Sylvia Odio, Lee Harvey Oswald and Harry Dean

[James DiEugenio]

As per Oswald, in this day and age for anyone to believe Gerry Hemming is absolutely nutty.  For many reasons, which I do not care to go into right now. And for anyone to think that Oswald brought a rifle--his or anyone else's--to the TSBD that day is even worse.

Oswald was not on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting as Caufield says he was.  Period.  Over and out.

Oswald did not fire any rifle that day at all.  Period.  Over and out.

If one takes the testimony of Dougherty,  and Vicki Adams and Arnold, it is simply not possible for Oswald to be on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting. Which is why the WC did what they did to Adams, as is described in Barry Ernest's book.  And it is why Revill suborned the perjury of Givens--although he screwed up as to where he met with him, thereby giving the game away. And when one adds in the work of Bart K on the alleged second floor soda purchase, it makes it even less possible.  And the idea that Oswald could be enlisted to do such a thing is nothing less than bizarre. Why you would defend all this hokum is even more bizarre.

And this was an opening criticism I made about Caufield's book.  He seems to have written the book in a cocoon of his own making.  He was not apparently aware of new developments by other writers that neutered some of the tenets of his book even as he wrote them.  This is a grievous fault in his volume, one that cannot be ignored by any responsible critic--of which you are not. 

Edited December 16, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[Glenn Nall]

The James and Paulie Show has gotten very old.

[switching channels]

[James DiEugenio]

Somebody has to oppose this guy's pumping up of a really bad book Glenn.

And, BTW, did you know all that stuff about Ruby, Griffin, the Carlins, and the HSCA on the rear entrance?  If you did, you probably read Reclaiming Parkland, because that is the only place that has all that stuff.  

[Chris Newton]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

As per Oswald, in this day and age for anyone to believe Gerry Hemming is absolutely nutty.  For many reasons, which I do not care to go into right now. And for anyone to think that Oswald brought a rifle--his or anyone else's--to the TSBD that day is even worse.

People always ask, well if he didn't bring it up there who did?

My answer: anyone who wanted, anytime after dark. The TSBD was not a "secure" location.

[James DiEugenio]

Right on Chris.  And it seems they were confused, since the Mauser disappeared really fast.

More on how Caufield treats the subject of Oswald in his "brilliant" book.

"In an astonishing exemption, at no point in the book does Caufield deal with the false defector program that Philip Melanson first outlined back in Spy Saga back in 1990. (Melanson, p. 25) Nor does he mention the name of Robert Webster, the suspected false defector that Marina Prusakova also met in Russia right before she met Oswald. (DiEugenio, pp. 139-40) By not mentioning Webster, he can ignore the incredible coincidence this represents.

At this point in the book, Caufield also fails to mention the Russian test that Oswald took while in the military. He therefore avoids another compelling indication that Oswald was being groomed by the Office of Naval Intelligence for a CIA assignment as a false defector to Russia. Later on, when Caufield does mention this test, he deals with it in a remarkable manner. In his ongoing vendetta against Jim Garrison, he tries to weaken the former DA’s argument about Oswald getting training in the Russian language in the Marines. (see p. 227)

He states that Garrison held that Oswald was being schooled in the Russian language in the service, but there is no evidence of this. Again, this is either symptomatic of Caufield working in a cocoon, or it is a deliberate omission, because over 25 years ago Melanson discussed in detail the report that the Warren Commission had about Oswald being instructed in language acquisition at the Monterey School of Languages while he was in the Marines. (Melanson, p. 12) Caufield then writes that although Oswald did take a Russian test, he did not do well on it. As Garrison noted in his book, this is what the Warren Commission witness said about it. (On the Trail of the Assassins, p. 23) To which Garrison replied: it would be like saying your dog is not very bright since you can beat him three games out of five in chess. But it also ignores the report of Rosaleen Quinn. Quinn was being tutored in Russian for a State Department position. She met with Oswald after his Russian test, and said that he now spoke excellent Russian. (DiEugenio, p. 131)

The author then continues in his hopeless jihad by saying that once he arrived in Russia, Oswald did not speak the language very well. Which, from Quinn, we know is wrong. But it is further vitiated by author Ernst Titovets. In 2010, Titovets wrote a book called Oswald: Russian Episode. By all accounts, Titovets was Oswald’s closest friend in Russia. When I interviewed him in Washington at the AARC Conference in 2014, I asked him about Oswald’s Russian language skills. He told me that Oswald spoke Russian fluently. In the face of all this evidence, only someone with an agenda would argue the contrary."

 

Again, Caufield wrote this book in a cocoon. The idea that Oswald was not learning Russian in the service is just malarkey. Only McAdams or say Jean Davison would deny that fact.

 

[Paul Brancato]

Thanks Jim - for taking on the task of countering propaganda. 

[Paul Trejo]

James,

Jeff Caufield does not attack Jim Garrison with the melodrama you claim.

Jeff Caufield had access to ALL of Jim Garrison's records in his research.

Yet Caufield saw that early in Garrison's investigation the problem of the Radical Right was the main focus ... so Caufield chose to build on Garrison's own thread on the Radical Right.

You, James, choose to build on Rarrison s CIA thread -- same sources, different emphasis.

Also, James, you misrepresent caufield views on LHOs Russian language skills.

It is secondary that LHO was a CIA wannabe, because the key to LHO is his relationship with the Radical Right.   You keep missing that crucial point.

Your misrepresentation of Caufield shows your fear of his new and fresh theory, while you only repeat stale ideas from Probe Magazine and the CTKA that are old and have already failed.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited December 20, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[James DiEugenio]

Quote

Also, James, you misrepresent caufield views on LHOs Russian language skills.

Please show me where I did the above Paulie.  If you can do so I will amend what I said. 

Secondly, maybe you do not know this but the reason Caufield had some of the files of the late Jim Garrison is that I allowed him to take some home with him.  He glances over this in his book in about a sentence or two. Lyon Garrison allowed me to copy the extant files he had.  Jeff joined us in the copying process.  When we could not finish, I and Bill Davy let him take some home with him and copy them there.  He then returned them.

Jeff never had even a third of these files.  I am the only one who had them all.  And Bill Davy came to California to copy some that we had at a safe location.  

There was some material in there about the radical right, but the proof of how little it came to is shown in Caufield's book.  HIs attempts to link Ruby and Oswald to the radical right are so weak as to be pretty much negligible.  And his portraits of those two men are so skewed as to be perverse.  They simply do not fit into the pegs he wants them to go into.  If you fit them into a CIA/Mafia plot, they fit perfectly.

And I am not even done with Caufield yet.

[James DiEugenio]

BTW, Trejo utters so much silly stuff, sometimes you miss it.

Oswald was a CIA "wannabe?"  With all the work done on Oswald since Melanson, back in 1990, I don't see how anyone can say that Oswald was not associated in a real way with the CIA, and also the FBI.

Just to use one example among dozens: Oswald entered the USSR from Helsinki.  That was the only embassy in Europe that granted visas in less than 48 hours.  The evidence says Oswald got his in a day!  Why?  Because that embassy had close ties to Intourist, the Russian travel agency.  Even the WC had a hard time buying into this alacrity. Why would they do that for Oswald?

But that is not the worst of it.  When he got to  Helsinki, Oswald checked into the Hotel Torni.  Now, there is no evidence Oswald saved up a lot of money in the service.  And Delgado could not believe that Oswald could finance his trip abroad and across Europe.  But  to people who have been there and seen pics of it, like Ian Griggs, the Torni is the rough equivalent of the Savoy in London, or the Four Seasons in San Francisco.  Its where presidents of countries stayed at while in Finland, both heads of state in Europe and the USA. 

But Oswald?

I guess this is all part of being a CIA "wannabe".  Just think "wannabes"  know how to defect to Russia through the easiest embassies, and they get to stay in five star hotels while doing so.  I missed the boat.

 

Edited December 19, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[Paul Brancato]

 

Paul Trejo - try this question, and stick to it without reiterating your theories.

is Mitch McConnell Radical Right? Is Comey radical right? Is Breitbart radical right? Is Flynn radical right? How about Trump? Putin?

Do you think you can parse this and put everyone in a convenient cubby hole with hard and fast lines between them?

i hate like hell when you call Oswald a radical rightist, along with Walker and Banister, and then say that Hoover and Dulles and Lemay were American heroes. Really? Will you ever realize that the lines you draw are artificial? 

[Chris Newton]

Quote

The Control Commission or espionage operations are no longer present at Torni, but important decision-making still takes place at the hotel and the Restaurant Torni still represents the very peak of gastronomy. Solo Sokos Hotel Torni is constantly renewed to keep up with the times, and new services are regularly introduced. Above all, Solo Sokos Hotel Torni is a classic that keeps up with the times, with a unique atmosphere, the spirit of Torni, present every day.

https://www.sokoshotels.fi/en/helsinki/sokos-hotel-torni/history

FWIW..

[James DiEugenio]

Nice catch Chris.

 As with everything about the "wannabe" Oswald, it was just a coincidence he stayed at the Torni, when with his finances he should have been at a one room bread and breakfast.

[Paul Trejo]

On Sunday, December 18, 2016 at 11:24 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Please show me where I did the above Paulie.  If you can do so I will amend what I said. 

Secondly, maybe you do not know this but the reason Caufield had some of the files of the late Jim Garrison is that I allowed him to take some home with him.  He glances over this in his book in about a sentence or two. Lyon Garrison allowed me to copy the extant files he had.  Jeff joined us in the copying process.  When we could not finish, I and Bill Davy let him take some home with him and copy them there.  He then returned them.

Jeff never had even a third of these files.  I am the only one who had them all.  And Bill Davy came to California to copy some that we had at a safe location.  

There was some material in there about the radical right, but the proof of how little it came to is shown in Caufield's book.  HIs attempts to link Ruby and Oswald to the radical right are so weak as to be pretty much negligible.  And his portraits of those two men are so skewed as to be perverse.  They simply do not fit into the pegs he wants them to go into.  If you fit them into a CIA/Mafia plot, they fit perfectly.

And I am not even done with Caufield yet.

Jimbo,

(1)  The nuances of LHO's language skills are as numerous as the nuances of Marina Oswald's English skills -- rumor versus rumor.

Some people said LHO had excellent Russian languae skills, for example, the aged Peter Gregory, born in Russia, who defected to the USA shortly after the USSR Revolution.  Peter Gregory thought LHO's Russian skills were so good that he gave LHO a letter of recommendation in June 1962 for anybody who wanted to engage LHO as a professional translator.  At the same time, Peter Gregory said that LHO had a terrible accent, and at first he thought LHO had a Polish accent.  (Nobody ever gave LHO that job in 1962.  Marina, however, did get that job in 1962)

Paul Gregory, the young son of Peter Gregory, grew up speaking English -- however his father urged him to study Russian literature and language at the University.   Paul Gregory thought that LHO's grammatical skills were very poor.  LHO was fluent in conversation, but had a thick foreign accent and made many grammatical errors.  Marina Oswald, on the other hand, had perfect, classical Russian language skills, so Paul Gregory paid Marina Oswald double the minimum wage (according to Robert Oswald) to give him Russian conversational lessons.  Not LHO, but Marina.

George DeMohrenschildt was impressed by the Russian language skills of LHO -- not because of his grammatical correctness or pronunciation, but because LHO was so fluent with conversation -- and LHO could address a mixed group of Russian and English speakers, and tell them the same thing -- first in one language, and then in the other language.  George was truly impressed -- his own, well-educated children could not do this.  At the same time, George admitted that LHO made many errors in grammar, just as LHO made many errors in English spelling.

(2)  I find it fascinating, Jimbo, that you yourself gave Dr. Jeff Caufield the permission to take some of Jim Garrison's files home with him.   I am impressed that you, Lyon Garrison and Jeff Caufield joined together in the copying process.  This was news to me, and I'm delighted that you shared it.

(2.1) Jeff Caufield told me, personally, that he had access to the whole cache of Jim Garrison's files.

(2.2) Jeff Caufield told me that Jim Garrison's material about the Radical Right appears in the early part of the research.  Yet due to the frustration of failing to solve the Clay Shaw case, what to speak of the JFK case, Jim Garrison threw his hands in the air in frustration at the end of his research, and just blamed the CIA, willy-nilly.  So there is a progression there.

(2.3) It seems to me that Jim Garrison was near the true solution in the beginning, but he kept digging in New Orleans, while the real core of the plot was in Dallas.  Jim Garrison never got anybody important in Dallas to step forward to testifiy.   That's why he lost.

(3) By the way, Jimbo, Jack Ruby is easily linked to the Radical Right through the Dallas Police.  The late FBI agent, William Turner (also a former member of his Forum) said that in the early 1960's, nobody could become a Dallas Police officer without membership in the KKK or the JBS or the Minutemen, and preferably all three.  The Dallas Police leaned to the Radical Right, and the Dallas Police were in total control of Jack Ruby.

(3.1)  The Dallas Police coaxed Jack Ruby to kill LHO, the cop-killer (and probably promised him an easy acquittal if not fame and fortune).  Seth Kantor demonstrates this clearly in his excellent book, Who Was Jack Ruby? (1978).  This is not negligible, but crucial to solve the JFK murder.  This is not a peg -- this is historical fact from Seth Kantor himself, who knew Jack Ruby personally -- for years.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited December 20, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Trejo]

9 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Nice catch Chris.

 As with everything about the "wannabe" Oswald, it was just a coincidence he stayed at the Torni, when with his finances he should have been at a one room bread and breakfast.

No, you guys are making stuff up.  While LHO stayed one day at the ritzi Torni Hotel in Helskini before he went to the USSR, the very next day he moved to a cheaper Hotel.  This was common for somebody new to Helsinki.

LHO had thousands of dollars with him when he left the Marines in September 1959, because he had saved all his money in the Marine Corps by staying at the base 90% of the time when other men were going out to Los Angeles and Tijuana to party.  (Sure, LHO went a few times, but most of the time he stayed at the base and read, read, read, teaching himself Spanish (which he quit) and Russian (which he mastered) by using the "Berlitz" method.)

LHO did quit the Marines early ostensibly to help his injured mother -- but he only spent a couple days with her, left her $100 and then set sail for Europe in only a couple of days.  He wanted to see the USSR for himself.

LHO had taught himself Russian in 1959.  It was a real achievment that few people ever accomplished, and LHO wanted recognition for this feat.  He thought at one point that Albert Schweitzer College would give him that recognition.  But they merely asked for more money for his application process.  So, LHO decided that the USSR itself would give him the recognition he deserved.  They didn't.

You guys make too much of a one-night stay in a new country, from a boy with thousands of dollars in his pockets.  You just make it up.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited December 20, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[Sandy Larsen]

2 hours ago, Paul Trejo said:

While LHO stayed one day at the ritzi Torni Hotel in Helskini before he went to the USSR, the very next day he moved to a cheaper Hotel.  This was common for somebody new to Helsinki.

What do you mean by that being common, Paul? Do you mean that the Finnish government would give tourists a free night's stay at a ritzy hotel, after which they would be on their own?

I ask because I have a hard time believing that a guy like Oswald -- a person you say saved his dimes -- would blow a bunch of savings on a one night's hotel stay. He had to have gotten the room for free, or at a deep discount.