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

[John Kowalski]

On 3/13/2020 at 11:07 AM, David Josephs said:

In the summer and fall of 1958, Donald Edward Browder, the ex-Canadian pilot who was reported to be involved with Ruby since the late 1940s, was arrested for smuggling guns to Castro. Browder was later sentenced to three years in prison for this (Scott Malone's memorandum, dated September 19, 1977 in Ruby file, Assassination Archives, Washington DC):

“Browder [was] in a US prison serving three years for a conviction of receiving, transporting, and possessing stolen Canadian securities. The securities were stolen from the Brockville Savings and Trust company and two other Canadian financial institutions. While the FBI supplied several reports to the Warren Commission concerning Browder, including his denial about knowing Ruby, they withheld hundreds of reports from Browder's file which illuminated his extensive involvement in gun smuggling to Cuba and the stolen Canadian securities. Both the gun smuggling to Cuba and the stolen Canadian securities were activities controlled by Norman Rothman. Rothman admits to knowing Browder.

On July 7, 1961, Browder gave a sworn deposition to the American Surety Company in which he stated that he had obtained the stolen securities he was arrested for ($136,000) from the 26th of July Movement, Fidel Castro's revolutionary group, in exchange for arms during the summer and fall of 1958. Browder stated that he had obtained the weapons from the International Armament Corporation (InterArmco) in Alexandria, Virginia, starting in late May and early June of 1958. Browder was apparently the purchasing agent for the Rothman gun-running operation to Castro's forces.

David:

On November 10, 1959, Anthony Tucci, who was associated with Bartone and Al Ferris aka Frank Morino, went to a Montreal with a check drawn on a Montreal Swiss bank for $187,000 to allegedly do an arms deal. There is a financial institution called Credit Suisse (Canada ) that existed in Montreal at this time and one of its directors was Louis M. Bloomfield.

Bartone - Montreal Swiss Bank.pdf

Edited March 14, 2020 by John Kowalski

[Jim Hargrove]

5 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

Jim:

I received a telephone call from Tina and an email from her granddaughter. Had a nice chat with her and she told me something about accents. She is from Texas and the only accent she is familiar with is Mexican accents. So her comments about what type of accent the caller had were probably not accurate.

She said that she did not know the woman caller. The woman called a number of times and every time she called she was in a rush, fearing being overheard.

She does not know the Tippit family because they are distant relatives, if they are relatives at all. She said there are different ways to spell Tippit and because of this they may not be relatives and the only thing they have in common is that they are from the same part of Texas.

She made notes on the call but does not want to access them right now because she is cleaning up her late-husband's estate and the notes are packed away in boxes.

Her comments about the woman fearing being overheard are interesting. If Tina's impression is correct, that she feared being overheard, this would suggest that she was not calling from a telephone booth but from a home or office where she could be overheard. If she did not call from a telephone booth then there is the possibility that the number could be traced and having this number would lead to the identity of the caller.

She has notes from the original calls?  That's incredible!  Also of great interest is the fact that there was more than one call from the anonymous woman. Obviously, the caller was very serious. We'll have to keep in mind that Tina Tippit Brown did not have much real experience with typical NYC/East Coast accents.

Do you think there is any chance she will make her notes available to researchers?  Depending on how thorough they were, this could be a real opportunity not only to get more information about the calls, but also to cut though any possible FBI disinfo.

Thanks again for your work on this, and please keep us posted if anything else develops.  I'd sure like to see her notes!!!

[John Kowalski]

18 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Do you think there is any chance she will make her notes available to researchers?  Depending on how thorough they were, this could be a real opportunity not only to get more information about the calls, but also to cut though any possible FBI disinfo.

Jim:

There is a possibility that she will make these notes available to us but not now. She is settling her husband's estate and does not want to look through all of her boxes to look for them. Will contact her in a few months and see if she has time to look for them.

 

[Jim Hargrove]

I hope Tina Tippit Brown understands there is some historical significance to her notes about the anonymous call, and that when things settle down for her family she will consider digging them up and making them available to researchers.  Thanks again, John K, for your work on this as well as the Blair papers.  It is all much appreciated!

[Jim Hargrove]

On 3/13/2020 at 10:57 AM, Jim Hargrove said:

DJ,

The Oswald to Tower letter is part of CE 1058.  Both it and the Petrov letter are at this address at Baylor:

http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/po-arm/id/23459/rec/3

John apparently made the copy of the Petrov letter directly from the FBI "Series 2" microfilm from UMI, and the signature is cut off on the film.  

 

 

On 3/13/2020 at 4:13 PM, David Josephs said:

Thanks....  I did find this RIF cover page, now we need to find the document...  The department of STATE was handling all this - and from studying Mexico City it seems to me that STATE and CIA were on one page while the FBI was on another...  Interesting this doc is CIA originated...  now let's find it....  not sure why that letter is not it's own CE

COLLECTION OF RIF PAGES FROM OSWALD 201 FILE, VOLUME 13

David,

I spent three days skimming though just one of the more than a dozen rolls of microfilm comprising UMI’s “FBI Series 2” collection on the JFK assassination.  What struck me about the documents reproduced on the microfilm was that these were not just FBI files.  There were many documents from, for example, the State Department and the Secret Service, among other federal agencies.  I don’t recall seeing any CIA files on the film roll.  I’m less certain about military files, but I don’t recall with certainty seeing them either.

With the possible exception of Agency and military docs, it looks to me as though ALL the documentation from the ENTIRE federal government regarding the assassination and “Oswald” was controlled entirely by Hoover's FBI.  

Here’s what Volume 27, Number 26 (March 29-April 5, 1999) of the Yale Bulletin & Calendar has to say about Vladimir Petrov and his death.
 

Vladimir Petrov dies -- taught Russian at Yale

Vladimir N. Petrov, who taught Russian at Yale for 18 years, died at his home in Kensington, Maryland, on March 17 after a brief illness. He was 83 years old.

At the time of his death, Mr. Petrov was professor emeritus of history and international affairs at George Washington University.

Born in Odessa, on Russia's Black Sea coast, Professor Petrov was educated at the Moscow College of Civil Engineering and the Institute of Communication in Leningrad. He was arrested in 1937 on charges of distributing anti-Soviet propaganda and was sentenced to five years of hard labor in the Russian Far East.

After being released from the labor camp, he settled in Krasnodar in the northern Caucasus, which was overrun by the German army in World War II. Using the German retreat as a way of escaping from the Soviet Union, Professor Petrov reached the American zone of occupation and eventually emigrated to the United States.

From 1947 until 1965, Professor Petrov taught Russian at Yale. He brought into his teaching the lore of the Soviet Union and stories of his own personal adventures of survival in the Stalinist era. His memories of that period served as material for his first books, "Soviet Gold" and "My Retreat from Russia" (Yale University Press, 1950). He also introduced into the University's Russian curriculum a course in "Readings of Soviet Press," where he taught students how to read between the lines -- or, as he called it, "all the news that's not fit to print."

Mr. Petrov received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1965. He also is the author of "A Study in Diplomacy: The Story of Arthur Bliss Lane" (1971), which was based on the papers of the former American ambassador to Japan and Poland, which were in Sterling Memorial Library's Manuscripts and Archives collection.

During his tenure at George Washington University, Professor Petrov focused his research and teaching on relations among the United States, the Soviet Union and China.

He is survived by his wife, Jean McNab, nine children and six grandchildren.

[John Butler]

Is this the same child in each photograph?  Nearly everyone I asked says they are the same.  But, look closer, there are differences concerning....

I have these children labelled Lee and Harvey.  Were these children picked at an early age or from photos such as these?  The age of these children in the photos is about 3 years giving about 1942 when these photos were taken.  Was the Oswald Project being conceived by the OSS this early in the 1940s?

[Jim Hargrove]

John,

I’ve seen the photo on the right before described as an image of “Lee Harvey Oswald,” but know nothing about it.  Do you know about the source and anything at all about the chain of possession of either of these images?  The kids look at least similar to me, but I wouldn’t bet on anything with what I know so far.

[John Butler]

7 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

John,

I’ve seen the photo on the right before described as an image of “Lee Harvey Oswald,” but know nothing about it.  Do you know about the source and anything at all about the chain of possession of either of these images?  The kids look at least similar to me, but I wouldn’t bet on anything with what I know so far.

I picked up these photos on the net at one time or another.  They have been in my files for ages.  Well, about 3 or 4 years.  I have written about the Harvey photo, the photo on the left (screen right), before and have identified it as Harvey based on the Dallas Mugshot characteristics.  I noticed this morning the photo on the right (screen left) which I labeled Lee Oswald.  And, for the first time noticed it is different from the Harvey photo and therefore made the comparison.  I also wrote but didn't post what I thought were the differences.  This is that:

Lee and Harvey differences noticeable even in this young age

It is very difficult to separate Lee Oswald from Harvey Oswald for a variety of reasons.  First of these reasons is that Lee and Harvey had a close general resemblance.  As you can see from these toddler photos, there is a close general resemblance such that these two could be easily mistaken for the other.  This resemblance was close enough that they could be in the same environments and generally not be recognized as two different people.

 

This is Lee Oswald.  The missing teeth alone identify him as such.  But, if you look at the nose, the ear, and the chin you will see these characteristics of teenage Lee Oswald are the same identifying characteristics seen in the toddler photo of Lee Oswald.

1. Lack of earlobes

2. Broader nose

3. Broader chin

This photo of Lee is magnified, sharpened, and contrasted to see the lack of an earlobe clearly.

These aspects of the toddler Harvey carry through to the adult Harvey.

1. Earlobes

2. Narrower nose

3. Narrower chin

And the two bends or crooks in the left ear’s upper rim.

The important idea here is when was the Oswald Project conceived?  These kids are about 3 which makes the year 1942.  Were they selected from photographs because they look so similar in later years, say, 1944 to 1945.  The OSS was riddled with spies and was eliminated by Truman in 10 days by Oct.1, 1945.  The successor organizations is perhaps where the Oswald Project originated.  These are the Library Branch, the Secret Intelligence Branch, and the Research and Analysis Branch.  When the OSS ended these organizations were transferred to the State Department and other government agencies.  These branches later became the CIA.

There is no way to really tell.  There are other avenues which I am working on but, they are speculative also.  

PS

David mentioned these children are to close in resemblance to be Harvey and Lee.  Well, that helps me think that Harvey and Lee were picked as actual children or by photograph at this early of age. 

In human growth and development a person's features grow firmer or more robust as one becomes more mature. (For instance human ears or noses get larger as one ages.)  And, when one becomes older the ears are much larger.)  The differences in features in these photo will become more robust or stronger and the appearance will grow into a lesser resemblance.   

   

Edited March 18, 2020 by John Butler

[Joseph McBride]

Saying the OSS was riddled with spies is like saying the Vatican is riddled with cardinals.

[John Butler]

5 hours ago, Joseph McBride said:

Saying the OSS was riddled with spies is like saying the Vatican is riddled with cardinals.

Exactly so.  I think this is important for understanding Harvey and Lee's origins.  At this point in a speculative fashion.

Alexander Vassiliev, the Venona decryptions, and Elizabeth Bentley

While doing research on Elizabeth Bentley, I ran across other information on the Cold War Soviet spies of the 1930s and 1940s.  Of particular interest was this man, Alexander Vassiliev.

Alexander Vassiliev:  From Wikipedia

Alexander Vassiliev (Russian: Александр Васильев; born 1962) is a Russian journalist, writer, and espionage historian living in London who is a subject matter expert in the Soviet KGB and Russian SVR. A former officer in the Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB), he is known for his two books based upon KGB archival documents: Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, co-authored with John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, and The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America: the Stalin Era, co-authored with Allen Weinstein.

This video is particularly informative if you are interested in 1930s and 1940s American communist spies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uBDddWBSdw

Vassiliev was asked by the successor to the KGB, the SVR to due a historical research project into the activities of the KGB during the cold war.  This was after the fall of the Soviet Union and the leaders at that time thought it might ease tensions for the new spy agency, the SVR, if such a project was to take place. 

Vassiliev was allowed access to secret KGB files concerning spying in America.  He could not make copies or photos of the documents he went over.  Instead he was allowed to make notes.  He made over 1000 pages of precise and systematic notes.  They were in a number of notebooks identified by color.

In the White Notebook there was an accounting of Soviet spies in America.  He confirmed 177 correctly identified spies in the testimony of Elizabeth Bentley and the Venona Decryption Program.  He uncovered 67 real names that the FBI could not identify and had only their code or cover names.

Venona Cable 1354 listed 26 names.  That was originally redacted when declassified.

This list of 26 suspected communist spies was sent by Duncan Lee to the Soviets.  It was captured as a Venona Decryption cable.  This Venona cable was redacted with only one name exposed.  Donald Wheeler.  Later, Vassiliev revealed the names in his work.

From Arthur Goldberg and the Reds in the OSS

By John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr

List of OSS employees who allegedly “pass info. to the Russians and are known members of the CP.” Major Arthur Goldberg, T. D. Schocken, E. A. Mosk, Fleisher, A. O. Hirshman, Julius Rosenfeld, Carlo A. Prato, Manuel T. Jiminez, Irving Goff, Michael A. Jiminez, David Zablodowsky, Carl Marzani, Virginia Gerson, Bert D. Schwartz, Victor Dimitrievich, Leo Drozdov, Alexander Lesser, Louis E. Madison, Donald Wheeler, Gerald Davidson, Seymour Shulberg, Fena Harrison, Robert M. McGregor, Netty Solovitz, Tilly Solovitz, Frederick Pollock. Both Jiminezes and Zablodowsky are on a list of individuals “known to pass info. to the Russians.

Of particular importance was a man named Noah Field who is not listed here.    More of him later

Edited March 18, 2020 by John Butler

[John Kowalski]

Jim:

Did John A. ever find evidence that there were more than one Marguerite and Harvey? When the Oswald project began they knew that this would a long-term project. They would have to wait years before Harvey was old enough to be used in a clandestine operation. In the intervening years they could have left the project, became incapacitated or passed away. Perhaps the CIA created a number of mother and son duos who could be used in future operations.

Edited March 18, 2020 by John Kowalski

[David Josephs]

37 minutes ago, John Kowalski said:

In the intervening years they could have left the project, became incapacitated or passed away. Perhaps the CIA created a number of mother and son duos who could be used in future operations

Of course John.... so we have to accept that "Harvey" and/or the Oswald Project had to do with Soviet infiltration... Communist intel... an area in which the CIA and US intel was woefully short.

You make a good point about mothers/caretakers and sons which highly suggests to us that both mothers had to be aware...  Robert MUST have known and John Edward (Mr. Fuhrman) seems to have been coerced into playing along.  (Any pressure put on the PIC family in regards to deporting the Fuhrman family ..??? ( just a thought)

One ought to also question the story Ozzie told about "finding Communism" at such a young age and via a pamphlet... given that comes from HARVEY I'd be very wary about its authenticity.  So I believe we must conclude that little Harvey was pre-disposed to the Communist way of life....  is this because he was, or was "trained" to be more accepting thereby making it easier down the line to get a man into Russia.  (The defection programs of the late 50's early 60's just screams Dulles/Angleton et al as they too knew they were losing the Intel wars.)

The travels of Webster and Oswald are eerily similar and with the trouble Otto gets into over Oswald and defectors...  yet we don't see the same things with Webster and the others on the defectors list as we have with H&L... in terms of the duplicity.

As to the assassination... the plans and contingency plans should Ozzie have gotten hit by a bus the weekend previous to the 22nd included other patsies and other cities...

Always wondered what would have been if VALLEE was the patsy or if the assassination happened in Tampa.  Ozzie was just trying to do the right thing at the wrong place at the wrong time and was sacrificed, as so many pawns are in a good chess match.

[John Butler]

1 hour ago, David Josephs said:

You make a good point about mothers/caretakers and sons which highly suggests to us that both mothers had to be aware...  Robert MUST have known and John Edward (Mr. Fuhrman) seems to hae been coerced into playing along.  (Any pressure put on the PIC family in regards to deporting the Fuhrman family ..??? ( just a thought)

One ought to also question the story Ozzie told about "finding Communism" at such a young age and via a pamphlet... given that comes from HARVEY I'd be very wary about its authenticity.  So I believe we must conclude that little Harvey was pre-disposed to the Communist way of life....  is this because he was, or was "trained" to be more accepting thereby making it easier down the line to get a man into Russia.  (The defection programs of the late 50's early 60's just screams Dulles/Angleton et al as they too knew they were losing the Intel wars.)

You make an excellent point also. I never considered something like that even though I knew that the Fuhrmans were Hungarian immigrants.  I believe they were naturalized in New York during the late 1920s.  However, that naturalization could be revoked.  There is something odd about John Pic's testimony concerning his wife's parents.  I don't know what, but the testimony seemed rehearsed and staged.  For whatever reasons, I thought that the Fuhrmans were not telling all they knew. 

I believe there were more than two Oswalds, but have little evidence to back that up other than saying more than two makes sense.  There is the short Oswald on the bridge in Minsk and that's about it.

If the Tippit Teletype is believable (and I believe it is) then Harvey knew Lou Weinstock as a kid, perhaps 6 to 8 years old.  Their communication by letter may have had coded significance.  They could be saying things to each other we wouldn't pick up on.  Weinstock says in the reply letter he would definitely be in touch.  But, there is no record of that.  If that's true that could suggest Weinstock was an informant for the FBI/CIA.

Emil Gardos being an FBI/CIA informant is an easier case to make than Louis Weinstock.  Weinstock went to jail for subversive activities.  Weinstock was supposed to leave the US for Hungary with Emil and Grace Gardos.  They applied for visas at the same time. 

Weinstock and Gardos were seen as dedicated mid-level communist leaders.  Gardos may have been more.  He was alleged to be an NKVD agent.  The problem is connecting the unknown caller to having the knowledge that was reported in the FBI doc.  Perhaps:

1. Someone who was familiar with the Yorkville Club communists.

2.  Someone familiar with the major players in the communist movement in NYC, both secret and public.

3.  Someone living on or near 77th Street and Second Ave. 

4.  Someone visiting the Yorkville Club, a possible location source of maps and charts. 

5.  Someone who was once a communist, but left the party and perhaps years later was willing to report what she knew about Lee Harvey Oswald.

6.  Here are several good questions.  Would this unknown caller have known Harvey when he was a child and was able to recognize this child as the adult Harvey?  Or, did she also know the adult Harvey and how and where?

7.  Someone familiar with OSS operations in the mid-1940s, 1944-1946.

8.  Someone with a good memory that could remember the details of 16-18 years earlier.

PS

There are people all over the world, let's say as an example, the Navajo, that do not believe in coincidental occurrences.  For some people there are no random events.  Was it a coincidence that Mary Fuhrman leaves to visit her daughter and then the Oswalds move in to her house and take over. 

 

Edited March 18, 2020 by John Butler

[Jim Hargrove]

5 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

Jim:

Did John A. ever find evidence that there were more than one Marguerite and Harvey? When the Oswald project began they knew that this would a long-term project. They would have to wait years before Harvey was old enough to be used in a clandestine operation. In the intervening years they could have left the project, became incapacitated or passed away. Perhaps the CIA created a number of mother and son duos who could be used in future operations.

John,

Not in general, but one thing that occurs to me in addition to what DJ wrote involves the events of  early October, 1963, when a possibly sandy-haired “Oswald” was seen by all those potential employers and others in and around Alice, TX and towns leading back to Dallas at the same time another Oswald was demonstrably in Dallas.  And the FBI/WC sort of wanted us to believe “Oswald” was still on his return trip from Mexico, and this is just days after the Odio affair.  Two Oswalds (one accompanied by a traveling hair-dresser) might account for all this, but they would have been busy young men.

I would say, though, that John A’s analysis of Harvey and Lee Oswald dating from 1947 through most of November 1963, and especially the last few weeks of Harvey Oswald’s life, makes the ASSUMPTION that the phony Oswald (the man killed by Ruby) was always the same person.  Since having more than two Oswalds would have created more loose ends that could potentially unravel, I kind of suspect there were only two, but it is admittedly an assumption.

I think John always believed that phony Marguerite was shorter, heavier, and less attractive than the real Marguerite Claverie. 

[Jim Hargrove]

19 hours ago, John Butler said:

I picked up these photos on the net at one time or another.  They have been in my files for ages.  Well, about 3 or 4 years.  I have written about the Harvey photo, the photo on the left (screen right), before and have identified it as Harvey based on the Dallas Mugshot characteristics.  I noticed this morning the photo on the right (screen left) which I labeled Lee Oswald.  And, for the first time noticed it is different from the Harvey photo and therefore made the comparison.  I also wrote but didn't post what I thought were the differences.  This is that:

Lee and Harvey differences noticeable even in this young age....

John,

I appreciate what you’re doing here and hope you make some provable discoveries, but I want to share with you just part of the reason I’m deeply skeptical that early photos of Harvey Oswald exist.

If John A’s. speculation is right, that Russian-speaking Oswald was a WWII orphan, then it is quite likely that there is simply no surviving photo of him as a young child.  John suspects the war orphan status primarily because  of Harvey’s Russian language facility.  How did he become so fluent so early in such a difficult language for Westerners?

Recall that Yale University Russian language professor Vladimir Petrov speculated that Oswald might have been a native-speaking Russian “with an imperfect knowledge of English.”  Before ever setting foot in Russia, Oswald spoke in Russian for two hours with Rosaleen Quinn, who had been studying Russian with a Berlitz tutor for over a year.  Ms. Quinn told Edward Epstein that Oswald “had far more confident command of the language than she did.”

John A. interviewed a number of Harvey Oswald’s marine associates who said that Oswald simply wasn’t absent enough to have studied Russian at someplace like the military’s Monterey School of Languages.  In Minsk, the Soviets hired a Russian engineer to formally tutor Oswald in Russian, but the would-be instructor indicated Oswald had no interest in studying the language.

Marina claimed that when she met him in 1961, she thought LHO’s Russian was so fluent that he was simply from another Russian-speaking region of the USSR.  (In fairness, though, it should be pointed out that when saying this, Marina may have been trying to hide her command of English at the time.)

George de Mohrenschildt, like Marina, said LHO preferred to read novels in Russian by difficult Russian writers.  George de M. also said that Oswald “preferred to speak Russian than English any time.  He always would switch from English to Russian.” (Warren Commission Hearings, Vol. IX, 226.)

Just my opinion, but to me the most likely explanation of this is that Harvey Oswald learned to read, write, and speak Russian as a child.  For much more on Harvey’s Russian language skills, see Prof. James Norwood’s article:

Oswald’s Proficiency in the Russian Language.