EVIDENCE FOR HARVEY AND LEE (Please debate the specifics right here. Don't just claim someone else has debunked it!)

[Jim Hargrove]

On 8/25/2020 at 12:13 AM, Richard Booth said:

I'm here because I am interested in H&L and the evidence presented in that book which is incredibly compelling, and if there are some speculative things that could be wrong, well, that's fine--I don't demand perfection and I think it's insulting to refer to discussions of this subject as "doctrine" and then use reductionist thought processes to try to invalidate something you obviously have no belief in. 

Absolutely!  Important open questions are....

Who was Harvey (the Russian-speaking LHO), and...

Was the false Oswald of 1963 the same person as H&L’s “Lee?”

[Jim Hargrove]

On 8/25/2020 at 12:41 PM, Mathias Baumann said:

"I Led 3 Lives" first aired in 1953, so the same year Oswald allegedly started to display his left-wing leanings.

Yes, but there is a serious question about whether LHO actually ever saw "I Led 3 Lives."

Robert Oswald wrote:

One of his favorite programs was I Led Three Lives, the story of
Herbert Philbrick, the FBI informant who posed as a Communist spy. In the
early 1950's, Lee watched that show every week without fail. When I left home
to join the Marines, he was still watching the reruns."

But Robert Oswald joined the Marines and left for San Diego on July 15, 1952, and, as you say, the "I Led Three Lives" program didn't premiere until roughly a year later. This gets worse in Youth House....  

 

 

[Mathias Baumann]

8 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Yes, but there is a serious question about whether LHO actually ever saw "I Led 3 Lives."

Robert Oswald wrote:

One of his favorite programs was I Led Three Lives, the story of
Herbert Philbrick, the FBI informant who posed as a Communist spy. In the
early 1950's, Lee watched that show every week without fail. When I left home
to join the Marines, he was still watching the reruns."

But Robert Oswald joined the Marines and left for San Diego on July 15, 1952, and, as you say, the "I Led Three Lives" program didn't premiere until roughly a year later. This gets worse in Youth House....  

 

 

Jim,

I'm sure Robert somehow stayed in touch with his family during his service. Lee may have told him about this show by mail or on the phone. 

[Mark Stevens]

12 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Yes, but there is a serious question about whether LHO actually ever saw "I Led 3 Lives."

Robert Oswald wrote:

One of his favorite programs was I Led Three Lives, the story of
Herbert Philbrick, the FBI informant who posed as a Communist spy. In the
early 1950's, Lee watched that show every week without fail. When I left home
to join the Marines, he was still watching the reruns."

But Robert Oswald joined the Marines and left for San Diego on July 15, 1952, and, as you say, the "I Led Three Lives" program didn't premiere until roughly a year later. This gets worse in Youth House....  

 

 

So is it your position then that since he had left for the service he wasn't in a position to know or comment on the family activities? 

[John Butler]

1 hour ago, Mark Stevens said:

So is it your position then that since he had left for the service he wasn't in a position to know or comment on the family activities? 

It is not the first time Robert Oswald had problems remembering dates and events.  

[John Kowalski]

Jim:

You mentioned in a post that Harvey's mother had someone living with her who said that she overheard Marguerite speaking German. Do you know this person's name? Lee's mother also had someone living with her. The 1940 census indicates that she had a lodger named Ann Burrougher who was born in 1918. Could not find anything about her on Ancestry. Do you know if John researched this person?

[Jim Hargrove]

John,

I couldn't remember the details, but I finally found this post I made here in 2017:

Back when he was researching Harvey and Lee, John visited the Fort Worth Independent School District and got a list of teachers at Stripling and Ridglea West Elementary School. From the list, he managed to call Mrs. Buleau Bratton, LHO’s teacher at Ridglea West.

John said that Mrs. Bratton spoke for quite a while about Oswald and eventually said that she had shared a small apartment briefly with “Marguerite Oswald” (the impostor). Mrs. Bratton said that late at night, after midnight, she overheard Marguerite talking on the phone in a foreign language.  John suddenly became very interested in the conversation.

He asked Mrs. Bratton if Marguerite had been speaking in Spanish, and she said no.  He then asked her if the language could have been German, and Ms. Bratton responded that she knew a little German and it didn’t seem to be the language her roommate was using.  Mrs. Bratton indicated that she did not recognize the language at all—not a single word, but that she heard Marguerite speak on the phone late at night in the foreign tongue several times when Marguerite thought she was sleeping.

Could the language Mrs. Bratton heard Marguerite speak have been Russian? We'll probably never know. Because it is difficult to say anything definitive about this information, John did not include the story in either his book or the website, but I’ll always wonder if phony Marguerite might have been speaking in Russian.

[Richard Booth]

On 8/26/2020 at 5:53 PM, Jim Hargrove said:

Yes, but there is a serious question about whether LHO actually ever saw "I Led 3 Lives."

Robert Oswald wrote:

One of his favorite programs was I Led Three Lives, the story of
Herbert Philbrick, the FBI informant who posed as a Communist spy. In the
early 1950's, Lee watched that show every week without fail. When I left home
to join the Marines, he was still watching the reruns."

But Robert Oswald joined the Marines and left for San Diego on July 15, 1952, and, as you say, the "I Led Three Lives" program didn't premiere until roughly a year later. This gets worse in Youth House....  

 

 

I watched an episode or two of it on YouTube and was left with this distinct impression:

"This show is absolutely stupid. Lee Harvey Oswald would have hated this and would have thought it was propaganda."

LHO was not a dumb man and he would have seen it for what it was, in my opinion. 

I believe that this is probably an apocryphal story perpetuated by Robert Oswald because it makes it sound like Oswald lived in a fantasy world and that he himself thought he was living multiple lives and roles and "toying with people" like Robert said in the atrocious PBS Frontline special that relied mostly on biased sources and left out things that should never have been left out. 

[Richard Booth]

15 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

John said that Mrs. Bratton spoke for quite a while about Oswald and eventually said that she had shared a small apartment briefly with “Marguerite Oswald” (the impostor). Mrs. Bratton said that late at night, after midnight, she overheard Marguerite talking on the phone in a foreign language.  John suddenly became very interested in the conversation

This is interesting. 

[Richard Booth]

On 8/27/2020 at 6:07 AM, Mark Stevens said:

So is it your position then that since he had left for the service he wasn't in a position to know or comment on the family activities? 

The correct position is Robert is lying.

"When I left home to join the Marines, he was still watching the reruns."

When he left for the Marines, reruns were not airing. In fact, the program wasn't even airing. So what he writes here is impossible. 

It is reasonable for a person who is hundreds or thousands of miles away in the service to have no idea what his little brother is watching on TV.  Given that he was totally wrong about what Oswald might or might not have been watching in July of 1952, when he left for the marines, why would he be in any position to know even better when he wasn't around?

The fact is what Robert said is impossible, it doesn't make any sense, and clearly he was making something up. 

[John Kowalski]

Jim:

Thanks or the info.

[John Kowalski]

Jim:

Did Buleau Bratton say how she became Marguerite's roommate? Did she meet her through a mutual acquaintance or did either she or Marguerite respond to an ad for a roommate? Did she say at what address and when they lived together? Was it Marguerite's or Buleau's place? Was Harvey living with them as well and if yes did she say about him?

[Jim Hargrove]

John,

I emailed John A. your questions and here are his responses (in red):

Jim:

Did Buleau Bratton say how she became Marguerite's roommate? NO Did she meet her through a mutual acquaintance or did either she or Marguerite respond to an ad for a roommate? DID NOT ASK Did she say at what address and when they lived together? NO, DID NOT ASK. I WAS CONCENTRATING ON MARGUERITE'S SPEAKING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE ON THE PHONE LATE AT NIGHT. Was it Marguerite's or Buleau's place? MARGUERITE'S, I THINK. Was Harvey living with them as well and if yes did she say about him? NO, REMEMBER THAT HARVEY JOINED THE MARINES IN OCT, 1956, NEVER VISITED MARGUERITE ON LEAVE, AND ONLY SPENT ONE NIGHT AT HER APARTMENT IN SEPT, 1959 BEFORE LEAVING FOR THE SOVIET UNION, RETURNING IN JUNE, 1962

[John Kowalski]

1 hour ago, Jim Hargrove said:

John,

I emailed John A. your questions and here are his responses (in red):

Jim:

Did Buleau Bratton say how she became Marguerite's roommate? NO Did she meet her through a mutual acquaintance or did either she or Marguerite respond to an ad for a roommate? DID NOT ASK Did she say at what address and when they lived together? NO, DID NOT ASK. I WAS CONCENTRATING ON MARGUERITE'S SPEAKING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE ON THE PHONE LATE AT NIGHT. Was it Marguerite's or Buleau's place? MARGUERITE'S, I THINK. Was Harvey living with them as well and if yes did she say about him? NO, REMEMBER THAT HARVEY JOINED THE MARINES IN OCT, 1956, NEVER VISITED MARGUERITE ON LEAVE, AND ONLY SPENT ONE NIGHT AT HER APARTMENT IN SEPT, 1959 BEFORE LEAVING FOR THE SOVIET UNION, RETURNING IN JUNE, 1962

Jim:

Once again thanks for the info and thanks to John A for responding.

This is an interesting story so I did some research on her and her family. Buleau Bratton had a daughter named Betty who is named on Commission Exhibit 1873-G  as Lee Harvey Oswald's sixth grade home room teacher at Ridglea West Elementary School in Fort Worth during the 1951-1952 school year.

According to the 1940 census, Buleau, her husband and daughter were living with Walter and Margaret Williamson and their daughter and grand-daughter. Census says that Margaret was born in the US and her age was 53 which means that she would have been born in 1887. Not sure if this is the same Margaret because she is using Margaret and not Marguerite.

The 1950 Forth Worth City Directory shows Buleau her husband John and Betty living together in Forth Worth. It says that Betty is a student and Buleau is a teacher. In 1956 they are all still living together at the same address, Buleau is still teaching and Betty is now a teacher. In 1956 Betty married Howard Green.

 

 

 

[John Kowalski]

20 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

Jim:

Once again thanks for the info and thanks to John A for responding.

This is an interesting story so I did some research on her and her family. Buleau Bratton had a daughter named Betty who is named on Commission Exhibit 1873-G  as Lee Harvey Oswald's sixth grade home room teacher at Ridglea West Elementary School in Fort Worth during the 1951-1952 school year.

According to the 1940 census, Buleau, her husband and daughter were living with Walter and Margaret Williamson and their daughter and grand-daughter. Census says that Margaret was born in the US and her age was 53 which means that she would have been born in 1887. Not sure if this is the same Margaret because she is using Margaret and not Marguerite.

The 1950 Forth Worth City Directory shows Buleau her husband John and Betty living together in Forth Worth. It says that Betty is a student and Buleau is a teacher. In 1956 they are all still living together at the same address, Buleau is still teaching and Betty is now a teacher. In 1956 Betty married Howard Green.

 

 

 

Jim:

A few months ago I was working on Marguerite's connection to William Dobkins. I obtained copies of files pertaining to Dobkins from Marguerite's papers that she donated to Texas Christian University. Her papers included a receipt book for her work as a practical nurse. The receipts indicated that she would sometimes stay overnight at a client's home. Did not see Beulah's name in the receipt book but maybe she hired Marguerite. Her husband, John Bratton, died in 1965 and his death certificate stated that he had medical problems for 3 years prior to his death. Marguerite may have stayed with them for a few days to help her with her husband. Her daughter Betty was either Lee's or Harvey's home room teacher during the 1951-1952 school year. It would be interesting to know if they spoke about her daughter possibly being Harvey's home room teacher.

Edited September 9, 2020 by John Kowalski