Who Wrote the Walker Letter?

[Jon G. Tidd]

SUMMARY SO FAR:

[1] Did Marina's husband write the Walker Letter?

DSL: yes

Parker: no

Tidd: leans no

[2] Was the Walker shooting staged?

DSL: yes

Parker: yes

Trejo: no

Edited April 25, 2015 by Jon G. Tidd

[Robert Prudhomme]

Dave

Earlier, you wrote this:

"Most important (to me): I assisted Steve Bello in developing the basic view of the Walker shooting as a staged affair. Steve wrote dialogue that captured that idea, if only briefly, and it was the first time that, to my knowledge, the Walker affair was publicly explained in that fashion. As contrived."

Do you personally believe the Walker shooting was a staged and contrived affair? If so, could you elaborate on this, and possibly list the player(s) you felt was (were) involved?

Robert:

Yes, I believe the Walker shooting was contrived.

The rest of my analysis will be set forth in Final Charade.

DSL

Dave

By "contrived", do you mean to say that LHO did not act alone in the Walker shooting? By saying something is contrived, one is given to assume two or more people are involved.

[Robert Prudhomme]

I have the strangest feeling that Mr. Lifton is reluctant to discuss what he means when he says the Walker shooting was "contrived".

[Mark Knight]

I have the strangest feeling that Mr. Lifton is reluctant to discuss what he means when he says the Walker shooting was "contrived".

Robert, that might be because he'd rather sell you his forthcoming book than reveal what's in it, in any sort of detail.

[David Lifton]

FWIW, I believe in an uninhibited marketplace of robust discussion, contrasting voices, all of which leads inexorably to consensus.

I partake of DSL, Greg Parker, DJ, et al.

I disagree with James Gordon. I don't want polite discussion. I want the truth. It doesn't come politely.

Gary Mack of the Sixth Floor Museum recently sent me an email on 4/25/15) stating that my information about Oswald being in Fort Worth in 1956 "[was] quite correct and, ironically, the racial problems that year were the focus of a recent TV news story."

Gary points out that he worked for the Dallas-Fort Worth NBC affiliate from 1981 - 1993 "and, among other things, I worked with the station's news film archive which spanned 1948 - 1978."

He went on to provide the following information (quoted with permission):

QUOTE ON:

Among the hours of footage I examined were scenes of the September 1956 racial strife in Fort Worth. Last year the station, KXAS but then known as WBAP, donated its news film to the University of North Texas.

Recently, as the school started making the footage available online, KXAS aired a five-part series highlighting some of those films. By pure chance, the first part looked at one of the September 1956 problems . . and here it is.

UNQUOTE

For anyone wishing to watch the 1956 news report, the internet "link" Gary provided (at "here", quoted above) is the following:

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/North-Texas-in-Black-and-White-in-1956_Dallas-Fort-Worth-288476801.html

RESUMING THE "QUOTE ON":

(By the way, the footage KXAS showed does, indeed, date from September of that year [i.e., 1956]. As co-producer of the station's 40th anniversary, one-hour special, I included some of those same scenes.)

END QUOTE

The news report the reader of this post can view (using the above link) shows what happened when Lloyd Austin (now 91) and his wife purchased a house on Judkins Street and crowds gathered yelling racial epithets, attempting to frighten him into moving. (He did not, instead using his rifle to defend his life and property; at which point the police were called, and they dispersed the rioters). Anyway, watch the clip for details.

DEBRA CONWAY'S RESEARCH IN NOVEMBER 1994

This is the same incident that Debra Conway found in November, 1994--a month after my October 2, 1994 filmed interview with Palmer McBride. At the time, I had asked Debra if she would be willing to go to the Fort Worth Library and review microfilmed copies of the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. As I recall today (i.e., in 2015), the reason for my request was to search for local TV listings and determine if (and when) Oswald's favorite TV program, I Led 3 Lives, was broadcast. (Oswald [along with his mom] moved from New Orleans--where they had lived for 2-1/2 years (and watched the program together regularly)--to Ft. Worth on July 1, 1956. Lee Oswald lived in Ft. Worth from that date until October 24 1956 when he enlisted in the Marines. It was during the course of Debra's search--looking for data re I Led 3 Lives broadcast dates (to repeat, research she was doing in November 1994) --that she came across the September 1956 articles about the racial strife in Fort Worth. I believe it was Debra who pointed out the connection between the article(s) she found and the statement in Lee Oswald's letter to Palmer McBride, as recollected by McBride in his original 11/23/63 statement. At some point, Debra then sent that material to me by mail (i.e., snail mail); and it was through phone conversations at the time (and the receipt of the package, probably some days or weeks later) that I became aware of these "Fort Worth" stories and their potential significance in evaluating the factual accuracy of McBride's original statement to the FBI, dated 11/23/63 (Warren Commission Exhibit 1386).

In that statement, made at Patrick Air Force Base, McBride--then known as "Airman McBride", and now looking back on events that had taken place 7 years earlier--had stated (erroneously): "In April or May, 1958, OSWALD stated he was moving to Ft. Worth, Texas, with his mother. In about August, 1958, I received a letter from him saying he was employed as a shoe salesman in Ft. Worth. In this letter he also stated he had gotten mixed up in an Anti-Negro or Anti-Communist riot on a high school grounds in Ft. Worth, Texas (all emphasis added, by DSL). OSWALD did not elaborate on this statement. I did not answer this letter, and I have not had further contact or communication with Oswald."

(Aside: it is worth noting that the details of Oswald's letter do not match the content of the Ft. Worth news reports--i.e., the news stories do not contain (insofar as I am presently aware) any information about a "riot on a high school grounds in Ft. Worth." I do not mean to imply that such an event --or events--did not occur; just that they are not included in any "Ft Worth news stories" of which I am presently aware).

The Fort Worth news stories about racial strife--which Debra found in November 1994--supported the idea that McBride's memory as to the year ("1958", as stated in his 11/23/63 statement) was simply incorrect. (Again, keep in mind that seven years had passed, and so such an error was quite understandable; i.e., McBride's mistaking what happened in the early fall of 1956 being something he mistakenly recalled as having occurred in 1958).

That's exactly what McBride said to me in our filmed interview the month before (2 October 1994). That the date he profferred in his 11/23/63 statement was simply a mistake. We went over this very carefully in this on-camera interview. Shown the fact that Oswald had enlisted in the Marines on October 24 1956 and was in the Far East in "August 1958" (and coming to the end of a one-year overseas tour), McBride readily conceded --if he did not volunteer--that his memory had been incorrect. Furthermore, he said there was nothing to the assertion that he had discussed the October 1957 launch of Sputnik with Oswald--a matter which had come up somewhere in a JFK discussion group. (The issue came up because McBride stated, in his 11/23/63 FBI statement, that he had stated to Oswald "that I did feel more emphasis should be placed on the space program"). But, McBride said on camera, he could not have had a discussion with Oswald about Sputnik, because Oswald was overseas and in Japan at the time. At one point, McBride said that the date ("1958") was simply "a typo."

The Weyerhaueser Box Company (another factoid bearing on this issue)

A most interesting facet of this filmed interview was McBride's on-camera reconstruction of why he was so sure he was at Pfisterer Dental Lab (where he and Oswald were both messengers) in the spring of 1956, and not two years later (i.e., 1958). That turned on his recollection of his prior employment. McBride told me--all of this was on-camera--that he had previously worked at Weyerhaueser Box company (from October 1955 until January 1956) and that it was his prior employment there (at Weyerhaueser) that made him certain he had worked at Pfisterer Dental Labs starting in January, 1956. Why? Because he was certain that Pfisterer was the job he had immediately after the one at Weyerhauser Box company, and McBride seemed certain of the Weyerhauser employment dates.

My Assessment After the Completion of this on-camera interview

As far as I was concerned, that was the end of the "two-Oswald" theory--which, largely, was built around the existence of this erroneous "first statement" of Palmer McBride, something that could easily have been cleared up had the Warren Commission called McBride as a witness. (Why he was not called, I have no idea; he obviously ought to have been deposed during the Warren Commission investigation. Had such a deposition been conducted, I don't think there would ever have been a "two-Oswald" theory. Because it was Palmer McBride's incorrect statement (CE 1386)--after all--that was at the heart of that theory).

What I have set forth above --events which occurred in 1956, and then were explored by me (and Debra Conway) in October and November of 1994 --sets the stage for what happened almost 18 years later in 2011 and then carried over into 2012.

Remember: in 1994 there was no Web-based Internet. As NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman has noted (in his book The Earth is Flat) the first major shipment of Web browsers (Mosaic, I think) occurred in 1995, and it is generally conceded (I believe) that the massive explosion (at 100%/year) that led to what I am calling the "modern Internet" didn't occur until 1996/1997.

December 2011: The LEF Thread "Two Oswalds Explained"

(DSL Note: For newcomers: "LEF" stands for "London Education Forum". I do not know its exact founding date; but John Simkin could supply that information).

The above-titled thread was begun on 25 December 2011 by Greg Parker, who has stated that he first became seriously involved in JFK research in the late 1990s--a good five to seven years after Oliver Stone's JFK (December 1991) and after he had read a copy of Summers' Conspiracy. Currently, this particular LEF thread consists of 21 web pages and over 300 posts, which are numbered sequentially.

My first post on that thread was #34, and dated 27 December 2011. My post dated 5 September 2012 (Post #112) was the first of several reporting what had occurred during the course of my filmed interview with Palmer McBride on October 2, 1994, at his home in Sun Valley, California. (And it was the next month--November 1994--that Debra Conway did the research I have described at the Fort Worth Library).

Now "flash-forward" to 2012 on this "two-Oswald" thread. At that point in time, Greg Parker mentioned this problem, and noted the "Fort Worth evidence", his source being wire service stories that he found via Google News, one from a newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and another from a newspaper in Calgary, Canada.

ASIDE: Neither Google--nor what I am calling the "modern Internet"--existed in 1994, when I interviewed McBride, or when Debra did her newspaper research "the old fashioned way"--i.e., reading reels of 35 mm microfilm at the Fort Worth Library.

But now back to 2012. . . (and my original post on the matter):

In "Post Number 123" on that thread, I wrote about my own experience, as I recalled it at that time. It was almost 18 years after-the-fact, and my own recollection was imperfect, but here's what I wrote (in a post in which I had numbered the points being made. This was my point number 13):

13. As has been pointed out (and according to McBride, himself) Oswald –who, with his mother, moved to Fort Worth on July 1, 1956—subsequently wrote a letter to a supervisor at Pfisterer. In that letter, he talks of racial tensions and demonstrations in Fort Worth. Back around 1995, I had someone go to the Fort Worth library, pull microfilms of the Fort Worth Star Telegram, and actually locate news stories mentioning that. More recently, Greg Parker, using Google, came up with similar corroboration. There were no “digital scanners” back in 1995—certainly, I did not have one—or I would have scanned those items). My point is that that data also corroborates the fact that we are dealing with the year 1956, and certainly not 1957 or 1958.

2012: Greg Parker's Reaction to my Post

At that point, Greg Parker blew a gasket. . and it was downhill from there. His reaction was really quite amazing. He had discovered this. It was his. His original work! How could anyone else have found it? Specifically, how could I have found it? Had I ever published anything on this? It just went on and on. Parker asked one question after another, in the style of a nasty cross-examiner; and –18 years having passed—my first answers were not accurate. Later, Parker would compare the first with the second and the third as I attempted to think back and remember: just how the heck did I get that research task done? In the beginning, I mistakenly said I did it, then I said I paid a researcher; then I remembered the details—aha! It was Debra Conway who had done the work. (Parker, who had difficulty accepting any of this, referred to Debra in insulting terms, and asked how much I had paid her. [The answer: zero.] ) I telephoned Debra, we talked, and she checked her records and determined that it was November 1994. But all this played out over a number of weeks, with Parker proclaiming that I was a xxxx, that my changed answers proved I was engaged in a deception; that if I really had such important information, I would have put it on the Internet (there was no modern Internet until several years afterwards, and anyway, that was not my style. Once I had the filmed interview, with a signed release, that was the end of it, as far as I was concerned. I would use it as documentation for my book, and perhaps in a future documentary ). Parker ominously warned that if I ever dared to say, in a published book, that I had discovered this information, he would publicly denounce me and expose me as a xxxx. When it was pointed out (by moderator Don Jeffries, and by John Simkin himself) that all of this was unjustified and in bad taste, and against the rules, he refused to back down; indeed, he "doubled down" (to use gambling terminology) and reiterated his position. “I don’t owe anyone an apology!” he proclaimed. He had caught me in a deliberate lie; and by God, he was intent on exposing me.

All of this was rubbish; utterly false. In one post, Parker refused to believe that I (working with Debra) could have been looking in the Fort Worth newspapers for the “summer of 1956” for the stated reason our search began (i.e., looking for the nights that I Led 3 Lives was broadcast) and he actually exploded: “The ONLY logical reason to look in those papers was the reason I did. . .(!)”

Can you imagine that?

I mean: who writes something like that, and expects to be taken seriously?

OTHER THOUGHTS BEFORE ENDING THIS POST. . .

I have more to say about this, and may write more about this in the future. Meanwhile, this post should limn in--for those interested--the relationship between Palmer McBride's original FBI statement (incorrect as to date, i.e., 1958, rather than 1956); the Fort Worth news stories about racial strife, what Palmer McBride said during our October 2 1956 filmed interview, and what Debra Conway found at the Fort Worth library in November, 1994.

For those who wish to read generous excerpts from my October 2 1956 filmed interview, see post #112, post #116 (re Weyerhaeuser). Also see post #143 (for a good summary of the history of my relationship with McBride); post #175, and post number 178. (Note to readers: I have yet to double check the list of the posts I am citing here--i.e., in which I quoted from the transcript of my 10/2/94 filmed interview. Further (and anticipating the question): No, I cannot put the entire un-edited interview on YouTube at this time, because it is involved with a larger documentary film project.)

1995 and the ARRB--and the matter of Palmer McBride

I had good relationships with certain staff of the ARRB (Marwell, Gun, Doug Horne, and others) because they were calling some of the "Best Evidence witnesses" for depositions; and I made clear the importance of the Oswald tax records in addressing--and perhaps resolving--this issue.

Towards the tail end of the ARRB's life (the "sunset date" was 9/30/98) Doug Horne --chief of Military Records at the ARRB--was able to engineer a release of the Oswald tax records which established--without question--that Oswald worked at Pfisterer Dental Labs in 1956 (and not 1958). Had time permitted, and had the ARRB followed up, I am sure that a request for McBride's tax records would have established when he worked both at Weyerhauser Box and at Pfisterer, and so this "historical puzzle" would have been definitively settled once and for all. Unfortunately, those final steps were never taken.

Now getting back to John Armstrong. . . :

In late 1994 (and early 1995), after Armstrong learned of my filmed interview with Palmer McBride, he went into "damage control" mode. Quite swiftly, Armstrong did his usual "selling job" --what I call his "witness recruitment program". He contacted McBride and persuaded him that his original account was not an error--no, not at all--but (rather) a valuable reality (!). By "talking to" McBride in this manner, he then put McBride back on the path which he then defended for the rest of his life: that his original statement (previously acknowledged to have been mistaken, in our Oct 2 1994 filmed interview) was in fact correct (!). But that's a whole other chapter in this saga, and that includes McBride's letter to the ARRB (when he learned that I had put in writing a request that they should look into the matter).

In other words, McBride then became a partisan in the "two Oswald" debate (!).

FWIW: Palmer McBride (whose DOB was 11/29/37) died on May 4, 2013, at age 75. Ancestry.com lists the location as Winnetka, California, which is defined --in Wikipedia--as a "neighborhood" in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. (When I interviewed McBride on October 2, 1994, he was living in Sun Valley, California).

As for Greg Parker, he will have to stew in his own juices. He's responsible for creating much of this messed up record on the Internet--and specifically, on the thread that he personally launched in December 2011. It is a thread loaded with false charges against me, which--because of his own psychology--he cannot concede are in error. But I am not the only person who is the target of his irresponsible "analysis", packaged with much pomposity and delivered with a false sense of certainty. His recent statements and posts on this thread ("Who Wrote the Walker Note?") that Ruth Paine was part of a conspiracy because (says Parker) she turned in a pre-fabricated and forged note re Walker (concealed in a cookbook) is another example of his false reasoning. Still another is his very recent (and absurd) claim that Oswald never lived at the Neely Street address (the site of the infamous "back yard photos"). I have to wonder whether he will include that doozie in a future volume of his e-book.

More when I have time.

Meanwhile, I stand by my 2 October 1994 interview with the late Palmer McBride. It was good journalism and a chance for McBride to set the record straight. (Which he did.)

And thanks again to Gary Mack for calling my attention to these 1956 filmed interviews.

DSL

4/28/15

Los Angeles, California

(edited, and tweaked - 4/28/15, 4:05 p.m. PDT)

Edited May 1, 2015 by David Lifton

[Jon G. Tidd]

DSL,

You have incredible knowledge of this case. I ask for your perception.

How did Marina regard you? Did she see you as someone she could fool? In other words, did she see you as hanging on her every word?

Or was she blunt, even disrespectful?

Or was she someone who pleased you?

[David Lifton]

DSL,

You have incredible knowledge of this case. I ask for your perception.

How did Marina regard you? Did she see you as someone she could fool? In other words, did she see you as hanging on her every word?

Or was she blunt, even disrespectful?

Or was she someone who pleased you?

Thanks very much for your kind remarks.

You have no idea how many hours of “research”—research on my own “past”—it took to organize, write, edit, and rewrite this particular post. But, once started, I was determined to untangle (or at least to attempt to untangle) the mess that had been created about me (and my work in this particular area) on the Internet.

Turning now to your questions re Marina (and answering as briefly as possible):

1. I met Marina when Best Evidence was first published (January 1981) and I was in Dallas twice (both in January and March) on my book tour. She came to the studio when I was on the radio, and that’s how we met. Also (and later on that very same day), she was introduced to Mary Ferrell, with whom she then remained in contact for quite a long time.

2. In the aftermath of that meeting, we had many phone calls, extending over many years. She was friendly, and open, and we talked about her “situation” for hours on end. I remember being overly optimistic and attempting to reassure her that the truth was “of course” going to emerge, and Lee would surely be exonerated, etc. That turned out to be a gross oversimplification. In talking to her –and attempting to explain what had happened to her, through no fault of her own—she often wondered if she had been manipulated by Lee, and if so, to what end? And the unfairness of it all. I remember –more than once—bringing up the story of Job, from the bible. As you probably know—and I am quoting Wikipedia (rather than rely on my own very imperfect knowledge): The Book of Job addresses (QUOTE) “the theme of God's justice in the face of human suffering—or more simply, "Why do the righteous suffer?"^[2]— it is a rich theological work setting out a variety of perspectives.^[3] It has been widely and often extravagantly praised for its literary qualities, with Alfred, Lord Tennyson calling it "the greatest poem of ancient and modern times".^[4] UNQUOTE I always felt there was no “excuse”—i.e., “existential excuse”-- for what happened to Marina, and that was the closest I could come to any “explanation.”

3. I never felt she was trying to fool me. Not at all.

4. She knew that I had studied the case—and was immersed in a plethora of details. She had many questions to which she sought answers; and I did the best I could to provide them, or at least provide an informed opinion. (Another JFK researcher, Wallace Milam, played a similar role in her life).

5. No, I don’t think she ever saw me as “hanging on her every word” and I challenged her and asked her serious questions whenever the need arose. I really did "push the envelope" (as the saying goes. I once challenged Marina way too hard, and she got mad—but that was OK, because her reaction persuaded me she was telling the truth).

6. I’m sure she was honest –sometimes brutally honest—in the answers she gave me. If Marina knows something that she has chosen not to divulge, then its because she has made a personal decision to carry something to the grave. I can’t elaborate on this statement (now) except to say that her children meant more than anything else to her, and she would never do anything to injure them in any way or place them in jeopardy. Bottom line: Marina was an excellent mother.

7. I told Marina that it was very important she go on camera and make a filmed record of (a) how much Lee admired Kennedy and (b ) her beliefs in his innocence. We agreed to do this, and we had an extensive filmed interview in the summer of 1990, filmed by a first rate professional film crew under the auspices of Michael Grasso (director-writer-producer). Marina didn’t charge a penny, and when I was paid a good fee for some of the footage by the TV program HARDCOPY, Marina let me keep all of it, and it supported me for a year. Subsequently, I let it be posted on YouTube (without objection) because I wanted to let the world see, for themselves, what she was all about and how strongly she felt about Lee’s innocence.

8. Marina (on camera) sometimes has a mysterious quality which I have compared to Greta Garbo, and I will elaborate on that a bit in Final Charade.

Hope this answers your questions.

That’s all I can say for now.

DSL

4/28/15 -10 p.m. PDT

Los Angeles, California

Edited May 1, 2015 by David Lifton

[Paul Trejo]

Good thread, Jon.

I find I agree with David Lifton on most issues here. Although Marina lied to the FBI and SS immediately after they moved her from Ruth Paine's house (especially about Mexico City), this was because she was terrified.

After she calmed down (especially after receiving $130,000 in sympathy money from countless Americans, which amounts to more than a million dollars today when adjusted for inflation) she was more willing to tell the truth.

By the time Marina took the stand, under oath, she told the TRUTH as she knew it. This was complicated by two factors: (1) Lee Harvey Oswald had lied to her continually about almost everything important; and (2) she still spoke English poorly.

Nevertheless, she had plenty of money as a good guarantee that she could stay in the USA with her babies, and she was happy for that, and so she was willing to tell the Truth. I have defended Marina's veracity at length on this Forum, and will continue to do so.

As for the WALKER incident, it is the key to solving the JFK murder, and it is astounding to me that the majority of readers on this FORUM do not accept its historical validity. No wonder y'all can't solve the JFK murder.

As for Greg Parker's friend's expert analysis of the WALKER NOTE, my observation is that his analysis was INCOMPLETE.

That analysis only came down to this -- that he made an Error Count of Grammatical mistakes, and he said that there were MORE errors in the WALKER note than in other Russian writings that OSWALD made while in Russia.

That is clearly incomplete -- and far from conclusive. There could be many extenuating factors -- for example, if OSWALD was extremely nervous, he was probably in a hurry when he wrote the WALKER note.

No, in order to make a proper comparison, we need more than a grammatical Error Count. We need adequate English Translations of the other letters that OSWALD wrote in Russia, so that English readers can compare them. It would be nice to have a Transliteration as well as a Translation, for more careful comparisons. What is still needed in the analysis of the WALKER note is an assessment of the vocabulary level. That would tell more than an Error Count, which can vary depending on emotion and mood.

The WALKER note is AUTHENTIC. The WALKER SHOOTING was REAL. It seems to be next to impossible for readers to grasp that (i) OSWALD did shoot at WALKER; and (ii) OSWALD didn't shoot at JFK. Why is that so hard?

That said, OSWALD lied and lied to Marina about it:

1. There were surely accomplices involved

2. There was surely one car or more involved (and no bus)

3. Oswald never buried his rifle

The DPD reports on the WALKER shooting are indispensable in this case. While I believe that the DPD was a central player in the JFK murder, I also say that the JFK murder was planned out back in September, and not back in April when the WALKER shooting occurred.

David Lifton is also correct, IMHO, when he says that the Nixon incident was a case of OSWALD teasing Marina in sadistic manner. She was terrified that he was more than half-serious, but he was teasing her.

Finally -- Marina isn't our only source on the WALKER shooting. George De Mohrenschildt, his wife, and also Volkmar Schmidt were certain that OSWALD shot at WALKER. Michael and Ruth Paine were also at that party where all these yuppie engineers from Dallas worked to convince OSWALD to hate WALKER with a purple passion.

The Paine's should be asked about this issue even today. Does anybody here know how to contact them?

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited April 29, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Jon G. Tidd]

DSL: Many, many thanks. You went overboard.

Paul Trejo: Same.

Confession:

A psychiatrist once asked me why I didn't become a psychiatrist.

I've thought about that question. I answered that I had a tremor and didn't think I could get through Med School. The shrink shrugged.

Bottom line: I want to understand Marina and Lee as persons, humans.

[Paul Trejo]

...Confession:

A psychiatrist once asked me why I didn't become a psychiatrist.

I've thought about that question. I answered that I had a tremor and didn't think I could get through Med School. The shrink shrugged.

Bottom line: I want to understand Marina and Lee as persons, humans.

Interesting background, Jon. BTW, when I was in high school, all I wanted was to be a psychoanalyst; Freudian, not Jungian.

In any case, I agree that Marina and Lee are the key to the JFK Conspiracy. The first thing to bear in mind, is their young age. Lee Oswald had just turned 24 and Marina had recently turned 22, when JFK was murdered.

Lee Oswald was basically a good guy, but very misunderstood, and could not compete in a free market in the USA, because even with his high IQ, he had no college (and his family owned no businesses) and so he had zero opportunities outside the military. Yet he had spurned the military, too, as shown by his discharge status.

His only hope, as far as I can see, was to prove himself with the Intelligence Community. This would have been his personal salvation, if he could pull it off. He watched Volkmar Schmidt and Michael Paine, around his age, with tons more money than he had. (He had a second kid on the way, and no steady job; he was getting desperate.)

Compare this with his status in the USSR -- he had an average job in a radio factory, but the Red Cross almost doubled his salary, which was spectacular, so that he made almost as much as the Director of the factory.

Also, OSWALD was allowed to stay in the new, upscale apartments in Minsk. He was relatively rich in the USSR, which is one reason Marina was swept off her feet, being the "material girl."

In fact, he was a real success in the USSR, and he let himself believe that he did this all by himself -- so he decided to take his good fortune -- his wife and baby -- back to the USA to show it all off, and become successful in the USA as well.

Well, he was slapped down at every turn in the USA. First, his job as a welder, paying him $1.25 hourly, would not let him move out of his mother's house. What a humiliation. Then, George De Mohrenschildt told OSWALD that his "historic diary" was a bore to read (and that he should have stayed in the military).

Then, after George introduced Lee and Marina to the Russian Exiles in Dallas, the heavy hitters there started to hit on young Marina, and Lee started beating her for the first time in their relationship, so that George felt justified in breaking them apart for awhile.

Notice the great contrast of Lee in the USSR and Lee in the USA. The contrast was pushing him to the breaking point. To cap it all off, George DM, Michael Paine, Volkmar Schmidt and others started pressuring Lee to hate, hate, hate Edwin WALKER. Lee finally snapped by trying to murder WALKER.

I'm not saying that Lee Harvey Oswald couldn't have been driven to murder JFK; I'm saying that the material evidence shows that the JFK murder was far beyond the ability of any single individual. So, Lee fell in with the wrong crowd, obviously. (Thanks to Jim Garrison and Harry Dean, we know who they were.)

It was all downhill for Lee after that. But that background, I think, gives us hints toward a psychological profile of Lee -- which would be mandatory for understanding his behavior.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited April 30, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[David Lifton]

DSL: Many, many thanks. You went overboard.

Paul Trejo: Same.

Confession:

A psychiatrist once asked me why I didn't become a psychiatrist.

I've thought about that question. I answered that I had a tremor and didn't think I could get through Med School. The shrink shrugged.

Bottom line: I want to understand Marina and Lee as persons, humans.

...Confession:

A psychiatrist once asked me why I didn't become a psychiatrist.

I've thought about that question. I answered that I had a tremor and didn't think I could get through Med School. The shrink shrugged.

Bottom line: I want to understand Marina and Lee as persons, humans.

Interesting background, Jon. BTW, when I was in high school, all I wanted was to be a psychoanalyst; Freudian, not Jungian.

In any case, I agree that Marina and Lee are the key to the JFK Conspiracy. The first thing to bear in mind, is their young age. Lee Oswald had just turned 24 and Marina had recently turned 22, when JFK was murdered.

Lee Oswald was basically a good guy, but very misunderstood, and could not compete in a free market in the USA, because even with his high IQ, he had no college (and his family owned no businesses) and so he had zero opportunities outside the military. Yet he had spurned the military, too, as shown by his discharge status.

His only hope, as far as I can see, was to prove himself with the Intelligence Community. This would have been his personal salvation, if he could pull it off. He watched Volkmar Schmidt and Michael Paine, around his age, with tons more money than he had. (He had a second kid on the way, and no steady job; he was getting desperate.)

Compare this with his status in the USSR -- he had an average job in a radio factory, but the Red Cross almost doubled his salary, which was spectacular, so that he made almost as much as the Director of the factory.

Also, OSWALD was allowed to stay in the new, upscale apartments in Minsk. He was relatively rich in the USSR, which is one reason Marina was swept off her feet, being the "material girl."

In fact, he was a real success in the USSR, and he let himself believe that he did this all by himself -- so he decided to take his good fortune -- his wife and baby -- back to the USA to show it all off, and become successful in the USA as well.

Well, he was slapped down at every turn in the USA. First, his job as a welder, paying him $1.25 hourly, would not let him move out of his mother's house. What a humiliation. Then, George De Mohrenschildt told OSWALD that his "historic diary" was a bore to read (and that he should have stayed in the military).

Then, after George introduced Lee and Marina to the Russian Exiles in Dallas, the heavy hitters there started to hit on young Marina, and Lee started beating her for the first time in their relationship, so that George felt justified in breaking them apart for awhile.

Notice the great contrast of Lee in the USSR and Lee in the USA. The contrast was pushing him to the breaking point. To cap it all off, George DM, Michael Paine, Volkmar Schmidt and others started pressuring Lee to hate, hate, hate Edwin WALKER. Lee finally snapped by trying to murder WALKER.

I'm not saying that Lee Harvey Oswald couldn't have been driven to murder JFK; I'm saying that the material evidence shows that the JFK murder was far beyond the ability of any single individual. So, Lee fell in with the wrong crowd, obviously. (Thanks to Jim Garrison and Harry Dean, we know who they were.)

It was all downhill for Lee after that. But that background, I think, gives us hints toward a psychological profile of Lee -- which would be mandatory for understanding his behavior.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

This post --# 86 on this thread--is (unfortunately) about "packaging," and I am writing it to avoid any future confusion.

In his opening statement (in his post #85) Paul Trejo said “I find I agree with David Lifton on most issues here,” and went on to note that “although Marina lied to the FBI and SS immediately after they moved her from Ruth Paine’s house (especially about Mexico City), this was because she was terrified.”

All well and good. Thanks for recognizing that single area of agreement.

However, I want to emphasize that I completely disagree with most of Trejo’s statements following that opening remark, and they are not to be confused with my own long-held beliefs.

Specifically:

Number One: I do not agree in any way whatsoever with the notion that money Marina received from a sympathetic American public had anything whatsoever to do with Marina’s telling the truth when under oath before the Warren Commission in February 1964, or at any time thereafter. That’s cynical and false, and I do not want to be associated with that view in any way.

Second: I do not agree in any way whatsoever with Trejo’s many negative and demeaning beliefs about the character of Lee Oswald, or Trejo's notion that Lee Oswald was the assassin of President Kennedy or was part of a plot to murder President Kennedy. That, too, I believe to be completely false.

To make this very clear: I never believed that (or said any such thing) when I wrote Best Evidence (published in 1981) and I do not believe any such thing today; and I do not want Trejo’s statements about what he believes (which were sort of “tacked on” to the statement of my own beliefs about the Walker note) to lead to any confusion in this matter.

Bottom line: this slender “area of agreement” or overlap between Trejo's views and my own (in the area of the Walker note) is not to be confused with any endorsement (on my part) about his beliefs about Oswald’s role in the Walker affair; nor should anyone be led to believe I am in agreement with Trejo's negative views about Oswald’s character, in general, or his beliefs about Oswald as President Kennedy’s assassin; or his beliefs about Oswald's participation in a plot to murder President Kennedy (someone who, as a matter of fact, Oswald much admired).

Paul Trejo is of course entitled his beliefs on these matters (I fully recognized that) but I want to make clear that I do not share those beliefs at all.

Thanks.

DSL

4/30/15 – 12:45 p.m. PDT

Los Angeles, California

Edited May 1, 2015 by David Lifton

[Paul Trejo]

This post --# 86 on this thread--is (unfortunately) about "packaging", and I am writing it to avoid any future confusion.

In his opening statement (in his post #85) Paul Trejo said “I find I agree with David Lifton on most issues here,” and went on to note that “although Marina lied to the FBI and SS immediately after they moved her from Ruth Paine’s house (especially about Mexico City), this was because she was terrified.”

All well and good. Thanks for recognizing that single area of agreement.

However, I want to emphasize that I completely disagree with most of Trejo’s statements following that opening remark, and they are not to be confused with my own long-held beliefs.

Specifically:

Number One: I do not agree in any way whatsoever with the notion that money Marina received from a sympathetic American public had anything whatsoever to do with Marina’s telling the truth when under oath before the Warren Commission in February 1964, or at any time thereafter. That’s cynical and false, and I do not want to be associated with that view in any way.

Second: I do not agree in any way whatsoever with Trejo’s many negative and demeaning beliefs about the character of Lee Oswald, or Trejo's notion that Lee Oswald was the assassin of President Kennedy or was part of a plot to murder President Kennedy. That, too, I believe to be completely false.

To make this very clear: I never believed that (or said any such thing) when I wrote Best Evidence (published in 1981) and I do not believe any such thing today; and I do not want Trejo’s statements about what he believes (which were sort of “tacked on” to the statement of my own beliefs about the Walker note) to lead to any confusion in this matter.

Bottom line: this slender “area of agreement” or overlap between Trejo's views and my own (in the area of the Walker note) is not to be confused with any endorsement (on my part) about his beliefs about Oswald’s role in the Walker affair; nor should anyone be led to believe I am in agreement with Trejo's negative views about Oswald’s character, in general, or his beliefs about Oswald as President Kennedy’s assassin; or his beliefs about Oswald's participation in plot to murder President Kennedy (someone who, as a matter of fact, Oswald much admired).

Paul Trejo is of course entitled his beliefs on these matters (I fully recognized that) but I want to make clear that I do not share those beliefs at all.

Thanks.

DSL

4/30/15 – 12:45 p.m. PDT

Los Angeles, California

Well, David L., thanks very much for making our differences crystal clear. I appreciate your candid demeanor.

To be clear, I agree with your characterization of our differences about Lee Oswald. My hypothesis is still incomplete, but I regard everybody else's to be the same.

Your clarity is refreshing.

To be equally clear, there are other aspects of your hypothesis that I do respect and admire in your book, Best Evidence (1988), beyond the scope of the character of Lee Oswald.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited May 1, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Trejo]

Getting back to the original theme of this thread, the Walker Letter, I'll try not to get side-tracked.

Greg Parker shared with the Forum the web address of the work done by his generous friend, an expert in the Russian language. This gave us a great start in the analysis of the Walker Letter, yet Greg's expert friend advised him that more analysis is needed.

I agree.

Does anybody know of any other comparison of the WC English translation of the Walker Letter with an English translation of one of Lee Harvey Oswald's writings in Russian, which Oswald wrote when he lived in the USSR?

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited May 1, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Jon G. Tidd]

Paul Trejo,

What I can say is that my daughter, an American expert in Russian language and literature, believes the Walker Letter was written by someone who had studied Russian language but had quite an imperfect knowledge of the language.

[David Lifton]

Paul Trejo,

What I can say is that my daughter, an American expert in Russian language and literature, believes the Walker Letter was written by someone who had studied Russian language but had quite an imperfect knowledge of the language.

Jon,

I think your daughter’s analysis is right on the money, and supports Oswald as the author of the Walker note. Of course, the note was in his handwriting, and there was never any question—in the context of the Marina/Lee relationship—that Lee was the author-i.e., there was no mystery about who wrote it and left it where she found it that evening. (To spell this out: Marina never said: "Did you write this?! I can't believe you wrote this!" . . .or any such thing. Rather she demanded an explanation for what the heck the note was all about, and when Lee told her --i.e., when he "confessed" to having shot at Walker--she was horrified).

Also keep in mind these “other” factors (or factoids):

1. His verbal skill (in Russian) far surpassed his written skill;

and that makes perfect sense because:

(a) he was an aural learner

(b ) when it came to writing Russian, which has a different alphabet, he would have problems not at all that different from what happened when he wrote in English—terrible spelling, etc. (aggravated by his dyslexia, as documented and diagnosed by Dr. Rome, of the Mayo Clinic, at the tail end of the WC investigation).

2. By April 63 he was 10 months past the time he was living in the U.S.S.R., and was having what linguists sometimes refer to as “total immersion” in the language and the culture. So. . . : Marina—Lee's on-site companion with her perfect command of Russian—was Lee’s “aural link” (or “linguistic link”) to the language he loved so much; and Lee was quite aware of this, i.e., his "neediness" in this regard. That was why he didn’t want Marina to learn English, because he selfishly wanted to “use” her (as his dialogue partner) to maintain his fluency.

3. After the assassination, Marina’s fluency in English went up sharply; of course, she also took the Michigan course, which is quite well known; but she always retained her Russian accent.

4. George and Jeanne DeMohrenshildt were two excellent witnesses to Oswald’s (verbal) command in the Russian language. Jeanne used to say—to Mary Ferrell—that Lee spoke “booteeful” Russian (mimicking Jeanne’s own accented English).

DSL

Friday, May 1, 2015 – 4:10 p.m.

Los Angeles, California

Edited May 2, 2015 by David Lifton