A Couple of Real Gems from the "Harvey and Lee" Website

[Thomas Graves]

GEM # 1  (Let's take them one at a time, shall we?)

"The Russian speaking youth, possibly of Hungarian parents, was brought to the U.S. following World War II and given the name HARVEY Oswald."

Question:  If the mother tongue of "Harvey" (the young boy who eventually joined the Marines, "defected" to the USSR, married Marina, and was killed by Jack Ruby on 11/24/63) was Hungarian (a Turkic language from Central Asia), and he was already speaking Russian (a highly-inflected, Indo-European language) when he came to the U.S., how are we to explain, then, the fact that "Harvey" spoke such grammatically-correct, Hungarian and Russian accent-free English later in life? 

--  Tommy

PS  I think I can speak with some authority on this, having taught English for seven years in a country that speaks a Slavic, i.e. Russian-like language, the Czech Republic.  And I remember the Hungarian Toth brothers at La Jolla High School back around 1964, who probably came to the U.S. around the time of the 1956 Hungarian Revolt against the U.S.S.R. 

Edited January 28, 2018 by Thomas Graves

[W. Tracy Parnell]

I'm sure Hargrove will come up with something, but it is, of course, unexplainable. The whole "Harvey was Hungarian" concept comes from an anonymous phone call reported by Mrs. Jack Tippit.

[Thomas Graves]

On 3/27/2017 at 8:43 AM, Thomas Graves said:

GEM # 1  (Let's take them one at a time, shall we?)

"The Russian speaking youth, possibly of Hungarian parents, was brought to the U.S. following World War II and given the name HARVEY Oswald."

Question:  If the mother tongue of "Harvey" (the young boy who eventually joined the Marines, "defected" to the USSR, married Marina, and was killed by Jack Ruby on 11/24/63) was Hungarian (a Turkic language from Central Asia), and he was already speaking Russian (a highly-inflected, Indo-European language) when he came to the U.S., how are we to explain, then, the fact that "Harvey" spoke such grammatically-correct, accent-free English later in life? 

--  Tommy

PS  I think I can speak with some authority on this, having taught English for seven years in a country that speaks a Slavic, Russian-like language, the Czech Republic. And I remember the Hungarian Toth brothers at La Jolla High school back around 1965, who probably came to the U.S. around the time of the 1956 Hungarian Revolt against the U.S.S.R.  

[...]

Bumped

Edited January 24, 2018 by Thomas Graves

[Jim Hargrove]

Well, boys and girls, I'm sure you're all way smarter than the head of the Slavic Language Department of Yale University about these linguistic considerations, but here's what he said....

In January 1962, Harvey Oswald mailed a handwritten letter to United States Sena­tor John Tower, requesting re-entry into the U.S.  The letter was published soon after the assassination. In December 1963 Vladimir Petrov, head of the Slavic Language Department at Yale Universithy, read a copy of Oswald's letter and then wrote to Senator Tower. Petrov said, "I am satisfied that letter was not written by him [Harvey Oswald]. It was written by a Russian with an imperfect knowledge of English." 

 

I'll be away from my computer for several hours, so I'm sure you can declare victory several hundred times over the Harvey and Lee Menace while I'm gone.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

Mr. Petrov was right about one thing. There's no shortage of theories in the case.

[Sandy Larsen]

5 hours ago, Thomas Graves said:

GEM # 1  (Let's take them one at a time, shall we?)

"The Russian speaking youth, possibly of Hungarian parents, was brought to the U.S. following World War II and given the name HARVEY Oswald."

Question:  If the mother tongue of "Harvey" (the young boy who eventually joined the Marines, "defected" to the USSR, married Marina, and was killed by Jack Ruby on 11/24/63) was Hungarian (a Turkic language from Central Asia), and he was already speaking Russian (a highly-inflected, Indo-European language) when he came to the U.S., how are we to explain, then, the fact that "Harvey" spoke such grammatically-correct, accent-free English later in life? 

--  Tommy

PS  I think I can speak with some authority on this, having taught English for seven years in a country that speaks a Slavic, Russian-like language, the Czech Republic.  And I remember the Hungarian Toth brothers at La Jolla High school back around 1965, who probably came to the U.S. around the time of the 1956 Hungarian Revolt against the U.S.S.R.  (How did THAT work out, btw?)

My ex-wife came to America from South Korea when she was about 7 years old. She spoke flawless English when I first met her about three years later. No accent. I think kids pick up new languages quickly.

 

Edited March 27, 2017 by Sandy Larsen

[Thomas Graves]

5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

My ex-wife came to America from South Korea when she was about 7 years old. She spoke flawless English when I first met her about three years later. No accent. I think kids pick up new languages quickly.

 

Sandy,

So I guess MY experience (teaching English in the Czech Republic for seven years; interacting with the Hungarian Toth brothers in high school - after they'd been in the U.S. for nine years or so, having moved to the U.S. when they were six and eight years of age) counts for nothing, huh?

--  Tommy

How old do you figure "Harvey" was when his parents brought him to the U.S.?  Old enough to have already mastered Russian?

Edited March 28, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Sandy Larsen]

25 minutes ago, Thomas Graves said:

Sandy,

So I guess MY experience (teaching English in the Czech Republic for seven years; interacting with the Hungarian Toth brothers in high school - after they'd been in the U.S. for nine years or so, having moved to the U.S. when they were six and eight years of age) counts for nothing, huh?

Tommy,

I certainly wouldn't say it counts for nothing. You told your story and I told mine.

There is, of course, a reason my ex had/has no accent whereas the Toth brothers did/(do?).

Maybe the Toth brothers spent a lot of time at home with their parents when they were young. That could explain it. My ex was adopted and had to speak English. (By the time we dated she'd forgotten much of her Korean.)

Or maybe my ex just had an aptitude for learning languages.
 

25 minutes ago, Thomas Graves said:

--  Tommy

How old do you figure "Harvey" was when his parents brought him to the U.S.?

I don't know if there is any way of knowing or approximating that. You should ask Jim.

 

[Thomas Graves]

On 3/27/2017 at 1:28 PM, Jim Hargrove said:

 

[...]

 

 

"Dear James,"  

 

Here's the full text of the partially-obscured letter you posted, with the spelling mistakes corrected by me.

 

"Dear Senator Tower;

My name is Lee Harvey Oswald, 22, of Fort Worth up till  October 1959, when I came to the Soviet Union for a residential stay.  I too(k) a residential document for a non-Soviet person for a time in the USSR.  The American Embassy in Moscow is familiar with my case.  Since July 20(,)1960 I have unsuccessfully applied for a Soviet exit visa to leave this country.  [T]he Soviets refuse to permit me and my Soviet wife (who applied to the U.S. Embassy Moscow, July 8, 1960(,) for immigration status to the U.S.A.) to leave the Soviet Union.  I am a citizen of the United States of America (passport No. 1733242, 1959) and I beseech you, Senator Tower, to rise (sic; should be "raise") the question of holding by the Soviet Union of a citizen of the US, against his will and expressed desires."

 

And here's another one that had immediately preceded it:

 

"Dear Sirs:  I am writing in regard to a letter which I sent to the Embassy on November 1, in which I asked:  'Does the American Embassy feel that(,) in light of the fact that my temporary Soviet document for residence in the Soviet Union expires on January 5, 1962, that the deprivation of an exit visa after this date and therefore the foreseeable holding of me against my expressed desires is unlawful?'  I would like a written reply to this question before the expiration date of January 4, 1962(,) in order to have a basis for my refusal to give my permission for the legal extension on (British English(?), or an attempt at such(?) this document."

 

My Analysis:

Other than Oswald's obvious typo ("took" ; a "highly-cultured-sounding" British expression, here) and his questionable use of the definite article - noun "the - deprivation" (the gerund form "their depriving me" would have been better - but, hey!, very few Americans know how to use a gerund phrase) and his obvious mistake in using the past-tense "rise" instead of present-tense "raise"), I would have to say that his syntax, grammar, and vocabulary are excellent, especially for someone who dropped out of school in (or was it after?) the 10th grade, and that your Yale Professor is, therefore, blowing smoke out of his Ivy League you-know-what.

 

Note:  Among other things, "A Russian with an imperfect knowledge of English" wouldn't have used the indefinite articles "a" and "an", nor the definite article "the", as perfectly as Oswald did in these two letters.

--  Tommy

PS   But why take it from me?  Heck, I only scored in the top 98- percentile in "verbal intelligence" on the SAT, and taught English in a Slavic-language country (the Czech Republic) for seven years.

Edited March 28, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Jim Hargrove]

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

  25 minutes ago, Thomas Graves said:

How old do you figure "Harvey" was when his parents brought him to the U.S.?

Sandy said,

I don't know if there is any way of knowing or approximating that. You should ask Jim.

Sorry guys, I don't understand the revised software's quoting procedures, but here's my best shot at answering your question(s):

John can trace the Harvey and Lee project back to an address on San Saba Ave. in the Fort Worth suburb of Benbrook in 1947.  That is the earliest known U.S. home of Russian-speaking Harvey Oswald.

 

In an explosive new article soon to be available on HarveyandLee.net, Dr. James Norwood describes the implications of the evidence John A. uncovered from Tarrant County land records that Harvey Oswald lived at 101 San Saba Ave. in Fort Worth TX in 1947.

Even today, the Benbrook suburb of Fort Worth is a sparsely populated community of slightly more than 20,000.  But in 1947, this area was even more remote, as it was just beginning to be developed when Marguerite Oswald purchased the property at 101 San Saba.  One struggles to comprehend the motivation for both the purchase and the eventual sale of this home by Marguerite, who incurred a substantial loss of her initial investment.  Moreover, she and her three boys apparently only stayed briefly in the San Saba home, according to the testimony of Robert Oswald before the Warren Commission.  As Robert was recounting this part of his life story, Commissioner Allen Dulles called for an adjournment.  When the proceedings resumed, this subject was simply dropped.  The reason that this issue was explosive was that the real Marguerite Oswald and her three boys were residing at 1505 8th Avenue in Fort Worth in the summer of 1947--the precise time when the Warren Commission chronology sought to establish that Marguerite and her children were living in Benbrook.  Of all of the evidence of young Oswald, the story of 101 San Saba may hold the key to understanding the original idea of the Oswald Project.  For the curious student of the JFK case, here is one question to answer about the relatively obscure saga of San Saba in the youth of Oswald:   Why would the FBI feel compelled to interview neighbor Georgia Bell following the assassination, then change her affidavit to reflect a different date she provided about the time of residency of Marguerite Oswald in the house across the street?

Marguerite bought the San Saba property, and her first “tenant” was the Marguerite impostor with a little boy. This was the beginning of the Oswald Project.

It’s hard to be precise about Harvey’s age.  LEE Oswald was born in New Orleans in 1939, and in order for the impersonation to work, HARVEY had to be ROUGHLY the same age. John believes HARVEY was probably a little older than LEE, and I believe in John’s research.  My guess is that Harvey was a year, maybe two, older than Lee, but underdeveloped because of a deprived childhood.

[Thomas Graves]

On 3/27/2017 at 5:33 PM, Jim Hargrove said:

[...]

 

"Dear James"

 

Do you think Hungarian-speaking "Harvey" was old enough to have already mastered Russian when he and his parents moved to the U.S.? At what age do you think he mastered Russian, a language very different from Hungarian?

 

--  Tommy

Edited March 31, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Jim Hargrove]

Tommy,

I suspect HARVEY Oswald was a WW II war orphan who had no known living parents.  I think he was probably 8-12 years old when he was brought to the U.S. and had NEVER mastered Russian, but was comfortable enough with it that even some quick coaching brought it all back instantly.  I suspect any number of people in post-war Hungary spoke Russian as their first language, including HARVEY Oswald.  I can't prove much of this, but considering the evidence, it ALL sounds reasonable to me.

You obviously have some international linguistic chops, but I feel no guilt going with the the gut feeling of the Head of Slavic Languages at Yale Univesrity.

[Thomas Graves]

1 hour ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Tommy,

I suspect HARVEY Oswald was a WW II war orphan who had no known living parents.  I think he was probably 8-12 years old when he was brought to the U.S. and had NEVER mastered Russian, but was comfortable enough with it that even some quick coaching brought it all back instantly.  I suspect any number of people in post-war Hungary spoke Russian as their first language, including HARVEY Oswald.  I can't prove much of this, but considering the evidence, it ALL sounds reasonable to me.

You obviously have some international linguistic chops, but I feel no guilt going with the the gut feeling of the Head of Slavic Languages at Yale Univesrity.

"Dear James"

Oh, I see.

Ok, well, as regards your professor, it looks to as though he was paid to say what he did.  Or had a pistol pressed against his brainy little skull, or maybe was taking a little LSD with Wavy Gravy at the time.

 

Question:  What about "Harvey's" recorded voice in the "debate" he had with Bringuier at the radio station? Here's the verbatim transcript.   http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh21/html/WH_Vol21_0329b.htm

And that recording Ernst Titovets made of him, fooling around, laughing, and talking with a phony British accent?

 

In those two recordings, Oswald speaks better English, grammatically-speaking, syntactically-speaking, and vocabulary-wise, than most Americans!

Not bad for a boy whose "mother tongue" was Hungarian, who then learned Russian, and who then learned English, huh?

--  Tommy

Edited March 28, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Jim Hargrove]

9 hours ago, Thomas Graves said:

In those two recordings, Oswald speaks better English, grammatically-speaking, syntactically-speaking, and vocabulary-wise, than most Americans!

You like growed up person with such well English, Tommy? 

First perfect sentence reads:

“Sorry too take so long to write but I thought sometime might have
come up but we’re still waiting.”

And speaking of Harvey Oswald’s voice, listen to his August 21, 1963 radio debate with Bringuier and Butler:

Does that sound like the voice of a Good Ole’ American boy raised in Texas and Louisiana?  Really?

Go ahead, Tommy.  Whine and cry all you want.  Say Professor Vladimir Petrov, head of the Slavic Language Department at Yale University, was a paid disinformationist, or had a pistol pointed to his head, or was taking LSD at the time.  Your arguments are stupid.

Edited March 28, 2017 by Jim Hargrove

[W. Tracy Parnell]

10 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

I can't prove much of this, but considering the evidence, it ALL sounds reasonable to me.

No, you can't prove any of it. BTW, who's Dr. James Norwood?