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

[John Butler]

John K,

Keep at it.  You are a very valuable member of this research effort.  Your efforts are very much appreciated by all.

John, I have very little evidence to none that back up my paranoid thoughts.  Percolating down in my subconscious is the notion that things have been manipulated and sanitized for our benefit. 

One question one might ask is where are the letters between Fred and Grace from 1948 to 1971?  One could say that Fred only started saving letters starting from 1971.  I don't really believe that.  Then there is this:

  

Sara, I believe was a niece (great niece?) of Grace.  The communication between Fred, Grace, and other families says the above is nonsense.  Or, it says that Fred and Grace's letters have been prepared to say we are just talking about family things, news, and the communist effort.  I read these letters as Fred and Grace were in communications with other members of the Blair family.

Grace's letters appear to suggest that she is in an enforced exile, mainly by the FBI.  Remember, she tried to come back to the US in the late 60s and the FBI responded with thinking about opening a counter intelligence operation against her.  This is the days of wild and often illegal Cointelpro operations.

I think we need to rethink this whole situation. 

 

Edited February 28, 2020 by John Butler

[Jim Hargrove]

On 2/8/2020 at 9:56 AM, John Kowalski said:

John:

I gave him a list of files and folders to copy. These files focus mainly on family history and genealogy. Do not want him to look for specific names, instead want him to copy whole files. This is a lot easier to do than reviewing files looking for specific people. He said that he had limited time to work on the files so I sent him the list below and told him that the files are listed in order of priority.

box 1 folder: Biographical Material, 1923-1979 - approx. 100 pages

box 4 folder 1: Biographical Clippings, 1928-1972 - approx. 20 pages

box 4 folder 14: Blair Family Genealogy - approx. 10 pages

 

box 5 folder 2: Gardos, Grace Blair and Emil (sister and brother-in-law), 1964-1980 - approx. 20 pages

box 1 folder 2-4: Correspondence, 1941-1979 - approx. 400 pages

box 4 folder 3a-3b: Correspondence, Miscellaneous, ca. 1943, 1947, 1957-1980, undated - approx. 300 pages

box 2 folder 7: Legal Cases, 1946-1947 - approx. 30 pages

 

21 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

Jim:

Had another look at the Blair papers finding aid. Most of their documents pertain to their political activities. There is a lot of general correspondence and family correspondence that have not been examined but based on what we have already read, including the 100 pages copied by my DP contact, it is doubtful that we will find anything.

However, if everyone wants to look at these files, I will ask the Wisconsin Historical Society to give me an estimate.

John,

I can only recall reading about 30 pages of the Blair papers that you've posted: 23 in the first group and seven in the second.  Have I missed some?  (This thread is soooo long!)

In the end, it may be that David Josephs was right and that we put too much emphasis on the Kardos/Gardos mention, but I'm hardly ready to give up on this.  Box 5 folder 2 specifically relates to Emil and Grace Gardos, and though the period covered is later than the period we're interested in, it is only 20 pages long.  Could we help defray your costs in copying that?

To be really thorough though, the hundreds of pages in the correspondence folders need to be reviewed.  That seems far too much to copy.  Over the summer, I'll look into travelling to Madison and reviewing the papers in person. 

Thanks again for your work on this.  The Tina Tippit Brown contact is amazing!  You're on a roll! 

[John Kowalski]

On 2/28/2020 at 10:23 AM, John Butler said:

Sara, I believe was a niece (great niece?) of Grace.  The communication between Fred, Grace, and other families says the above is nonsense.  Or, it says that Fred and Grace's letters have been prepared to say we are just talking about family things, news, and the communist effort.  I read these letters as Fred and Grace were in communications with other members of the Blair family.

Grace's letters appear to suggest that she is in an enforced exile, mainly by the FBI.  Remember, she tried to come back to the US in the late 60s and the FBI responded with thinking about opening a counter intelligence operation against her.  This is the days of wild and often illegal Cointelpro operations.

I think we need to rethink this whole situation. 

John B.:

Your comment about the dates of the letters is very interesting, why did they not keep up communication after they departed for Hungary?

Not sure what to make of this absence of contact between them but the Blairs being communists, they would have have known that letters they sent to the Gardos in Hungary were probably being read by both the FBI, as part of Cointelpro and the Hungarian government, so they had to be careful about writing letters and what they said in them.

 

 

[John Kowalski]

9 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

In the end, it may be that David Josephs was right and that we put too much emphasis on the Kardos/Gardos mention, but I'm hardly ready to give up on this.  Box 5 folder 2 specifically relates to Emil and Grace Gardos, and though the period covered is later than the period we're interested in, it is only 20 pages long.  Could we help defray your costs in copying that?

Jim:

No need to help offset the costs of box 5 folder 2 which contains the Blair-Gardos correspondence. The copying fee has already been paid and the files their files are included in my last post where I provided a link to internet archive.

In this thread a lot of effort has been expended on the Gardos connection and their may not be much more info about H & L that can be gleaned from reviewing their papers. If you can  visit Madison sometime, it would be interesting to see what other information there is about them.

[John Kowalski]

Everyone:

There is one last research opportunity that may be worth exploring before moving on from the Tippit call. As I mentioned in a previous post, I contacted Tina Tippit Brown on LinkedIn and also sent her a letter. So far no response from her. I tracked down her daughter, Teresa aka Terri Ranck who now lives in Lubbock Texas, which is where their family and their distant relative officer JD Tippit, came from. Am hesitant about contacting Terri without trying to locate someone who may know her first. Having an intermediary may facilitate getting a response from her or her mother. I know that this is a long shot but does anyone know someone who has friends or relatives in Lubbock Texas where she lives or Bridgeport CT where her mother lives?

In my letter to Tina Tippit Brown I asked the following questions:

1.        Can you confirm if she mentioned a person named Weinstock and another person named Kardos, Gardos or a name similar to it? Did she say where Weinstock and Kardos worked?

 

2.        Did she tell you how she obtained this information?

 

3.        Do you recall if the woman had an accent, if yes what type of accent was it?

 

4.        Did you keep a written copy of the report you made to the FBI? If yes, may I have a copy of it?

 

5.        Did you or your husband do any research on this telephone call after contacting the FBI?

 

6.        Did you report this telephone call to the media, and if yes did they publish a story about it?

 

7.        What was Jack Dempsey’s relationship to JD Tippit?

 

[John Butler]

John K,

Here's one for you.  How old do you think Janos is in this passport photo?

Would you say 50s or 60s?

[John Kowalski]

21 hours ago, John Butler said:

Would you say 50s or 60s?

John B. looks like 60s.

[John Butler]

On ‎2‎/‎29‎/‎2020 at 5:41 PM, John Kowalski said:

John B.:

Your comment about the dates of the letters is very interesting, why did they not keep up communication after they departed for Hungary?

Not sure what to make of this absence of contact between them but the Blairs being communists, they would have have known that letters they sent to the Gardos in Hungary were probably being read by both the FBI, as part of Cointelpro and the Hungarian government, so they had to be careful about writing letters and what they said in them.

 

 

John K,

I believe the dates for the letters are from 1971 to 1981 or so.  I could be off a little bit.  There were no letters from 1948-71 AND no letters from 1981 to 1993 when Grace died.

I don't believe the FBI ever quit reading their letters, particularly Grace's letters.  It might explain why there is little information (except family and relatively unimportant communist activities) in these letters.  But, there is enough information over a 10 year period to convince one that John Gardos is alive, well, and prospering in the Worker's Paradise of Hungary.  There could be coded statements in these letters that we wouldn't recognize or perhaps the FBI.

Why would the FBI be interested in her after so many years and then react in a major way after finding out from their chief spy that Grace was unhappy and wanted to return to the US?  It took major cooperation between American communists leaders (Gus Hall and Morris Childs) to get permission for her to come the US from the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party.  A top Central Committee member had to agree.  The HSWP offered to pay her way to the states in 1966.

That was ruined by the FBI informer Morris Childs, the Solo Spy.  He informed the FBI that she planned to return to the US.  They reacted in what I would consider an exaggerated fashion.  They immediately alerted offices across the country to be on the look out for her or someone like her in a delegation of Hungarians and perhaps Russians.  After they learned she might want to bring her son to the US they considered opening a cointelpro operation against her.  Why?  What was so important?

Grace and Emile were fairly well trusted by the Hungarian government.  They went on a mission to India in 1955, I believe.  Emile, at his 55th birthday, was awarded a high communist medal for his long service and being a good communist in America and Hungary.  That wouldn't stop the Hungarians from reading their mail.  Nor, would it stop the CIA or the FBI. 

6 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

John B. looks like 60s.

I thought so also.  I asked a number of people if he looked in his 50s or 60s.  All said the 60s.

That doesn't mean a guy in his 50s could not look like a guy in his 60s.  I was just curious to see if others saw what I saw.      

[John Kowalski]

John B:

The letters also lack a sense of continuity. If they had not written to each other from 1948 to 1971, though there is a letter dated 1964 saying that Grace visited the US, they would have had a lot of catching up i.e. telling them about the things they had been doing for so many years. This does not exist in the letters. If they did write during these years, these letters were not included in the collection. Given their surveillance by the FBI they may have established a secret channel for communicating with them. One method they could have used is to get some else to send a letter to a third person unknown to the FBI who would send it to the Gardos. This would allow the letters to evade FBI letter-opening operations.

You mentioned that your wife enjoys genealogical research, what websites does she do her research on; Ancestry, Family Search. Has she ever been on Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness? I used this one when researching my Albert Osborne. There are people who will do genealogical research for free in local libraries and archives.

Does she have any contacts in New Jersey? John A. found a letter that mentioned a M. Oswald connected to Nazis in New Jersey in 1941. In Jean Stafford's A Mother In History she said that her accent was from New Jersey or New York. If she does know of them I would like to contact them. This could be a good place to more research on her origins.

 

 

[John Kowalski]

Spoke to Tina Tippit Brown, who was married to Jack Dempsey Tippit.

She does not recall too much about he event but has some notes that she can't access right now because she is settling her late-husband's estate.

She does not know who the woman caller was and did not recognize her accent because she was from Texas and was not familiar with foreign accents. The only accents she knew were Mexican ones.

She never met JD Tippit. They may have been be distant relatives but even that may be doubtful because there are different ways the name is spelled.

Woman called here several times, always in a rush, fearing that she will be overheard.

The woman caller said she called because she wanted to help the Tippit family.

She said that she did not know the Blair family.

In a prior post I had asked for contacts in Lubbock Texas so I could contact her daughter. Will not be doing so, really doubt that she will know anymore than her mother knows.

 

[John Butler]

16 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

Spoke to Tina Tippit Brown, who was married to Jack Dempsey Tippit.

She does not recall too much about he event but has some notes that she can't access right now because she is settling her late-husband's estate.

She does not know who the woman caller was and did not recognize her accent because she was from Texas and was not familiar with foreign accents. The only accents she knew were Mexican ones.

She never met JD Tippit. They may have been be distant relatives but even that may be doubtful because there are different ways the name is spelled.

 

Woman called here several times, always in a rush, fearing that she will be overheard.

 

The woman caller said she called because she wanted to help the Tippit family.

 

She said that she did not know the Blair family.

 

In a prior post I had asked for contacts in Lubbock Texas so I could contact her daughter. Will not be doing so, really doubt that she will know anymore than her mother knows.

 

John K,

Seriously good work with the Tippit Brown lady.  You've made a number of good points.  The one about the continuity of the letters stuck and answered a vague sense of something about the letters.  Another was about communicating in not so normal channels.  These were long term communists plotters and schemers always under watch by the Feds, particularly Grace for some reason.   

"Woman called here several times, always in a rush, fearing that she will be overheard."  This puts a whole new light on the Tippit incident.  This might point out more was said than in the FBI doc, but has been lost do to memory over the years.

The idea the unknown woman in the Tippit phone call called the Tippit family more than once I would think is important?  This would indicate a compelling desire to share her information, or warn the Tippits or everyone through the Tippits about something she knew concerning the assassination and the nature of Lee Harvey Oswald.  Maybe inform people the plot to assassinate the President was done by elements of an old government project going back to the 1940s?  This was information she possessed and had to get this out to someone somewhere because she thought it to be of extreme importance.

It would seem there were events occurring that made sharing this information by this woman of extreme importance.  Maybe her time was limited in some way.  She knew the seriousness of exposing this information and the deadly consequences that could result.  She warns the Tippits not to share this information with the newspapers.  It might have a fatal effect for her.

The unknown caller knew the people she spoke about.  The time she referenced for these people must have been 1948 or prior since Emil and Grace vacated the country that year.  Weinstock or Louis Weinstock stayed rather than voluntarily leave.  That was 15 years prior to the Westport call.  Her memory could have been vague, distressed by other situations happening currently, or perhaps her information disguised by vagueness such as the Woman's World.  Things like that and like her accent may have been intentional to help disguise who she was.

If the time was not 1948 or prior, then the second likely time period would be 1952 or so and this would be the time the Oswalds were in NYC.

I have been playing with the idea that the unknown caller is someone we haven't considered at all.  This lady was in the area (30 miles away at New Haven) .  She could have made the trip by bus (30 minutes) and made her call.  Or, she could have stayed in New Haven and made her call.  The word "here" is stressed as if to indicate Westport.  But, could mean New Haven.  If so then the FBI would know who she was.  Was this the SAC New Haven's way of saying to upper level people he knows who this was.  This lady I have in mind was in New Haven at least on the 2nd of December for abdominal surgery for a cancerous tumor.  She died the following day after the surgery.  She was 55 years old.  Could she have been there earlier for pre-operative procedures?  I don't know enough to say. 

The woman I have in mind is Elizabeth Bentley.  She was a communist until 1945 and then became a government informer.  The elements of her life fit someone who would know who the communists were in NYC and some of the things they were doing.  It is possible she may have know the players involved to such an extant that 15 years later she connected this information from the past to the assassination and was determined to let people know.

All speculation at this point.

   

 

 

  

Edited March 4, 2020 by John Butler

[John Kowalski]

You make a good point about the 15 year time frame. The Gardos left 15 years prior and she remembered them. Weinstock, however may still have been in NYC in 1963.

Can you tell me more about Elizabeth Bentley, how did you find out about her? If she was a government informer then perhaps she was tasked with calling the Tippits to "help them." I raised this issue with Tina Tippit Brown, suggesting that maybe the purpose of the call may have been to smear Oswald as a communist. If the caller was not Elizabeth Bentley then maybe someone in her circle of communist fellow-travelers / informers may know the caller.

[John Kowalski]

John B:

The FBI probably knows who the caller is because they could ask the Tippit's telephone company for their telephone records. These records would provide the numbers of all people who called them. Tina made notes on the calls and given that she received a number of calls, the FBI could have matched the dates and times of the calls to the telephone records to obtain the telephone number the woman used to make the calls. If the woman did not make the call from a telephone booth, then the telephone records would have a telephone number and the name of the person that number belonged to. The documents John A. located did not include this information. No doubt, the FBI did not reveal everything they knew about the call.

 

[John Kowalski]

John B:

Do you know what the earliest date that John A. has for Marguerite and Oswald been seen together? A lot of effort ha been expended examining Harvey's origins, have you attempted to locate Marguerite's origins?

[John Butler]

John K,

I'm currently writing down my speculations on Elizabeth Bentley.  She is a person who died 3 days after the Tippit Call in New Haven.  She was there in the hospital for abdominal surgery on Dec. 2 and died the following day.

I don't know, but speculating she may have arrived early to New Haven for surgery.  She may have lived in the area. 

She knew the folks involved.  She was a top-level communist spy who later betrayed the communists to the FBI.  She was given in 1944 the Order of the Red Star.  I'll have more to say later.