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

[John Butler]

2 hours ago, Robert Charles-Dunne said:

When in the water, one tucks the pants into the boots.

When on land, one tucks the boots under the pants.

You see how that works?  Don't even need "weird" boots.

Why?  If in rough terrain the simplest explanation is to tuck one's trousers inside the boots.  For the lower legs it keeps one's trousers from snagging in brush and tripping a fellow.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

I'll deal with John Butler's points today, and Jim Hargrove's tomorrow. In the meantime, the 'Harvey and Lee' aficionados might like to explain this item of evidence:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2423-can-h-l-explain-this

John writes:

Quote

The simple plan would have a Russian speaking infiltrator being sent into Russia.  The Soviets, particularly the KGB and other intelligence branches were extremely paranoid about infiltrators/spies.  They would have thoroughly questioned such a person using any technique including drugs and torture.  They would have found the truth before releasing such a person into Soviet society.

Firstly, that scenario didn't happen. The Soviets didn't thoroughly question Oswald by using drugs or torture. As far as I can recall, none of the other US defectors around that time were tortured on entering the USSR either.

Secondly, I'm genuinely confused. What point is John getting at, exactly? He's supposed to be justifying the vast complexity of the long-term double-doppelganger scheme, but he seems to be pointing out another of the scheme's weaknesses.

If the US masterminds thought the Soviets were likely to torture the false defector to reveal "the truth" about him, surely the masterminds would have been much better off using a genuine American with a genuine American background, rather than an eastern European doppelganger whose claimed American background was false.

It's a central point of 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine, as I understand it, that the false defector should appear to the Soviets to have a genuine American background. So why not just use a genuine American? What would be the benefit of the extra complication of using an eastern European boy who magically grew up to resemble an unrelated American boy?

Armstrong and White's double-doppelganger scheme was very poorly thought out.

Quote

It is only your opinion, and a few others, who think things are poorly thought out.  Poorly thought out would suggest a fictional scheme like a novel

Correct!

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

John also writes:

Quote

After the main part of the mission, the U2 downing and subsequent failure of a summit meeting, then it would be useful to have a Russian speaker switched in to begin spy work such as finding dissidents and setting up spy networks.

If the presence of a Russian speaker would be useful, why create all the complication of a long-term double-doppelganger scheme, when you could just get an American serviceman to learn Russian?

Again, John doesn't seem to be answering the question I raised. If the hypothetical US masterminds wanted to send over a false defector who understood Russian, why would they not do it in the most obvious way, by recruiting an American and getting him to learn Russian?

What would the masterminds' thought process have been when they decided instead to set up the absurdly complex double-doppelganger scheme?

[John Butler]

Any thing that the "H & L crowd aka the John Butler trio" has said can't be as ludicrous as this.

I'm going to take this as a spoof.  It's one of the reasons I don't converse with these people.  I am going back to that policy.

[Sandy Larsen]

 

On 7/3/2021 at 10:31 AM, Jim Hargrove said:

British researcher Malcolm Blunt years ago interviewed a NYC school teacher who had LHO in her class and said he talked with a strong Eastern European language and may have feigned occasional deafness because he had difficulty communicating in English.  John A. is working on this new material and it should be up on our website within a week or two.

 

Jim,

The part that I have bolded seems to have a typo. Either it sould be "he [LHO] talked in a strong Eastern European language" or "he [LHO] talked with a strong Eastern European accent." (Or am I reading the sentence wrong?)

Either way, this would be really convincing evidence for the H&L theory. Too bad John A. didn't know about this earlier and video taped an interview with the teacher.

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Now, onto Jim Hargrove's comments.

Impostors versus Doppelgangers

Quote

the use of lookalikes and impostors is common in spycraft. Antonio and Patricio DeLaGuardia, top spies for Cuba, were twin brothers. Konon Molody assumed the identity of Gordon Lonsdale ... Michael Ross ... assumed at least six different identities ... so he could gather intelligence.  Even Mata Hari was said to have used a stage double

• The de la Guardia twins: They are the closest Jim gets to actual doppelgangers, but they weren't the result of a decade-long project involving unrelated boys who grew up to look virtually identical or unrelated mothers who were already virtually identical. A web search (not foolproof, I know) reveals no evidence that they were defectors.
• Konon Molodiy: Neither he nor his mother had a doppelganger. He was not involved in a decade-long project involving improbably close physical resemblances with unrelated boys or their mothers. He was not a defector.
• Michael Ross: He too did not have a doppelganger, was not a defector, and was not involved in a decade-long project involving improbably close physical resemblances with unrelated boys or their mothers.
• Mata Hari: You've got to be kidding! Needless to say, Mata Hari did not have a doppelganger, was not a defector, and was not involved in a decade-long project involving improbably close physical resemblences with unrelated boys (or girls) or their mothers. Mata Hari!

Of this meagre list, those who used imposture did so in order to blend in and avoid the attention of the authorities they were acting against, which is precisely what the 'Harvey and Lee' theory's false defector could not have done, what with having been a defector and all.

Comparing Oswald to Mata Hari of all people sounds particularly desperate, although it does have some comic value. I can just about visualise Oswald using his powerful seductive skills, fluttering his eyelids and causing stone-faced Soviet officials to go weak at the knees, thereby divulging that year's top-secret tractor production quotas.

More importantly, Jim is missing the point. The question he needs to answer is not: are there any strong similarities between the 'Harvey and Lee' defector scheme and real-life spies? (Answer: no.) The question is: why would the masterminds have preferred a complex and obscure double-doppelganger scheme over a straightforward and obvious scheme?

To put it another way: Why use two pairs of doppelgangers when you don't need any?

Deniability

Quote

One reason, of course, for the use of doubles is deniability.

Unfortunately, there was nothing to deny. If Jim has anything new to say on the subject of the Bolton Ford non-incident, he could do so by continuing the debate on either of these threads:

• https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/23677-a-couple-of-real-gems-from-the-harvey-and-lee-website/page/59/?tab=comments#comment-359047
• https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1408-the-bolton-ford-incident

To contribute to the latter thread, Jim will need to accept the longstanding invitation to become a member of that forum. If he's sure of his case, he will be eager to accept the invitation.

Russian Language Skills

Quote

Another reason to use impostors and lookalikes is that the impostor may have skills his counterpart simply doesn’t have. One example: to understand the Russian language with remarkable clarity, so that he could travel to the USSR, pretend he didn’t speak Russian, and understand everything that was said around him.

Why could the genuine American counterpart not have had the same skills as the eastern European refugee doppelganger?

If, as 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine claims, the masterminds began their planning no later than the early 1950s, they would have had several years in which to get their candidate up to speed in Russian. A genuine American serviceman with a knack for languages would have had more than enough time to learn Russian to the necessary standard: the ability to understand what was being said around him.

If, as 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine claims, the Hungarian refugee doppelganger popped up in New York at the age of 12, having spent a few years learning English to a high level, he must have left Hungary several years earlier. Just like the genuine American serviceman, he too would have needed to get up to speed in Russian. And that's assuming that the junior future doppelganger would actually have learned any Russian in Hungary, which is far from certain. So, again, why add all the unnecessary complication? Why use two pairs of doppelgangers when you don't need any?

Why not just use a genuine American? What was the thinking behind the masterminds' decision to set up a double-doppelganger scheme when they would have had a perfectly straightforward alternative?

Then Jim returns to the confused 'Harvey and Lee' account of the real-life Lee Harvey Oswald's Russian skills. When we discussed this on several threads last year, the relevant doppelganger was claimed to be a native speaker one day, and a non-native speaker the next day. For example:

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26571-oswalds-language-abilities-and-evidence-related-to-his-soviet-soujourn/?do=findComment&comment=426981

It's Monday today, but Jim wrote his comment on Saturday, so that must mean the doppelganger was a ... oh, I can't be bothered to work it out. Has a definitive verdict been reached yet? Not that it matters, because in either case Jim would still need to explain why the masterminds would have gone for the complicated, obscure option over the simple, obvious option.

To make it easier for Jim to answer my question, I'll break it into two parts.

• If the doppelganger defector was a native speaker of Russian, he would have been required to disguise his authentic Russian accent, in order to pass himself off as a genuine American. So why not just use a genuine American instead?
• If the doppelganger defector was not a native speaker of Russian, what advantage was there in sending him rather than a genuine American? Why not just use a genuine American?

In each hypothetical scenario, what would the masterminds' thought processes have been?

Finally

Mata Hari! Good grief!

[Jim Hargrove]

16 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Jim,

The part that I have bolded seems to have a typo. Either it sould be "he [LHO] talked in a strong Eastern European language" or "he [LHO] talked with a strong Eastern European accent." (Or am I reading the sentence wrong?)

Either way, this would be really convincing evidence for the H&L theory. Too bad John A. didn't know about this earlier and video taped an interview with the teacher.

Hi, Sandy,

Thank you.  That was indeed a typo.  The paragraph SHOULD read as follows:

British researcher Malcolm Blunt years ago interviewed a NYC school teacher who had LHO in her class and said he talked with a strong Eastern European accent and may have feigned occasional deafness because he had difficulty communicating in English.  John A. is working on this new material and it should be up on our website within a week or two.

Looking at old school records, Texas real estate transactions, and other materials he hadn't reviewed in years, John has made a number of pretty interesting new discoveries.  One is that Marguerite Oswald sold her Texas home after "Lee Harvey Oswald" was enrolled in Trinity Evangelical School in NYC.  We'll have more on this in an update to The Early Lives of Harvey and Lee, which should be completed in a week or two.  There is quite a bit of new material there already.

[John Kowalski]

2 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

British researcher Malcolm Blunt years ago interviewed a NYC school teacher who had LHO in her class and said he talked with a strong Eastern European accent and may have feigned occasional deafness because he had difficulty communicating in English.  

Jean Stafford interviewed Marguerite Oswald for her book A Mother in History. She said that she believed that Marguerite had elocution lessons. Could she had taken them so she could change her accent? If she did take these lessons then maybe Harvey took the same lessons to hide his East European accent.

[John Kowalski]

On 6/29/2021 at 5:59 PM, Denny Zartman said:

Excellent post and relevant analysis, in my opinion.

Thanks Denny.

Read a book that I would recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about the use of cover jobs by the ONI. The Archaeologist was a Spy: Sylvanus G. Morley and the Office of Naval Intelligence by Charles H. Harris and Louis R. Sadler. This book focuses on ONI operations in Mexico and Central America and shows how people were recruited and given cover jobs with companies like United Fruit while they collected information for the ONI.

 

[John Butler]

4 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

British researcher Malcolm Blunt years ago interviewed a NYC school teacher who had LHO in her class and said he talked with a strong Eastern European accent and may have feigned occasional deafness because he had difficulty communicating in English.  John A. is working on this new material and it should be up on our website within a week or two.

JIm,

As you know New York, even in those days, had a large immigrant population.  Different countries and different accents.  It would have been interesting if that Eastern European accent had been identified.  Still, that is getting closer to Harvey's roots.  If I had to guess I would say Russian with some Hungarian connection due to the book of Hungarian poems he had in his possession.  And, the tie in with Hungarian communists in NY such as Weinstock.  

[Jim Hargrove]

10 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

Jean Stafford interviewed Marguerite Oswald for her book A Mother in History. She said that she believed that Marguerite had elocution lessons. Could she had taken them so she could change her accent? If she did take these lessons then maybe Harvey took the same lessons to hide his East European accent.

Can't remember the details, but John A. has a write-up somewhere about a woman renting a room near "Marguerite Oswald" claiming she heard, late at night, "Marguerite" speaking on the phone in a foreign language that wasn't, she thought, either German or Spanish.  This is from my (always suspect) memory. Could it have been Russian? If you're interested, I can probably dig up the specifics.

7 hours ago, John Butler said:

JIm,

As you know New York, even in those days, had a large immigrant population.  Different countries and different accents.  It would have been interesting if that Eastern European accent had been identified.  Still, that is getting closer to Harvey's roots.  If I had to guess I would say Russian with some Hungarian connection due to the book of Hungarian poems he had in his possession.  And, the tie in with Hungarian communists in NY such as Weinstock.  

That's my guess too, but we we're nowhere near proving it.  BTW, I'm still checking the 1958 "hunter" photo of LHO, which I always thought was LEE.  Your belief that it was actually HARVEY is intriguing.  More soon, hopefully.

[John Butler]

2 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

That's my guess too, but we we're nowhere near proving it.  BTW, I'm still checking the 1958 "hunter" photo of LHO, which I always thought was LEE.  Your belief that it was actually HARVEY is intriguing.  More soon, hopefully.

Jim,

I'm glad your taking a second look at the "hunter" photo.  I am always uncomfortable when my ideas diverge from yours and John Armstrong's ideas.  If you recall when we were going over photos of Oswald my original call on that photo was Lee Oswald.  That photo simply did not look like Harvey.  I changed my mind after doing work on Harvey's DPD mug shot and identifying things that are unique to Harvey.  Then I read the notation typed at the top of the photo.  And, subsequently learned that this photo was from Robert's book.  February, 1958 is the clincher that this was Harvey.  

I know Robert later changed this to Sept, 1959 when Oswald got out of the Marines.  But, I didn't warm up to this due to reading hundreds of witness testimonies in Dealey Plaza.  There the first testimony was always preferable to later statements that changed what the first statements said.  If the February, 1958 date is correct then that has to be Harvey.  Lee was out in the South China seas or in the Philippines.  Harvey was AWOL in New Orleans or other places.

Harvey's photos would be like the "hunter" photo if he didn't have his hair cut where he could use comb overs to hide the receding hair lines.  He was very successful with this hair style and most people would not or did not see his real hair state.  After being beat up in the Texas Theater and I suspect during interrogation at the DPD, photos there reveal the true state of his hair problems.

[John Kowalski]

13 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Can't remember the details, but John A. has a write-up somewhere about a woman renting a room near "Marguerite Oswald" claiming she heard, late at night, "Marguerite" speaking on the phone in a foreign language that wasn't, she thought, either German or Spanish.  This is from my (always suspect) memory. Could it have been Russian? If you're interested, I can probably dig up the specifics.

Jim:

Already queried you and John about that one. It was Beulah Bratton who overheard Marguerite speaking, when they briefly shared an apartment together. Beulah's daughter, Betty Lee Bratton, was either Lee's or Harvey's homeroom teacher during the 1951-1952 school year.

Did some research on Ann J. Burroughar, alternate spelling is Burrougher. According to the 1940 census she was living with Marguerite, John, Robert and Lee. The only thing I could find out about her is that she lived in St. John Mississippi in 1935.

[Denny Zartman]

23 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

This book focuses on ONI operations in Mexico and Central America and shows how people were recruited and given cover jobs with companies like United Fruit while they collected information for the ONI.

I just watched the 2020 film "The Courier", which is about a businessman recruited by the CIA to spy on the Soviets during the run-up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I couldn't help but think of Ekdahl.

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

1 hour ago, Denny Zartman said:

I just watched the 2020 film "The Courier", which is about a businessman recruited by the CIA to spy on the Soviets during the run-up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I couldn't help but think of Ekdahl.

Why?  Did the Courier bring Marguerite along on his adventures too?  If so, which one?