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

[Paul Jolliffe]

1 hour ago, John Butler said:

This is reposted from Steven Gaal from 2015.  It will help on understanding the Grace/Emil Gardos story.

At one time this was a Top Secret document excluded from declassification.

Speculation:  Was this why Harvey always reading the Worker?  Was he keeping up with Mom and Dad?

Here's another speculation based on Emil Gardos' pension.  Who paid it?  Did the Soviets pay his pension based on his good work as a dedicated communist leader for decades in the US?  Or, did the US pay it for his work as an informant/spy for the US. 

It might be the later since his wife, who had been living in Hungary since 1948, was living at the US Embassy in Budapest when she died.

John, 

Your question "who paid Gardos a pension?" is a good one.

Why would any Communist regime pay a "Communist Organizer" who was so incompetent as to get himself deported from the United States?

(Were we paying him a pension over in Hungary for services rendered here in the U.S.?)

Here's a curious one: in my link to the similar but not identical document you posted earlier, (linked below the Wiki entry), the key last sentence about Emil talks about "retired jstatus"

Retired jstatus? (Is it just a typo? Or did it originally read J status?)

From Wikipedia:

The United States introduced the J-1 Exchange Visitor Visa Program under the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act (Fulbright–Hays Act of 1961). The J-1 visa was administered by the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) to strengthen relations between the US and other countries. It fell under the purview of the USIA and not the Immigration and Naturalization Service because its main purpose is to disseminate information; its goal is to give people training and experience in the U.S. that they can use to benefit their home countries.^[10] These exchanges have assisted the Department of State in furthering the foreign policy objectives of the United States.

https://archive.org/stream/FBI-Operation-Solo/100-HQ-428091-Serial5842-5915_djvu.txt

Grace Gardos is a United States citizen 
who had gone to Hungary a number of years ago when her hus- 
band voluntarily ^accepted deportation from the United States. 
Up to the present time, Grace Gardos has been acting as 
^c o r i^ esp0ndent_for "The Worker, " United States East Coast 
communist newspapeTT ia IB 5£ BuWpest . Her husband Emil is 
living in Budapest in a retired jstatus and on pension, 

[Paul Jolliffe]

6 minutes ago, John Kowalski said:

Has anyone done any research on Harvey's mother and how they were paired together?

John,

John Armstrong has speculated privately for several years about the possible origins of "Marguerite", but has reached no firm conclusions that I am aware of. There have been repeated references on this site and others (including "Harvey & Lee") to a file that apparently originated with the OSS during WWII which mentioned M. Oswald, Nazi's and New Jersey. HUAC in the 1950's seemingly had that file yet amazingly, the AARB under John Tunheim was somehow denied access to that file.

Whether that mysterious "M. Oswald" has any connection to our "Oswald" is uncertain. 

Personally, I would bet serious money that the real Marguerite Oswald's third husband, Edwin Ekdahl (married 1945, divorced 1948) was the key to connecting the real Lee Oswald with the spook establishment out east. Ekdahl had to have noticed personally the physical resemblance between his wife's youngest son (Lee) and some kid recently arrived from Eastern Europe ("Oswald"), a kid who could speak at least a little Russian. (And maybe some German and Yiddish, too.)

Any doppelganger project in those pre-computer days had to have relied on personal observation - somebody had to have seen both kids in person. That person would be Ekdahl, whose high-powered job took him all over the east coast. I suspect that Ekdahl was not a U.S. intelligence agent per se, but was personally and professionally friendly with some. Ekdahl was probably used as a source or a low-level contact or a minor asset or something. His role may have been nothing more than to note the likeness between young Lee in Texas and some young refugee in New York. Ekdahl may have had no idea that his acquaintances at the CIA would later take advantage of that similarity between the boys.

[David Josephs]

John and I have discussed this possibility...  he write in his book:

Robert Edward Lee Oswald (father of Lee Harvey Oswald) was the son
of William Oswald and Mary Harvey, born on March 4, 1896 in New
Orleans. By 1963 brothers Harvey F. Oswald, William Oswald (wife Hazel)
and Thomas H. Oswald (wife Adele) were dead. Sisters Alice (nee Mrs. Arthur
Preston Barre), Ethel (nee Mrs. Edmond C. Carter) and Hattie (nee Mrs. James Coker)
were still living and resided in New Orleans.
Robert lived with his parents at 3419 Canal Street until he married Margaret
Keating, on November 1, 1920, at age 24

Margaret Keating (her year of birth has also been shown as 1896 making her 24 in 1920....)    120 N Telemachus  while LEE and mom live on Exchange... FWIW

Edited November 26, 2019 by David Josephs

[John Butler]

More on my believe that Emil Gardos never was a citizen contrary to several newspaper articles and other info.

These Census records indicate that Emil Gardos was a citizen of Constanzia (Constanta) Romania.   This is his citizenship application that was denied because he was a communist.

 

These Census records indicate that Emil Gardos was a citizen of Constanzia (Constanta) Romania.   His citizenship application was cancelled or denied by US District Court in 1934.

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by John Butler

[John Butler]

1 hour ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

John, 

Your question "who paid Gardos a pension?" is a good one.

Why would any Communist regime pay a "Communist Organizer" who was so incompetent as to get himself deported from the United States?

(Were we paying him a pension over in Hungary for services rendered here in the U.S.?)

Here's a curious one: in my link to the similar but not identical document you posted earlier, (linked below the Wiki entry), the key last sentence about Emil talks about "retired jstatus"

Retired jstatus? (Is it just a typo? Or did it originally read J status?)

From Wikipedia:

The United States introduced the J-1 Exchange Visitor Visa Program under the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act (Fulbright–Hays Act of 1961). The J-1 visa was administered by the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) to strengthen relations between the US and other countries. It fell under the purview of the USIA and not the Immigration and Naturalization Service because its main purpose is to disseminate information; its goal is to give people training and experience in the U.S. that they can use to benefit their home countries.^[10] These exchanges have assisted the Department of State in furthering the foreign policy objectives of the United States.

https://archive.org/stream/FBI-Operation-Solo/100-HQ-428091-Serial5842-5915_djvu.txt

Grace Gardos is a United States citizen 
who had gone to Hungary a number of years ago when her hus- 
band voluntarily ^accepted deportation from the United States. 
Up to the present time, Grace Gardos has been acting as 
^c o r i^ esp0ndent_for "The Worker, " United States East Coast 
communist newspapeTT ia IB 5£ BuWpest . Her husband Emil is 
living in Budapest in a retired jstatus and on pension, 

Paul,

This is very interesting.  I have one other speculation on the Gardos pension.  This probably has very low probability.  Would The Worker have paid a pension to Emil Gardos?  I wouldn't think so.  The Worker may have been a low circulation paper and not making much money.

David Josephs has just posted material showing that the earliest record has Harvey mentioned in 1955. 

David has worked extensively with John Armstrong.  I wonder if he would care to post any records of Harvey Oswald earlier than 1955 if any exist.

 

[John Butler]

Deleted.  Information posted Amalia Gardos was not correct.

Edited November 26, 2019 by John Butler

[John Kowalski]

Paul:

I share your suspicions about Eckdahl but do not have proof. During WWI he was with the navy reserves. He was stationed at an experimental station in Connecticut and also worked with submarines. Perhaps this work could have brought him into contact with the ONI. In 1919 he went to Shanghai to work for a private company. Shanghai at that time was known as the "International Settlement" which was controlled by various European countries and the US. John Armstrong has not found any connections between Eckdahl and the ONI but I am speculating here, maybe he was reporting back to them about things he saw while there, just like Shaw did as a domestic contact for the CIA.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 10, 2019 by John Kowalski

[Paul Jolliffe]

8 minutes ago, John Butler said:

Paul,

This is very interesting.  I have one other speculation on the Gardos pension.  This probably has very low probability.  Would The Worker have paid a pension to Emil Gardos?  I wouldn't think so.  The Worker may have been a low circulation paper and not making much money.

David Josephs has just posted material showing that the earliest record has Harvey mentioned in 1955. 

David has worked extensively with John Armstrong.  I wonder if he would care to post any records of Harvey Oswald earlier than 1955 if any exist.

 

John,

It is clear from the conflicting junior high school records published by the Warren Commission itself for the fall of 1953 that there were two "Lee Harvey Oswald's" : one in Public School 44 in the Bronx and the the other at Beauregard Jr. High in New Orleans.

The WC chose to ignore their own records from New Orleans and pretend that only one "Oswald" attended school that fall in NYC. John Armstrong has written extensively on this on the website "Harvey & Lee". Also, the entire Frank Kudlaty story from 1954 - for a brief bit in the fall of 1954 (perhaps 6-8 weeks) one "Oswald" attended Stripling Jr. High in Fort Worth while the other attended Beauregard in New Orleans. The videotaped interview with Kudlaty is striking and one of the more interesting pieces of evidence for the existence of two LHO's. 

Actually, if one cares to really get into the housing records, Armstrong has traced problems in the addresses for "Oswald" going back to 1947. This whole angle is not definitive, but clearly something is amiss. 

[John Butler]

Thanks Paul,

1953 and maybe as far back as 1947.  That's 14 years from the birth of Lee Harvey Oswald and Harvey Oswald.  They were roughly the same age.  John Gardos was born in 1939 and that would make him 14 in 1953.  That is the only record that can be found for John Gardos, the son of Emil and Grace Gardos.  At this point there is absolutely no firm connection between John Gardos and Harvey Oswald.  What info that is available is circumstantial at best.  So, what I am trying to do is narrow the age range from Harvey Oswald back towards 1948 when the Gardos family was still in the US and John Gardos would be with his family, Emil and Grace.   

Emil Kardos, more than likely Emil Gardos, is mentioned in the Mrs. Jack Tippit phone call.  The mysterious woman caller said she knew Lee Harvey Oswald's father and uncle.  They were Hungarian communists.

This must be Emil Gardos and Fred Blair.  John Gardos' uncle was Fred Blair.  Fred was not a Hungarian.  The mysterious caller could have just lumped Fred and Emil together.  The mysterious caller also talks about the brother-in-law.  This has to be Fred Blair.  Fred is Grace's brother.  This data is firm, backed up by clear Census records. 

With this information in hand and if the information is true one can logically conclude that John Gardos could be Harvey Oswald.  Then again maybe not.  There is that 6 year gap between 1948 when John, aged 10, is probably with his parents and Harvey is unknown until 1953 at age 14.  We don't know if Emil and Grace took John to Hungary of they left him in the states with relatives or friends or the Oswald Project.

I'm sure others can pick more holes in this contention.  I would be glad to hear those.   

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by John Butler

[David Josephs]

If you message me with an email address I can send you my spreadsheet in excel or pdf...

It starts with Lee's father's death 8/19/39 and traces the two LHO entities..  it is still a work in progress but up to 1963 it's very detailed...
I use text from the book as well as the footnoted sources....

This is at 101 San Saba

Georgia Bell knows MO as "short, fat" - a practical nurse with ONE son

 

Mr. JENNER - Excuse me, was that 101 San Saba?
Mr. PIC - No, sir; I don't know nothing about 101 San Saba.

 

 

From H&L p66-67:

The day after the assassination the FBI office in New York City received a telephone

call from Mrs. Jack Tippit, of Westport, Connecticut. Mrs. Tippit spoke with FBI

Agent James McCarthy and told him about a telephone call she had just received from

a woman with a foreign accent.

The woman had read an article in the newspaper that identified Mrs. Tippit's

husband, Jack, as a relative of slain Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit. The woman told

Mrs. Tippit that she was from New York, would not identify herself, and had to come

to Westport, CT for the purpose of calling Mrs. Tippit.

The woman asked Mrs. Tippit not to say anything to the press about a woman

calling as "they" would know who she was and she would be killed. The unidentified

woman told Mrs. Tippit, "she knew Oswald's father and uncle who were Hungarians

and Communists .... Oswald's father and uncle had lived at 77th and 2nd Avenue in

Yorkville, New York City, that while living there they both were unemployed, got their

money from the Communists, and spent all their time on Communist activities."

[Jim Hargrove]

I can attest that DJ's Harvey and Lee Timeline is an absolutely wonderful resource--and extremely accurate!  I must have five or six versions of it he has produced over the years, and, for some reason, I find the spreadsheet version (rather than the pdf file) much more usable.

The story of H&L can only be understood by keeping in mind hundreds, probably thousands, of different little facts.  David's timeline helps a lot if you can't remember all the details.  (I can't, and I've been running a website based on John A's research for two decades.)  John's book is a thousand pages long, and the CD with images and documents accompanying it would probably take up another thousand pages if printed.  If John doesn't stop adding to it, my website is going to get longer than the book.

DJ's timeline helps manage all the information in a clear, strictly chronological way.  Thanks, David!

[Paul Jolliffe]

1 hour ago, John Butler said:

Thanks Paul,

1953 and maybe as far back as 1947.  That's 14 years from the birth of Lee Harvey Oswald and Harvey Oswald.  They were roughly the same age.  John Gardos was born in 1939 and that would make him 14 in 1953.  That is the only record that can be found for John Gardos, the son of Emil and Grace Gardos.  At this point there is absolutely no firm connection between John Gardos and Harvey Oswald.  What info that is available is circumstantial at best.  So, what I am trying to do is narrow the age range from Harvey Oswald back towards 1948 when the Gardos family was still in the US and John Gardos would be with his family, Emil and Grace.   

Emil Kardos, more than likely Emil Gardos, is mentioned in the Mrs. Jack Tippit phone call.  The mysterious woman caller said she knew Lee Harvey Oswald's father and uncle.  They were Hungarian communists.

This must be Emil Gardos and Fred Blair.  John Gardos' uncle was Fred Blair.  Fred was not a Hungarian.  The mysterious caller could have just lumped Fred and Emil together.  The mysterious caller also talks about the brother-in-law.  This has to be Fred Blair.  Fred is Grace's brother.  This data is firm, backed up by clear Census records. 

With this information in hand and if the information is true one can logically conclude that John Gardos could be Harvey Oswald.  Then again maybe not.  There is that 6 year gap between 1948 when John, aged 10, is probably with his parents and Harvey is unknown until 1953 at age 14.  We don't know if Emil and Grace took John to Hungary of they left him in the states with relatives or friends or the Oswald Project.

I'm sure others can pick more holes in this contention.  I would be glad to hear those.   

 

John,

While it is barely possible, I suppose, that little John Gardos grew up to be our "Oswald", I find that extremely unlikely. Simply put, his parents were both living in 1963, yet if John Gardos were posing as "Oswald", that means this little boy had been abandoned by his birth parents at the age of (6? 8? 10? 14?)!!!

Grace Blair Gardos was the mother of John Gardos (as far as we know.) As a parent, I can't conceive of a mother abandoning her child to the custody of strangers in a strange city (NYC) to be raised for some undefined political purpose. If the suggestion is that, well the parents (or at least Emil Gardos, the father) did it out of political expediency or to save his own skin, well again: it just doesn't ring true with what I've seen of the parent/child bond, especially when the kids are little. 

I realize that none of my feelings about this are evidence, but still: any theory that little John Gardos grew up to be our "Oswald" must somehow account for the stunning abandonment by his own living birth parents, especially his own mother.

 

[Jim Hargrove]

That sounds pretty persuasive to me, but it is intriguing that John Gardos was born in 1939.

[David Josephs]

---- thanks Jim, glad to hear it continues to help.----

With regards to THE WORKER and a comment that he was reading it all the time....

The BYP show him holding two different papers....the Worker and The Militant which as I understand it would NOT be read by the same person if
they held a single belief about Communism.  While the Worker started in a more Socialist vein, as I read it, they went more pure Communist as time went on so that by 1963
the two papers represented quite different views.  (My personal opinion is that whoever created these photos were showing what types of groups Oswald was infiltrating for the intelligence agencies he "worked" for.

The Militant is an international socialist newsweekly connected to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP)

The Daily Worker was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA
In politics, the Daily Worker consistently adhered to a Stalinist party line from the time of Joseph Stalin's rise to power in the Soviet Union.

[David Josephs]

2 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

John Armstrong has not found any connections between Eckdahl and the ONI

Fred KORTH was the lawyer for the plaintiff in the Ekdahl divorce...

That close enough to the ONI for ya?

Edited November 26, 2019 by David Josephs