"Oswald's" CIA Cryptonym: RX-ZIM

[W. Tracy Parnell]

Well, this had been discussed to death in the H&L threads, but for those that haven't seen those I'll repeat it here.

Wilcott did indeed say the cryptonym was RX-ZIM when he spoke to HSCA investigators. But under oath, he said he didn't recall what it was. His memory improved a few months later before the Cuban tribunal when he named the cryptonym again. Also, a quick check of the Mary Ferrell database shows no "R" cryptonyms at all and they do not recognize this particular one nor does John Newman. In my research, I found that Wilcott was an extreme left-winger who became disgruntled with the CIA. Since he was a finance officer and had nothing to do with covert ops, his opinions should not be given nay more weight than the anyone else's. Please see:

http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/03/james-wilcott.html

[Jim Hargrove]

Tracy,

Nice try, but the HSCA's own notes clearly show that Wilcott and his attorney Bill Schaap were expressly ordered "to not reveal specifics of specific questions" in his HSCA testimony.  Jack White told us at length how the HSCA worked.  When White wanted to show his "many faces of Lee Harvey Oswald" material to the HSCA, he was threatened with Contempt of Congress.

Do you really wonder why RX-ZIM is so buried in the JFK literature?  Can you say "cover-up?"  I didn't think so.

 

[Jim Hargrove]

3 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Jim,

I'm afraid I didn't frame my question well.

Yes, I know that Wilcott's testimony supports the Harvey & Lee theory. Just like it supports the "Oswald was a CIA agent" theory. (Both of which I consider to be proven facts, given their respective levels of supporting evidence.)

What I an wondering is this: OTHER THAN ITS EVIDENCE FOR OSWALD BEING A CIA AGENT, can you think of any of Wilcott's testimony that supports the Harvey and Lee theory in particular?

The one thing I can think of is the apparent fact that it was referred to as the "Oswald Project," at least casually so. It seems to me that CIA projects would not normally be named after a participating agent. In this case it is as though OSWALD was the "star" of the project.

My thinking is that it was named the "Oswald Project" because it involved multiple Oswalds.

Sandy,

Jim Wilcott probably didn’t understood the full dimensions of what he called the “Oswald project.”    He apparently believed that Oswald was given Russian language courses and double agent training at the military base at Atsugi, Japan, which, according to the HSCA notes above, he described as a “deep cover CIA base.”  But as you probably know, one of the most thoroughly documented episodes in Harvey and Lee shows that it was American-born LEE Harvey Oswald who spent time at Atsugi, not the Russian-speaking youngster who went to Russia and was eventually shot dead by Ruby.

Wilcott’s observations, however, had some real insights into the Oswald project and how it eventually became entangled in the plot to kill JFK.  And, as I’ll show momentarily, both Wilcott and HSCA staffers nearly stumbled across the two Oswalds in an extended New York City episode.  But first….

Note that one of the pages from the HSCA notes above contains this sentence: “Approximately April-June 1963, Cryptonym for Oswald Project approx. RX-ZIM.”  I don’t know if those dates have any particular significance, but assuming for a moment that they do, let’s consider what was happening with the Oswald Project between April and June of 1963.

In May of 1963, for no apparent reason whatsoever, Lee HARVEY Oswald decided to move from Dallas to New Orleans.  My bet is that he was instructed to do so.  In New Orleans, he quickly began associating with the virulent anti-Castro operatives surrounding ex-FBI man Guy Banister, but, of course, he famously posed as a pro-Castro leftist.  Many researchers believe that this was the start of the process of setting up Lee HARVEY Oswald as the patsy in the JFK hit, so that the assassination could be blamed on Castro’s Cuba.  What a remarkable coincidence that this sheep-dipping project began right in the middle of the April-June 1963 period Wilcott apparently associated with the RX-ZIM cryptonym!

Now.... Please take a look at the paragraph I’ve highlighted in yellow from another page (shown below) of the HSCA notes on Wilcott.

 

In the highlighted paragraph above, the “SWP” mentioned several times is probably the Socialist Workers Party.  John A. has done considerable research showing how American-born LEE Harvey Oswald was involved in activities in New York City and elsewhere during the very years Russian-speaking Lee HARVEY Oswald was in Russia.  The activities involved disrupting socialist and liberal organizations and probably involved some anti-Semitic elements as well. It is a complicated story involving the television actor and comedian John Landesberg. John A’s lengthy writeup about it can be read here:

http://harveyandlee.net/Landesberg/Landesbergs.html

This is a hot-button issue for CIA defenders and H&L critics.  Tracy Parnell has a write-up somewhere attempting to debunk it.  It shouldn’t be difficult to find.  Why is it such a controversial issue?

That’s simple.  According to the official biography of “Lee Harvey Oswald,” Oswald spent only a few hours in New York City after returning from Russia before flying home to Texas, and he never again spent any time in NYC.  So where does all this NYC business come from?  It all involved American-born LEE Oswald, who, while HARVEY was in Russia, was actively involved in anti-Communist and anti-Castro activities in New York City, Florida, and Louisiana.  

[Jim Hargrove]

3 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

Wilcott was (as JFK would write) a profile in courage ... I wonder how any other more ethical and principled CIA employees tried to speak up (and were intimidated or silenced).  You'd think more than a few felt the same way.  Its reassuring to finally read the 'unvarnished' truth, but very sad as well.  The HSCA knew ... they knew the truth, and concocted the Mafia fairy tale. Its simply shameful.  

The climate and culture within CIA are described well by Wilcott.  One can see how being liberal would be viewed with distaste.  It reminds me of the later disparaging remarks by Howard Hunt about liberals.  The condescending and arrogant tone of William R. Buckley on Firing Line. I worked (as a federal employee) with an investigator who had been involved with HSCA in his previous career, and approached him in 1994 to ask "who did it?"  His reply was CIA ... I was less well informed in those days, and somewhat taken aback, finding it difficult to believe a government agency would be complicit.  I countered with "how sure are you?" and he answered that he'd bet a year's salary on it.  He spoke of how utterly impossible it was to get any viable information from CIA or a straight answer.  My last question to him -- the answer to which stays with me today (and forever) - was the inevitable "why don't they just come out (after 30 years) and tell us?  His reply:

"What makes you think that's the worst thing they ever did?"

Fascinating.  Thank you, Gene!

[Dawn Meredith]

On ‎3‎/‎22‎/‎2018 at 6:09 PM, James DiEugenio said:

This is some really interesting stuff Jim.

Not just for what it says about Wilcott and Oswald, but also about how the HSCA operated.

I see something like this, and it just makes me sick about the day that Sprague left.

I remember this as it was happening and how worried I became that HSCA would be one more cover-up as a result. 

[Rob Couteau]

On 3/24/2018 at 8:03 PM, Gene Kelly said:

"What makes you think that's the worst thing they ever did?"

Fascinating - thanks for sharing this Gene. God is in the details.

[Jim Hargrove]

James Wilcott was hardly the only CIA employee who, in one way or another, told the HSCA that the Oswald Project was a creation of the CIA.  J.J. Angleton’s assistant Ann Egerter also indirectly confirmed that Oswald was an employee of the Agency.

The following is excerpted from Jim Douglass, JFK and The Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, Orbis Books, NY 2010, pp. 144-145:

It was Angleton’s staff member, Ann Egerter, who opened Oswald’s 201 SIG file on December 9, 1960.[56] Egerter was questioned by the House Select Committee. They knew they could not expect her, as a CIA employee, to answer truthfully, even under oath, the question whether Oswald was a CIA agent. Allen Dulles, Kennedy’s fired CIA director, had said in the January 27, 1964, closed-door Warren Commission meeting that no CIA employee, even under oath, should ever say truthfully if Oswald (or anyone else) was in fact a CIA agent.[57] The House Select Committee therefore had to get the answer from Angleton’s associate, Ann Egerter—by then retired and somewhat obliging—by indirect questioning.

When Egerter was asked the purpose of Counterintelligence’s Special Investigations Group (CI/SIG), she said, “We were charged with the investigation of Agency personnel who were suspected one way or another.”[58]

Egerter had thereby already made a crucial admission, whose implications would be drawn out step by step. Her HSCA interviewer then asked Egerter to confirm this specific purpose of SIG: “Please correct me if I am wrong. In light of the example that you have given and the statements that you have made it seems that the purpose of CI/SIG was very limited and that limited purpose was being [sic] to investigate Agency employees who for some reason were under suspicion.”

Egerter replied, “That is correct.”[59]

She was then asked: “When a 201 file is opened does that mean that whoever opens the file has either an intelligence interest in the individual, or, if not an intelligence interest, he thinks that the individual may present a counterintelligence risk?”

Egerter: “Well, in general, I would say that would be correct.” 
Interviewer: “Would there be any other reason for opening up a file?” 
Egerter: “No, I can’t think of one.”[60]

Researcher Lisa Pease concluded from Ann Egerter’s testimony that Oswald’s 201 file in CI/SIG “implies strongly that either Oswald was indeed a member of the CIA or was being used in an operation involving members of the CIA, which for my money is essentially the same thing.”[61] In either case, Oswald was a CIA asset.

Egerter also indicated by her testimony that Oswald was a particular kind of CIA asset, an Agency employee who was suspected of being a security risk. That would have been the reason for opening a 201 file on him specifically in Angleton’s Special Investigations Group of Counterintelligence. Egerter said SIG was known in the Agency as “the office that spied on spies,”[62] and repeatedly identified the spies being spied upon as CIA employees. She again described the work of her SIG office as “investigations of Agency employees where there was an indication of espionage.”[63]

Her interviewer in turn patiently sought reconfirmation of this stated purpose of her office that so strongly implied Oswald was a CIA employee under investigation by the Agency:

Interviewer: “I hope you understand my questions are directed toward trying to find out what the purpose of the CI/SIG Office was and under what circumstances was the opening up of the 201 file [on Oswald]. I am given the impression that the purpose of CI/SIG was very limited, primarily to investigate Agency employees who for one reason or another might be under suspicion of getting espionage against the United States. Is that an accurate statement of the purpose of CI/SIG?” 
Egerter: “Well, it is employees and also penetration, which is the same thing, of the Agency.”[64]

Ann Egerter’s testimony points toward Oswald having been a CIA employee who by December 1960 had come under suspicion by the Agency. He was to be carefully watched. As a security risk, he was also the ideal kind of person for the CIA to offer up three years later as a scapegoat in the assassination of a president who some believed had become a much greater security risk.

NOTES:

56. The CIA document that opened Oswald’s 201 SIG file on December 9, 1960, signed by Ann Egerter, is on page 463 of Newman’s Oswald and the CIA.
57. President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy: Report of Proceedings Held at Washington, D.C. Monday, January 27, 1964; published by Harold Weisberg as Whitewash IV: Top Secret JFK Assassination Transcript (Frederick, Md.: 1974), p. 62; p. 153 of transcript.
58. HSCA Deposition of Ann Elizabeth Goldsborough Egerter, p. 8. Cited by Lisa Pease, “James Angleton,” in Assassinations, p. 146 (emphasis added).
59. Egerter, HCSA Deposition, p. 9 (emphasis added).
60. Ibid., pp. 9-10.
61.Pease, Assassinations, p. 147.
62. Preliminary HSCA Interview of Ann Egerter by Dan Hardway and Betsy Wolf, March 31, 1978, p. 3. JFK Record Number 180-10142-10298.
63. Egerter HSCA Deposition, May 17,1978, p. 20. JFK Record Number 180-10131-10333.
64. Ibid., p. 21. Egerter’s HSCA interviewer, Michael Goldsmith, also asked her about the suggestive letters “AG” (meaning “AGENT”?) printed in an identification box on the December 9, 1960, form by which Egerter had opened Oswald’s 201 file:

Goldsmith: “What does the term ‘AG’ stand for?” 
Egerter: “I have forgotten.” 
Goldsmith: “Is that your handwriting?” 
Egerter: “I don’t think so. I forget.” 
Goldsmith: “Would that have stood for agent?” 
Egerter: “No. I forget what ‘AG’ meant.” Ibid., pp. 58-59.

Lacking an independent authority to interpret the CIA form, Goldsmith accepted Egerter’s inability to remember what “AG” meant or if she had written those letters on the form, and moved on to other questions.
 

It is time to stop allowing CIA apologists to get away with saying "Lee Harvey Oswald" was anything other than a creation of the CIA.  How long must we accept their excuses?

[Paz Marverde]

3 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

It is time to stop allowing CIA apologists to get away with saying "Lee Harvey Oswald" was anything other than a creation of the CIA.  How long must we accept their excuses?

Ditto

[Bruce Fernandez]

Ditto!!

 

[Jim Hargrove]

Thanks, Paz and Bruce.  I've been maintaining the following list for a couple of years and I'm reposting it here because it seems relevant.  Paul Trejo in the past has tried to debunk it, but his efforts always come up short.

21 Facts Indicating the Oswald Project Was Run by the CIA

1. CIA accountant James Wilcott said he made payments to an encrypted account for “Oswald or the Oswald Project.”  HSCA contemporaneous staff notes indicate that Wilcott said the CIA cryptonym for the Oswald Project was RX-ZIM, but that he wasn't allowed to say so, even in secret testimony.

2. Antonio Veciana said he saw LHO meeting with CIA’s Maurice Bishop/David Atlee Phillips in Dallas in August 1963.

3. A 1978 CIA memo indicates that a CIA operations officer “had run an agent into the USSR, that man having met a Russian girl and eventually marrying her,” a case very similar to Oswald’s and clearly indicating that the Agency ran a “false defector” program in the 1950s.

4. Robert Webster and LHO "defected" a few months apart in 1959, both tried to "defect" on a Saturday, both possessed "sensitive" information of possible value to the Russians, both were befriended by Marina Prusakova, and both returned to the United States in the spring of 1962.

5. Richard Sprague, Richard Schweiker, and CIA agents Donald Norton and Joseph Newbrough all said LHO was associated with the CIA. 

6. CIA employee Donald Deneslya said he read reports of a CIA "contact" who had worked at a radio factory in Minsk and returned to the US with a Russian wife and child.

7. Kenneth Porter, employee of CIA-connected Collins Radio, left his family to marry (and probably monitor) Marina Oswald after LHO’s death.

8. George Joannides, case officer and paymaster for DRE (which LHO had attempted to infiltrate) was put in charge of lying to the HSCA and never told them of his relationship to DRE.

9. For his achievements, Joannides was given a medal by the CIA.

10. FBI took Oswald off the watch list at the same time a CIA cable gave him a clean bill of political health, weeks after Oswald’s New Orleans arrest and less than two months before the assassination.

11. Oswald’s lengthy “Lives of Russian Workers” essay reads like a pretty good intelligence report.

12. Oswald’s possessions were searched for microdots.

13. Oswald owned an expensive Minox spy camera, which the FBI tried to make disappear.

14. Even the official cover story of the radar operator near American U-2 planes defecting to Russia, saying he would give away all his secrets, and returning home without penalty smells like a spy story.

15. CIA's Richard Case Nagell clearly knew about the plot to assassinate JFK and LHO’s relation to it, and he said that the CIA and the FBI ignored his warnings.

16. LHO always seemed poor as a church mouse, until it was time to go “on assignment.”  For his Russian adventure, we’re to believe he saved all the money he needed for first class European hotels and private tour guides in Moscow from the non-convertible USMC script he saved. In the summer of 1963, he once again seemed to have enough money to travel abroad to Communist nations.

17. To this day, the CIA claims it never interacted with Oswald, that it didn’t even bother debriefing him after the “defection.” What utter bs….

18. After he “defected” to the Soviet Union in 1959, bragging to U.S. embassy personnel in Moscow that he would tell the Russians everything he knew about U.S. military secrets, he returns to the U.S. without punishment and is then in 1963 given the OK to travel to Cuba and the Soviet Union again!

19. Allen Dulles, the CIA director fired by JFK, and the Warren Commission clearly wanted the truth hidden from the public to protect sources and methods of intelligence agencies such as the CIA. Earl Warren said, “Full disclosure was not possible for reasons of national security.”

20. CIA's Ann Egerter, who worked for J.J. Angleton's Counterintelligence Special Interest Group (CI/SIG), opened a "201" file on Oswald on December 9, 1960.  Egerter testified to the HSCA: "We were charged with the investigation of Agency personnel....”  When asked if the purpose was to "investigate Agency employees," she answered, "That is correct."  When asked, "Would there be any other reason for opening up a file?" she answered, "No, I can't think of one."

21. President Kennedy and the CIA clearly were at war with each other in the weeks immediately before his assassination, as evidenced by Arthur Krock's infamous defense of the Agency in the Oct. 3, 1963 New York Times. “Oswald” was the CIA’s pawn.

 

[Paz Marverde]

7 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Thanks, Paz and Bruce.  I've been maintaining the following list for a couple of years and I'm reposting it here because it seems relevant.  Paul Trejo in the past has tried to debunk it, but his efforts always come up short.

21 Facts Indicating the Oswald Project Was Run by the CIA

1. CIA accountant James Wilcott said he made payments to an encrypted account for “Oswald or the Oswald Project.”  HSCA contemporaneous staff notes indicate that Wilcott said the CIA cryptonym for the Oswald Project was RX-ZIM, but that he wasn't allowed to say so, even in secret testimony.

2. Antonio Veciana said he saw LHO meeting with CIA’s Maurice Bishop/David Atlee Phillips in Dallas in August 1963.

3. A 1978 CIA memo indicates that a CIA operations officer “had run an agent into the USSR, that man having met a Russian girl and eventually marrying her,” a case very similar to Oswald’s and clearly indicating that the Agency ran a “false defector” program in the 1950s.

4. Robert Webster and LHO "defected" a few months apart in 1959, both tried to "defect" on a Saturday, both possessed "sensitive" information of possible value to the Russians, both were befriended by Marina Prusakova, and both returned to the United States in the spring of 1962.

5. Richard Sprague, Richard Schweiker, and CIA agents Donald Norton and Joseph Newbrough all said LHO was associated with the CIA. 

6. CIA employee Donald Deneslya said he read reports of a CIA "contact" who had worked at a radio factory in Minsk and returned to the US with a Russian wife and child.

7. Kenneth Porter, employee of CIA-connected Collins Radio, left his family to marry (and probably monitor) Marina Oswald after LHO’s death.

8. George Joannides, case officer and paymaster for DRE (which LHO had attempted to infiltrate) was put in charge of lying to the HSCA and never told them of his relationship to DRE.

9. For his achievements, Joannides was given a medal by the CIA.

10. FBI took Oswald off the watch list at the same time a CIA cable gave him a clean bill of political health, weeks after Oswald’s New Orleans arrest and less than two months before the assassination.

11. Oswald’s lengthy “Lives of Russian Workers” essay reads like a pretty good intelligence report.

12. Oswald’s possessions were searched for microdots.

13. Oswald owned an expensive Minox spy camera, which the FBI tried to make disappear.

14. Even the official cover story of the radar operator near American U-2 planes defecting to Russia, saying he would give away all his secrets, and returning home without penalty smells like a spy story.

15. CIA's Richard Case Nagell clearly knew about the plot to assassinate JFK and LHO’s relation to it, and he said that the CIA and the FBI ignored his warnings.

16. LHO always seemed poor as a church mouse, until it was time to go “on assignment.”  For his Russian adventure, we’re to believe he saved all the money he needed for first class European hotels and private tour guides in Moscow from the non-convertible USMC script he saved. In the summer of 1963, he once again seemed to have enough money to travel abroad to Communist nations.

17. To this day, the CIA claims it never interacted with Oswald, that it didn’t even bother debriefing him after the “defection.” What utter bs….

18. After he “defected” to the Soviet Union in 1959, bragging to U.S. embassy personnel in Moscow that he would tell the Russians everything he knew about U.S. military secrets, he returns to the U.S. without punishment and is then in 1963 given the OK to travel to Cuba and the Soviet Union again!

19. Allen Dulles, the CIA director fired by JFK, and the Warren Commission clearly wanted the truth hidden from the public to protect sources and methods of intelligence agencies such as the CIA. Earl Warren said, “Full disclosure was not possible for reasons of national security.”

20. CIA's Ann Egerter, who worked for J.J. Angleton's Counterintelligence Special Interest Group (CI/SIG), opened a "201" file on Oswald on December 9, 1960.  Egerter testified to the HSCA: "We were charged with the investigation of Agency personnel....”  When asked if the purpose was to "investigate Agency employees," she answered, "That is correct."  When asked, "Would there be any other reason for opening up a file?" she answered, "No, I can't think of one."

21. President Kennedy and the CIA clearly were at war with each other in the weeks immediately before his assassination, as evidenced by Arthur Krock's infamous defense of the Agency in the Oct. 3, 1963 New York Times. “Oswald” was the CIA’s pawn.

 

I admire your efforts. I am happy you are part of this Forum

[Paz Marverde]

9 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Robert Webster and LHO "defected" a few months apart in 1959, both tried to "defect" on a Saturday, both possessed "sensitive" information of possible value to the Russians, both were befriended by Marina Prusakova, and both returned to the United States in the spring of 1962.

Do not forget Chicago 

[Jim Hargrove]

9 hours ago, Paz Marverde said:

Do not forget Chicago 

Paz....

A lot of stories came out of Chicago in the late 1960s and 70s.  Sherman Skolnick really took on the Dorothy Hunt story.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Jim Hargrove

[Jim Hargrove]

Since the evidence is so strong that "Lee Harvey Oswald" was a CIA employee, we have to ask why top Agency officials such as Dulles, Helms, Angleton, Phillips, and Hunt would chose one of their own as the designated patsy for the assassination.  My bet is the following all played a role in the selection:

1. With his trip to Russia, staged FPCC activities, and commie-loving history going all the way back to the Marine Corps, it was easy to paint the Russian-speaking Oswald as a commie with ties to Castro, which is exactly what happened.  LBJ had to intervene to prevent a possible war with Cuba and maybe even the Soviets.

2. Oswald’s ties to both the FBI and the CIA made G-men, especially J. Edgar Hoover, all too happy to enter full scale cover-up mode.

3. Russian-speaking Lee HARVEY Oswald had demonstrated that he would follow even difficult orders, critical in the days and hours before and immediately after the assassination. (He absolutely had to be in the right places at the right times to become a successful patsy.  And a patsy was absolutely critical for the plot to succeed.  Without one, the search for the plotters would have been relentless.)

4.  The “Harvey and Lee” project (John Armstrong suspects it was controlled by David Atlee Phillips) made it simple to send around a fellow who looked like Russian-speaking Oswald in the weeks prior to the hit to set him up as the assassin-to-be.  For example….

• The Sports Drome Rifle Range on Oct. 26, Nov. 9, Nov. 10, and again on Nov. 17, several times creating a scene and once shooting at another guy's target;
• Morgan's Gun Shop in Fort Worth on Nov 2.
• The Downtown Lincoln Mercury dealership also on Nov. 2 where he test drove a car at wrecklessly high speeds saying he would soon come into enough money to buy a new car.
• The Irving Furniture Mart On Nov. 6 or 7 for a gun part where he was referred to the shop where Dial Ryder worked.
• The Southland Hotel parking garage (Allright Parking Systems) on Nov. 15 to apply for a job and oh-so-subtly ask how high the Southland Building was and if it had a good view of downtown Dallas.
• Hitchhiking on Nov. 20 on the R.L. Thornton Expressway while carrying a 4-foot long package wrapped in brown paper and introducing himself to Ralph Yates as “Lee Harvey Oswald.” He discussed the President's visit, wondered if you could shoot a president, and asked to be dropped across the street from the Texas School Book Depository (where Russian-speaking “Lee Harvey Oswald” was already at work).

The 1973 motion picture “Executive Action” with Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan does a great job showing how an “Oswald” look-alike traveled around Dallas in the weeks before the assassination doing many of the things listed above. 

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Since the evidence is so strong that "Lee Harvey Oswald" was a CIA employee, we have to ask why top Agency officials such as Dulles, Helms, Angleton, Phillips, and Hunt would chose one of their own as the designated patsy for the assassination.  My bet is the following all played a role in the selection:

1. With his trip to Russia, staged FPCC activities, and commie-loving history going all the way back to the Marine Corps, it was easy to paint the Russian-speaking Oswald as a commie with ties to Castro, which is exactly what happened.  LBJ had to intervene to prevent a possible war with Cuba and maybe even the Soviets.

2. Oswald’s ties to both the FBI and the CIA made G-men, especially J. Edgar Hoover, all too happy to enter full scale cover-up mode.

3. Russian-speaking Lee HARVEY Oswald had demonstrated that he would follow even difficult orders, critical in the days and hours before and immediately after the assassination. (He absolutely had to be in the right places at the right times to become a successful patsy.  And a patsy was absolutely critical for the plot to succeed.  Without one, the search for the plotters would have been relentless.)

4.  The “Harvey and Lee” project (John Armstrong suspects it was controlled by David Atlee Phillips) made it simple to send around a fellow who looked like Russian-speaking Oswald in the weeks prior to the hit to set him up as the assassin-to-be.  For example….

• The Sports Drome Rifle Range on Oct. 26, Nov. 9, Nov. 10, and again on Nov. 17, several times creating a scene and once shooting at another guy's target;
• Morgan's Gun Shop in Fort Worth on Nov 2.
• The Downtown Lincoln Mercury dealership also on Nov. 2 where he test drove a car at wrecklessly high speeds saying he would soon come into enough money to buy a new car.
• The Irving Furniture Mart On Nov. 6 or 7 for a gun part where he was referred to the shop where Dial Ryder worked.
• The Southland Hotel parking garage (Allright Parking Systems) on Nov. 15 to apply for a job and oh-so-subtly ask how high the Southland Building was and if it had a good view of downtown Dallas.
• Hitchhiking on Nov. 20 on the R.L. Thornton Expressway while carrying a 4-foot long package wrapped in brown paper and introducing himself to Ralph Yates as “Lee Harvey Oswald.” He discussed the President's visit, wondered if you could shoot a president, and asked to be dropped across the street from the Texas School Book Depository (where Russian-speaking “Lee Harvey Oswald” was already at work).

The 1973 motion picture “Executive Action” with Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan does a great job showing how an “Oswald” look-alike traveled around Dallas in the weeks before the assassination doing many of the things listed above. 

 

 

That's a nice summary, Jim. Thanks.