...

* like so much OTHER "evidence," the letter was found much later than it should have been

* based upon LHO's alleged fear immediately following the shooting,

why would LHO save this incriminating letter?

* incriminating Lee would be bad for Marina - why would SHE save it?

* IF Marina saved it, following the assassination why would she leave

it to be found by the police when she could have flushed it down the toilet?

...my personal belief is that Oswald did not write that letter, and Ruth Paine is my number one forgery suspect.

BTW, did Michael Paine speak Russian?

Tom

[Jon G. Tidd]

Tom Neal,

My daughter said [a] characters were not written (formed) correctly in some instances, there were numerous errors of case, [c] there were errors of tense, [d] there was improper use of the infinitive.

She also said the translation of the note contained errors ("the" mailbox instead of "our" mailbox, for example) and wasn't literal.

Basically, she said the translation entirely overlooks how poorly this letter is written.

[David Lifton]

I don't know who wrote the "Walker Letter".

Greg Parker has written here that a native-speaking acquaintance of his studied the note and judged it was written by Ruth Paine.

I've had the letter studied by my 32-year-old daughter, who has no dog in this fight. She has taught Russian language at an Ivy League university and is expert, although not native speaking, in Slavic languages and literature. My daughter does not give a fig about the letter. She analyzed it as a teacher in Russian I in an Ivy League University.

My daughter tells me her first semester Russian language students would not make the mistakes of this letter. They wouldn't because she would have taught them not to make such mistakes. IOW, in my daughter's view, and she is an American expert on the Russian language, whoever wrote this note did not know written Russian well.

I asked my daughter whether a native speaker would get the written language wrong. She said no.

I offer this information FWIW.

Jon:

Some years back, I went over Oswald's Russian fluency. Oswald, I learned, was an "aural learner"--and a very good one, at that. An aural learner picks up a language the same way a parrot functions--they learn by "hearing" as opposed to studying a textbook which contains information re grammar, syntax, etc. If Oswald was an aural learner--and I have been persuaded this was in fact the case--then I would assume it is entirely possible that his spoken Russian could be quite good, whereas when he sat down to write a note--like the one he left for Marina--he made a variety of errors (as your daughter noted). Anyway, I see no reason to extrapolate from these errors to the notion that Oswald was not the author of the letter. And incidentally: Marina never questioned that it was her husband who wrote the Walker note. Nor is there any evidence at all that Lee Oswald ever said, "I didn't write that note. Someone must have gotten into the apartment and left that note for you to read; it was not me!" etc.

My conclusions:

1.Oswald wrote the note

2. Oswald came rushing into the apartment, just as Marina has described, breathless, etc. --and said (I stress "said") that he shot at Walker. That doesn't mean he did shoot at Walker; but he definitely said that he did. And then he sat down in front of the radio, and was twirling the dial, looking for news coverage of the event.

DSL

4/21/15 - 9:10 p.m. PDT

Los Angeles,California

Your conclusions are seriously flawed.

Did you miss the part where it was determined that OTHER Russian writings of Oswald contained only a small fraction of the errors contained in the so-called Walker note?

"Nor is there any evidence at all that Lee Oswald ever said, "I didn't write that note." Damned sorry I missed the seance where Oswald was given the opportunity to deny authorship!

Do tell us all about it, Mr Lifton, sir!

Greg Parker:

Perhaps you misunderstood, or--for whatever reason--have a limited understanding of the facts.

When Oswald returned home on the night of April 10, Marina confronted him with the note; and demanded an explanation.

Are you unaware of that? (If so, then go read her testimony or the underlying FBI and Secret Service reports).

So. . .: your barbs aside, no seance was needed.

All Lee Oswald had to say (if your hypothesis had any validity) was: "Gee, Marina. . .I didn't write that! Someone must have entered the apartment, written the note, and placed it there for you to find! But not me!"

And perhaps he might have added: "Yes, I shot at Walker. . as I just told you. But no, I left no such note!"

Unfortunately, that's not the way the confrontation went--at all.

Instead, Oswald--confronted by Marina with the note and with the statement he made to Marina (that he just returned from shooting at Walker)--he then added a justification for what he said he had done. He added that if Hitler had been assassinated, then perhaps there would have been no World War II. (I don't have the time to look up the citations, and assist you in your research, but I am sure that an experienced researcher like yourself can find this material in the 26 volumes).

ABOUT RUTH PAINE . . .

Anyway, you really ought to cut out the unjustified innuendo attempting to implicate Ruth Paine in framing Oswald for the Walker shooting by either (a) claiming that she authored the Walker note and/or ( by claiming, in addition, that she then foisted the note on the official US Government investigation by hiding it in a cookbook, and then turning over the cookbook to the Irving Police Department a week or so later. In other words, engaging in a conspiracy to (a) fabricate evidence and then ( introduce that false evidence that she herself fabricated into the official "information stream" of the Kennedy assassination investigation.

Now that's really some hypothesis!

Really, Greg Parker- - what are you smoking?

Do you think that people reading this thread are so totally uninformed that they are unaware of the fact that Marina immediately identified the note when first shown it by Secret Service agent Leon Gopadze in early December 1963? (Gopadze having found it in the cookbook).

Do you think that people are going to accept your "Ruth Paine as author" hypothesis simply because you've found a convenient person to blame?

And speaking of that. . .

YOUR PAST BEHAVIOR. . .

This reminds me of your completely unfounded assertions and accusations against me concerning the matter of newspaper articles published in September, 1956 in the Fort Worth Star Telegram. You apparently believed that because you used Google news to find some clippings ---wire service accounts published in Canada--you refused to accept the fact that I was quite aware of this data (years before) because of the efforts of Debra Conway. Debra, at my behest, was working with microfilms at the Fort Worth Library. It was she who found the actual original local articles published in 1956, by working with library microfilms in 1995 (!) Your response? Oh no, that couldn't be true, you insisted. After all, this was your "original" discovery; you were "present at the creation". And so off you went, half cocked, and threatened to"expose" me if I ever dared to claim credit for finding out this data some years before you did!

So now you are back with another completely garbled version of reality; Greg Parker's version of what "must have happened" on the night of April 10, 1963 to explain the Walker note.

Unfortunately, you are dead wrong.

Based on Marina's testimony and document examination, it is clear that the note was written by Lee Oswald himself. Any errors in syntax or grammar were his own errors. As George DeM (and his wife) both made clear, Oswald spoke "beautiful" Russian. Apparently, he was less competent when it came to written Russian. No great surprise since he was an "aural learner."

But. . so what? Do you think that cancels out the fact that Oswald himself came running into the house and told Marina he had shot at Walker? Does syntactical or grammatical errors in the letter justify pointing an accusing finger at Ruth Paine, and claiming she was the author? Are you writing a novel, or are you trying to function as a historian?

Get real, Mr. Parker. Get real.

Before mouthing off and accusing people of crimes they did not commit. you might ask yourself: "Do I have some unacknowledged bias that is driving me in an incorrect direction, and to make unwarranted inferences?" In other words, "know thyself" and try to exercise some discretion before running off and making unfair accusations.

The fact that Ruth Paine had an underlying animus towards Oswald is "old news"; it is an annoying fact, and it has been written about for decades. None of that justifies accusing her of fabricating the Walker note, and then --in addition--not only accusing her of fabricating the note, but also of then stuffing it inside of a cookbook, which she then (according to you) deliberately gave to the Secret Service!

Is that your concept of "conspiracy" in this case?

Oh pleez. . .

DSL

4/22/15 - 9:30 a.m. PDT

Los Angeles, California

(Slightly edited - 4/22/15 - 4:20 p.m. PDT)

Edited April 22, 2015 by David Lifton

[Jon G. Tidd]

David Lifton,

Assuming Oswald was an "aural" learner, as you write, where and when, do you think, did he learn to speak Russian?

Putting aside John Armstrong's argument that Oswald learned Russian from his father and uncle, I don't see how he could have learned to speak Russian before he "defected" to the USSR. He wasn't, to my knowledge, hanging around with native Russian speakers.

If Oswald learned to speak Russian while in the USSR, I don't understand how or why he acquired a Baltic or Polish accent. In Minsk, he would have been picking up the language from individuals who presumably did not speak Russian with such an accent.

[Tom Neal]

Tom Neal,

My daughter said [a] characters were not written (formed) correctly in some instances, there were numerous errors of case, [c] there were errors of tense, [d] there was improper use of the infinitive.

Jon, thank you for the reply. Did she mention spelling errors?

She also said the translation of the note contained errors ("the" mailbox instead of "our" mailbox, for example) and wasn't literal.

Basically, she said the translation entirely overlooks how poorly this letter is written.

You are referring here to the published WC translation, I presume? IMO Oswald did not make errors in tense when he spoke, so why would he make them when writing? Did your daughter offer an opinion as to whether someone who SPOKE Russian well would make the TYPE of errors made in this letter?

Thanks Again for your reply,

Tom

[Robert Prudhomme]

Shouldn't we be trying to compare the Walker letter with the letters Oswald wrote while in Russia that Greg speaks of? It seems odd that everyone is quietly ignoring this small but significant item.

[Paul Brancato]

Mr. Lifton - how do you, as a serious researcher, decide what parts of Marina's testimony to believe? For instance, do you believe that she locked her husband in the bathroom to keep him from shooting Nixon?

[Jon G. Tidd]

Tom Neal,

Not so much misspellings as the wrong form of a word or the mis-forming of a character -- much more fundamental errors than simple misspelling.

[Jon G. Tidd]

Robert Prudhomme,

You are right, of course. My narrow focus on the Walker letter and its authorship stems from my implicit assumptions, which may be incorrect, that Marina's husband spoke Russian pretty well and that someone with such speaking fluency would not make the number and kinds of errors displayed in the letter.

[Thomas Graves]

Robert Prudhomme,

You are right, of course. My narrow focus on the Walker letter and its authorship stems from my implicit assumptions, which may be incorrect, that Marina's husband spoke Russian pretty well and that someone with such speaking fluency would not make the number and kinds of errors displayed in the letter.

Maybe he wrote the letter in a hurry?

--Tommy

[Greg Parker]

Shouldn't we be trying to compare the Walker letter with the letters Oswald wrote while in Russia that Greg speaks of? It seems odd that everyone is quietly ignoring this small but significant item.

It's already been done, Robert. The conclusion was that the author of the letters written inside the Soviet Union was not the same author that of the so-called Walker letter. The study mainly one of orthology. The person who did the study is not qualified, but his findings have been confirmed through Mr Tidd's daughter who teaches Russian. Should we get a wider study done be experts in handwriting and Russian? of course! I would expert further corroboration from that.

[Jon G. Tidd]

Tommy,

I don't know whether you've ever studied a language other than English. I have -- Latin and French in high school, Cambodian in the Defense Language Institute. At times, I could read and write in all three languages.

Maybe it's just me, but I would never have made, whatever my haste, the sorts of fundamental errors made in the Walker Letter. My focus would have been too great, given that I was dealing with a language foreign to me. I am, however, prone to misspellings in English, my first language.

By way of analogy. Let's say I want to write, "Yesterday I traveled to Moscow." Instead I write, "Yesterday me to travel in Moscow." Those are the kinds of errors made in the Walker Letter. They are not errors of haste.

[Ron Ecker]

It seems like the first thing Marina should have asked him when Oswald rushed into the apartment was, "Where did you learn to write Russian?"

[Jon G. Tidd]

Ron Ecker,

Assuming Marina showed her husband the letter, which I doubt, she should have said to him: "You have written this letter in poor Russian. What am I to make of it? Please tell me."

In which case, Marina's husband, skilled in speaking Russian but deficient in writing Russian, should have said:...

[David Lifton]

David Lifton,

Assuming Oswald was an "aural" learner, as you write, where and when, do you think, did he learn to speak Russian?

Putting aside John Armstrong's argument that Oswald learned Russian from his father and uncle, I don't see how he could have learned to speak Russian before he "defected" to the USSR. He wasn't, to my knowledge, hanging around with native Russian speakers.

If Oswald learned to speak Russian while in the USSR, I don't understand how or why he acquired a Baltic or Polish accent. In Minsk, he would have been picking up the language from individuals who presumably did not speak Russian with such an accent.

Jon Tidd:

Addressing your primary question, the short answer is: for the most part, Spring 1959, while at El Toro. He had an off-base tutor; and I'll have considerably more to say about this in Final Charade.

In evaluating Oswald's Russian "learning curve", please be aware of the following data:

1. When Oswald enlisted in the Marines, he already had an intense interest in Russia. (See continuation of my post below, at MARKER AAA. There was a computer glitch. . .). DSL

David Lifton,

Assuming Oswald was an "aural" learner, as you write, where and when, do you think, did he learn to speak Russian?

Putting aside John Armstrong's argument that Oswald learned Russian from his father and uncle, I don't see how he could have learned to speak Russian before he "defected" to the USSR. He wasn't, to my knowledge, hanging around with native Russian speakers.

If Oswald learned to speak Russian while in the USSR, I don't understand how or why he acquired a Baltic or Polish accent. In Minsk, he would have been picking up the language from individuals who presumably did not speak Russian with such an accent.

MARKER AAA

Jon:

Short answer: spring 1959, while at El Toro Marine Base. He had an off-base tutor. My entire analysis of this situation will appear in Final Charade.

Meanwhile, here is data that ought to be kept in mind:

ITEM: When Oswald enlisted in the Marines in October 1956, he already had a serious interest in the USSR. (To be discussed in Final Charade).

ITEM: By the spring of 1957, while in the USMC, he was studying the Cyrillic alphabet. (See Felde FBI report).

ITEM: While in Japan, he apparently had a tutor--at least, that's what certain fellow Marines believed. (See FBI reports of Marines who knew LHO in Japan, Epstein's book; plus FBI and WC info of Marines who knew LHO at El Toro, Spring 1959).

ITEM: When he returned from Japan and appeared at El Toro (12/58), he was already "speaking" (albeit probably most poorly) some Russian; and that's when he arranged to have a Russian variant of his name ("Oswaldkovich" or some such thing) sewn onto his USMC uniform. (See WC affidavits)

ITEM: Oswald's verbal fluency increased sharply in the spring of 1959. The evidence for that will be discussed in Final Charade, along with the indications that he had an off-base tutor.

ITEM: Oswald definitely did NOT go to Defense Language Institute (DSL) in Monterrey. All the class records were provided under FOIA. According to that evidence, he was not there. Anyway, there is no evidence of any prolonged absence from El Toro (located in Southern California, and DLI, which is hundreds of miles up north). But Oswald did work out of a superior officer's office, and did make regular trips off base. That evidence will be set forth in Final Charade.

ITEM: Oswald was trained to "listen" -not necessarily to speak--and that had a lot to do with his intelligence assignment. That's why he pretended not to understand spoken Russian (beyond "da" and "nyet") and with one interesting exception (when he was hospitalized), did not speak it.

ITEM: Armstrong's assertions that he did not speak Russian after he arrived in the USSR (and was there for awhile) are false. Completely incorrect.

ITEM: Once Oswald decided to remain in the U.S.S.R.--at least for a while, which turned out to be a long while--he had to be careful about revealing the level of his fluency. I have specific knowledge about this situation from information provided by Larry Schiller (who worked as Norman Mailer's investigator, for his book "Oswald's Tale.") The Soviets assigned a Ph.D. (physics) at the Minsk factory, Stanislov Shushkevich, to be his tutor. (Schiller believed he was assigned to see if LHO already had Russian language instruction). You can read all about Shushkevich--an extraordinarily accomplished man who is now about 83--by Googling him. He was recently interviewed on Radio Liberty on the occasion of the 50th anniversary. In 1991, he went on to become the first president of Belarus (if I've got the title right) and was responsible for (a) Belarus seceding from the USSR and ( b ) voluntarily surrendering its nuclear weapons. There are excellent photographs of Shushkevich shaking hands with President Bill Clinton at one of the early post-USSR conferences. Shushkevich recently made a trip to the U.S. and actually visited the Sixth Floor Museum. He does not believe the Warren Commission Report (at all), and has quite a bit to say about the character of Lee Oswald, with whom he spent significant time. I find most appealing his closing quote in the radio interview: "My student did not assassinate President Kennedy."

ITEM: Of course, by the time Oswald returned to the U.S., he had spent some 34 months in the USSR; and, being an aural learner, had the advantage of (almost constantly) being the presence of--and speaking Russian with--Marina, who had excellent linguistic skills herself. (See Priscilla McMillan's book, which expands on this theme, and is quite good on this subject).

Hope this sheds some light on Oswald's linguistic capabilities.

DSL

4/22/15 - 4:55 p.m. PDT

Los Angeles, California

Edited April 22, 2015 by David Lifton