What is known about Oswald's time in England?

[Mervyn Hagger]

4 hours ago, Mark Knight said:

Perhaps Oswald actually had plans on going to Albert Schweitzer College when he left Texas.

Mark, you provided a college with a name.

How do you know that this was the college in question?

Mervyn

[Jason Ward]

13 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

On the other hand, Oswald arrived in England on his way to Helsinki from Galveston, Texas.

Hi Mervyn,

I believe the evidence indicates Oswald boarded the SS Marion Lykes in New Orleans.  See documents below.

13 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

hy not find a more direct route from the USA to Finland?

There is testimony from Oswald's travel agent that had he known Helsinki was Oswald's true destination, the travel agent would have booked an easier route.   I'll post below the relevant document if I can find it quickly.    

1. Is it useful to adopt a working hypothesis that the evidence shows Oswald did not plan on going to Helsinki?

The evidence points to this assumption IMO.   If Oswald DID plan on going to Helsinki, this implies a higher level of planning and indeed a certain amount of deception as this means Oswald lied to several people both official and unofficial.   If Helsinki were part of his plan, even if it were part of a planned defection, why would Oswald hide it?   If Helsinki was the plan, why the circuitous route through New Orleans, France, and the UK?

2. I think I might adopt a working hypothesis that the evidence shows Oswald's sudden London to Helsinki move is something that occurs to him or is told to him only at or after getting on the Marion Lykes.   Maybe he decides on Helsinki or is told during his transatlantic voyage about Helsinki.  Maybe it's in New Orleans before embarking that Oswald becomes destined for Helsinki.  Maybe he decides or is told about Helsinki in France, maybe he decides or is told after he gets off the [second] ship in Southampton...It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

There's no evidence Oswald bought a ticket from London to Helsinki at any time, which is one big problem here.   

13 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Oswald really did think that he was going to school in Switzerland!

I think it is reasonable to hold open the possibility that Oswald really thinks he's going to go to Switzerland for school.

Or, like many teenagers, Oswald believes what he apparently told his similarly-motivated cabinmate 18 y.o. Billy Lord on the SS Marion Lykes, such as [me paraphrasing]: "I'll wander around Europe for awhile, see the sights, maybe go to school in Switzerland, maybe find another school somewhere else, whatever strikes my fancy.  America is so boring and the Europeans have a different way of life..."   See Billy Lord's testimony a few posts up.

13 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

he life and times of the real James Bond?

Don't you think someone -anyone- approaching Oswald and offering him a pathway to the James Bond mystique might have almost unbelievable influence over him?    

7 hours ago, Robert Harper said:

My profile does not say I am Dutch

Apologies.

I made an assumption based on the evidence but my assumption was wrong!   BTW, I didn't mean you traveling from yesterday's war-torn Rotterdam was easy and routine, I mean Holland of today sans border checkpoints.

5 hours ago, Mark Knight said:

He possibly believed he was going on an adventure, and perhaps he thought at first that attending college was going to part of it

I agree 100% with this possibility.   

He didn't think he was going on some boring job or a sedate, relaxing vacation.   

Like many 19 year olds, I say Oswald imagined this liberating departure from America was either:

a. the time of his grand adventure, untethered to the usual obligations that keep the rest of us in humdrum daily life   ....or....   

b. some kind of beginning to the rest of his life in terms of occupation, while also including aspects of (a), his grand adventure.

5 hours ago, Mark Knight said:

Did he meet General Walker during that time? Jim Root thinks it's possible

I am fascinated by Jim Root's work in this area.   

Connecting Oswald to Walker in the 1950s is a monumental step in the archaeology of available evidence, if it can be done.   

4 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

1. Forget everything you know about Lee Harvey Oswald and events on and after November 22, 1963.

Ok.  

4 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Did he go by Greyhound or Trailways bus (with many stops), or did he go by rail? I don't know. Does anyone else know the answer?

I'll look into it.   

Travel between New Orleans and DFW is not an unfamiliar journey for Oswald.   I would assume bus is the cheapest and most available option, but I will post any evidence about this I find.   I don't think rail was do-able without odd connections in Houston or elsewhere as the system was rigidly north/south and east/west and rudimentary even then (but then again Oswald connects in Le Havre for London...)

4 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

5. Lee Harvey Oswald then spent more money to board a liner to cross the English Channel and land at Southampton, England where he told Immigration that he would stay a week and then go to Switzerland to attend college

There is a little evidence Oswald had travel money saved up from his time in the Marines.  See document I post below.  Money is always a big issue with Oswald.  He is always broke.  

4 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

. If Lee Harvey Oswald was TOLD to take this journey via France to England instead of getting a ship bound for England, who told him to do this in Galveston? If he was going to England, why didn't he get a ship bound for England?

 Yes - important questions, except replace New Orleans (or DFW?) for Galveston.

 

1. Oswald is in New Orleans at the Liberty Hotel before boarding the SS Marion Lykes for Le Havre - according to Oswald on his Lykes Brothers passenger information card.   Why doesn't he stay with his aunt and uncle in New Orleans?   Why would he go to New Orleans to get to Helsinki anyway???  

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. The FBI summary report of Oswald's voyage from Texas to the USSR via New Orleans, Le Havre, Southampton, London, and Helsinki (that we know of.....?)

 

3. Oswald's life aboard the SS Marion Lykes:

4. Oswald's travel agent says he would have put Oswald on an easier route to Helsinki if Helsinki was indicated as Oswald's destination:

 

 

5. Oswald's savings from the Marines?

6. Swedish Newspaper account has Oswald in Stockholm

 

 

SOURCES:

1 - CE 1948 - Lykes Brothers Passenger Questionnaire

2 - FBI Summary Report, Warren Commission Document 1, p 49

3 - Testimony of George Church Jr before the Warren Commission.  Vol 11, p 116

4 -HSCA CIA collection, NARA 180-10147-10163

5 - HSCA Russ Holmes Work File, NARA 104-10423-10061

6 - HSCA Russ Holmes Work File, NARA 104-10408-10434

 

Edited May 6, 2018 by Jason Ward

[Mark Knight]

1 hour ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Mark, you provided a college with a name.

How do you know that this was the college in question?

Mervyn

1) Warren Commission Exhibit CE-228 is Oswald's application to attend Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland.

2). Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland accepted Oswald as a student.

3) Oswald told some people he was going to attend college in Switzerland.

4) To date, some 58+ years since Oswald's application to, and acceptance by, Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland, no other application to any other colleges in Switzerland by Oswald has been discovered.

This is not 100% certain, bulletproof PROOF that Oswald was talking about Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland when he spoke of attending college in Switzerland. But I find it to be a DAMN good indication that the odds are favorable that Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland was the institution of higher learning to which he referred.

You may accept or refuse to accept that my conclusion is correct as you choose.

[Michael Clark]

Did I not read that an Albert Schweitzer college, in Switzerland, never existed?

[Mark Knight]

50 minutes ago, Michael Clark said:

Did I not read that an Albert Schweitzer college, in Switzerland, never existed?

They did and do exist..and have a Facebook page:Albert Schweitzer College

Or perhaps it truly no longer exists: Albert Schweitzer College

[Paul Brancato]

9 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Mark, you provided a college with a name.

How do you know that this was the college in question?

Mervyn

Mervyn - do me the courtesy of addressing the fact that you were confusing this Paul with another one. You were very insulting to me for no reason.

[Mervyn Hagger]

59 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Mervyn - do me the courtesy of addressing the fact that you were confusing this Paul with another one.

Paul, I agree that you and Paul Trejo are not one and the same person.

Before commencing this thread I was attempting to participate on another thread about Major General Walker and Lee Harvey Oswald by drawing attention to Walker's one and half page broadsheet article in the Arizona Republic in which he blamed Eugene Bernald for his downfall. Walker also tied Bernald to Radio Swan and Radio Elizabethville in Katanga (Congo) as being CIA 'fronts'. That in turn tied in to my interest for being a member of the JFK Forum. Unfortunately for me, the other Paul made comments to the effect that he wished I would shut up. A supporter of his then told me that no one was interested in my comments. The other Paul also stated that he would ignore what I had to say in future.

My interest is in academic research concerning a different kind of thread which has entangled itself with the JFK assassination. That is why I am here. I figure that people on this Forum know a lot more than I do. Up until recently I was not interested in this subject, even though I lived next door to the grave of LHO and having driven my car an innumerable number of times during the course of ordinary life, over the spot where JFK was shot.

Unfortunately the body of the material that I am researching upsets the established thinking of a lot of individuals and institutions (including BBC), who have previously imbibed rubbish and spewed it forth as fact. Therefore when I point out that they are drowning in lies and are victims of "gaslighting", they do not react in a favorable manner. On this thread, which I began to escape the other one that had been started by the "other Paul", I wanted to get down to the business of learning that which I did not know. In this regard Jason Ward has been extremely helpful.

Then someone decided to both admonish and warn me that I should not associate myself with the likes of the "ilk" of Jason Ward. When you began asking me a question about a person I have never heard of, while repeatedly misspelling the name of Gordon McLendon who I had correctly named, it was obvious to me that you were not reading what I was writing, but reacting to it nevertheless. It took someone else to eventually point out to you what was going on.

With Jason I am so appreciative of his open-minded approach and sharing of information that might be scattered elsewhere in many other places, because it enables my own learning process to proceed. Therefore, while I have no deliberate intentional reason to cause you offence, and by having previously ignored you I was not trying to offend but to avoid the kind of tit-for-tat nonsense that I find time-wasting and silly, I do apologise for having incorrectly assumed that a "Paul" (singular) was following me from the previous thread to this one.

Anything you can enlighten me with regarding Gordon McLendon, General Walker, and LHO will be most welcome by me.

I hope this explanation clears the air and that we can begin anew.

Mervyn

 

 

 

[Mervyn Hagger]

9 hours ago, Mark Knight said:

1) Warren Commission Exhibit CE-228 is Oswald's application to attend Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland.

2). Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland accepted Oswald as a student.

3) Oswald told some people he was going to attend college in Switzerland.

4) To date, some 58+ years since Oswald's application to, and acceptance by, Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland, no other application to any other colleges in Switzerland by Oswald has been discovered.

This is not 100% certain, bulletproof PROOF that Oswald was talking about Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland when he spoke of attending college in Switzerland. But I find it to be a DAMN good indication that the odds are favorable that Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland was the institution of higher learning to which he referred.

You may accept or refuse to accept that my conclusion is correct as you choose.

Mark - Thanks for that information and its originating source. I agree that this seems to establish as a fact that LHO either intended to go to Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland, or that he had this destination ready as a cover, to answer any queries about where he was going. This leads to another question: Why Albert Schweitzer College? Is there evidence to show that LHO had been reading about this college, and that it supported his own ideological views at that time? - Mervyn

[Mervyn Hagger]

12 hours ago, Jason Ward said:

Hi Mervyn,

I believe the evidence indicates Oswald boarded the SS Marion Lykes in New Orleans.  See documents below.

There is testimony from Oswald's travel agent that had he known Helsinki was Oswald's true destination, the travel agent would have booked an easier route.   I'll post below the relevant document if I can find it quickly.    

1. Is it useful to adopt a working hypothesis that the evidence shows Oswald did not plan on going to Helsinki?

The evidence points to this assumption IMO.   If Oswald DID plan on going to Helsinki, this implies a higher level of planning and indeed a certain amount of deception as this means Oswald lied to several people both official and unofficial.   If Helsinki were part of his plan, even if it were part of a planned defection, why would Oswald hide it?   If Helsinki was the plan, why the circuitous route through New Orleans, France, and the UK? 

 

 

Jason, wow! Thanks very much for all of this.

Having no real prior knowledge about LHO before coming to this JFK Forum, I must have picked up from somewhere the idea that LHO visited his mother and travelled to Galveston in order to board the steam ship Marion Lykes. It may be (I would have to go and look it up), that the SS Marion Lykes itself originally left Galveston and then docked in New Orleans. Is that correct?

Has anyone created a true timeline of LHO in a brief 1-2-3- sort of working format?

Your information is tremendous but I have to distil it to use as a working framework for text because I would have asked why did LHO go from DFW to New Orleans to board this ship, if you had not provided the answer within other text. Today, with freeways it takes over 5 hours to go over 300 miles from Fort Worth to Galveston, but over 9 hours to go over 500 miles to New Orleans.

 

This is where a 1-2-3- single line timeline would be very helpful, because obviously the name of the import-export firm is known, and so is the actual time period that he worked at that firm before joining the Marines.

I also note that he travelled to Fort Worth to see his mother, and then he spent three days in Fort Worth before going to New Orleans. Having a time line with place names slotted in would be very helpful.

Now this next bit I find very interesting indeed, because it directly collides with the research I am undertaking concerning the origins and brief history of the Texas offshore radio station called 'Radio Nord' which was on board a ship anchored in the Baltic Sea.

The text above sounds just like the account given in Charles W. (Bill) Weaver's book about Radio Nord and the assassination of JFK. The history of that station overlaps the history of LHO. Both begin in 1959, and both end in 1962.

Weaver explained how in 1962 he got a phone call from McLendon's father Bart, to immediately go to Washington DC where a lawyer would whisk him through to get an instant US Passport so that he could board a flight for Stockholm where he would meet Bart who then gave him his further instructions. I can tell you that Weaver did get such a US Passport and that the information for this comes from UK government sources in 1962, because they had Weaver under surveillance when he later flew into Heathrow and checked into the Mayfair Hotel in London. Stockholm was the center of the McLendon and Murchison activity for 'Radio Nord'.

Weaver ties McLendon to the assassination of JFK, and he also identifies 'Radio Nord' as a CIA operation.

In his book, Weaver claims that the 'Radio Nord' ship was being used as a CIA listening station, but a Marconi/BBC transmitter engineer who worked on that ship at a later stage off England, and who is one of my advisors, told me that the listening idea is silly because the huge AM transmissions from that ship would destroy any chance of hearing anything. Another colleague who currently runs a licensed British commercial radio station and who was also on board that ship, agrees that Weaver's listening post idea is impossible. However, my Marconi/BBC friend (quite senior in years), who has worked for the British Foreign Office counter-broadcasting operation during the Rhodesian independence claims by Prime Minister Smith, has suggested another possibility, and this is based upon his personal knowledge of and study of British WWII covert-broadcasting during WWII. It has become standard practice on the 'pop pirates' due to experience from government covert broadcasting operations, to use recorded music as coded messages.

It is therefore possible and maybe highly probable that 'Radio Nord' was designed to transmit covert messages behind the Iron Curtain - during the Oswald period. While the broadcast pattern was shown to cover Scandinavia, its 360 degree radiation pattern spread across the Baltic Sea and both into and beyond the Baltic States. This could mean that whoever sent LHO to Russia had a means of staying in contact with him.

It is interesting to note that LHO left the USSR after June 1, 1962, and 'Radio Nord' which was announced by Gordon McLendon from Stockholm in 1959, finally got on the air on March 8, 1961, and was terminated on June 30, 1962. As a commercial venture it made no sense whatsoever! McLendon had previously been working in the Republic of Ireland trying to establish a broadcasting station, and he was working alongside a man who had a lot to do with the creation of the CIA asset in Tangier as was "Monte Carlo" and "Europe 1", and all three were serviced by Eugene Bernald!

The latter part of this next clip is very interesting:

After reading this I am very puzzled indeed, because if ever there was a comment that shouted for attention, it is this one. So the person who offered this background information is not only obscure after a US Government search, but the entire Helsinki trip is a mystery to the US Government?

Then there is this: "There's no evidence Oswald bought a ticket from London to Helsinki at any time ....."

However, LHO did get a stamp in his US Passport showing that he left the UK via "London Airport" - which is Heathrow.

Now I don't want to jump on any conspiracy bandwagons here, but his US Passport was found among his possessions after his death. That goes to chain of custody. It would have been so easy to have inserted that stamp after the fact, and I am sure it was not beyond the capability of US backroom boys and girls to have removed any other stamp and to have inserted this one. Because this stamp later left US Government researchers puzzled. The timeline did not match and that led to speculation that perhaps it was not Heathrow but Gatwick, even though a Heathrow stamp had been used. Not only that, but it also led to speculation that perhaps his destination was Copenhagen or Stockholm, and now there is a suggestion that he did not get a visa for the USSR from Helsinki, but from Stockholm?

This is why I just don't get the tunnel vision of some who exclude the words of Major General Edwin Walker where he points to his downfall in a chain that goes from the 'Overseas Weekly' newspaper to Eugene Bernald who was working for or with CIA over a long period of time, and who had specific attachment to the Bay of Pigs station called 'Radio Swan'. Walker didn't mince words. In 1961 he devoured a page and a half of a broadsheet in the Arizona Republic to spell out his accusation.

Then we leap forward from 1961 to 1963 where LHO was accused of shooting at Walker through the window of the Dallas house where he resided.

This is all so convenient.

But the official version of the JFK Assassination ignores a true investigation into the trip to England by LHO in 1959, followed by the 1961 article by Walker, while also ignoring the huge attraction to Stockholm by a bunch of Texans surrounding McLendon. I do mean a bunch of them from engineers to promotion people. Not only that, but the man who did the antenna rigging on 'Radio Nord', was a famed US antenna expert who had supervised the antenna work on the US Coast Guard Cutter 'Courier', which in 1952 was identified in a public speech by President Truman as carrying the US 'Cargo of Truth' with its huge onboard AM and shortwave broadcasting power designed to outsmart USSR jamming!

Then of course there is the clandestine work of Robert F. Kennedy and his work with 'Operation Mongoose' which used one ship that later became a Texas operation twin 50kW station called 'Swinging Radio England', and another 50kW station called 'Britain Radio'.

However, Bobby Kennedy's first choice was to call to Galveston the ship that had been the home of 'Radio Nord'.

Yes, it is all one big coincidence. Nothing to see here. (LOL).

 

Edited May 7, 2018 by Mervyn Hagger

[Jason Ward]

13 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Then someone decided to both admonish and warn me that I should not associate myself with the likes of the "ilk" of Jason Ward.

Indeed?

 

11 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Has anyone created a true timeline of LHO in a brief 1-2-3- sort of working format?

Indeed.

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Featured_Mary_Ferrell_Chronologies.html?search=chronologies

Mary Ferrell's work is a masterpiece resource!   The entire Mary Ferrell Foundation website is a goldmine of information.

 

11 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

The history of that station overlaps the history of LHO. Both begin in 1959, and both end in 1962.

I am neutral as to whether there is a true correlation here, but I'm happy to help independent research free of foregone conclusions.    We've had the same dogma for 50+ years in this area.  Fresh voices and fresh approaches are much needed.

 

11 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Then there is this: "There's no evidence Oswald bought a ticket from London to Helsinki at any time ....."

However, LHO did get a stamp in his US Passport showing that he left the UK via "London Airport" - which is Heathrow.

Now I don't want to jump on any conspiracy bandwagons here, but his US Passport was found among his possessions after his death. That goes to chain of custody. It would have been so easy to have inserted that stamp after the fac

Since you focus on this comment I make above in a post, may I expand on this thought?

AFAIK, there is no documented evidence of a plane (or other) ticket purchased by Oswald that would get him between London and Helsinki.   However, we have substantial evidence that Oswald:

A. Arrived in the UK at Southampton on 09OCT59

B. Departed the UK from Heathrow Airport, then known as London Airport, on 10OCT59

C. Checked in to Helsinki's Hotel Torni on 10OCT59

..which when taken together as weighted evidence, tends to argue against the possibility that passport stamps were faked, in my view.   

There is in fact no reason to fake and document Oswald's movements IMO - 4 years after these European travels when Oswald's passport was seized in the assassination investigation.  They could have simply never found his passport, which would have been arguably more convenient for conspirators.  The London-Helsinki question is raised by Oswald's passport; this question is inconvenient to those who advocate Oswald is a Lone Nut in all his endeavors, with no higher ups programming his moves.  I suggest inconvenient evidence is not faked.

Ian Griggs penned this interesting article about Oswald's hotels in Helsinki:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=4270#relPageId=10

11 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Then we leap forward from 1961 to 1963 where LHO was accused of shooting at Walker through the window of the Dallas house where he resided

Perhaps we can find a little more in Oswald's life between '61 and '63 such that "leap forward" is instead filled with more interesting details?

 

1. CIA internal cable describing Oswald's arrival at around midnight in Helsinki at the Hotel Torni with some indications as to Oswald's possible mode of arrival

 

SOURCE

1 CIA Oswald 201 file, Vol 43

 

Edited May 7, 2018 by Jason Ward

[Mervyn Hagger]

10 hours ago, Jason Ward said:

21 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Has anyone created a true timeline of LHO in a brief 1-2-3- sort of working format?

Indeed.

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Featured_Mary_Ferrell_Chronologies.html?search=chronologies

Mary Ferrell's work is a masterpiece resource!   The entire Mary Ferrell Foundation website is a goldmine of information.

Thanks Jason. I did join the Mary Ferrell site some time ago looking for CIA documents relating to the mv Olga Patricia for which a maritime mortgage was held by the bank in Miami occupied by Manuel Artime Buesa (BAM). The vessel was obtained from a USAF dock in Miami after it had been used as part of Operation Mongoose. It later cropped up in 1966 off the UK as home of two 50kW offshore radio stations whose financial management was under the control of US Senator John Tower's manager and personal pilot. This is one reason why Tower should have recused himself from the Church-Tower hearings into CIA operations.

[Mervyn Hagger]

10 hours ago, Jason Ward said:

21 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Then there is this: "There's no evidence Oswald bought a ticket from London to Helsinki at any time ....."

However, LHO did get a stamp in his US Passport showing that he left the UK via "London Airport" - which is Heathrow.

Now I don't want to jump on any conspiracy bandwagons here, but his US Passport was found among his possessions after his death. That goes to chain of custody. It would have been so easy to have inserted that stamp after the fac

Since you focus on this comment I make above in a post, may I expand on this thought?

AFAIK, there is no documented evidence of a plane (or other) ticket purchased by Oswald that would get him between London and Helsinki.   However, we have substantial evidence that Oswald:

A. Arrived in the UK at Southampton on 09OCT59

B. Departed the UK from Heathrow Airport, then known as London Airport, on 10OCT59

C. Checked in to Helsinki's Hotel Torni on 10OCT59

..which when taken together as weighted evidence, tends to argue against the possibility that passport stamps were faked, in my view.   

There is in fact no reason to fake and document Oswald's movements IMO - 4 years after these European travels when Oswald's passport was seized in the assassination investigation.  They could have simply never found his passport, which would have been arguably more convenient for conspirators.  The London-Helsinki question is raised by Oswald's passport; this question is inconvenient to those who advocate Oswald is a Lone Nut in all his endeavors, with no higher ups programming his moves.  I suggest inconvenient evidence is not faked.

Ian Griggs penned this interesting article about Oswald's hotels in Helsinki:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=4270#relPageId=10

Thanks for the article link, which I have pulled up ready to read.

Regarding my question about the timeline from London to Helsinki (on this issue I have no questions relating to his arrival in Southampton), my raised eyebrows came from the Swedish newspaper clipping you referenced that seems to suggest that Oswald did not fly from London to Helsinki, but from London to Stockholm. It that is true, it would put him into potential contact with Texans who were in Stockholm at the beginning of a venture called 'Radio Nord'.

Then, if (lots of 'ifs'), the voyage from France to Southampton (when his destination had been Switzerland), LHO would have been going in the 'wrong' direction.

So this leads me to ask whether in France LHO got new instructions to go to England. Of course if that is true it does suggest some sort of conspiracy to do something. Then, in England he must have been given new instructions - but by whom and to do what?

Was LHO being groomed as a CIA 'sleeper' for an as yet unnamed project, and possibly one that did not yet exist. The KGB did a lot of that kind of work with spies educated at Cambridge University in England.

Instead of accepting anything as a 'given' at this stage, I think that everything should be prodded to see if it holds up under scrutiny.

[Mervyn Hagger]

10 hours ago, Jason Ward said:

22 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

The history of that station overlaps the history of LHO. Both begin in 1959, and both end in 1962.

I am neutral as to whether there is a true correlation here, but I'm happy to help independent research free of foregone conclusions.    We've had the same dogma for 50+ years in this area.  Fresh voices and fresh approaches are much needed.

Thanks Jason. The 'anoraks' who believe in the history of 'Radio Caroline' as stated, take the same approach as the "Lone Nut" believers. But what led me here to the subject of JFK was being able to totally debunk the idea that 'Radio Caroline' was named after Caroline Kennedy (JFK's daughter.) That hoax was created in 1965, one year after 'Radio Caroline' came on the air, and that hoax was not only created in New York City with ties to Morris Levy who had his own Mafia connections, but it involved getting JFK's brother Robert into making a broadcast in 1965 for 'Radio Caroline' about Irish Independence. Since the oppressors of Ireland have always been the British, getting RFK to make this speech and direct it personally at Prime Minister Harold Wilson (!!!), was a really big achievement. The story was covered in the US press but not in the British press, and yes, I have a recorded copy of the speech made by RFK which was introduced by Robin Leach for 'Radio Caroline'. (Leach was the English guy who hosted that TV series called 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous'.) However, the more I unravel the story of the 'Swinging Sixties', the more I get snagged with the story of JFK and his brother, and since both were popped-off by bullets, their lives are also self-contained units within time that happen to overlay the story of so-called 'pop pirate' offshore broadcasting. Both involve the Mafia, and both involve CIA, and both involve Dallas, Texas, and both fit within the same time frame.

[Mervyn Hagger]

12 hours ago, Jason Ward said:

23 hours ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Then we leap forward from 1961 to 1963 where LHO was accused of shooting at Walker through the window of the Dallas house where he resided

Perhaps we can find a little more in Oswald's life between '61 and '63 such that "leap forward" is instead filled with more interesting details?

 

1. CIA internal cable describing Oswald's arrival at around midnight in Helsinki at the Hotel Torni with some indications as to Oswald's possible mode of arrival

 

SOURCE

1 CIA Oswald 201 file, Vol 43

Interesting indeed. Turku in Finland is known and referred to as Abo in Sweden. In fact, there is an academic institution located at Abo/Turku that is devoted to Swedish studies. It is also in Abo/Turku where 'Radio Nord' was outfitted with an antenna by the same man who rigged the US Coast Guard Cutter Courier with its antennas for broadcasting Harry Truman's "Cargo of Truth". https://www.webcitation.org/5qEcH1yCd

So does this document suggest that LHO flew from London to Stockholm (as the Swedish newspaper article suggests), and then took a boat from Stockholm to Abu/Turku, and then caught a bus for Helsinki?

This is one very, very complicated journey for someone with little money who is going to college in Switzerland (LOL).

Edited May 8, 2018 by Mervyn Hagger

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Mervyn - You write that "I have been assured that the 'London Airport' triangular stamp refers specifically to Heathrow Airport." What is the evidence for that? I'm not doubting you, by the way. I think it's likely that the stamp was unique to Heathrow and not shared by Gatwick. If we can definitively rule out Gatwick as Oswald's point of departure for Helsinki, we will finally have acquired one solid fact about his time in England.

There doesn't seem to be a single piece of evidence about what Oswald did between passing through immigration at Southampton on 9 October 1959 and arriving in Helsinki the following day. We don't know how he travelled to Heathrow, if that's where he went. We don't know where he spent the night: in Southampton or in London? Unless he took an early flight the next day, my guess would be Southampton, since he probably got ashore at around 8 or 9 in the evening and then had to spend some time dealing with customs and immigration, and because the train journey to London takes close to three hours these days and presumably wouldn't have been any quicker in 1959. We don't know which flight or flights he took to Helsinki, or where or when he bought his ticket, although it's a reasonable assumption that he bought the ticket at whichever airport he flew from. So if we can establish that Oswald definitely flew from Heathrow, that would at least give us something.

On the subject of Oswald's ticket to Helsinki, the Warren Report claims in its summary of Oswald's finances that the ticket cost precisely $111.90:

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Oswald could certainly have made the entire trip on less than $1,000. The ticket on the ship he took from New Orleans to Le Havre, France, cost $220.75; it cost him about $20 to reach London from Le Havre: his plane fare from London to Helsinki, where he received his visa, cost him $111.90; he probably purchased Russian "tourist Vouchers" normally good for room and board for 10 days for $300; his train fare from Helsinki to Moscow was about $44; in Moscow he paid only $1.50 to $3 a night for his room and very little for his meals after his tourist vouchers ran out.
(WR, p.257: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=946#relPageId=281 )

The Report cites evidence for most of its claims about Oswald's finances, but not for the claim that the ticket to Helsinki cost $111.90. Does anyone know where this information came from? Incidentally, it's noteworthy that in its desire to demonstrate the affordability of the trip, the Report fails to mention that the perennially budget-conscious Oswald's stay in Helsinki involved five nights at two top-of-the-range hotels, and that Oswald purchased the most expensive class of ticket available for his train journey from Helsinki (Anthony Summers, Not in Your Lifetime, p.136, citing an interview with Rimma Shirokova).

Incidentally, Summers speculates on p.136 that the purpose of a detour to Stockholm might have been for Oswald to visit the Soviet Embassy there and to convince the Soviets that he was sympathetic to their cause. The Soviet Consul in Helsinki, Grigori Golub, was authorised by Moscow to give visas "in a matter of minutes" if he thought the applicant was "all right" (HSCA Report, p.212: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=800#relPageId=242 ).

Earlier, I mentioned Chris Mills' article, 'A Flight of Fancy' as it appears at http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/fancy2.txt . The article originally appeared in the Dealey Plaza Echo, July 1996, pp.25-6 ( https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=16233#relPageId=29 ). The two versions contain different conclusions. The McAdams website version concludes as follows:

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In conclusion it would seem that it is more likely than not that Oswald took a commercial flight from London to Helsinki. The real questions to be answered seem to be:
  (a) Why take this route at all?
  (b) How was this trip financed? 
Theories surrounding these questions abound but as yet no hard proof has emerged to answer them.

The Dealey Plaza Echo version, on the other hand, concludes as follows:

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In 1964, the CIA was asked by the Warren Commission to investigate the route taken by Oswald at the time of his defection. They returned with the answer that it was possible that Oswald had taken a connecting flight and that they planned to investigate further. To the best of my knowledge, they did not. This begs [sic] the question: If, with limited resources and a thirty-year time lapse, *I* could find the above information, why could the CIA not? The logical answer is that they did! Not only *must* they have known that the above mentioned routes were possible, unlike me, they also had access to the passenger lists of those flights. It is my belief that Oswald was on one of them and the CIA knew it!

Why then would the CIA deliberately withhold information from those requesting it? Is it possible that any flight list naming Lee Oswald as a passenger could also hald the name(s) of other individuals who could prove an embarrassment to the Agency? (Note LHO trip to Mexico City - CIA agent Gaudet holds the next issued entry visa). Maybe leaving the question unanswered, and having researchers argue over the feasibility of Oswald's supposed route was preferable, and less damaging, than to offer up the passenger list for scrutiny.