Arguments against the Harvey & Lee theory -- The missing tooth

[Ron Ecker]

8 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Sure, but what CIA accountant James Wilcott called "the Oswald Project" was already well underway in 1958, and the USG was not going to leave such obvious evidence, especially after 11/22/63.  I intend throughout this debate to take your sister-in-law's professional opinion seriously, but despite what she says, there IS EVIDENCE OF A FAILED PROSTHESIS.

  

I still think the FAILED PROSTHESIS evidence survived because someone at the FBI didn't realize what a prosthesis was.

I assume, then, that you believe the chart or diagram of the patient's teeth was faked to show no missing front tooth or teeth or any prosthesis (though they didn't know what a prosthesis was). Correct?

 

[John Butler]

28 minutes ago, Ron Ecker said:

I assume, then, that you believe the chart or diagram of the patient's teeth was faked to show no missing front tooth or teeth or any prosthesis (though they didn't know what a prosthesis was). Correct?

 

What about the 5 missing teeth?  There is a correspondence with missing tooth no. 30, but not with the other missing four.  An X placed on a tooth designates a missing tooth and that is universal amongst dentists and dental charts.  We could argue all day and night whether the prosthesis is recorded or not.  Set aside any argument of altering the dental records and simply explain the 4 extra missing teeth.  Can you do that?

The man called Harvey Oswald was missing only 1 tooth after exhumation in 1981.  He was not missing 5 or more.

Edited May 7, 2020 by John Butler

[Ron Ecker]

16 minutes ago, John Butler said:

What about the 5 missing teeth?  There is a correspondence with missing tooth no. 30, but not with the other missing four.  An X placed on a tooth designates a missing tooth and that is universal amongst dentists and dental charts.  We could argue all day and night whether the prosthesis is recorded or not.  Set aside any argument of altering the dental records and simply explain the 4 extra missing teeth.  Can you do that?

The man called Harvey Oswald was missing only 1 tooth after exhumation in 1981.  He was not missing 5 or more.

I am not trying to argue that the teeth in the military dental record and the teeth in the exhumation are or are not of the same person. I am not trying to attack or defend the H&L theory. I've already stated what I think about two Oswalds. All I'm saying is that there is no real evidence in the dental record of a prosthesis, that the "failed 5-5-58" probably means something else, since there is no indication in the teeth diagram of any prosthesis failed or otherwise. Jim Hargrove seems to think that the diagram is faked. He's welcome to his opinion.

FWIW my sister-in-law addressed the X's in the diagram. Here's what she said if it's of any value to you: "It would be nice to know what color ink was used for the X markings as the convention is usually that an X in red means a tooth is to be extracted but an X in blue means it is missing. Some dentists use the circle to indicate planned extraction and then the X for when it's completed. I suspect at least the X for the lower right wisdom tooth is indicating it is planned for extraction since the circle around it has a little arrow in it which may mean it's at least partially erupted. Dentists use a lot of their own notation, especially back then when a lot of dentists didn't have assistants and did their own charting. I'm not sure what to make of the X over #30, the lower right first molar. I want to say it's likely that tooth is gone, and then the dentist would recommend a prosthesis - a fixed bridge - but that's not a tooth that would show in any photo so it's not going to be a tooth his friends were aware was missing. Other than that molar, I see nothing indicating a need for a prosthesis."

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by Ron Ecker

[Jim Hargrove]

2 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

I assume, then, that you believe the chart or diagram of the patient's teeth was faked to show no missing front tooth or teeth or any prosthesis (though they didn't know what a prosthesis was). Correct?

I don’t know how Marine dentists and dental assistants would fill out their records.  But I DO think the record below shows that a false tooth failed for the SUBJECT.  

I also believe that the FULL EVIDENCE  shows one of the Oswalds lost a tooth at Beauregard School in New Orleans, but the Oswald buried at Rose Hill Cemetary  CLEARLY did not.

 

Just my opinion!

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by Jim Hargrove

[Ron Ecker]

20 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

I don’t know how Marine dentists and dental assistants would fill out their records.  But I DO think the record below shows that a false tooth failed for the SUBJECT.  

I have no doubt that something failed in this dental record, but it probably wasn't a false tooth, because again there is no indication of a false tooth in the teeth diagram. If you think the diagram was faked, well, it wouldn't be the first time (or maybe I should say it wouldn't be the last time) that something was faked in this JFK saga.

 

20 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

I also believe that the FULL EVIDENCE  shows one of the Oswalds lost a tooth at Beauregard School in New Orleans, but the Oswald buried at Rose Hill Cemetary  CLEARLY did not.

I don't dispute that. What I'd like to know is what became of the Oswald who was detached from the tooth.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

16 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

17 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Fair enough, Ron, but would you also ask your sister-in-law why the "FAILED 5-5-58” notation would be written in a box that states, “PROSTHESIS REQUIRED?  (If ‘yes’, explain briefly)”?

 

Did so. Her reply:

 

 

[A] reason for rejecting the notion that "failed" refers to a failed prosthesis of some kind is that there's no description either in writing or on the schematics of an existing prosthesis which had failed and no treatment planning whatever for some sort of replacement. This just wouldn't happen.

 

Ron's sister-in-law is mistaken, as I will show here:

 

Why there are no written details or treatment plan for the failed prosthesis on the dental form:

It is because the dentist who was working on Oswald's teeth was a general dentist and not a prosthodontist. Nobody in the dentist's office needed to know details because he would not be the one working on Oswald's prosthesis.. The "FAILED" notation was there only to indicate that Oswald needed to see the prosthodontist to have his prosthesis taken care of. A prosthodontist is a dental specialist who deals with prostheses.

Something Ron's sister may not know is that, unlike today, it used to be that general dentists did not do prostheses. General dentists were trained in taking care of and restoring teeth (with fillings), whereas prosthodontists were specialists trained in replacing teeth (with prostheses).  (Look it up in Wikipedia if you don't believe me.)

Since then, simple prosthetic work has become mainstream and nearly all dentists do all but the more complicated cases. But there are still practicing prosthodontists who can do these.

(See the bottom of this post if you want to see evidence that prostheses were not done by general dentists, but rather by specialists in prosthetics.)

 

Why there are no marks on the record indicating that there is presently a prosthesis:

There are many kinds of dental forms and records and it is important to determine the purpose of the form used for Oswald.

The left tooth schematic instructs the dentist to mark any "Caries, Dental Disease, Missing Teeth, Abnormalities." These sound like things that can be and need to be treated. The left schematic instructs the dentist to mark "Dental Treatment Accomplished." And then there is the field asking if a dental prosthesis is required. So obviously the purpose of the form is for the dentist to identify problems and fix them. And keep a record of it. At the time of the initial exam, the existing prosthesis was in good condition. There was no need to mention it or the tooth it replaced because it need no work.

About six weeks later the prosthesis was reported as broken. It was time for Oswald to see the prosthodontist.

pros·tho·don·tics

 (prŏs′thə-dŏn′tĭks)

n. (used with a sing. verb)

The branch of dentistry that deals with the replacement of missing teeth and related mouth or jaw structures by bridges, dentures, or other artificial devices.

---

[prosth(esis) + -odont(ia) + -ics.]

---

pros′tho·don′tic adj.

pros′tho·don′tist n.

 

As indicated in the above definition, a prosthodontist is a dental specialist who deals with the replacement of missing teeth. Now lets read what Army Major Irving Peress said in his 1954 testimony before Congress:

"....Apparently I was considered the best dentist at the post there, and they needed an extra prosthodontist. And where I was doing general dentistry, which is filling and routine dentistry, they needed another man to help the prosthodontist. ....

Well, it was approximately May 1953, that the colonel called me down and said that they had been considering me -- not a promotion in rank, but a promotion in work -- to go to prosthetics and work there. It is my own opinion that I was very good. ...."

(Source:  Korean War Atrocities: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Korean War Atrocities, p. 137)

From this we can see that Major Peress was a general dentist on his base, doing fillings and routine dentistry.... not the more complicated prosthodontic work. But then he was promoted to the prosthetics department, where he and the other prosthodontist worked on dental prostheses.

As we see, the general dentist did not do prostheses. A specialist did.

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

16 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

Ron Ecker's sister-in-law said:

“Dentists treat a lot of cut lips...."

 

Maybe so, but people don't go to a dentist to get a cut lip stitched. If a dentist stitches a cut lip, it's because the person went there for a dental problem that also involved a cut lip. This is plain old common sense.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

[deleted]

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

8 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

Ron's sister-in-law said:

....there is no indication of an existing prosthesis of any kind.

 

There SHOULDN'T be an indication of a prosthesis on the form! The instructions on the form specifically say to mark these items:

Caries, Dental Disease, Missing Teeth, Abnormalities

Nowhere on the form does it say to list existing prostheses. The purpose of this form is to identify and fix dental problems. An existing prosthesis is not a dental problem.

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Jim Hargrove writes:

Quote

what CIA accountant James Wilcott called "the Oswald Project" was already well underway in 1958

No, it wasn't. Wilcott in fact claimed that his 'Oswald project' had only just begun in 1958: "Oswald was recruited from the military for the express purpose of becoming a double agent assignment to the USSR" (Wilcott, 'The Kennedy Assassination', p.16).

Jim needs to stop misrepresenting Wilcott, whose use of the term 'Oswald project' referred only to Oswald being a paid employee of the CIA. It had nothing to do with any long-term doppelganger scheme involving fake Marguerites and lookalike imposters with sloping shoulders, 13-inch heads and missing teeth. You can argue about whether Wilcott's claim about Oswald was true or not, but it is dishonest to rope in Wilcott to prop up the 'Harvey and Lee' fantasy.

James Wilcott actually contradicted the central element of the 'Harvey and Lee' fantasy: he claimed that the 'Oswald project' began when Oswald was in the military, not a decade earlier.

I'm sure Sandy will be quick to chide Jim for bringing up the subject of James Wilcott's 'Oswald project' when this thread is meant to be about the missing tooth which we now know Oswald did not have.
 

[Sandy Larsen]

20 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

Ron's sister-in-law said:
 

 Even back then, most dentists purchased their treatment sheets from commercial mass producers.

 

 

There's a reason Ron's sister-in-law suspects that Oswald's dental record is written on a generic off-the-shelf form. Read on and I'll tell you why....

Ron's sister-in-law apparently is accustomed to seeing existing prostheses notated on dental records. And yet there is no instruction on Oswald's record for notating existing prostheses. She reasons, therefore, that this is only because the form used for Oswald is a generic form. And that the dentist has adapted the form to meet his needs, which (of course) includes notating existing prostheses. With that conclusion under her belt, she feels comfortable.

She then goes on to say that, since there is no existing prosthesis noted on Oswald's record, he could not have had a failed prosthesis!

Does anybody else here see how, because of her bias (i.e. expecting to see existing prostheses notated), she is engaging in circular logic!

Let's take a different approach. Let's actually look to see whether the form is generic or is standard military issue. By observing the top fields in the form we quickly discover it is a standard military form. (For example, it asks for military rank.)

Now, rather than allowing our biases determine what information should be written on the form, why not read the form and let it tell us what should be written.

If you do that, you'll discover that existing prostheses are NOT to be noted. (Not required, anyway.) That alone discredits sister-in-law's contention that there cannot be a failed prosthesis because there is no existing prosthesis to fail.

Furthermore, you'll discover that all of my arguments for the "FAILED" entry are consistent with what is on the form. I don't need to pretend that the form says one thing, but has been adapted to mean something else. My interpretation is straight forward and doesn't require any strange wording in odd places. Nothing weird. It's all very simple,

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by Sandy Larsen

[Ron Ecker]

Sandy,

You've done a lot of work and argue a good case. I think this discussion has gone on long enough and we can leave it at that. I can't say your interpretation is wrong, I've been saying there's another interpretation, but while the issue is interesting it ultimately, like so many other things, brings us no closer to answering the question of who killed JFK. If two guys we'll call Harvey and Lee were handled from childhood or at least as early as the 1950s for purposes of deception, it was not done for the purpose of assassinating JFK in the 1960s, any more than Operation Mongoose or Operation Northwoods originated with that purpose. Were one or more of these projects turned to that purpose? In that sense they remain theories involving the usual suspects. Like probably a lot of people here, I have a pretty good idea in my own mind as to who had JFK killed. And a set of teeth (or two sets of teeth) doesn't really figure much into it.

 

 

 

 

 

[Jim Hargrove]

4 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

Sandy,

You've done a lot of work and argue a good case. I think this discussion has gone on long enough and we can leave it at that. I can't say your interpretation is wrong, I've been saying there's another interpretation, but while the issue is interesting it ultimately, like so many other things, brings us no closer to answering the question of who killed JFK. If two guys we'll call Harvey and Lee were handled from childhood or at least as early as the 1950s for purposes of deception, it was not done for the purpose of assassinating JFK in the 1960s, any more than Operation Mongoose or Operation Northwoods originated with that purpose. Were one or more of these projects turned to that purpose? In that sense they remain theories involving the usual suspects. Like probably a lot of people here, I have a pretty good idea in my own mind as to who had JFK killed. And a set of teeth (or two sets of teeth) doesn't really figure much into it.

Sandy: My apologies, but Ron raises a crucial issue here, and I just have to discuss it, even though it is off the topic of the teeth.

Ron: I have to disagree with your statement above.  For more than a decade The two Oswalds run like a river through this story, including the months and the weeks leading up to the assassination, including the very day of the assassination, and I think they point DIRECTLY to the culprits behind JFK’s assassination.

Sending a spy to the Soviet Union in 1959 was obviously an intelligence operation that had nothing to do with JFK.  But people who knew about that operation were involved in diverting the Oswald Project from a patriotic spy case to the murder of JFK (see below).

In May of 1963, Lee HARVEY Oswald, for no believable reason whatsoever, moved from Dallas to New Orleans.  At the very time this Oswald was posing as a Castro-loving commie in New Orleans, LEE Harvey Oswald was working with Jack Ruby in Dallas, where he was seen by many witnesses.  Read, for example, the FBI statement of Ruby-employee Odell Estes, who said he went on several weekend fishing trips with this Oswald, and saw him numerous times in the Carousel Club, at the same time the other Oswald was in New Orleans.  (I couldn’t find the Estes statement on Mary Ferrell’s site, but I can post the whole thing if you haven’t seen it.)

This, among other things, shows that Ruby was far more involved in the JFK hit than we previously thought.  

Just a couple of months later, with Lee HARVEY Oswald back in Texas, the FBI took Oswald off the watch list, managed by its “WANTED NOTICE” cards, at almost EXACTLY the same time a CIA cable gave him a clean bill of political health. 

The WC didn’t even bother to depose the Division 5 guy (Gheesling) who ordered the FBI's flash cancellation. “Lee Harvey Oswald” had been on that list for nearly four years, since the “defection.” Now that he was taken off it, he’d no longer be under FBI and SS surveillance on 11/22.

At the very same time the FBI was taking “Lee Harvey Oswald” off the watch list, the CIA was publishing several confusing things about him. Responding to a query from the Mexico City station, four CIA officers signed a cable giving lots of accurate biographical data on our boy but calling him “Lee Henry Oswald.” The three page cable expressed no security concerns whatsoever about Oswald and, in fact, indicated the Moscow embassy felt “life in the Soviet Union had clearly had maturing effect on Oswald.” Nothing to worry about here!  The Agency was giving him a clean bill of political health.

This cable was signed by Jane Roman (Angleton’s assistant), William Hood (also close to Angleton), Thomas Karamessines (assistant to Helms) and John Whitten who, according to Jefferson Morley, was the only CIA officer of the four signers who suffered any adverse consequences for this troubling cable.

It was now no longer officially necessary for the FBI to monitor “Oswald’s” activities in Dallas. And the Secret Service would no longer be expected to investigate him prior to a presidential visit to Dallas.

Although “Lee Harvey Oswald” had been arrested for a supposedly violent confrontation in support of Fidel Castro in New Orleans just two months earlier, the entire National Security apparatus of our Federal government now seemed to just stop worrying about him. What happened next, of course, has been documented by scores of writers and filmmakers for more than half a century.

Someone who looked like the Oswald killed by Jack Ruby began making all kinds of appearances in and around Dallas. These appearances were clearly designed to attract attention. Here are just some:

“Oswald” visits the Sports Drome Rifle Range on Oct. 26, Nov. 9, Nov. 10, and again on Nov. 17, several times creating a scene and once shooting at another guy's target;

On Nov. 2 “Oswald” visits Morgan's Gun Shop in Fort Worth.

Also on Nov. 2 “Oswald” visits the Downtown Lincoln Mercury dealership where he test drives a car at wrecklessly high speeds saying he would soon come into enough money to buy a new car.

On Nov. 6 or 7 “Oswald” visits the Irving Furniture Mart for a gun part and is referred to the shop where Dial Ryder works.

On Nov. 15, “Oswald” goes to the Southland Hotel parking garage (Allright Parking Systems) and applies for a job and asks how high the Southland Building is and if it had a good view of downtown Dallas.

On Nov. 20 “Oswald” hitch-hikes on the R.L. Thornton Expressway while carrying a 4 foot long package wrapped in brown paper and introduces himself to Ralph Yates as “Lee Harvey Oswald,” discusses the President's visit, and asks to be dropped across the street from the Texas School Book Depository (where Russian-speaking “Lee Harvey Oswald” is already working).

The set-up of “Lee Harvey Oswald” was almost complete. Could this have been accomplished if the FBI and the Secret Service hadn’t been put to sleep just a few weeks earlier?  I’ll leave the events of 11/22/63 alone for now, but just look how much evidence there is that one Oswald got into a Nash Rambler on his way from the TSBD, while another took a bus and taxi.

In what was surely a final test by the plotters to see if an experienced interviewer would be fooled into thinking one Oswald was the same as the other, both were sent to the Texas Employment Commission where they met with employee Laura Kittrell.  Ms Kittell told the HSCA’s Gaeton Fonzi that the second Oswald “looked the same, the same general outline and coloring and build, but there was something so different in his bearing.”

This whole thing, I sincerely believe, was an intel operation created to provoke an invasion of Cuba and to retaliate against JFK for the Bay of Pigs failure.

[Ron Ecker]

52 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

This whole thing, I sincerely believe, was an intel operation created to provoke an invasion of Cuba and to retaliate against JFK for the Bay of Pigs failure.

I agree with that statement in that it was one reason for the assassination. (There were others, certainly Vietnam.) Is there anything in the H&L scenario that suggests other shooters, for what would look like an ambush (with Oswald as a fall guy in the group), or was it a lone-nut scenario from the start?

 

[Jim Hargrove]

19 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

This whole thing, I sincerely believe, was an intel operation created to provoke an invasion of Cuba and to retaliate against JFK for the Bay of Pigs failure.

 

18 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

I agree with that statement in that it was one reason for the assassination. (There were others, certainly Vietnam.) Is there anything in the H&L scenario that suggests other shooters, for what would look like an ambush (with Oswald as a fall guy in the group), or was it a lone-nut scenario from the start?

We believe that both Oswalds were at the TSBD that day, one leaving by the Nash Rambler wagon, the other by the bus and taxi.  While Russian-speaking Lee HARVEY Oswald was downstairs, American-born LEE Harvey Oswald paraded around on the 6th floor and was seen with another man by  Tom Dillard, Carolyn Walther, Ruby Henderson, etc.  LEE may have been a shooter.

But there were obviously other shooters.  I doubt we’ll ever know their names.  He didn't put it in the book as I recall,  but John A. has told me that he doubts the other shooters were professionals.  No contract killer, he speculated, would take the chance of murdering a U.S. president from the street in broad daylight.  This was most likely done by someone who absolutely hated JFK, the most likely candidates being ticked-off Cubans.  The usual suspects in the Agency probably handled them.