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

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

There's a serious problem with the basic premise of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense. Surprisingly, although the theory has been going for two decades or more, none of its believers appear to have been aware of the problem until recently.

I've mentioned it on at least three other threads (here and here and here), and so far the faithful have not been able to come up with a reply. Since this thread was set up by the chief 'Harvey and Lee' evangelist to discuss the specifics of his beloved theory ("right here"), I thought I might as well mention the problem right here too, and try to shame the believers into confronting it.

The problem is to do with the purpose of Oswald's defection; not the actual purpose, of course, but the purpose according to 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine. In 'Harvey and Lee' world, the CIA wanted to send into the Soviet Union a false defector who was able to secretly understand the Russian that was being spoken around him. The defector needed to have a plausible American background, ideally as a serviceman, so that the Soviet authorities wouldn't suspect his true role.

There was a straightforward way for the CIA masterminds to get hold of a suitable defector. All they had to do was:

(a) look at the 2.5 million or more US servicemen who were active in any given year in the 1950s;

(b) find one with an aptitude for languages;

(c) and allow him to learn Russian to the level at which he could understand what was being said around him, perhaps adding some tuition if required.

The task could have been accomplished in a year or two.

According to 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine, however, the CIA masterminds did not choose this obvious and efficient method of recruiting a US serviceman who could understand spoken Russian.

Instead, the masterminds decided to set up a long-term scheme involving two pairs of doppelgangers. They recruited two unrelated but virtually identical Oswalds (one of whom vanished without trace immediately after the assassination) and two unrelated but virtually identical Marguerites (one of whom also vanished without trace immediately after the assassination), as well as all the people needed to keep the show on the road for more than a decade.

According to doctrine, one of the Oswald doppelgangers had learned Russian as a child. Doctrine isn't clear about whether the doppelganger picked up the language instinctively, before he reached school age (making him a native speaker), or after he started school (making him a non-native speaker). Doctrine isn't clear either about how well the doppelganger knew Russian, although the implication is that his Russian was at least very good, and far better than it needed to be. If your task is only to understand what is being said around you, you don't need to be an expert speaker or anywhere near that level.

Whether the doppelganger was a native or non-native speaker of Russian, the problem is the same. The scheme was unnecessarily complex, expensive and inefficient. The possibility of setting it up would surely not even have occurred to the masterminds. The 'Harvey and Lee' theory's preposterous long-term double-doppelganger scheme could never have been implemented.

The masterminds had a much simpler, cheaper, and more efficient way to achieve their goal: find an American with a knack for languages, get him up to speed in Russian, then send him off to Moscow. Here's the question the 'Harvey and Lee' faithful have been unable to answer:

Why did the masterminds not do this?

[Sandy Larsen]

 

1 hour ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

There's a serious problem with the basic premise of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense.

 

He insults us and then expects us to reply?

 

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There's a serious problem with the basic premise of the 'Harvey and Lee' [theory].

 

That's not true.

 

Quote

I've mentioned it on at least three other threads (here and here and here), and so far the faithful have not been able to come up with a reply.

 

I replied weeks ago and he saw my reply. But he didn't like what I said and has ignored it ever since.

It is for this reason that I refuse to respond to any more of his questions.

 

Quote

Since this thread was set up by the chief 'Harvey and Lee' evangelist to discuss the specifics of his beloved theory ("right here"), I thought I might as well mention the problem right here too, and try to shame the believers into confronting it.

The problem is to do with the purpose of Oswald's defection; not the actual purpose, of course, but the purpose according to 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine. In 'Harvey and Lee' world, the CIA wanted to send into the Soviet Union a false defector who was able to secretly understand the Russian that was being spoken around him. The defector needed to have a plausible American background, ideally as a serviceman, so that the Soviet authorities wouldn't suspect his true role.

There was a straightforward way for the CIA masterminds to get hold of a suitable defector. All they had to do was:

(a) look at the 2.5 million or more US servicemen who were active in any given year in the 1950s;

(b) find one with an aptitude for languages;

(c) and allow him to learn Russian to the level at which he could understand what was being said around him, perhaps adding some tuition if required.

The task could have been accomplished in a year or two.

According to 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine, however, the CIA masterminds did not choose this obvious and efficient method of recruiting a US serviceman who could understand spoken Russian.

Instead, the masterminds decided to set up a long-term scheme involving two pairs of doppelgangers. They recruited two unrelated but virtually identical Oswalds (one of whom vanished without trace immediately after the assassination) and two unrelated but virtually identical Marguerites (one of whom also vanished without trace immediately after the assassination), as well as all the people needed to keep the show on the road for more than a decade.

According to doctrine, one of the Oswald doppelgangers had learned Russian as a child. Doctrine isn't clear about whether the doppelganger picked up the language instinctively, before he reached school age (making him a native speaker), or after he started school (making him a non-native speaker). Doctrine isn't clear either about how well the doppelganger knew Russian, although the implication is that his Russian was at least very good, and far better than it needed to be. If your task is only to understand what is being said around you, you don't need to be an expert speaker or anywhere near that level.

Whether the doppelganger was a native or non-native speaker of Russian, the problem is the same. The scheme was unnecessarily complex, expensive and inefficient. The possibility of setting it up would surely not even have occurred to the masterminds. The 'Harvey and Lee' theory's preposterous long-term double-doppelganger scheme could never have been implemented.

The masterminds had a much simpler, cheaper, and more efficient way to achieve their goal: find an American with a knack for languages, get him up to speed in Russian, then send him off to Moscow. Here's the question the 'Harvey and Lee' faithful have been unable to answer:

Why did the masterminds not do this?

 

Edited September 18, 2020 by Sandy Larsen

[Bill Fite]

2 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

(a) look at the 2.5 million or more US servicemen who were active in any given year in the 1950s;

(b) find one with an aptitude for languages;

(c) and allow him to learn Russian to the level at which he could understand what was being said around him, perhaps adding some tuition if required.

The task could have been accomplished in a year or two.

Speaking as someone who 

* took French (a much easier to learn language than Russian) in High School and College passing all courses with a C or better grade - 4 years in total

* is married to a French speaker

* worked in France w French companies for 5 years

* was exposed to the French language living in France for 13 years & more importantly while raising a child bilingually learning more French by osmosis over the last 20 years

It seems to me that you are totally overestimating the level of conversational understanding that a US serviceman could achieve in 2 years of training at age 19 or over (languages are best learned before the age of 9).  The extensive vocabulary, knowledge of local idioms and accents, and understanding of any slang adds to the difficulty.

Also the difficulty of learning Russian specifically, with its Cyrillic alphabet and difficult pronunciations makes it a lot more difficult than French, Italian, Spanish, etc.

I find it difficult to believe that it could be done.

Should be easy enough to prove tho -- just find a graduate of a military language school in a 2 year period that speaks Russian fluently, can read Russian language papers & magazines and has a great vocabulary covering military, technical, slang & local accents and variations.

Got one? -- I'm willing to be convinced.

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Bill Fite writes:

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It seems to me that you are totally overestimating the level of conversational understanding that a US serviceman could achieve in 2 years of training at age 19 or over

I'm not claiming that a fictional defector would have started at the age of 19. I suspect you're confusing the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald's acquisition of Russian with that of the fictional Oswald doppelganger imagined by 'Harvey and Lee' believers.

The point I was making was that if (as 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine proclaims) the masterminds at the CIA were planning in the late 1940s or early 1950s to send over a false defector whose job it was to eavesdrop on Russian conversation, it would have been vastly more practical for them to recruit a single genuine American with a talent for languages rather than set up and maintain a long-term scheme involving two pairs of unrelated doppelgangers. Recruiting a genuine American is such an obvious solution, and the double-doppelganger scheme so far-fetched, that they would never even have considered the latter.

There were 2.5 million US servicemen active at the time of the real-life Lee Harvey Oswald's defection, and more than three million at around the time the fictional 'Harvey and Lee' double-doppelganger scheme was supposedly set up. No doubt none of the 2.5 or 3 million servicemen had the natural ability of, say, Powell Janulus, who claimed to be able to learn two or three languages to a high level in a year, but there must have been plenty whose ability to learn languages was much greater than that of the average person.

If the masterminds couldn't locate someone who they thought might be capable of learning Russian to a good but non-expert level in two years, how about three years, or four, or five? I'm sure they wouldn't have had any trouble finding at least one native English-speaking American who could have reached the required level within five years.

According to 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine, the double-doppelganger scheme was set up no less than seven years before the real-life, historical, one and only Oswald's defection (and possibly much earlier if one of the imaginary doppelgangers was given an unnecessary mastoidectomy operation at the age of six). If the masterminds had been happy to wait seven years for their plans to come to fruition, they would have had many thousands of suitable candidates to choose from. The double-doppelganger scheme becomes even more unlikely.

The point is that however long it took to get the chosen candidate up to speed, it was far easier to do this than to set up and maintain a double-doppelganger scheme. Even if the masterminds messed up and chose someone who took a decade to learn sufficient Russian, the double-doppelganger scheme would still never have been set up. They had a far more obvious way of achieving their goal.

The question remains: since such a practical and obvious solution would have been available, why would the masterminds not have chosen it?

[John Kowalski]

Jim:

Has John been doing any research and will there be an update to his website?

[Eddy Bainbridge]

I have just watched the disturbing documentary 'Three Identical Strangers'. It  concerns covert experiments on twins/triplets. It is probably more disturbing for proponents of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, bearing in mind the time when these experiments were being carried out. Is it worth looking further into the background of Peter B. Neubauer?

Mystery surrounds the reason why the results of these experiments were supressed. My guess is that the explanation relates to the sensitivies of the Jewish Nation, as opposed to Intelligence Agency suppression, but who knows?

[Jonathan Cohen]

7 hours ago, Eddy Bainbridge said:

My guess is that the explanation relates to the sensitivies of the Jewish Nation, as opposed to Intelligence Agency suppression, but who knows?

"Jewish Nation" ?

[Karl Hilliard]

On 9/18/2020 at 7:12 AM, Bill Fite said:

 

Also the difficulty of learning Russian specifically, with its Cyrillic alphabet and difficult pronunciations makes it a lot more difficult than French, Italian, Spanish, etc.

I find it difficult to believe that it could be done.

Should be easy enough to prove tho -- just find a graduate of a military language school in a 2 year period that speaks Russian fluently, can read Russian language papers & magazines and has a great vocabulary covering military, technical, slang & local accents and variations.

Got one? -- I'm willing to be convinced.

 

I am too. Where is a recording of Oswald speaking in Russian? His writing in Russian as well as English is poor at best.

[Chris Bennett]

On 4/24/2020 at 9:45 AM, David Josephs said:

That woulda been me... lol

 

I'm going to need to focus on these Claverie/Winfrey/Voitier relationships and do some thinking on it....  I'll get back to y'all on that...

In the mean time....

I also have this 1967 letter from a MISS MARGARET M OSWALD... referring to Garrison and is to CDR ERLICHER, her boss.
You mention "M" coming from MOORE... and I've only seen her sign with a "C" middle initial. and she usually spells her name MARGUERITE, not Margaret.

That's her driver's license signature on top.  I'm wondering if Miss M M Oswald is not REAL MARGE...???

"Nancy Moore Winfrey married Edward Louis Sweeney on June 10, 1963.  Nannie or Nancy Winfrey is Nancy M. Sweeney.  The middle name Moore comes from her father Andrew Jackson Winfrey.  Moore was his mother’s name which was Nanny Moore Fawbush"

You think this is the same LEON VOITIER?  yet it says 1868...  

 

 

 

On 4/24/2020 at 9:45 AM, David Josephs said:

 

David, I thought that was a strange letter for someone to be writing unless they really were in trouble. Seems like she either worked for him or was close in some way.

So I did some research and found a completed eBay auction with a photo of Colonel Joseph C. Ehrlicher.

And turns out he was wing commander for the Civil Air Patrol in New Orleans. How wild is that?

Any other research in Ehrlicher or M. M. Oswald?

Best,

Chris

 

Photo of Colonel Ehrlicher with the Civil Air Patrol of New Orleans

[John Kowalski]

On 9/18/2020 at 5:12 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

The masterminds had a much simpler, cheaper, and more efficient way to achieve their goal: find an American with a knack for languages, get him up to speed in Russian, then send him off to Moscow. Here's the question the 'Harvey and Lee' faithful have been unable to answer:

Why did the masterminds not do this?

The problem with your question is that it diverts attention away from the facts of the case. Instead of looking at the  evidence presented in Harvey and Lee you pose a hypothetical question that has no actual basis in reality and only makes  sense to you. You must learn to stick to the facts. If everyone debating an issue were to use a hypotheses then no argument can be resolved because someone faced with facts that can't be disputed can simply make up an imaginary scenario like you did rather than admit that they are wrong. And you say nonsense?

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

John Kowalski writes:

Quote

Instead of looking at the  evidence presented in Harvey and Lee you pose a hypothetical question that has no actual basis in reality

Oh, I have looked at the evidence presented in Harvey and Lee, and at the evidence presented on this forum by the cult's few believers. That evidence has been looked at by plenty of other people too.

The theory has been done to death over the past couple of decades. Every element of the theory that has been looked at in detail has been shown to be, at best, poorly supported, and at worst outright nonsense.

Just like other examples of extreme JFK assassination conspiracy theories, it relies overwhelmingly on reading far, far too much into common-or-garden anomalies in the evidence. Witness recollections from decades after the event, for example, are taken to be infallible. Documents and photographs are wilfully misinterpreted. For an example of the latter, check out the claim by some 'Harvey and Lee' believers that one of the doppelgangers had a 13-inch head:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1412-the-13-inch-head-explained-for-sandy

As you can see, it isn't just down to poor interpretation. Plain stupidity comes into it too. The 'Harvey and Lee' cult exists because some people (fortunately, not many) really want to believe that huge conspiracies exist, and they aren't too concerned about questioning their beliefs. Huge conspiracies make them feel good.

The 'Harvey and Lee' theory is not a serious insight into the JFK assassination. It is a figure of fun, as these videos illustrate:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvm-jqy1Bnc
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEfKELTWKiI
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXq_c7Kc3To
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDRPZddmxtY

Unfortunately, being a figure of fun, the 'Harvey and Lee' theory is liable to tar all critics of the lone-nut theory with the same brush. Look at these so-called critics! They think there were two Oswalds! They're all crazy! I guess the Warren Commission was right after all!

You might want to use the search function on this website, and check the criticisms I and many, many others have made of 'Harvey and Lee' here. You could start with the following discussion of the ridiculous notion that two Oswald doppelgangers were arrested in the Texas Theater:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/25901-two-oswalds-in-the-texas-theater/?do=findComment&comment=407170

Then you could pop over the road to the Reopen Kennedy Case forum, which contains a large number of discussions of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory. This thread lists some of them:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1588-harvey-lee-links-to-alternative-explanations

Others can be found by scrolling through this section, which includes a thread devoted to your comment:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/f13-debunked

As you can see, I spent a lot of time looking at the evidence before asking my question.

The question I posed may be hypothetical, but so is the proposition that there were two virtually identical Oswalds, one of whom vanished without trace immediately after the assassination, and two virtually identical Marguerites, one of whom vanished without trace immediately after the assassination.

To understand why the question I posed requires an answer, you need to put yourself in the shoes of whichever group of masterminds is supposed to have set up the 'Harvey and Lee' double-doppelganger defector scheme. If they genuinely wanted to do what the 'Harvey and Lee' theory claims they wanted to do, namely send to the USSR a defector with a plausible American background who could understand what was being said around him in Russian, they had two options, one obvious and one very far from obvious. If such a scheme really had been planned, the masterminds would not have chosen the double-doppelganger option, because it was so far-fetched and elaborate that it would never even have occurred to them.

Perhaps you could tell us why the masterminds might have chosen the far-fetched and over-elaborate option?

[John Kowalski]

5 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

To understand why the question I posed requires an answer, you need to put yourself in the shoes of whichever group of masterminds is supposed to have set up the 'Harvey and Lee' double-doppelganger defector scheme. If they genuinely wanted to do what the 'Harvey and Lee' theory claims they wanted to do, namely send to the USSR a defector with a plausible American background who could understand what was being said around him in Russian, they had two options, one obvious and one very far from obvious. If such a scheme really had been planned, the masterminds would not have chosen the double-doppelganger option, because it was so far-fetched and elaborate that it would never even have occurred to them.

Perhaps you could tell us why the masterminds might have chosen the far-fetched and over-elaborate option?

I never said that you never looked at evidence before. I was commenting only your hypotheses which does not rely on facts but on what your imagination can conjure up. This is a failure of your thinking about what happened to Kennedy. You made up a scenario and because your scenario does not match what you believe the conspirators would do, you say that the conspiracy must not be true. If in the past you have used facts then continue to do so but stop making up scenarios that only make sense to you. If you practise this you will eventually be able to formulate an argument that actually makes sense and an argument that will be worthy of a reasoned response.

Use of an Oswald double is not elaborate as you may think. Once again you are creating imaginary scenarios in your mind. The Oswald double operation began in the 1950s prior to Kennedy's election as president. It was not created as part of the assassination plot. Oswald was sent to the Soviet Union and then he returned. Those who planned the assassination used an existing CIA asset who had the perfect red credentials to be the patsy. It's as simple as that.

 

 

 

 

 

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

On 5/9/2021 at 10:39 AM, John Kowalski said:

 If everyone debating an issue were to use a hypotheses then no argument can be resolved because someone faced with facts that can't be disputed can simply make up an imaginary scenario

Best distillation of the H&L syndrome I’ve ever read.

Impervious to rational, non-comic-book “facts”?

Pot, meet kettle.

[Jonathan Cohen]

2 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

The Oswald double operation began in the 1950s prior to Kennedy's election as president. It was not created as part of the assassination plot. Oswald was sent to the Soviet Union and then he returned. Those who planned the assassination used an existing CIA asset who had the perfect red credentials to be the patsy. It's as simple as that.

Tell the missing Lee and Marguerite doppelgangers it's as simple as that. I have a feeling they'd disagree.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

John Kowalski,

I don't recall you taking a large part in earlier 'Harvey and Lee' discussions, so I assume you haven't yet fallen into the paranoid rabbit hole, and are still amenable to reason.

You write that I

Quote

made up a scenario and because your scenario does not match what you believe the conspirators would do, you say that the conspiracy must not be true.

If by 'conspiracy' you mean the 'Harvey and Lee' double-doppelganger scheme, we know it can't be true. We know that not because of any made-up scenario but because many elements of the theory have been looked at in detail, and they all have serious faults. If you don't believe me, check some of the links I provided.

If by 'conspiracy' you mean the plot to kill President Kennedy, I'm not saying that isn't true. Quite the opposite, in fact. Most of the critics of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense believe that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy of some sort. You can believe that without believing in a ridiculous, decade-long scheme involving fake Oswalds and fake Marguerites.

Quote

The Oswald double operation began in the 1950s prior to Kennedy's election as president. It was not created as part of the assassination plot. Oswald was sent to the Soviet Union and then he returned.

There was no "Oswald double operation" in the 1950s. Again, check some of the links I provided. It's very likely that Oswald was indeed sent to the Soviet Union, but there's no need to invent a far-fetched 'Harvey and Lee' scheme to explain that. It's quite possible to claim that Oswald was involved in some sort of intelligence-related activity, in the Soviet Union and in the US, without inventing a ridiculous long-term scheme involving two pairs of doppelgangers and however many people were needed to keep the show on the road for a decade. Likewise, Oswald could have been impersonated, in Mexico City and perhaps also in Dallas, with no doppelgangers being involved.

The 'Harvey and Lee' theory explains nothing that doesn't have a simpler and more credible explanation.

As for the question you find so unsettling: we know that the double-doppelganger scheme didn't happen; my question illustrated why it didn't happen. The scheme could never have happened, because anyone intending to send a 'Harvey and Lee'-type defector to the Soviet Union had a far easier way to achieve that goal.