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

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Tracy has made the suggestion several times that Jim and his fellow cult members should assemble their evidence and present it to someone with connections, such as a prominent newspaper or TV journalist, who might be able to give it some publicity. Despite the media's general attitude to the JFK assassination, there are journalists who are sympathetic to critics of the official line. As Tracy pointed out, the leader of the cult got in touch with a Texas Monthly journalist back in 1998 but failed to convince the journalist of his case for two Oswalds. The cult members themselves will never do anything like that, for obvious reasons.

But what if they did? I've been wondering how the conversation might go:

Journalist: So, tell me what you've got.

Cult Member: Well, the CIA cooked up this elaborate scheme, which started back in the 1940s, to bring up two unrelated boys, 'Harvey' and 'Lee', in the hope that when they grew up they would turn out to look alike, so that one of them, who was chosen because he was able to speak Russian like a native, could be sent into the Soviet Union as a spy.

Journalist: It sounds a bit unlikely, to be honest.

Cult Member: There's more to it than that. When the plot to assassinate JFK was being planned, the plotters decided to take one of the unrelated identical twins and frame him for the murder. One of the two Oswalds, 'Lee', was given the task of framing the other one, 'Harvey'.

Journalist: The people who organised this two-Oswald scheme were the same ones who killed President Kennedy?

Cult Member: Oh, yes!

Journalist: What documentary evidence do you have for that? If I'm going to persuade my editor to run this story, we'll need to see some documents.

Cult Member: Well, it was top secret, you know. All the documents will have been destroyed.

Journalist: That's unfortunate. Now, what happened to the other unrelated identical twin, the one who wasn't framed? What has he been doing since 1963?

Cult Member: Um, we're not quite sure. He seems to have vanished into thin air immediately after the assassination.

Journalist: I see. On the subject of Oswald's defection, I believe that several other Americans defected to the Soviet Union around the time Oswald went there. I'd guess that some of them might have been US agents too. How many of them had unrelated identical twins?

Cult Member: I don't think any of them did.

Journalist: So this particular spy was the only one to have an unrelated identical twin. Why was that?

Cult Member: Ah. Good point. I'm not entirely sure. But it's an exciting idea, isn't it? It means there was this really, really big conspiracy! Doesn't that get you all excited?

Journalist: Personally, no. I'm curious about what you were saying about one of the two boys being a native speaker of Russian. How did that come about?

Cult Member: He was a Hungarian refugee. You see, Hungarian is a funny-sounding foreign language, and so is Russian. Just listen to them, they both sound really weird, like gibberish. Don't forget that Hungary and Russia are both over there in Europe or someplace. So if the boy spoke Hungarian he must also have been able to speak Russian. And then when he came to the US, he immediately learned English too. The reason we know that is because he was in school in New York, aged twelve, speaking English.

Journalist: I see. This boy's first language was Hungarian, and then he learned to speak Russian like a native, and then he learned to speak English like a native. You're saying that by the age of twelve, he was in effect a native speaker of three very different languages, is that right?

Cult Member: Exactly!

Journalist: What was the Hungarian boy's name? Are there any official documents identifying him? There must be something from when he entered the US. Do you have any copies that I can show my editor?

Cult Member: Look, will you stop trying to complicate things? OK, so maybe the Russian-speaking boy wasn't Hungarian after all. He was ... umm ... probably a Russian world war two orphan instead. That's right, he was a Russian world war two orphan.

Journalist: Oh. I see. And the evidence for that is?

Cult Member: Please stop asking all these unhelpful questions! There aren't any immigration papers or anything like that. It's obvious that all the documents were destroyed by the people behind the two-Oswald plot. Look, our theory requires one of the Oswald boys to have been a native speaker of Russian. So that boy must have been a Hungarian refugee or a Russian orphan or something. It doesn't matter that there's no evidence for any of this. Our theory requires it, so it must be true.

Journalist: What was the point of the defector being able to speak Russian like a native?

Cult Member: That was so that he could overhear things without the Soviet authorities suspecting that he was a spy!

Journalist: But Oswald didn't speak Russian like a native.

Cult Member: Yes, he did! It says so in my holy book!

Journalist: He seems to have spoken the language quite well, at least by the time he arrived back in the US, but that doesn't mean that he was a native speaker of Russian.

Cult Member: Yes, it does!

Journalist: Several witnesses, including Marina Oswald, have said that his knowledge of Russian grammar really wasn't very good. That pretty much proves that he wasn't a native speaker.

Cult Member: Don't listen to them! They're lying!

Journalist: OK, OK. Anyway, we've got two unrelated boys who grow up to look identical. My editor might find that a bit hard to believe. Could I have copies of any photographs which show the two boys together?

Cult Member: Well, there aren't any photographs of both boys together. That would have given away the plot, you see.

Journalist: So there's no actual photographic evidence?

Cult Member: Oh yes! We've got plenty of photographs of each Oswald. All you need to do is line them up and compare them.

Journalist: Really? You can tell which Oswald is which?

Cult Member: Of course! I mean, none of us agrees on exactly which photographs are of which Oswald. There's a fair amount of guesswork involved, obviously.

Journalist: Why is that?

Cult Member: Well, all the photographs look as though they are of the same person. Or they would do if you didn't know about the 'two Oswald' plot. You see, we all agree that there's a big conspiracy going on here, so if you examine the photographs carefully and you want to see that they look a bit different, they do. You just need to keep an open mind and consider all the possibilities.

Journalist: So how do you tell which photograph is of which Oswald?

Cult Member: OK. For example, there are a couple of photographs which show Oswald with sloping shoulders. That means that one of the Oswalds had sloping shoulders, and the other one didn't.

Journalist: So all of the photographs of this particular Oswald show him with sloping shoulders?

Cult Member: Actually, no. We've had to allocate some of the non-sloping shoulder photographs to the sloping-shouldered Oswald. You see, our holy book tells us where each Oswald was at any particular time, so all you have to do is to work out where and when each photograph was taken, and that tells you which Oswald it is!

Journalist: Hmm. I'd guess the sloping shoulders thing wasn't a permanent feature, then. It was just how he happened to be standing when the picture was taken.

Cult Member: I hadn't thought of that. OK, forget the sloping shoulders. How about this instead: one of the Oswalds was photographed in his marines uniform, and he looks beefier than the scrawny Oswald who features in photographs taken at other times. That proves that he was two people!

Journalist: Well ...

Cult Member: And in some of the photographs he even has a different haircut! What more evidence could you possibly need?

Journalist: Surely all the apparent differences can be explained by factors such as different lighting conditions, different poses, Oswald getting older, bulking up while in the marines, that sort of thing.

Cult Member: No, no, not at all. That's too far-fetched. You see, if you can imagine that all of these differences are actually due to something much more believeable, such as a really enormous plot, everything becomes so much more exciting! Don't you get a tingly feeling when you think that everything in the world is under the control of some super-powerful Bad Guys? I do!

[To be continued]

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

[Interview, part two]

Journalist: What about the mothers of these two Oswalds? Did they look similar too?

Cult Member: Yes, and they were both called Marguerite.

Journalist: That's handy.

Cult Member: Actually, they looked sort of similar but different at the same time, just like their sons. You see, there are photographs of one of the Marguerites, taken a few decades before the assassination, and she looks young and slim and attractive. But the other Marguerite, who was photographed a few decades later, looks heavier, grey-haired, and generally older. That proves that she was a different person.

Journalist: Is that it? Just photographs?

Cult Member: No, not at all. There is one rock-solid piece of evidence that proves beyond any doubt that there were two Marguerites. Some guy who met her on one occasion in the 1950s was shown a photograph of her about forty years later, and he thought that the woman in the photograph looked a bit different to the one he remembered.

Journalist: You're saying that he met her once, and was shown a photograph of her forty years later, and he thought she looked a bit different?

Cult Member: Exactly! You can't argue with that, can you?

Journalist: Let me get this straight. You've got two pairs of people. Two Oswalds, and two Marguerites, and they looked sort of similar but different.

Cult Member: That's right!

Journalist: What about their friends and relatives? Didn't they spot that each boy looked a bit different, or that each Marguerite looked a bit different?

Cult Member: Oh no, because the two boys looked identical, and the two mothers looked identical!

Journalist: I thought you said that that they weren't identical, that you can glance at the photographs and tell which was which.

Cult Member: That's right. Each boy looked identical enough to fool his friends and family, but different enough so that we can tell them apart when looking at photographs. Well, at least some of the time. Same for the Marguerites. It was a very cunning plan!

Journalist: I was wondering about Oswald's older brother, Robert, who I think is still alive. Are there two of him, or just the one?

Cult Member: I'll have to consult my holy book, but I think we believe there has only been one of him.

Journalist: So he was the actual brother of one of your two Oswalds, and the actual son of one of your two Marguerites, is that right? Did he ever meet the other Oswald and Marguerite?

Cult Member: As it happens, he did. According to our holy book, Robert grew up knowing his real brother and mother, of course, but at some point in the 1950s they were replaced by the other brother and mother, without him noticing. Or if he did notice, he was bribed or tortured so that he wouldn't spill the beans. And Robert's wife knew both Marguerites, and she kept quiet about it too.

Journalist: I find it difficult to believe that Robert and his wife never went public with this information.

Cult Member: That shows you just how well organised the plot was!

Journalist: There must have been plenty of people who had known Marguerite for years. Did any of them come forward to point out that the woman on TV after the assassination wasn't the woman they had known?

Cult Member: Of course not! Do you really think that the people behind the 'Oswald project' weren't able to twist a few arms when necessary?

Journalist: I understand that there are a couple of people who specifically stated that the Marguerite they saw after the assassination was the same woman they had known years earlier. How do you explain that?

Cult Member: They were bribed! They may even have been tortured. Isn't it obvious?

Journalist: Not to me, I'm afraid.

Cult Member: OK, forget about that, then. There's also Oswald's handwriting. It looks sort of different sometimes.

Journalist: I thought that the House Select Committee on Assassinations got some experts in to look at that, and they found that all the handwriting was of one person.

Cult Member: Ha! Do you really think those so-called experts weren't bribed or tortured? You're so naive!

Journalist: The way I see it, you've got problems with the photographs, which aren't clearly of two different people, and with the handwriting, which the experts say was done by just one person. My editor isn't going to be persuaded by that. Are there any other types of evidence that might show that there were two Oswalds?

Cult Member: I was thinking of Oswald's shoes.

Journalist: His shoes?

Cult Member: Yes. You see, if you examine Oswald's shoes, you might find different patterns of wear and tear on the soles, which would prove beyond any doubt that he was two people!

Journalist: Umm. Right. How many pairs of his shoes have you examined?

Cult Member: Well, we haven't actually got hold of Oswald's shoes yet, but it's a possible line of research.

Journalist: What if the shoes don't show different patterns of wear and tear?

Cult Member: That proves that the shoes were faked!

Journalist: I see. And what if you can't actually get hold of any of his shoes?

Cult Member: That proves that the shoes were deliberately destroyed by the gang of super-powerful Bad Guys who set up the 'Oswald project'! Um, if the shoe thing doesn't work, there's also his underpants. Although I wouldn't be surprised if they've been deliberately destroyed too.

Journalist: Mmm. OK. On the subject of the two Marguerites, what happened to the other one after the assassination? What has she been doing since 1963?

Cult Member: She vanished into thin air.

Journalist: Just like her son?

Cult Member: Exactly! Or it might have been the other Marguerite's son who vanished. I'll have to check the holy book. But getting people to vanish like that, it just shows you how sophisticated and believeable the plot was, doesn't it?

[To be continued]

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

[Interview, part three]

Journalist: Now, I presume that your theory takes events in the actual Lee Harvey Oswald's life and attributes them to one or other of the two Oswalds, either 'Harvey' or 'Lee'.

Cult Member: That's right.

Journalist: What happened to the Oswald who had undergone a mastoidectomy operation at the age of six? Was he the one who defected to the Soviet Union, then came back to the US, got a job at the Texas School Book Depository, and was shot by Jack Ruby?

Cult Member: No, that was the other one.

Journalist: You're sure about that?

Cult Member: Absolutely. It says so in our holy book.

Journalist: So the Oswald who was buried in Fort Worth was not the Oswald who had undergone the mastoidectomy operation?

Cult Member: That's right. It's all carefully set out in our holy book!

Journalist: But when the body in that grave was exhumed in 1981, it was found to have a bone defect that was consistent with having been caused by a mastoidectomy operation. Doesn't that fact alone completely invalidate your theory?

Cult Member: Oh, no. Because our theory didn't exist then. Our holy book wasn't written until about twenty years later.

Journalist: So your theory was conclusively refuted two decades before it was even published? That's quite an achievement.

Cult Member: We'd prefer not to think about that, thank you.

Journalist: I'm not surprised.

Cult Member: If you look at things in the right way, and have a mind open enough to consider all the possibilities, there's always an answer. In the case of the mastoidectomy operation, it's obvious that the scientists who performed the exhumation were bribed or tortured.

Journalist: Really? Can you show me some evidence for that?

Cult Member: Will you stop with all this evidence nonsense? OK, so perhaps the scientists weren't bribed or tortured. Something else obviously happened. Um ... I know! Their report was faked!

Journalist: Wasn't it published in a reputable scientific journal?

Cult Member: Ha! You're so naive! Prove to me that it wasn't faked! Go on! You can't, can you? The FBI and the CIA were faking documents all the time. You just have to look at the evidence in the right way, with an open mind.

Journalist: If you say so.

Cult Member: Look, if the scientists weren't bribed or tortured, and if their report wasn't faked, it stands to reason that the other Oswald boy must have been operated on at the age of six, just like the first Oswald. That has to be the reason why the body in Oswald's grave had the mastoidectomy defect!

Journalist: Let me get this straight. The people who set up your 'Oswald project' had a mastoidectomy operation performed on a six-year-old boy back in the 1940s just in case his body might need to be dug up decades later. Is that what you're saying?

Cult Member: It makes perfect sense to me. They thought of everything, those plotters!

Journalist: Hmm. I'm just wondering where this operation would have been carried out. Do you have the name of the hospital? The surgeon? My editor will need to see some documentation for all of this. Can you get me photocopies of the records?

Cult Member: The operation was top secret, of course, so there won't be any records. I think it was carried out in a hospital in New York. That's another thing. According to the so-called official documentation, that hospital wasn't even built until several years after the operation must have taken place. This just proves that all the records have been faked or destroyed by the lizard people, and how top-secret the whole thing was.

Journalist: Uh huh.

Cult Member: I mean, just ask yourself why there's virtually no documentary evidence for the existence of our two Oswalds. There ought to be absolutely loads of evidence, with two Oswalds and two Marguerites living separate lives for many years, but there's hardly any. The obvious answer is: a vast amount of evidence has been faked or destroyed! It stands to reason, when you think about it logically with an open mind and consider all the possibilities.

Journalist: Right. Now, on the subject of living separate lives, are there any examples of the two Oswalds being in different places at the same time?

Cult Member: Indeed there are. When he was a boy, he attended two schools at the same time. A few years later, when he was in the marines, he was in Taiwan and Japan at the same time. Then, when one of the Oswalds was in the Soviet Union, the other one was in New Orleans, trying to buy trucks.

Journalist: That doesn't sound very likely. I presume you've got some really solid evidence to support these claims.

Cult Member: Well, we've got some eye-witnesses. And there's documentary evidence too. It's all on bits of paper and everything. Obviously, you need to know how to interpret the documents correctly.

Journalist: Eye-witnesses often aren't very reliable. What method do you use to tell which witnesses are reliable and which ones aren't?

Cult Member: It's all about whether what they say agrees with our theory. We know that our theory is true, so that's how you can tell which witnesses are reliable and which ones aren't.

Journalist: Hmm. I presume all the documentary evidence could be interpreted in more than one way. I'd guess that your interpretation isn't the only one available.

Cult Member: You see, some people will try to dismiss our claims by saying that we're just cherry-picking and deliberately misinterpreting stuff, or reading too much into simple clerical errors, but they're wrong. We know the truth!

Journalist: I notice that you described this two-Oswald plan as the 'Oswald project'. Is there any evidence that that term was used officially?

Cult Member: Yes, there is! There was a former CIA guy who testified to the House Select Committee on Assassinations about Oswald, and he used the term 'Oswald project'.

Journalist: Really? That's interesting. What did he say about this long-term plan that involved two Oswalds and two Marguerites?

Cult Member: Well, on the face of it, when he used the term 'Oswald project' he was just referring to Oswald's defection being a CIA operation. But we prefer to think that he was referring to the truth which is revealed to us in our holy book.

Journalist: Did he say anything specific about this plot with the two Oswalds and the two Marguerites?

Cult Member: He might have done.

Journalist: I'm sorry?

Cult Member: He might have said something.

Journalist: Did he specifically mention this plot with the two Oswalds and two Marguerites? Yes or no?

Cult Member: No.

Journalist: So it's more than a little misleading to use the CIA guy as support for your two-Oswald theory, isn't it?

Cult Member: But that's all we've got!

Journalist: Hmm.

Cult Member: Look, you can't just claim that Oswald was an agent of some sort. That isn't particularly exciting. We think it's much better to get people to think that if Oswald was an agent, he was also the product of our 'Oswald project'. You see, the more complicated and unlikely something is, the more exciting it is. And this is really, really unlikely, which means it's very exciting indeed!

[To be continued]

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

[Interview, part four]

Journalist: There's something else I was wondering about. There must be thousands of people around the world with a serious interest in the JFK assassination. Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. How many of them have you managed to convert?

Cult Member: It must be close to a dozen by now!

Journalist: As many as that?

Cult Member: Well, we've only been going for a couple of decades, you know.

Journalist: If you think about how many really gullible people there are, people with virtually no critical thinking skills at all, who are prepared to believe anything, no matter how far-fetched - that Elvis Presley arrived on earth in an alien spaceship, that sort of thing - it looks as though even those people find your 'two Oswalds and two Marguerites' theory too implausible for their tastes.

Cult Member: That's certainly our target audience, but they obviously haven't heard the word of truth yet. Or if they have, they aren't looking at the evidence in the right way, logically and with an open mind. We need to spread the word more efficiently. That's why we've come to you. You can give us the publicity we need.

Journalist: Hmm. If your theory has almost no support in JFK assassination circles, it must attract a fair amount of criticism.

Cult Member: Cointelpro! Lone nutters! Cointelpro! Lone nutters!

Journalist: You think everyone with doubts about your theory is a supporter of the official line, that Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy, alone and unaided?

Cult Member: Of course they are! Why else would they oppose the truth? Isn't it obvious?

Journalist: You know, one of the standard ways in which the media dismisses criticism of the lone-nut theory is to paint every critic of the official line as a paranoid, moon-landings-crazy fantasist. What about those people who say that all of these over-complicated super-conspiracy theories are exactly what the media needs, and that far-fetched, poorly supported theories like yours just bring rational criticism of the lone-nut theory into disrepute?

Cult Member: Cointelpro! Lone nutters! Cointelpro! Lone nutters! Cointelpro! Lone nutters!

Journalist: OK, OK. Calm down. I was wondering how you deal with all that criticism.

Cult Member: Usually, it's best to ignore it and hope it goes away. You see, from time to time some cointelpro lone-nutter will demonstrate how this or that aspect of our theory is wrong. When that happens, we will simply change the subject. Then, later on, once everyone's attention has been diverted, we can bring up the same aspect of our theory again, completely ignoring the objections that the cointelpro lone-nutter brought up last time round.

Journalist: Really?

Cult Member: Oh yes! Very often we'll just copy and paste the stuff that has been disproved, and pretend that it hasn't been. Copy and paste! Copy and paste! We can do this over and over again!

Journalist: That doesn't seem very honest to me. Won't people see through that tactic?

Cult Member: Unfortunately they do, yes. Another way to divert attention from criticism is to quote long passages from our holy book.

Journalist: If you were serious, if you weren't afraid of being proved wrong, surely you'd be happy to deal with criticism of your theory.

Cult Member: I suppose so. There's an online forum based in Australia that gives our theory a hard time. If we weren't afraid of being proved wrong, I suppose we could join that forum and deal with its members' questions honestly.

Journalist: I think you should do that. Why don't you?

Cult Member: Mainly because that forum is full of rude people who use naughty words, and we're easily offended. Oh, and there's also the possibility that our theory wouldn't last five seconds and we'd become a laughing stock.

Journalist: But you are already. Your theory was debunked by solid scientific evidence two decades before it was even published. As laughing stocks go, you lot are world champions.

Cult Member: Please don't say that. I really want to believe my theory. It makes me feel better about myself.

Journalist: Yes, I was wondering why you are so attracted to an idea which most people would dismiss as far-out paranoid nonsense.

Cult Member: You see, this belief in a super-powerful conspiracy fulfills a certain psychological need in us. That's the reason we are incapable of questioning the truth that's revealed to us in our holy book. And if you believe in something strongly enough, you'll do whatever it takes to spread the word.

Journalist: Hmm. I'm curious about exactly what your theory has to say about the assassination itself.

Cult Member: Oh, nothing at all.

Journalist: I mean, how does it relate to the strength or weakness of the evidence against Oswald, or the question of how many shots were fired, or whether it was physically possible for one person to have fired all the shots?

Cult Member: Who cares about any of that? ‎This is all about thinking up the biggest conspiracy ever. You see, the bigger the conspiracy, the more likely it is that President Kennedy was killed as the result of a conspiracy.

Journalist: But surely, any conspiracy only needed to be large enough to kill JFK and maybe to frame Oswald. There is no need for anything larger.

Cult Member: I hadn't thought of it like that.

Journalist: It really isn't necessary for the conspirators to have the power to create an extra Oswald and Marguerite, or to have the power to alter all the films and photographs, or to have the power to kidnap Kennedy's corpse without anyone noticing, or any of those other way-out ideas. The more elaborate the conspiracy theory you're proposing, the less likely it is to be true, wouldn't you say?

Cult Member: Cointelpro! Lone nutter! Cointelpro! Lone nutter!

Journalist: Let's wipe all that foam from around your mouth. That's better.

Cult Member: Thank you. Look, it's like I was saying about Oswald being an intelligence agent. If there was a really elaborate scheme, a top-secret conspiracy that went on for nearly two decades in which Oswald and an unrelated boy were controlled from the age of six, that's even stronger evidence that he was an intelligence agent.

Journalist: I think it's widely accepted that Oswald had some sort of connection with one or another US intelligence agency. Surely all the extra complication in your theory - you know, the six-year-old boys and the two Marguerites and the top-secret unnecessary mastoidectomy operation in a hospital that hadn't been built yet - actually serves to discredit this idea, to make the idea seem much less plausible. Also, it makes you look like a bunch of crazies.

Cult Member: Cointelpro! Lone nutter!

Journalist: What I mean to say is, if the general public finds out about your theory, and people start to think that the only way to question the lone-nut theory is to believe some crazy-sounding stuff about Oswald being cloned at the age of six and that there were two Marguerites running around, and all the rest of it, and if they realise that there's essentially no solid evidence to support any of it, won't they tend to dismiss the whole idea that there's something wrong with the lone-nut explanation?

Cult Member: Who cares what the general public thinks?

Journalist: The only way the Kennedy case will ever be properly investigated is if the general public forces the authorities to do so. For as long as the public can be kept quiet, nothing will happen. From the point of view of the authorities, the general public needs to be neutralised. Your theory is exactly the sort of thing that the authorities would like the general public to associate with the JFK assassination.

Cult Member: We don't care about any of that. Look, getting the Kennedy case properly investigated, finding out how it all really happened, doing some serious analysis of how the assassination relates to the functioning of the US political system, all that nonsense, that's not what we're interested in. Our holy book gives us what we want. A really enormous conspiracy to believe in! It gets me all tingly!

Journalist: You know, a lot of people suspect that you and similar far-out conspiracy theorists are deliberately trying to undermine genuine criticism of the official line. If I were in charge of undermining genuine criticism, the first thing I'd do is to fabricate as many far-out super-conspiracy theories as I could think of. Then I'd get my friends in the press to report those theories instead of the more credible objections to the official line.

Cult Member: No, no! I understand why people feel like that, but we really do believe what we're saying! The world really is run by a great shadowy conspiracy of super-powerful Bad Guys! That's how the world works. There really were two Oswalds and two Marguerites and two mastoidectomy operations!

Journalist: OK. [looks at watch] It's getting late, and I really need to ...

Cult Member: So, are you going to put our story on the front page, or in a big TV special?

Journalist: Umm. Well, I'll have a word with my editor. I'll let you know.
 
Cult Member: Great! Going back to what you were saying about Elvis and alien spaceships, do you want to hear my theory about the so-called moon landings?

[W. Tracy Parnell]

Brilliant Jeremy!

[Jim Hargrove]

Wow, Mr. B., I only read a few lines, but that must have been a lot of work!

Can we discuss some evidence now?

Why don't some of you folks explain why a 5' 9" Oswald was carrying a DoD ID card of a 5' 11" Oswald with what appears to be a Russian passport picture of "Oswald" pasted over the original mug shot.  Why would that be?  What was wrong with the original picture?  Here's a post with all the details. 

Edited September 23, 2017 by Jim Hargrove

[Jim Hargrove]

On 9/12/2017 at 6:33 AM, Jim Hargrove said:

Harvey Oswald’s Photo
on Lee Oswald’s DoD ID Card

Russian-speaking Lee HARVEY Oswald (the man killed by Jack Ruby) was 5’9” (69 inches) tall.  American-born LEE Harvey Oswald was 5’11” (71 inches) tall.  It is becoming increasingly apparent that someone pasted a Russian photograph of the shorter Oswald on the U.S. Department of Defense ID card of the taller Oswald.

The subject of this ID card is explored on the following Education Forum thread:

 

 

In the Ed Forum thread, I posted these illustrations of the card:

 

 

A number of people on the forum questioned the circular post office stamp dated October 23, 1963 that is on the card.  Some people thought the card might have been “lost” and dropped into a U.S. Mail box.  Chris Newton and Mark Knight noted that it appeared to be the type of card issued to U.S. military “dependents.”  Jim DiEugenio, Mark Stevens and others noted that the photo on the card appeared to be identical to a photo of Oswald purportedly taken in Minsk AFTER the ID card was allegedly issued.

Below, from the Warren Commission, are two photos of “Lee Harvey Oswald” allegedly taken in Minsk.  In Commission Exhibit 2892 (right), note the off-white roughly quarter circle that appears to be painted on the lower right of the image.

 

Tom Hume pointed out that the card should have been laminated, but didn’t appear to be.  Other forum members agreed.  Chris Newton published a better image of the suspect card.

 

Richard Price and Sandy Larsen  pointed out that the postal stamp appeared to be forged.  Sandy wrote:

… the three circles on the photo don't line up with the three on the ID. Also, it looks like the "IUL" is really ‘IUI.’”  Chris Newton wrote, “Another problem: The "Expiration Date" : 7 Dec 1962 ...    no real clerk in the military writes "1962" there.  It's just "62" gentlemen.”  Sandy asked, “Has the erased semicircle of the photo been discussed? The lower-right corner of the photo has been painted white for some reason. The whited out part is in the shape of a semicircle.”  Chris posted the following image as “an aid to visualizing the circles:
 

 

Then Chris posted the following image of a 1946 Soviet passport.  Note the photo and the stamp.

 

 

I posted that  “… you could make the case that the LHO photo on his suspect DoD ID card was actually created, and processed, by a Russian passport authority….  Is it possible that the circular stamps were created mostly to obscure the tell-tale Soviet circular inset in the bottom right portion of the photo?”  Chris said he was inclined to agree.

I wrote, “According to the Official Story®, Oswald flew from Minsk to Moscow on Saturday, July 8, 1961, called Richard Snyder at home, and said he wanted to return to the United States. Snyder said he wanted to interview Marina, and she, apparently like her husband, also flew to Moscow the following Monday, and like her husband, didn’t seek police permission. That same Monday, Snyder supposedly renewed Oswald’s U.S. passport.

“Why then, do we have what appears to be a Soviet passport photo of Oswald attached to a phony DoD ID card?  Could it be that the official story is untrue, that Oswald DID NOT get his U.S. passport renewed at the American Embassy, and instead traveled back to the U.S. on a Soviet passport?

“Would there be any other reason for Oswald to have obtained a Soviet-style passport photo of himself? Has anyone ever seen a hint of any evidence that Oswald had a Russian passport?”

Sandy Larsen noted that “In my searching around I found that 1) stamping over the photo was a common thing in Europe at the time; and 2) they would do that for all kinds of IDs.

Here's a Soviet ID for some kind of sports union:”

 

Sandy also noted that “Oswald might have had a number of ID cards. For example, a residency card and a work permit.”

 

David Josephs posted two images showing “a bit more detail on those circles…. “

David indicated that this is how the card “SHOULD have looked when issued:”

 

Sandy Larsen analyzed the graphics from the bogus DoD ID and the Russian passport and wrote that he would propose “that the photo on Oswald's ID card came from an ID that he used while in the Soviet Union. He (or somebody else) removed the photo and pasted it to the military ID card. Upon doing so, the photo showed a remnant of the old Russian stamp, but of course the ID had no such stamp. So Oswald (or somebody else) decided he had to fake a stamp on the ID so that the stamp on the photo-only wasn't so obvious. He took a circular stamp and made a couple of impressions, with one lining up pretty well with the outer, Russian stamp. (The blue line, above.) Then he stamped it again with the circle, offsetting it from the first to give it some "depth" or complexity. And then he finished up his work with the date stamps. By making it complex, it provided some camouflage for the stamp on the photo. Without looking close, uninformed people would see something that looked about right, and that looked official.”

Sandy added the following hypothesis:

I suggest that that is a possibility. That Oswald was indeed a "DoD civilian employee contractor" at some point.

And here's something for Harvey & Lee theory adherents: LEE Oswald may very well have been  a "DoD civilian employee contractor and needed access to a US facility overseas" after his time in the Marines. In which case his (and not HARVEY's) photo would have originally been pasted on the card.

And here's an add-on hypothesis: On assassination day, HARVEY wasn't killed as planned because Officer Tippet got cold feet. Tippet had to be taken out and his killing blamed on Oswald if at all possible. The assassination wrap up team had to come up with a fake Oswald wallet on the spur of the moment. They found that they has LEE's expired DoD Civilian Contractor card and one of HARVEY's expired Soviet identification cards. They ripped the photos off the two cards and pasted the Russian ID photo onto LEE's DOD Civilian Contractor card. Then they did the silly stamping to camouflage the Russian stamp on the photo. And they put this card inside Oswald's fake wallet.”

The thread excerpted above is, at the time of this writing, still very much in progress on the Ed Forum.  I just got home from a nearly week-long mini-vacation and I’m still catching up to recent developments on this subject.  But the question remains….

Why did a photo of the 5’9” (69 inch) Russian-speaking Oswald get placed on a DoD ID card, apparently of the type issued to DoD dependents, that clearly refers to a 5’11” (71 inch) Lee Harvey Oswald?  Was the original picture that of the taller American-born Oswald?  Why was a photo used that  appears to have been taken and processed inside the Soviet Union?

From what I’ve read so far, Sandy Larsen’s theory immediately above seems logical.   The ID card is one of the pieces of evidence that has always intrigued the author of Harvey and Lee, as indicated by the cover of the book.

 

I'd be interested in replies from the H&L critics

[Jim Hargrove]

The H&L critics, of course, continue to heap scorn on the two Oswald concept, and, as always, seem unwilling or unable to discuss the actual evidence for two Oswalds.  For example,

“Oswald” simultaneously attended PS 44 in NYC and Beauregard JHS in New Orleans; and the year before he simultaneously attended school in New York and Stripling school in Fort Worth; his own half brother told the WC pictures of “Oswald” did not appear to be his brother; he both did and didn’t shoot himself in the arm while in the Marines; he sailed the high seas and was stationed in Taiwan while simultaneously being treated for VD in Japan; he appeared at a truck dealership in New Orleans while he was living in Russia; he associated with Marita Lorenz and other anti-Castro Cubans in Florida while living in the USSR; as an adult he changed height nearly daily from 5’ 9” tall to 5’ 11” tall; he both did and didn’t have a valid Texas driver’s license; he associated frequently in Dallas with Jack Ruby while simultaneously living in New Orleans; he appeared at least four times at the Sports Drome rifle range while demonstrably somewhere else; he appeared at places such as the Irving Furniture Mart while working at the TSBD—and on and on.

None of the H&L critic want to debate the above evidence here.  They just pretend Greg Parker can explain everything—but not here where we can actually debate it.  

Edited September 23, 2017 by Jim Hargrove

[Bernie Laverick]

6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Do you have any friends, Bernie? Does that make l.i.a.r.s of them?

 

Yes, I had one who once went to Stripling too. He says that the FBI never came to the school. Is he a l.i.a.r? He knows all about my antipathy to the H&L story and he was keen to help me with it. He categorically states that not one law enforcement officer of any kind entered the building that day. Because that destroys the H&L narrative I have to believe him.

Alas, in the real world us anti H&L folk don't enjoy the fortuitous coincidence of having a key researcher who was also a long term friend of a key witness that destroys your narrative. You wouldn't accept it anyway, and rightly so.

If by pure coincidence Greg had had a long term friendship with a 'witness' somehow involved in the H&L tale, and that that witness knew all about Greg's opposition to it, would you accept his testimony if it didn't fit with your theory? Would you not see a conflict of interest?

 

 

 

[Michael Walton]

The verdict on Jeremy's little 4-act, two-man play:

Bravo!

[Michael Walton]

1 hour ago, Jim Hargrove said:

I'd be interested in replies from the H&L critics

Jim - why is the cover of the book using the same Oswald for the photos? They certainly look like the same person to me.  Shouldn't one of the photos depict the clone?

[Bernie Laverick]

Jeremy, that was sublime. You always know when Hargrove is rattled because he does the info dump shuffle. And this in response to a post ridiculing their habit of lengthy info dumps when they are cornered. They can't stop themselves!

Armstrong is sat reading this now, pulling his hair out, and wondering why his runner boys haven't switched to Taiwan yet. It's not been mentioned for over 20 pages now, whereas the school records have been overplayed... "TAIWAN you imbeciles!" He's now screaming at the screen! "Info dump covering EVERYTHING and then move to Taiwan. I'm disappointed in you Jimbo: you're losing it!"

Because Hargrove normally knows how to play ball, how to change the pace, to spread the game out, to move the ball from one wing to the other, to play it up-field and swing it about so the opposition doesn't know where he'll be popping up next. He never scores a goal. That's not his intention. He just wants to wear the other team out so that they don't score any. But he's getting old. And the slick artful passes of yesteryear are now just a big hoof down the pitch hoping it will do some good. 

It's nothing more than a sophisticated LN machine with the ultimate intent of highlighting Oswald's guilt. It is an extremely dishonest version of DVP...that makes money!

 

[Michael Walton]

5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

The differences Michael are:

1) You did and still do have a preconceived notion that the theory is, as you say, "a fairy tale."

2) You have not studied and understood the evidence, other than perhaps the exhumation.

1. I just described how I'm following the evidence like for example, DJ's "Oswald wasn't in MC" story.  I took that info, which was well-written BTW, and looked at other evidence and decided that there's a preponderance that Oswald was set up to take the blame. But for the HL story, you're asking me to - as you said "why don't I just admit that it may be true" - believe in something that doesn't exist.  That's the same thing as asking me to believe Santa Claus exists, or god, or the devil, or UFOs.

2. I think I'm about as well-versed with the evidence on this case as anyone else on this forum. Keep in mind too that I DO believe that there was a conspiracy to murder President Kennedy.  I'm not a lone nut believer - far from it. If Oswald had lived and if there had been no interference at all from the powers that be - if he had truly been able to secure an all-star team of lawyers to defend him fairly - then based on what we know today I find it impossible that he'd have been found guilty of killing Kennedy and Tippit. Further, I believe that something happened along the way and he was NOT supposed to have lived until Sunday, 11/24.

But those two additional days he was around revealed quite a bit - he denied the BYP's were fake (and even had the wits to describe how); he said he was a "patsy," a word that I'm guessing no one else who worked in the TSBD even knew the meaning of; he made quite a mysterious call to John Hurt; and so on. 

I'm sorry but I can't help it if my "ring of truth" bell goes off like a five-alarm bell does when it comes to this HL story. But if YOU think the evidence DOES prove in your mind's eye that there was a clone that looked like LHO and this went on from '53 until one of them was murdered in Dallas, then that's your right to do so.

[Jim Hargrove]

Pixel Counting Biometric

Comparison of Oswald photos

H&L critics on this forum do go on and on with their attacks, but they sure don't have much luck explaining how “Lee Harvey Oswald” went to school in New York City and New Orleans at the same time, or New York City and Fort Worth at the same time, or how he happened to be aboard the USS Skagit and in Taiwan at the same time he was being treated for VD in Japan, or how he visited the Bolton Ford dealership in New Orleans while he was in Minsk. The sheer amount of evidence supporting John Armstrong’s work is just overwhelming. 

As one example, a couple of years ago on another forum, a Dallas attorney named Drew Phipps, familiar with facial recognition techniques, did a detailed series of posts he titled: “Pixel Counting Biometric Comparison of Oswald photos.”

Mr. Phipps measured, in various pictures of “Oswald,” the ratios of the distances between a number of different facials features in photos. He described his analytical method as follows:

The ratios I will use are: “pupil-to-pupil / width of eye” (called P/W hereafter), “pupil-to-pupil / length of nose” (called P/N hereafter), “pupil-to-pupil / nose-to-top-lip” (called P/L hereafter) and “pupil-to-pupil / earlobe-to-earlobe” (called P/E hereafter). The use of ratios (instead of actual measurements) will make it unnecessary to know more about the distance from lens to face, or the type of camera, etc., since the proportions of the face of the same person should stay the same regardless of those other factors.

In his series of posts, Mr. Phipps went into considerable detail about the photos he was using and how he made and interpreted his measurements. I think you have to be a member of the forum to be able to see the actual graphics but the written descriptions of his work, and his conclusions, are visible to non-members. At any rate, here are Mr. Phipps’ final conclusions.

Visual Conclusions: Unless there is something terribly wrong with my methodology, (or my spreadsheet skills), or the photos are simply too low resolution for a significant biometric comparison, there is some evidence that there is more than one individual here. 

If I had to clump the photos in two different piles, it looks to me like photos 1, 2, 3, 9 and 13 are the same individual, and photos 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, and 12 are the same individual.

I realize this is not the same narrative as "Harvey and Lee". It is still my opinion that it is far more likely that the paper trail of discrepancies surrounding Oswald is the result of deliberate tampering with his records (in an attempt to catch a mole, or deceive a communist spy organization). But the biometric discrepancies are starting to make me wonder. 

CLICK HERE to see Mr. Phipps’ study.
 

[Jim Hargrove]

Frank Sturgis on two Oswalds