Was it really just a MOLE HUNT about "Oswald?"

[Jim Hargrove]

2 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

Here's what Jim won't tell you. On Armstrong's CD there is a document that refutes the whole thing. It states for the date entered "1954-1-13." That same document states "Last School PS 44 New York." So there were not 2 Oswalds attending different schools at all. Jim will probably say that they had to alter the document which is what he says about any piece of evidence that doesn't match the H&L theory. Of course, the old joke is how do H&L people know what is fake? It doesn't fit the theory.

No, Tracy, we're talking about the fall semester of 1953, not 1954.

Let’s go through the conflicting school records in more detail, starting with the PS44 records from New York City....

In 1953, Marguerite and LEE were living in a basement apartment at 1455 Sheridan while LEE was attending PS 44 in New York City. After the assassination SAC John Malone, the FBI agent in charge of the New York Office, inspected Oswald's original court file in the presence of Judge Florence Kelley. Malone took notes and sent a report to FBI Director Hoover the following day. Malone wrote, "Oswald's attendance record at PS #44 from 3/23/53 to 1/12/54 was 171 and 11 half-days present and 18 and 11 half days absent. If LEE Oswald's 182 days of attendance (171 full days, 11 1/2 days) and 18 absences are plotted on 1953 and 1954 calendars it is easy to see that LEE Oswald attended PS 44 full time during the entire 1953 school year.

Now let’s see how the PS 44 and Beauregard records conflict with each other.

I’m re-posting below the Beauregard cumulative record for LHO and below that two pages from an FBI report analyzing it.  Remember that the PS44 records clearly indicated that LHO attended more than 62 school days (and was absent three and a fraction days) for the semester beginning 9/14/53 at the NYC school.

Page 10 of the FBI report summarizes the attendance data in the “Absent,” “Tardy,” “Left” and “Re-Ad” columns, which are explained, according to the FBI agents, starting at the bottom of page 10 and continuing to page 11 by William Head, assistant principal at Warren Easton High School, who received the Beauregard records for incoming students.

At the bottom of page 10, the FBI indicates he said that the “Re ad” column stood for “Re Admitted” and “would represent a total listing of the school days for a given school year.”  But later in the very same paragraph, now at the top of page 11, the report indicates that Head said a school year regularly consisted of 180 days and that “school days in any given year must not fall below 170” and that “therefore the numbers listed opposite this abbreviation indicated the number of school days that Oswald attended for a given school year.”

So which is it?  Does the “Re-Ad” column represent the number of school days in a school semester or year, or the number of days a student actually attended during that period?

The answer is right before us in the documents shown above.    In the actual Beauregard cumulative record for LHO (top document above), look at the very last entry on the far right under the “Re-Ad” column.  It shows a total of “168” days for the 1954-55 school year. Head indicated that Louisiana law dictated a minimum of 170 school days in a school year, and so if we’re to believe that every student report card at Beauregard for the 1954-55 school year was evidence that Louisiana law was being broken.  On the other hand, using my interpretation (that the “168” indicated the actual days LHO attended school) we can make perfect sense of these numbers.  Adding Oswald’s 168 days of attendance and his 12 absences comes out to exactly 180 days, just what Head said comprised a typical Beauregard school year!

The “Re Ad” column clearly indicates the number of days a student actually attended school.  So let’s look at the first semester of the 1953-54 school year at Beauregard.  It indicates that Oswald attended 89 days and was absent once, for a total of 90 school days.

For the 1953 fall semester at PS 44 in New York, Oswald attended 62 and a fraction days and was absent three and a fraction days for a total of 66 school days accounted for.  Add those 66 days to the 90 days from Beauregard and you get at total of 156 days, equivalent to nearly an entire school year!  It is obvious that Harvey Oswald was a part-time student for this semester at Beauregard.  I believe this was carefully planned to gradually re-introduce him to New Orleans and its public school system.  NYC obviously had been a real problem, not for Lee, but for Harvey.  His truancy from school and his entanglement in NYC courts threatened to expose the Oswald Project.  That's why Lee HARVEY Oswald and his caretaker mother fled to North Dakota from NYC.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Now Tracy, you know very well that none of those supposed Greg Parker debunkings in fact debunk anything. I've asked you many times in the past to explain how they debunk and you have never been able to explain.

 

You (and lurkers) can go right to Greg's site and read his explanation Sandy. In fact, he addresses your arguments and you by name. Like it or not, it is an alternate explanation on how to read the records. You're not claiming it doesn't exist like Jim used to are you? That's why web sites exists-so you don't have to type things over and over.

[Jim Hargrove]

But, as always, Mr Parnell will not tell us how this information is debunked on another website because he knows he will lose the debate here on the JFK Assassination Debate section of the Education Forum.
This is really quite simple.

For the fall semester of the 1953-54 school year,  one Oswald attended Beauregard JHS in New Orleans for 89 school days while the other was enrolled in Public School 44 in New York City, where he was present for 62 full days and 5 half days, was absent 3 full days and 8 half days, for a total accounting of 78 days.

This is exactly what the school records published by the Warren Commission show.  As always, we are analyzing the mistakes made by Hoover and his closest aides.  He forgot to hide this information.

One things that puzzled a number of people is why, in the fall semester of 1953, did Lee HARVEY Oswald take only two courses at Beauregard: General Science and Physical Education?  The answer is pretty obvious.

By the early months of 1953, Harvey Oswald’s serious school truancy had landed him and his “mother” smack dab in the middle of the New York City court system.   The pair fled to rural North Dakota to escape legal actions that could have exposed the Oswald Project.  Clearly, Harvey was being eased carefully back into school during his first semester at Beauregard.

Here’s another page from the FBI report analyzing the Beauregard records:

On this page, “1953-54 – REPORT 1” summarizes Oswald’s grades for the 1953 fall semester, at exactly the time the other Oswald was attending Public School 44 in New York City.  Report 2 covers the 1954 spring semester, and Report 3 summarizes both semesters of the 1953-54 school year.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

33 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

But, as always, Mr Parnell will not tell us how this information is debunked on another website because he knows he will lose the debate here on the JFK Assassination Debate section of the Education Forum.

I already told you how. It depends on the method you use to count the number of days. Parker shows another way to do that. The H&L theory always relies on evidence being interpreted one way only. When you look at the alternatives, it all falls apart.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Jim Hargrove writes:

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Mr. Bojczuk continues his obvious plan to discuss only the mastoidectomy and to ignore all the other evidence I have asked him dozens of times to consider.

and claims that I

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refuse to look at any other evidence.

But I have looked at other evidence. And, like almost everyone who has looked at the evidence for a long-term doppelganger scheme involving two unrelated boys from different countries chosen at a young age who magically turned out to look virtually identical more than a decade later, I find it at best unconvincing and often laughably weak, largely due to the fact that much of it is based on a combination of decades-old memories, misreadings of documents (as Tracy has just reminded us), preference given to less reliable witnesses over more credible ones, plain invention, and paranoia.

If you take away every piece of evidence that has a perfectly uncontroversial everyday explanation, such as the recently disposed-of evidence that Oswald was missing a tooth, you're left with, at best, a handful of anomalies, certainly nothing like the evidence that's needed to support such a far-fetched scheme.

To continue Jim's courtroom analogy, the jury has given its verdict. As Bernie Laverick pointed out some time ago, the 'Harvey and Lee' theory has been going for over two decades, and it has still acquired fewer converts than the idea that the Queen of England is a lizard.

As evidence that I haven't discussed only the mastoidectomy, I would like to introduce Exhibit A, your honor:

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

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Jim also writes:

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All that matters to the court is the evidence presented here, in this forum.

But this isn't a court of law, is it? It's a web forum, in which people are able to create links to any piece of evidence that happens to be available online. Other people, whether members such as Jim or casual readers, can follow those links and discover what that other evidence is, if they're interested.

All of Jim's talking points have already been discussed and debated, usually many times over. If Jim thinks it's necessary to direct readers to these discussions, he only has to create a link or two.

If he feels the urge to re-acquaint himself with criticism of many other aspects of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, of which there is plenty, I'll be happy to provide links. To take an example at random, the notion, beloved of certain 'Harvey and Lee' believers, that one of the Oswald doppelgangers had a 13-inch head, is discussed here:

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

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Jim continues:

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the defense has offered compelling evidence that the FBI fabricated other evidence in this case

The FBI has indeed fabricated other evidence, but, as I explained earlier, that doesn't entitle Jim to assume that any piece of evidence he dislikes must therefore also be fabricated.

Each accusation of fabrication must be evaluated on its merits. If Jim wants to convince anyone that a piece of evidence has been fabricated, such as the altered mastoidectomy-related "document or two" that he has so far been unable to identify, he needs to explain what it is about that piece of evidence that suggests that it might have been fabricated.

For example, he could bring up a witness who stated that his or her official statements misrepresented what he or she actually said, as in the case of Victoria Adams. Or he could bring up a signed confession by a member of the FBI's Document Fabrication Squad (Doppelganger Division). Speculation alone, 'Harvey and Lee'-style, isn't good enough, even if it's all Jim has.

The clearest instances of fabrication of evidence and intimidation of witnesses were done (and not just by the FBI) in order to incriminate the one and only, real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald, not to invalidate some fantastical invention about long-term doppelgangers with 13-inch heads and their doppelganger mothers.

These instances were done to place Oswald on the sixth floor, shooting at Kennedy (as with Victoria Adams's evidence), and on Tenth Street, shooting at Tippit. Of course, both of these poorly supported scenarios are central not just to the Warren Commission's case but also to its close relation, the 'Harvey and Lee' theory.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Sandy Larsen writes:

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Jeremy's illogical line of reasoning (which has at it's [sic] core a logical fallacy known as circular reasoning, but has other fallacies as well)

Circular reasoning? I'd guess Sandy objects to my treatment of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense as something that is yet to be proved. But surely the default setting is that, until proved otherwise, Lee Harvey Oswald was one person and not a pair of doppelgangers, and his mother was one person and not a pair of doppelgangers. In the same way, surely the default setting with regard to the moon landings is that they were not faked.

And so far, after many years of trying, 'Harvey and Lee' believers have not come close to demonstrating that their long-term doppelganger scenario is justified, or that the moon landings were faked (as Jack White, co-creator of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, believed).

Until convincing evidence emerges (unlikely, since people have been looking for decades and haven't come across any yet), the doppelgangers were imaginary, Oswald was one person, Marguerite was one person, and the moon landings actually happened.

By "convincing", I mean convincing to a large number of informed, reasonable people. As I pointed out earlier, the jury has given its verdict on that point. Lee Harvey Oswald was one person, not two.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Sandy also writes:

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All Jeremy has in his defense is the mastoidectomy issue.

On the contrary, Jeremy has raised several other problems with the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense. See, for example, Exhibit A above.

Why have I been concentrating on the mastoidectomy issue? Because it forms one of the biggest gaping holes in the 'Harvey and Lee' theory:

- Armstrong's theory relies on taking various aspects of Oswald's life and parcelling them out between two imaginary doppelgangers. The question of which of Armstrong's imaginary doppelgangers would be allocated Oswald's mastoidectomy is a central element of the theory, not some trivial detail. Evidence from reputable scientists shows that this central element of the theory is false. Armstrong claimed that the body in the grave was that of the imaginary doppelganger who had not undergone a mastoidectomy. But the scientists' report demonstrates that the body in the grave had indeed undergone a mastoidectomy. That by itself should be enough to dismiss the long-term doppelganger theory (or at least Armstrong's version of it) as a fantasy.

- The mastoidectomy issue shows that the long-term doppelganger theory was false even before the holy book was published. The scientists' report was published in 1984; Harvey and Lee, in 2003. Any theory that gets debunked two decades before its foundational text is published is, to put it politely, not worth taking seriously.

- It shows that Armstrong deliberately withheld from his readers information that showed his theory to be false. He knew that the exhumation report contained evidence that the body in Oswald's grave had undergone a mastoidectomy, and he knew that this contradicted a central part of his theory, namely the biographies of his two imaginary doppelgangers. But he didn't tell his readers, presumably hoping that they wouldn't notice. This was clearly, as Jim's silence on the matter confirms, less than entirely honest. That's unless Jim can think of a convincing alternative explanation, of course, but he's had plenty of chances and he hasn't come up with anything yet.

Now that we've returned to the matter at hand, it's worth noting that a schism has appeared among the faithful. The prophet Armstrong (praise his name!) declared long ago that Oswald's mastoidectomy belonged to imaginary doppelganger A. But Jim has evidently accepted that the scientists' report over-rules Armstrong's pronouncement. Jim has made it clear that he thinks the mastoidectomy should be handed over to imaginary doppelganger B, although he has merely asserted this rather than actually put forward any evidence to support his claim.

Sandy, on the other hand, is hinting that both of the imaginary doppelgangers may have undergone mastoidectomy operations. Of course, no evidence has been put forward to justify this speculation either. But it will be interesting to see if Sandy continues down this heretical route. I dread to think what John Butler, the "Copernicus of the conspiratorial", who thinks there may have been at least three Oswalds, comes up with. Armstrong have mercy on us!

I'm sure this schism will be front-page news in the next edition of the Doppelganger Fan Club's next quarterly newsletter (two copies of each issue per member).

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Jonathan Cohen writes:

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You're kidding, right? Jeremy has absolutely destroyed the key point of this entire ridiculous theory.

Thanks, Jonathan. Let's see what Jim and the boys come up with next to avoid facing up to the many inadequacies and contradictions in their fantastical theory.

Jim likes copying and pasting, so let's see if this gets a reply out of him:

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John Armstrong appears to have deliberately neglected to mention the existence of the mastoidectomy defect on the body in Oswald's grave. He knew that scientific evidence proved that a central part of his theory was false, and he concealed that evidence from his readers. It makes him look like a shifty snake-oil salesman, doesn't it?

Was Armstrong really being as dishonest as he appears? Or can Jim think up an alternative reason for his behaviour?

Come on, Jim. Why did John Armstrong fail to mention the mastoidectomy defect? It certainly looks as though he was deliberately misleading his readers, doesn't it?

[Jim Hargrove]

11 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

I already told you how. It depends on the method you use to count the number of days. Parker shows another way to do that. The H&L theory always relies on evidence being interpreted one way only. When you look at the alternatives, it all falls apart.

Surely you can be a bit more specific than that, especially if, as you claim, Greg Parker has done all the work for you.  What other counting method alters what the record shows, that one Oswald attended the 1953 fall semester at Beauregard Junior High School for 89 days and was absent one while the other Oswald was enrolled in Public School 44 in New York City, where he was present for 62 full days and 5 half days, was absent 3 full days and 8 half days, for a total accounting of 78 days?

[Jim Hargrove]

H&L CRITIC DISCOVERS FORT
WORTH NEWSPAPER CONSPIRACY

In Sept. 1954, one Oswald began attending Beauregard School in New Orleans while the other began taking classes at Stripling School in Fort Worth, Texas.  

In a 1997 interview with John Armstrong, Frank Kudlaty (assistant principal at Stripling when Oswald attended) explained how, the day after the assassination, he met two FBI agents at the school and handed over Oswald’s school records.

In another 1997 interview, Fran Schubert, an eighth grade student at Stripling when Oswald attended, described how at lunch time every day, she watched Oswald walk across the street to his house at 2220 Thomas Place.

But, according to the Warren Commission, Oswald never attended Stripling School. It is not even mentioned in the WC Report.  One person on this forum eager to defend the Warren Commission is Tracy Parnell, who analyzed the Stripling School evidence and came up with a remarkable theory.

In this post, and numerous others, Mr. Parnell declared that “Jack White had gotten to Kudlaty and filled his head with nonsense and only then did Kudlaty ‘remember’ that the FBI had ‘confiscated’ records.”

Apparently, Mr. Parnell has discovered not only a minor conspiracy between Jack White and Frank Kudlaty, but a remarkable time-traveling plot in which the White/Kudlaty team influenced a Fort Worth newspaper report just two days after the assassination of JFK.  

On November 24, 1963 the Fort Worth Star Telegram published an article describing Oswald's attendance at Stripling School.

 

On May 11, 2002 the same Fort Worth newspaper published an article commemorating the 75th anniversary of Stripling School, noting that “Lee Harvey Oswald” was its best-known student, and making note of the infamous Thomas Place address.  "Marguerite Oswald" was living at 2220 Thomas Place on the day of the assassination of JFK.

As recently as November, 2017 a Fort Worth Star-Telegram article indicated that Oswald’s “teachers and classmates remembered him at Stripling, though there is no official record.” Read the article here.

Why is there no official record?  Because the FBI confiscated the records the less than 24 hours after the assassination of JFK. In 1963 school records from prior years were kept at each individual school in the Fort Worth system. In the mid-1960s,  school records from all Ft. Worth schools were transferred to the new Ft. Worth Independent School District where they were organized and stored.

Edited June 17, 2020 by Jim Hargrove

[W. Tracy Parnell]

1 hour ago, Jim Hargrove said:

On November 24, 1963 the Fort Worth Star Telegram published an article describing Oswald's attendance at Stripling School.

This report was based on Robert Oswald's statements to the media at the time of LHO's defection. The "witnesses" are either lying or mis-remembering Robert who did attend Stripling.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

2 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Surely you can be a bit more specific than that,

Jim-my advice to you and Sandy is to go over to Parker's forum and register there if you truly want to have a debate and don't just want to draw attention to yourselves in hopes of getting a movie deal. There you will find a willing group of individuals who are eager to do so and who have some valid alternative explanations. 

[John Butler]

20 minutes ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

This report was based on Robert Oswald's statements to the media at the time of LHO's defection. The "witnesses" are either lying or mis-remembering Robert who did attend Stripling

Isn't this the same kind of false reasoning assigned to Jim Hargrove?

A question that has always bothered me about Marguerite Oswald is why she went to New York and stayed for a year and half or whatever time she and Oswald were there.  The reasons given in most accounts don't make sense to me.  What did New York have that Dallas didn't?  If you can respond and then Jim Hargrove also I would very much appreciate the response.

 

Edited June 17, 2020 by John Butler