Jim Hargrove Posted December 13, 2019 Author Share Posted December 13, 2019 14 hours ago, David Josephs said: 217 E 86th and 325 E 92nd (Pic's apartment) are only blocks from each other with PS155 Yorkville Community School also just blocks away.... (Pic claimed that Lee went to a nearby school but did not like it - he seems to have been off by a street as PS155 is east of 1st on 88th.) David, 217 E. 86th St. and 325 E. 92nd St. certainly are a short walk apart. But for PS155 in Manhattan I’m getting this school: P.S. 155 William Paca. According to Google Maps, it is a mile and a half or so from the other two addresses. That’s a possible walk, I suppose, but it seems pretty far. According to the NYC web page above, PS155 is located at 319 E. 117th St. Are we talking about the same school? Just a few years after the dates we’re looking at here, I walked from 440 Riverside Drive in Manhattan to PS165, which Google Maps indicates is about a half mile walk. It always seemed like a long walk to me, partly because I was constantly re-routing to dodge groups of young people I thought might be gang members. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Josephs Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 44 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said: 217 E. 86th St. and 325 E. 92nd St. certainly are a short walk apart. But for PS155 in Manhattan I’m getting this school: P.S. 155 William Paca. 421 E 88th St, New York, NY 10128 Is PS151. My bad, sorry.... not 155.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Butler Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 (edited) Jim said, "You may be right, John, but I thought of that reference to a German or Spanish accent before making the post above about Grace’s sisters. It may or may not disqualify my theory. The Blair family was living in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin in at least one of the old census reports. And they may have had some sort of connection to Ironwood, Michigan, where John Gardos seems to have been born. People in the north woods of Wisconsin often have a discernible accent, similar to the dialect spoken in the movie Fargo. It can be quite pronounced and might be heard as vaguely German by someone not used to hearing it, such as the Tippits of Connecticut. I don’t know whether Fond du Lac is far enough north for this dialect to be prevalent, but it might be. Ironwood, right on the Wisconsin/Michigan border near Lake Superior, certainly is far enough north. There are other possible explanations for the foreign accent reference, but this one strikes me as the most likely." Now that I know what you are thinking I will go back and add the sisters to the research I intend to do. Sandy did the siblings and found nothing interesting. I'll go back over that ground. Edited December 13, 2019 by John Butler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Butler Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, David Josephs said: 421 E 88th St, New York, NY 10128 Is PS151. My bad, sorry.... not 155.... It is always good to have a visual. And, these addresses can easily confuse one because of google's method of finding places. This one is .05 and not the usual .07 I'm finding. I think google gives one the school nearest a particular address. And, Edited December 13, 2019 by John Butler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Butler Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 (edited) I remember now where this address, 514 East 83 Street, comes from. It is the 1942 address of Grace Gardos. and, Most of the addresses involving these characters are a short walk (for New Yorkers) from 217 East 86th Street, Yorkville. Does this mean that they knew people from all the addresses posted and would be seen in these neighborhoods. I don't know. Edited December 13, 2019 by John Butler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Butler Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 Almost everything in checking on Gardos, schools, and other folks such as the Fuhrmans are somewhere between .04 mile to .07 mile. Here is the distance from the Gardos to the Pics. This is to much of a coincidence to not be interesting. I have no evidence linking the Gardos and the Pics. But, if one reads the WC testimony of John Pic in relation to his wife and his wife's parents, he becomes a suspicious character. I am not the only one thinking this. Others have made comment on the vagueness of his testimony regarding the Fuhrmans. If I could connect Gardos and Pics by something other than location, my favorite suspect for the mysterious caller would be Mary Fuhrman. I don't have a firm handle on why I suspect Mary Fuhrman since I have no direct evidence for it. There is the loosest of connections such as Mary goes south to VA to stay with her daughter Emma when Marguerite and Lee (and which Lee and Marguerite is that) come to NYC to stay with John Pic and Margaret. John Pic monitoring Margaret's testimony is also suspicious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Jolliffe Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 On 12/11/2019 at 10:28 PM, Jim Hargrove said: That’s interesting, John. I’m sure the consensus among researchers is that the Bronx Zoo picture is of Lee Harvey Oswald, or at least one of them, but I value your opinion in these matters. Unfortunately, I’m terrible with faces. The evidence suggests that Harvey Oswald DID spend a lot of time at the Bronx Zoo when he lived just three blocks from it at 825 E. 179th St. In 1953, truant officer Victor Connell apprehended Harvey in the Bronx Zoo and returned him to school. Robert Oswald volunteered while testifying to the WC that he took the picture of his “brother” at the zoo, prompting a reprimand from Jenner to just answer the questions. John Pic said he didn’t recognize the photo of the kid in the Bronx Zoo photo, supposedly his own half-brother. Of course, there should be no reason for Mr. Pic to recognize Harvey; they weren’t related. I’ve thought for two decades that it was Harvey Oswald in the Bronx Zoo photo, but considering how much of the evidence in this case has been compromised, I wouldn’t bet the farm on it, though I'm still inclined to believe it's Harvey. Jim, I agree that it is probably Harvey, but I wonder if the CIA played around with the picture after John Pic testified that he could not recognize his "brother." Could the CIA have substituted an "improved" version of a Harvey photo into the WC exhibits to baffle anyone wondering about Pic's hesitancy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kowalski Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 Heard back from my contact at DPF, he will be able to help us but not now. He will be available in early February. At that time I will ask everyone to tell me what they want reviewed and will pass this request on to him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Butler Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 Well, nothing interesting turned up in a search of records for the John Blair and Mary Blair's family. Fred Blair, on the other hand, was ousted, if I am reading this right, from the Communist Party in Wisconsin. The only other thing of interest for Fred is that his wife was named Naomi. That is the same name as his sister, Naomi. Fred goes underground at about the time of the Red Scare. He may have done that and gone to New York to live at the address mentioned in the Tippit Call. There's no proof of that. It's just speculation. Most of the time he is in Wisconsin. His wife does not make a good candidate for the mysterious caller. I don't believe she would have travelled from Milwaukee to New Haven. Margaret Pic, John Pic's wife, doesn't make a good candidate either. In 1964, I think she was in Texas with John Pic. Because of being ousted from the Communist Party, would Fred turn against them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Josephs Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 The 217 E 86th address for Emil and AMALIA is from 1948/49... At one of the previous links about a congressional inquiry it provided lists a whole group of suspected Communists including Emil and AMALIA My understanding is that Emil leaves the USA (with Grace?) leaving the son John behind with ????? John Pic when LEE and Marge arrive is living at 325 E 92nd St.... It appears LEE and mom are at the Pic's until the move to Sheridan.... Given the FBI's proclivity to "adjust" evidence as it suited them... isn't it more likely the caller said 2nd and 87th, not 77th, since 217 E 86th is virtually literally around the corner?https://www.google.com/maps/dir/2nd+Ave+%26+E+87th+St,+New+York,+NY+10128/217+East+86th+Street,+New+York,+NY/@40.7762664,-73.9499794,508a,35y,307.88h,26.4t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c258bb1a4fff4b:0xdfaef480bfd9a58b!2m2!1d-73.9512744!2d40.7785628!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c258bb6f8d2b77:0x854e1df57e00ef69!2m2!1d-73.9529045!2d40.7786199!3e2?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7778303,-73.9516386,3a,75y,351.57h,99.03t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sz40YkTclmowtmn9_jW39fg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en is the view from 86th and 2nd with 217 to the left and 87th/2nd to the right.... ===== Moving on... A pupil's Personnel and permanent record should simply be ADDED TO, not repeatedly changed over time... The middle copy represents the first NYC public school semester at PS117 2130 Watson (Lutheran School) is not the school's address but the address of a duplex across the street.https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8295333,-73.8523738,3a,75y,176.82h,90.55t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1slWsnXysmqm44aFMc5HjiaQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en YOUTH HOUSE is not mentioned and for some reason we have the completed records on the left and right looking like handwritten copies of each other yet on different forms but for the same child.... the backs of these forms exhibit the same thing CE1384 From my POV - something drastic changes between Sept 52 and May 1953... It's as if LEE has become a completely different person, a complete opposite of the boy in 6th grade in terms of demeanor, size, intelligence, etc.... The record below is a composite of 2 children - there are not 109 + 15 days of possible schooling between March 23 and the end of the semester.... when there are 180-190 days in EACH FULL SEMESTER of school which would have started in January or early February.... So.... "SHE COULD NOT GIVE HER NAME FOR FEAR OF BEING KILLED" suggesting her name was so telling to the relationship between Oswald and Hungarian Communists it would put her in peril but from WHO? FBI? Communists? CIA? FRED BASSETT BLAIR was married to MARY, owner of Mary's bookstore: and was very much alive and well in Milwaukee in 1961. EMIL GARDOS was MARY BLAIR's BROTHER-IN-LAW.... Could the caller have been Fred's wife, MARY BLAIR??? In testimony before a House subcommittee in March 1965, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover listed eight "major communist bookstores operating in the United States at this time." Among them, The Milwaukee Journal reported on May 18, 1965, was Mary's Book Shop, 318 W. Juneau Ave. Mary's was operated by Fred Bassett Blair, the longtime chairman of the Wisconsin Communist Party. Blair's wife, Mary, was the owner of the secondhand book shop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Josephs Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, John Butler said: The only other thing of interest for Fred is that his wife was named Naomi. I beg to differ John... Now, what was Mary's maiden name? Bookstore made FBI chief see 'Red' Chris Foran, Milwaukee Journal SentinelPublished 8:30 a.m. CT Jan. 17, 2017 | Updated 6:55 p.m. CT Jan. 17, 2017 (Photo: Milwaukee Journal) CONNECTTWEETLINKEDINCOMMENTEMAILMORE In 1965, the nation's top cop labeled a tiny Milwaukee bookstore a Red menace, putting both in the headlines — and, a year later, the bookstore's operator in peril. In testimony before a House subcommittee in March 1965, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover listed eight "major communist bookstores operating in the United States at this time." Among them, The Milwaukee Journal reported on May 18, 1965, was Mary's Book Shop, 318 W. Juneau Ave. Mary's was operated by Fred Bassett Blair, the longtime chairman of the Wisconsin Communist Party. Blair's wife, Mary, was the owner of the secondhand book shop. Fred Blair, Hoover testified, also was one of five communist speakers at an anti-Vietnam War protest earlier that year at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. "The major lesson to be learned from all this is that the communists and their supporters in this country are not a weak, insignificant element on the American scene," Hoover testified. "The wave of demonstrations which erupted on a national scale immediately following news of the United States' counterstrike against communist forces in Vietnam demonstrates how unified, organized and powerful an element the communist movement in the United States is today." A photo of the book shop's front window, also published in The Journal May 18, revealed a pretty non-revolutionary selection: the Perry Mason novel "The Case of the Shapely Shadow," by Erle Stanley Gardner; Reader's Digest collections; a book about Harriet Tubman. Fred Bassett Blair, longtime chairman of the Wisconsin Communist Party, ran Mary's Book Shop in downtown Milwaukee. (Photo: Journal Sentinel files) Milwaukee Sentinel reporter William Janz checked out the store himself, only to find the door locked and a sign reading "Back in 15 Minutes." "After waiting for a half-hour … a man approached and said, 'You looking for Fred? He's at Reuter's," Janz wrote, in a story published May 19, 1965. Janz found Blair at Reuter's, a nearby tavern. "Just having a beer," Blair told Janz as they walked back to his store. "Business is dead. If this is one of the major communist bookstores, it must be kind of bad for the minor ones." Janz spent more than an hour at the store, during which only one person came into the store, giving Blair plenty of time to talk. "I bet if I opened a grocery, the FBI would come peeking around the oranges," Blair said. "Hoover would say that Fred Bassett Blair had opened a grocery store and there was communist propaganda under the onions. … "Sure, I carry Marxist literature. It's 10% of my stock. … I count myself a Marxist and a communist, but this is not a communist bookstore in the sense that is owned by the Communist Party." Actually, Blair's political activities had put him in the headlines often over the previous 35 years. When he was jailed in a protest in 1930, rallies were held calling for his release. He ran for statewide office several times, wrote poems (some of which were published in The Journal) — and, in 1951, at the height of the Red Scare, disappeared, along with his wife, for several years. In the mid-1950s, Blair and his wife resurfaced in Milwaukee and opened a bookstore at 1010 W. North Ave. (The Sentinel's headline, on March 14, 1956, read "Commie Bookshop Back in Business.") The store moved several times before ending up on Juneau Ave. A year after Hoover identified Mary's Book Shop as a "major" communist bookstore, a 17-year-old from Brookfield came into the store gunning for Blair. According to a story in The Journal's "Final" page on Nov. 28, 1966, the teenager asked if he was Blair and pulled out a pistol. While Blair ducked under the counter, Ralph Sacks, a book salesman who was at the store, tried to get the gun away from the teenager and was wounded. Blair re-emerged with a small baseball bat and hit his assailant over the head several times before he dropped the gun. Blair told the Sentinel in a story published the next day that he asked the youth who had sent him. " 'Nobody sent me,' Blair quoted the youth. 'It was all my idea. You're a communist. I want to kill a communist.' " The youth was later ruled mentally ill and sent to the state hospital in Winnebago for treatment. Fred Bassett Blair is shown in Mary's Book Shop in Milwaukee in this 1964 photo. (Photo: ALLAN Y. SCOTT / Milwaukee Journal) Blair ended up closing Mary's Book Shop in the summer of 1969 — not because of political harassment, but because freeway projects had taken away most of the neighborhood surrounding the store. In 1977, Blair and his wife won $48,000 from the FBI, after suing the agency for its surveillance activities in the early 1960s. Mary Blair died in 1992; Fred Blair died in 2005, at age 98. Edited December 13, 2019 by David Josephs added photo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Jolliffe Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 26 minutes ago, John Butler said: Well, nothing interesting turned up in a search of records for the John Blair and Mary Blair's family. Fred Blair, on the other hand, was ousted, if I am reading this right, from the Communist Party in Wisconsin. The only other thing of interest for Fred is that his wife was named Naomi. That is the same name as his sister, Naomi. Fred goes underground at about the time of the Red Scare. He may have done that and gone to New York to live at the address mentioned in the Tippit Call. There's no proof of that. It's just speculation. Most of the time he is in Wisconsin. His wife does not make a good candidate for the mysterious caller. I don't believe she would have travelled from Milwaukee to New Haven. Margaret Pic, John Pic's wife, doesn't make a good candidate either. In 1964, I think she was in Texas with John Pic. Because of being ousted from the Communist Party, would Fred turn against them. John, I don't think we can conclude from the above cryptic phrase "Busted from Communist Party in Wisconsin for ineffective leadership on Negro rights." that Fred Basset Blair was not a genuine communist. I believe he really was a communist - after all, he and his wife successfully sued the FBI (winning $48,000) for surveillance and harassment in the early 1960's. Good work finding that card, but it certainly appears to me that Blair and his wife were the real deal. He was almost shot to death in November of 1966 by a 17 year old who "wanted to kill a communist." J. Edgar Hoover had specifically named Mary's Books as "one of the eight major communist bookstores operating in the United States at this time." (Spring of 1965.) Finally, the Milwaukee Journal article says that Fred and Mary disappeared in the early 1950's, not the 1960's. The mysterious woman caller (with an apparent German accent) seemingly could not remember Fred Blair's name, yet she knew the name "Emile Kardos" (as misspelled by the FBI.) Therefore, I'd bet she was not a relative of Fred or his wife. So who was the mysterious woman caller? Well, we know she was wrong in her belief that her suspects were operating with young "Oswald" in the 1950's - Emil Gardos (accompanied by Grace) had accepted "voluntary" deportation by then. The woman was probably thinking of some connection from the mid 1940's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Jolliffe Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 (edited) 5 hours ago, John Butler said: Almost everything in checking on Gardos, schools, and other folks such as the Fuhrmans are somewhere between .04 mile to .07 mile. Here is the distance from the Gardos to the Pics. This is to much of a coincidence to not be interesting. I have no evidence linking the Gardos and the Pics. But, if one reads the WC testimony of John Pic in relation to his wife and his wife's parents, he becomes a suspicious character. I am not the only one thinking this. Others have made comment on the vagueness of his testimony regarding the Fuhrmans. If I could connect Gardos and Pics by something other than location, my favorite suspect for the mysterious caller would be Mary Fuhrman. I don't have a firm handle on why I suspect Mary Fuhrman since I have no direct evidence for it. There is the loosest of connections such as Mary goes south to VA to stay with her daughter Emma when Marguerite and Lee (and which Lee and Marguerite is that) come to NYC to stay with John Pic and Margaret. John Pic monitoring Margaret's testimony is also suspicious. John, I agree that mother Mary Fuhrman's timely visit to Virginia in the fall of 1952 is mighty convenient. Did you know that Yorkville's 86th Street was the hub of the post WWII refugee/immigrant population in NYC? I did not. But consider this passage from http://www.yorkville-kleindeutschlandhistoricalsociety.com/history.html : Yet Yorkville survived World War Two and, after the War more Germans, both Christian and Jewish, came to Yorkville where they found refuge from all aspects of the War and, where they began to build a new life in this new “Little Germany or Kleindeutschland”. They fuelled even more the vibrant cultural life of 86th Street, the hub of the now multi-cultural European population, where the Poles, Czechs, Austrians, Hungarians, Slovaks, Russians, and other Eastern and Middle Europeans created their pockets. Many names were given to 86th Street: Sauerkraut Boulevard, The German Broadway, or the German Boulevard among others. Shopkeepers and customers were neighbors and family, and the compatibility among the customs of the different cultures lead to mutual respect and even sometimes forbidden, "inter-marriage" among the populations. 86th Street had a reputation all of its own. It was where the populations all centered their life, eating, drinking, singing, dancing, and socializing. If they didn’t live in Yorkville they came there to get a taste of home. There were scores of "Vereins" like sports, singing, literary clubs; newspapers, theaters, shops, churches - all catering to the needs of the German speaking foreigner. He need not venture out to the rest of the city. Everything was here. There were also pockets of Jewish residents such as the Marx Brothers; there were Greeks, Italians, and Puerto Ricans too. But the largest non-German speaking population to reside in Yorkville was the Irish, who mingled happily on 86th Street with the Europeans. The Avenues and the side streets were not only residential but housed ethnic shops and smaller ethnic restaurants, bierstubes, and other drinking establishments. It was one big family, until the mid 50s when they tore down the Third Avenue El, and its population with it. Edited December 13, 2019 by Paul Jolliffe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Josephs Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 (edited) Photo of Fred Bassett BLAIR - 1961 Again... why not Fred's wife Mary.... and what was her maiden name? (EDIT: give thought to 87th and 2nd ave, not 77th.... I think the FBI is playing games with us on that....- DJ) 1 hour ago, David Josephs said: In the mid-1950s, Blair and his wife resurfaced in Milwaukee and opened a bookstore at 1010 W. North Ave. (The Sentinel's headline, on March 14, 1956, read "Commie Bookshop Back in Business.") The store moved several times before ending up on Juneau Ave. FRED BASSETT BLAIR was married to MARY, owner of Mary's bookstore: and was very much alive and well in Milwaukee in 1961. EMIL GARDOS was MARY BLAIR's BROTHER-IN-LAW.... Could the caller have been Fred's wife, MARY BLAIR??? In testimony before a House subcommittee in March 1965, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover listed eight "major communist bookstores operating in the United States at this time." Among them, The Milwaukee Journal reported on May 18, 1965, was Mary's Book Shop, 318 W. Juneau Ave. Mary's was operated by Fred Bassett Blair, the longtime chairman of the Wisconsin Communist Party. Blair's wife, Mary, was the owner of the secondhand book shop Edited December 13, 2019 by David Josephs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Butler Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 David Josephs Super Member Members 4,650 posts Gender:Male Interests:History Report post Posted 1 hour ago (edited) 1 hour ago, John Butler said: The only other thing of interest for Fred is that his wife was named Naomi. I beg to differ John... Now, what was Mary's maiden name? Bookstore made FBI chief see 'Red' Chris Foran, Milwaukee Journal SentinelPublished 8:30 a.m. CT Jan. 17, 2017 | Updated 6:55 p.m. CT Jan. 17, 2017 David, This is what I based that on: Caroll Blair is Fred Blair's real name. Maybe Naomi is also Mary, or he might have had two wifes. I see something that is a little off. Carroll Blair instead of Caroll Blair. Let me go back and research a little further. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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