Steve Landesberg and the Oswald Project?

[John Butler]

Steve Landesberg and the Oswald Project?

This is a photo of the actor Steve Landesberg on the Barney Miller detective show of the 1970’s.  It is cropped to just Landesberg and Hal Linden (Barney Miller) is removed.

The question is does this man look like Lee Harvey Oswald, or if you like, either Harvey or Lee Oswald?

When I compare Harvey with Steve, I don’t see much of a resemblance.

There is not much to work with between those two.  Somewhat largish noses, weak chins, and the ears are not the same.  What do you think?

[John Butler]

There are no really good adult photos of Lee Oswald that one can agree on with others.  Or, blow up and make a comparison to Steve Landesberg.  But, there are a couple of teenage photos I consider to be Lee Oswald and useful when we compare Steve Landesberg to Lee Oswald.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am not saying Lee Oswald is Steve Landesberg or vice versa.  I am just saying I see a resemblance between them.  Both have curly hair about the same color, a broad forehead, and noses that are almost identical.  Steve and Lee have the same weak chin.  They habitually lower their head in the same manner. 

Steve Landesberg might be confused by some as a 20 year later version of Lee Oswald, but he is not.  His red hair and earlobes would rule him out.

This leads to the question could Steve Landesburg pass as a Lee Oswald double?  I think so.  At least, he resembles one of the Oswalds closer than many Oswald doubles are said to be, for instance John Thomas Mason, Billy Seymour, or Kerry Thornley.

The next question might be a bit strange.  Could Steve Landesberg be a member of the Oswald Project?  He has the looks and was in association with Lee Oswald in New York in late 1961 and early 1962 when he was supposed to be in Minsk, Russia.  It is my believe that Harvey is in Russia cozying up to Marina and swiping Russian electronic secrets while Lee is on the cold windy streets of New York harassing the socialists and Jews as a Nazi sympathizer in the winter of 1961

Edited October 7, 2019 by John Butler

[David Andrews]

Like Cassandra, I direct you to the back threads, where this subject may still have pix of the youthful Landesberg, and his thick head of dark hair.

Edited October 9, 2019 by David Andrews

[John Butler]

The story goes like this, Steve H. Landesberg (the student), that is how the Harvey and Lee folks identify him, has a false identify named Jim Rizzuto.  The night of the assassination, Nov. 22, 1963, he calls a radio station and then others.  Rizzuto says he has seen Lee Harvey Oswald in the company of Steve L’eandes (Steve R. Landesberg (the actor), a right-wing agitator and Nazi sympathizer from Wiggins, MS in 1962.

The FBI get wind of the story and pick up Steve Landesberg (student).  Of course, they don’t believe him and determine he is whacko and in need of psychiatric testing and locking up.  They forthwith do that.  It is a reliable procedure for certain JFK witnesses if their story contradicts the government’s position.  They can’t afford to believe Rizzuto / Landesberg (student) because Lee Harvey Oswald was in Russia and not New York at that time.  That would mean there were at least two Oswalds out and about doing mysterious things.

Essentially, Rizzuto said that he met Steve L'eandes (Steven R. Landesberg (actor) and Lee Oswald in the Marine Corps at Camp Lejune in the summer of 1956.  I have underlined here information that I consider very important for understanding information on the Harvey and Lee Site that I consider confusing. (more of this in a bit)

After his Marine service he kept in touch with L’eandes by post card.  L’eandes sent post cards from Stockholm, Leningrad, and Moscow in 1960.  L’eandes was accompanied by Lee Harvey Oswald and Earl Perry in their journeys around Europe and Russia in 1960.  Rizzuto was told by L’eandes that Oswald was back in the states and had gone to Texas.

Rizzuto said that around October, 1961 L’eandes, Perry, and Lee Harvey Oswald had gotten back together and by December were creating disturbances at a Mark Lane rally.  In early 1962, L’eandes and Earl Perry were creating a violent disturbance at the American Jewish Congress.  He stated that Lee Oswald was taking pictures at the event.  He believed that L’eandes and Oswald lived together on East Eight Street.

Who was Earl Perry?

That’s enough of this story for my purposes.  This is enough to help understand a slight confusion at the Harvey and Lee site. 

There is more to the New York story and you can read that at your leisure.

[John Butler]

Dana,

There is no doubt that the Ed Forum is a gold mine to delve into.  2004 seems to be an especially good year for research.  A lot of good things were done that year.  The huge thread on Harvey and Lee is awesome.

I don't know who the "boy at the zoo" is or was. 

 

 I'm like John Pic and I simply don't know who that was.  He really doesn't match well with anyone except this guy and it is not that great of a match.  And, that is my opinion.

Other people have other ideas about this person.  I will not argue that they are wrong.

Edited October 7, 2019 by John Butler

[John Butler]

On the Harvey and Lee site under the heading Marine Corps and Soviet Union we find this bit of information:

“In the fall of 1956, while HARVEY Oswald and Allen Felde were stationed at San Diego, LEE Oswald was at the Marine Corps Air Facility at El Toro, CA, 10 miles south of Camp Pendleton. It was in El Toro that Sergeant Wallace Ransberger first met Private First Class LEE Oswald, and a year later associated with him at Atsugi, Japan. Ransberger and LEE Oswald were assigned to the same unit and their duties were to furnish repair parts for vehicles and generators. In early 1957 Sergeant Donald Goodwin was assigned to Camp Pendleton and supervised a group of 20 men in the 5th Marine division, one of whom was radio communicator LEE Oswald, Private 1st class.”

The underlined statements have to do with Lee Oswald’s rank of PFC in the Fall of 1956.  And, a short time later in early 1957. 

From other sources comes this info:

“May 1, 1957: Harvey Oswald is promoted to Private 1st Class.”

 

And, one last important piece of information from Harvey and Lee:

 

“In the spring of 1959 Major William P Gorsky was the Assistant Provost Marshall at the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro. According to Gorsky's files LEE Oswald had been arrested for hitch hiking and was discharged from the marines in March, 1959. Once again the FBI and Warren Commission avoided this problem by simply failing to conduct a proper investigation and failing to obtain Oswald's discharge papers from Major Gorsky. Their refusal to investigate LEE Oswald in El Toro, or interview Marines who knew him, is another very important "smoking gun."

 

And,

“After LEE Oswald was discharged (March, 1959) he stayed away from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, but was seen in several locations including Coral Gables, Key West, New Orleans, and Cuba.”

The above information leads one into confusion about Lee Oswald.  Harvey Oswald left the Marine Corps in September, 1959 after 3 years of service.  Lee Oswald left the service in March, 1959.  How long did he serve and when did he enter the service?

The following is more information on the Marine Corps that we need to clear up this confusion at Harvey and Lee on Oswald military service, at least for me:

1. A general enlistment term in the Marine Corps in the late 1950s was for 3 years.

2. A person could leave the Marine Corps early for a variety of reasons.  Most legitimate reasons generally took the form of a hardship out for a sick parent or an early out to attend a school.

3. Marine Corps boot camp training is held at only two places, the Marine Corps Recruit Training Depot at Parris Island SC, and the Marine Corps Recruit Training Depot at San Diego, CA.  And, boot camp training is held nowhere else.

4. Marine Corps boot camp training is for 12 weeks.

5. An enlisted man (not and officer) in the Marine Corps usually went through the pay grades / ranks steps E1 through E9.  E1 is a Private (PVT) and E2 in a Private First Class (PFC).  These are the ranks held by Harvey and Lee Oswald from time to time.

6. According to the Marine Corps an enlisted man most have served 6 months before he was eligible to move to the next higher rank.

7. Harvey Oswald moved to the next higher rank PFC in 8 months in May, 1957.

We have a big question here.  How did Lee Oswald get to be a PFC in the Fall of 1956 when it took Harvey 8 months to make it in May, 1957?

The answer is that Lee lied and joined when he was 16, and he was helped into the service by others.  Sometime earlier in 1955 he attempted to join the service at age 16 and was caught at it.  This leads to why was it important to place, allow, or push two young teenagers into the military in 1956 and 1957?

The events described above about the dates of the Oswalds military service can be reconciled if we consider Jim Rizzuto, Steven H. Landesberg (student), to be creditable.  I believe he is creditable because of what the FBI immediately did to a citizen with uncomfortable, important information about the Kennedy assassination.

When he said he knew Steve L’eandes, Steve R. Landesberg (actor), and Lee Harvey Oswald at Camp LeJeune, NC in the summer of 1956, he was saying Lee Harvey Oswald had already completed boot camp training (12 weeks) at one of the main Marine Corps facilities, Parris Island or San Diego.  It could have been Parris Island since there are no duplicate records of Oswalds at boot camp at San Diego.

It means that if Lee Oswald was at Camp LeJeune in the summer of 1956 then he must have been in the service for at least 12 weeks.  That could stretch back to March.

If Lee was a PFC in the Fall of 1956 then he must have been in the service by then of at least 6 months.  Harvey joined in October of 1956 and had not been in the service long enough to be promoted.  His promotion to PFC came in May of the following year.

The point to make here is that neither Lee or Harvey rose above the rank of PFC / E2 in 3 years and both had a hard time keeping the E2 status.  They would be considered “duds” in any service.  I think that was the point.  These young men were being set up for something from the very beginning.  That something may have been unformed in 1956 and 1957.  Or, their shaping could be headed toward something with the U2s. 

Lee Oswald left the service in March, 1959.  We can assume he entered the service sometime around March, 1956.  He did apply to Albert Schweitzer in March 4, 1959 so he may have been moving toward an early out.  A $25.00 enrollment deposit was sent to the college on June 19, 1959.  That was probably Harvey and not Lee.  Harvey did get an early out on a hardship out for his mother.

To me this clears up the problem of Lee and Harvey leaving the Marine Corps at different times.  They joined at different times.

Lee Oswald:  About March, 1956 to March, 1959.

Harvey Oswald:  October 24, 1956 to September 11, 1959.

And, now to the question why were two young teenage boys placed, sent, maybe pushed into the toughest military service so young?

Lee Oswald’s entire military career was built around top secret military bases in the US, Japan, Philippines, and Taiwan.  Those secret bases housed the U2 spy plane, nuclear secrets, and intelligence programs.  Harvey not so much.  I believe he was always intended as a fall guy.

IMO, Lee Oswald was stuffed to the gills with interesting secret military and intelligence knowledge.  He was the defector, a dangle, that the Soviets were looking for and would love for his knowledge about the US military and intelligence. 

[David Andrews]

Right, John - but there is an extensive back thread on Landesberg, including whether there were two Steve Landesbergs involved.

Edited October 7, 2019 by David Andrews

[Denny Zartman]

Just curious, has the documentary "Three Identical Strangers" ever been discussed here?

[John Butler]

15 minutes ago, Denny Zartman said:

Just curious, has the documentary "Three Identical Strangers" ever been discussed here?

Denny,

Psychologists, etc. have always been whacko about twins, triplets, and so on.  The impression I got years ago when reading Psychology texts was that those folks slaver over and lust after the notion of separating twins, etc. and then tracking their behavior through time. 

In my opinion it really doesn't apply to Harvey and Lee.  Harvey and Lee involves a government conspiracy to use young men of similar appearance to create a double spy/defector/infiltrator for their purposes. 

This short piece I wrote is all about me perceiving what I consider to be an ambiguity in the military ranks of Lee Oswald and Harvey Oswald and the time they spent in service.  I offered this piece to help clarify what I think is confusing.  The Harvey and Lee folks have noting to do with it.  And, may not support it which is fine. 

Psychological twin studies are something different.  Wikipedia summarizes fairly well.

"Three Identical Strangers is a 2018 documentary film directed by Tim Wardle and starring Edward Galland, David Kellman and Robert Shafran. It examines a set of American triplets, born in 1961 and adopted as six-month-old infants by separate families, unaware that each child had brothers. The separations were done as part of an undisclosed scientific "nature versus nurture" twin study, to track the development of genetically identical siblings raised in differing circumstances. Combining archival footage, re-enacted scenes, and present-day interviews, the documentary reveals how the brothers discovered one another at age 19 and thereafter sought to understand the circumstances of their separation."

Edited October 8, 2019 by John Butler

[Denny Zartman]

5 minutes ago, John Butler said:

In my opinion it really doesn't apply to Harvey and Lee.  Harvey and Lee involves a government conspiracy to use young men of similar appearance to create a double spy/defector/infiltrator for their purposes. 

I know psychological tests on twins are an entirely different animal, but crazed lone presidential assassin and supporting actor on a popular sitcom are also entirely different animals as well.

I am also aware that sometimes the military uses technology and techniques before they become used in the civilian world. In the Oswald's we have essentially a military family, a father in the service that produced three sons that also went in the service.

To be clear, this is not a theory I am advancing. I was just curious to see if it had ever been discussed or considered here, even if only to dismiss it.

[John Butler]

Denny,

Essentially, are you asking are psychological twin studies in any way related to the Kennedy assassination?  I wouldn't think so. 

Your right.  The "crazed lone presidential assassin" and the "supporting actor" are not related.  There was no "crazed lone presidential assassin".   That is a fiction made up by the government and imposed on the American public. 

Edited October 8, 2019 by John Butler

[Denny Zartman]

1 hour ago, John Butler said:

Essentially, are you asking are psychological twin studies in any way related to the Kennedy assassination?  I wouldn't think so. 

Again, I'm not seriously advancing this as a theory. I've thought about this for months now but never brought it up here because ultimately I agree that it is probably unlikely and would be a waste of time going down a side avenue that in all likelihood tell us little or nothing about how the assassination occurred and who was behind it.

The only reason I bring it up here is because it seems to me to be as plausible as any "Barney Miller" connection. If we accept the school records showing two Oswalds attending two schools in 1953, shouldn't we ask if one of those two kids had another name and was using Oswald an alias, or were there indeed two kids both being raised under the name Lee Harvey Oswald? On another thread there was mention of a witness who even claimed Marguerite looked like a different person (sorry I don't have a cite for that.) So, would that make two different children in two different states both named Lee Oswald, both being raised by two different mothers named Marguerite? Surely this is not by chance.

1 hour ago, John Butler said:

Psychologists, etc. have always been whacko about twins, triplets, and so on.  The impression I got years ago when reading Psychology texts was that those folks slaver over and lust after the notion of separating twins, etc. and then tracking their behavior through time. 

Why, then, would you assume that military psychologists would be immune from the desire to experiment with separated twins, ect. unlike their civilian counterparts? Especially if the psychologists could provide a solid funding rationale by stating that they're working on creating a more advanced type of spy?

The point I'm trying to make here is not that psychological twin studies link directly to the "Oswald Project", but to point out a possible parallel in that the study presented in "Three Identical Strangers" was deliberate, secret, long-term, and highly organized, much like the "Oswald Project" would have had to have been if we assume that the "Oswald Project" dated back to 1953 at the very least.

[John Butler]

I didn't say Pyschologists do that.  I would say its just fantasy thinking on their part. 

As far as Steve Landesberg and Lee Oswald go, I don't have a great deal invested in that.  I just find it co-winky-dinky, as the Scrubs nurse would say, that there would be any resemblance at all between Steve Landesberg and Lee Oswald.

My main point was that Steven H. Landesberg (student) said he was a Camp LeJeune, NC with Lee Oswald and Stephen R. Landesberg (actor) in the summer of 1956.  That is the point of the Landesberg/Oswald info to bring out the background of that piece of information.

I believe that what this Landesberg (student) character said must have had some validity for the FBI to over react and immediately lock that fellow up for a psych exam.  So, I am giving it a more than likely chance that it is correct.

If it is correct it explains an ambiguity I believe is on the Harvey and Lee site concerning the rank of Lee Oswald in the fall of 1956.  That's all.  Not a big plot to accomplish anything.

[John Butler]

Jim Rizzuto (Steven H. Landesberg, the student) said that he met Steve L'eandes (Steven R. Landesberg, the actor) and Lee Oswald in the Marine Corps at Camp Lejune in the summer of 1956.

I believe this statement by Rizzuto has a more than likely chance to be true based on FBI performance.  So, the statement above allows me to conclude with other information from the Harvey and Lee site (Lee Oswald’s PFC rank in the fall of 1956) that Harvey and Lee entered military service at different times and left the service at different times.

To me this clears up the problem of Lee and Harvey leaving the Marine Corps at different times.  They joined at different times.  Lee Oswald at age 16 and Harvey at age 17.

Lee Oswald:  About March, 1956 to March, 1959.

Harvey Oswald:  October 24, 1956 to September 11, 1959.

I have been working at a timeline of the two Oswald’s military career.  My problem at this point is the bolded type information above strong enough to put into a timeline.

Because I believe it to be legitimate, that doesn’t necessarily mean it is so.

Your opinion would be appreciated.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

1 hour ago, John Butler said:

Your opinion would be appreciated.

You are probably not referring to MY opinion and I'll probably regret this, but here goes anyway. Stephen Landesberg (the student) was unfortunately and demonstrably mentally ill. Anything he said must be viewed through that lens. And, there is not one piece of verifiable evidence that Steve Landesberg (the actor) had anything to do with any of this. One thing you should understand is that Armstrong was forced to change many of his claims after my research was published. Because of the complexity of this issue, few researchers have even looked at it. I had a headache for days after working on it myself. But it is one of the most powerful examples in the record of Armstrong attempting to run completely amok. But very few give any credibility to this tale at this point in time:

http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-hoaxster-and-conspiracy-theorists.html

http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/01/armstrong-evolving-landesberg-theory.html