Some Tidbits about Mexico City

[Michael Clark]

14 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

So perhaps I will have to revise my guess to "this was an inside joke solely for the benefit of some student who wrote 'Lee Harvey Oswald USSR' and thought it would startle the folks at the Atomic Energy Museum."

As I am wont to-do, I think I smell James McCord Jr. here, and if it was for someone’s benefit, albeit a disturbing benefit, it may have been for JJA..

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Michael Clark said:

As I am wont to-do, I think I smell James McCord Jr. here, and if it was for someone’s benefit, albeit a disturbing benefit, it may have been for JJA..

Having taken a vow not to engage with the H&L minutiae anymore, I was nevertheless willing to dive into the two signature sheets because these are honest-to-God evidence, genuine conundrums that demand an explanation regardless of whether one is a Lone Nutter or a Conspiracy Theorist.

The problem with H&L and the Conspiracy Game in general is that it starts with a theory and then looks for any and all evidence that might conceivably be fitted into that theory.  This is the opposite of how legitimate research works.

Ergo, under this approach the two signature sheets immediately receive a sinister interpretation because they conceivably could have a sinister explanation.  There is no attempt to investigate whether they might have more plausible but non-sinister explanations – as they do.  There is no effort to follow up obvious leads.  This is carefully avoided precisely because it might expose the sinister explanation as clearly wrong or highly implausible.

But on to the larger issue:  As always I ask, “What sense does any sinister explanation – H&L or otherwise – make?”  Precisely why would anyone cause Oswald’s name to be placed on extremely obscure restaurant guest registers and museum visitor registers?  What conceivable purpose would be served by this?  This is the problem with the vast majority of “imposter” sightings – they just make no sense in the context of the very theory that they supposedly support.

If one were going to use imposters to further the Oswald patsy scenario, one would have them saying and doing things that clearly furthered the narrative of Oswald as pro-Castro, Marxist, unstable gun enthusiast.  One would not have imposters popping up in places far from where Oswald was known to be, doing things that Oswald could not do (e.g., drive), acting in a manner contrary to the way Oswald acted and saying things that Oswald would never have said.  One would certainly not have them signing obscure guest registers in Wisconsin or visitor registers in Tennessee.  One would not even allow them to do this because it would unnecessarily place the entire enterprise at risk.

The other thing that imposter enthusiasts simply ignore is how many mistaken identifications plague law enforcement after a high-profile incident (and they don’t get much more high-profile than the JFK assassination).  “It is not uncommon, especially in high-profile hunts for fugitives or missing persons, for dozens or hundreds of sightings to be reported to law enforcement.”  http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50797070/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/ex-cop-dorner-sightings-highlight-problems-eyewitnesses/#.XY-H925Fzv8.  Add in the fact that Oswald was an extremely ordinary-looking young guy and the likelihood of mistaken sightings is multiplied.

There was of course at least one imposter – Oswald himself.  He clearly attempted to “infiltrate” some anti-Castro activities, as he said he was doing and as was a standard technique.

And yet this H&L sort of stuff gets repeated as gospel by people like James Douglas, Jim Di Eugenio and many others who like to posture themselves as more legitimate researchers.  In so doing, they expose that they are not legitimate researchers.  They are simply slightly more sophisticated versions of the H&L crowd.  They uncritically bite at anything that will further a conspiracy spin on the assassination.

This is why their work is never referenced in serious scholarship.  Somewhat to my own surprise, I was unable to discover that John Newman, despite holding academic positions, has ever published any article in any peer-reviewed mainstream journal on any topic.  (He has, however, published Quest for the Kingdom: The Secret Teachings of Jesus in the Light of Yogic Mysticism, a tome that is at odds with 99.999% of biblical scholarship and is so far into the fringe that I have been unable to find even a single review by a Christian scholar, journal or publication.)

I have done serious scholarship.  (Lest you think I am dissembling, I was recently delighted to discover that a law review article I wrote 30 years ago is referenced in one of the standard antitrust treatises.  The article is Payette, Package Discounts: Risks Under the Antitrust Laws Against Tying and Monopolization, 23 Idaho L. Rev. 255 (1986-87).  The treatise is Antitrust Law: Policy and Practice (2008) by C. Paul Rogers III, Stephen Calkins, Mark R. Patterson, William R. Andersen.)

If I had made one howling error or misstatement in any of my scholarly work of the sort that characterizes H&L and that permeates the work of Douglas, Di Eugenio, et al., I would have been a laughingstock within the legal community.

Edited September 28, 2019 by Guest

[Michael Clark]

1 hour ago, Lance Payette said:

And yet this H&L sort of stuff gets repeated as gospel ...

My first encounter with you was when I came away, stunned, after having read the WC side-by-side testimony of Marina and the Furniture Mart lady(ies). I was unaware of the H&L angle at the time. I had not (nor have I since) read H&L, but I soon became aware, independently, through testimony, documentation, period recordings and articles and the obvious photographic evidence, that made it clear that there was an attempt to double Oswald. There is just no question about it. I am glad that someone, John Armstrong, chased the length and breadth of that issue to the ends of the Earth, certainly looking where others saw nothing, finding things that others do not see, and delivering the entire load, the chaff to be separated by each of us, on our own, from the wheat. It is an immensely important work. 

There is no doubt that there was an active, planned, concerted effort to create, maintain, disguise and selectively use two LHO’s and their appearances in the months and possibly years leading up to the Assassination. I firmly believe that the plan to use LHO and his double-identity in the assassination did not long preceed the assassination itself, but, for whatever reason, the dual identity was built; and it was utilized or sacrificed in the assassination plot.

You toss dirt on the bodies of murdered men with your conveyances, Lance, and I do not believe what you claim is your motivation for doing so.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Michael Clark said:

There is no doubt that there was an active, planned, concerted effort to create, maintain, disguise and selectively use two LHO’s and their appearances in the months and possibly years leading up to the Assassination. I firmly believe that the plan to use LHO and his double-identity in the assassination did not long preceed the assassination itself, but, for whatever reason, the dual identity was built; and it was utilized or sacrificed in the assassination plot.

Address in a coherent way how what you believe took place would have made any sense in the context of any conspiracy theory you choose and we might have something to discuss.

The Furniture Ladies' tale falls apart pretty quickly under close scrutiny, but I am done debating these rabbit holes to nowhere.  I will only say (1) Gertrude Hunter; (2) demonstrably not Oswald; (3) makes no sense as an imposter.  But believe what you want to believe.

In what I hope will be my final foray into JFK minutiae, I did reach out to Lance Oswald in what I think was a non-intrusive way.  If he responds one way or the other, I will post whatever he gives me permission to post.

When I attempted to do the same thing with the Postal Museum in relation to the Klein's money order, I at first received encouraging responses and then got absolutely nothing even when I tried to follow up.  I believe the JFK assassination is pretty much Kryptonite to sane people, so good luck with enlisting professors and their students for your database project.

Oh, I toss dirt on the bodies of murdered men, do I?  I refer you to this paragraph of my response to Greg Parker's open letter to me:

I have total disdain for that aspect of the Conspiracy Game whereby every public servant, every garden-variety employee, every housewife and mother is fair game for the most dark, sinister and scurrilous sort of character assassination and defamation, entirely without regard to reality.  It’s the Conspiracy Game at its lowest, and that’s pretty damn low.  These were real people, some of them still living, with distinguished careers, solid reputations and loving families.  But they are all just fodder for the Conspiracy Game.  Tweak the ego of some Conspiracy Game huckster, however, and he squeals like a stuck pig.

Get real, pal.

[James DiEugenio]

Michael:

You are correct on that with no doubts about it.  Its just a matter of how far back it extended.

I really find things like the Lincoln Mercury demonstration, the rifle range appearance, and the two ladies at the furniture mart all utterly fascinating.  And what the Warren Commission did with them was nothing less than negligent.  They were clearly out to dismiss them no matter what the actual circumstances were.  And boy did the FBI and Secret Service do all they could to help.  In the case of the furniture mart,  they did background checks on Hunter and Whitworth until they found someone--if they did-- who said that Mrs. Hunter attempted to insert herself into any big event that comes to her attention.  (Note the term "big event", later to be used by Baker and Hunt. Here you have it in 1964)

Sylvia Meagher does a nice job on the furniture mart and the rifle range.  (See Accessories After the Fact, pp. 368-71)

Then there is the Bolton Ford incident, with the name Oswald on the equipment purchase form in 1961, while LHO is in Russia. (Anthony Summers, Conspiracy, p. 382)

Plus Al Bogard from the Lincoln Mercury dealership who took a spin with a guy named Oswald who said the price on the car he rode was too high  and he might have to go back to Russia where they treat workers more like men. (Harold Weisberg, Whitewash, p. 264) . Again, the Commission said, well that can't be him since he was somewhere else at the time and he did not drive.

The most comprehensive early treatment of the subject was by Richard Popkin in his book The Second Oswald.  I always thought that was a valuable book that was underrated and underutilized. It is hard to get today.  There are several others of these episodes--like the Odio incident-- one could list. Are we to believe all these people were simply wrong? Or did they all have Hunter's disease --wanting to get in on a big event?

The WC ran away from the most logical conclusion, that Oswald was being impersonated-. And that was the last thing they wanted to confront.  I don't even think the HSCA took this issue on.  But to me it is one of the strongest indications of a preplanned, complex conspiracy.

Edited September 29, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[Ron Bulman]

Maybe I'm still not fully convinced of Harvey and Lee back through the 50's into the 40's.  But between Mexico, New Orleans, and Dallas in the months prior to the assassination,  I personally believe there were two Oswald's in the Texas Theater when one of them was arrested and taken out the front door afterwards.

Edited October 2, 2019 by Ron Bulman

[Guest]

Here is a batch of docs on M.C. from Malcolm's archives, I find the second doc on the cameras interesting.

I have just scanned these docs, 73 pages, and they are from the 2003 releases btw. 

[Guest]

On 9/28/2019 at 2:00 PM, Lance Payette said:

In what I hope will be my final foray into JFK minutiae, I did reach out to Lance Oswald in what I think was a non-intrusive way.  If he responds one way or the other, I will post whatever he gives me permission to post.

Two people who know Lance "Lee" Oswald well (ministers, no less) reached out to him on my behalf (forwarding inquiries I had sent), and at this point he has obviously chosen to ignore me.  Can't say that I blame him, since who at age 79+ needs to be drawn into the JFK goofiness?  I was hoping he'd solve the Hubertus, Wisconsin guest register mystery with a simple "Yeah, that was me," but apparently not.  Ho-hum, on it goes.

[Guest]

LHO Mexico trip/sighting.

Thanks to Malcolm Blunt.

[John Butler]

This is a crop from one of the pages from what Bart Kamp posted.  It looks strange to me.  It appears that an earlier page with a different message has been typed over.  Might be some kind of typewriter error, maybe?  What's going on here?  A carbon copying error?

 

[Guest]

It is the page underneath coming through and the result of trying to enhance the actual page which looked very dark and murky.

Nothing suspicious.

Edited November 14, 2019 by Bart Kamp

[John Butler]

Thanks Bart,

My paranoia has doubled, tripled, and multiplied many time since I started dealing with Kennedy matters.  It is sometimes hard to tell the innocent from the sinister.  Recently, I have been looking for innocent explanations rather than jump immediately to the sinister.

Thanks again.  Your reply is appreciated. 

[Guest]

E. Howard Hunt - Mexico City.

Marina Oswald - LHO $ from Mex Trip.

Thanks to Malcolm Blunt, scanned by yours truly.

Edited November 14, 2019 by Bart Kamp

[David Josephs]

FWIW Bart et al....

Lic HERNANDEZ OCHOA who is the source ultimately of many of the Mexico Documents is an FBI asset as confirmed by Hoover...

I believe all those docs are in the WCDs as I remember all the names I just saw....  but I could be mistaken
Thanks again for the work you put into getting these out to us...

DJ

 

 

I write about him in the Mexico series....