New Essay by Bill Simpich - The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend

[Anthony Thorne]

The next instalment of Bill Simpich's essay is here.

 

The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend

Part 1: Mother, Meyer, and the Spotters

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Oswald_Legend_1.html

 

Worth a read, but the endnotes formatting is somewhat unhelpful - after reading the essay, you get presented with quotes from it, and then have to double back to the main text to find which one went where - and this latest in a 'revised series of articles' is still dated August 2010, so it beats me if it was revised or not.

 

[David Andrews]

It's possible that the revisions are added photos and document images, plus links to other pages at Mary Ferrell.  But I can't be sure, either.

[Bill Simpich]

I appreciate the responses everyone has to this series so far.  Yes, it has been revamped - I will take the dates that they were originally written down, it is confusing.

In response to Mr. Norwood's criticism - I have extensive endnotes for every one of the chapters.  I have found in the past that if I provide endnotes for every sentence of the work, the endnotes for the work I am doing are  longer than the text.

I try to make the endnotes focus on the most important aspects of each chapter.  Sorry, but I respectfully disagree that I have any duty to provide endnotes for every citation, and I don't see any need to provide endnotes in a preface where you are going to see much of the same material all over again.  In a better world and with a staff of several people, might consider end-noting every citation and knock out an index too - but I am doing this for free and there just aren't enough hours in the day.

I hope we can agree to disagree on that point - and I hope I can have a collegial discussion with James Norwood, Jim Hargrove, and everyone else about the issues contained in the Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend - and the role of Oswald in an espionage is a big one that I want to discuss in depth.

For now, let me say this:  I stand by comments with Oswald as a wannabe agent - I do think he wanted to be James Bond, and I don't think he did a lot of first-class spying.  

If you read my book State Secret and the upcoming chapters of this series (and the earlier version of this series can be found on the AARC site), you will find that I believe that Oswald was probably a witting asset and/or source of Customs, and had been acting in that role since he was a teenager helping out Mr. Tujague.  Joan Mellen convinced me on that ground, and she did it by citing a long series documents that contained admissions by percipient witnesses in A Farewell to Justice.

You will also see that there really is no dispute that LHO told John Fain in August 1962 that he would report to him if he was ever contacted by the Soviets - that statement, by itself, made him a potential security informant, whether the FBI ever used those words or not.

Similarly, when LHO was arrested in New Orleans on 8/10/63, he asked for an FBI agent to visit him in jail and then he spilled enough information to fill several pages.  That clearly makes Oswald an "asset" - and a source.  But there's no proof that he was paid, which is what it would take for him to be considered at least a casual "informant".  

In terms of Jim Hargrove's 20 points - I agree with most of them, which highlights my belief that it is not a good idea to get ahead of the evidence.  I don't want to quarrel with the 20 points - but I don't think any one of them "proves" that LHO was a paid agent or informant of any organization. 

Even the strongest statement of the 20 - which Jim puts out there as number one - is James Wilcott.  As Jim knows, I put Wilcott's claim that LHO is "RX-ZIM" in the CIA cryptonym list at Mary Ferrell. 

I have great personal admiration for James Wilcott - after he left the CIA, he dedicated himself to social movements that challenged US war-making policy and put himself on the line as a resister for years at the Port Chicago Naval Weapons Station.  I believe that he was a fine human being.

That is not exactly the same as saying that he has proven his case.  He was unable to provide any documents, a lot of what he provided was second-hand scuttlebutt, and I do not recall any officer willing to back up his case.  It was not an Edward Snowden moment.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  The quality of evidence needed to prove where Oswald went to school is not as high as the quality of evidence needed to prove that he was a trained agent or a paid informant.  You simply need a higher level of proof. 

Wilcott could have had memory problems that magnified during the years after he left the Agency.  Witness statements are notoriously unreliable, especially when they are provided years after the fact.  I could make a series of other arguments, but it boils down to the need for serious corroboration of his story, and to date we just don't have it.

I find it far more engaging to make the initial more conservative assumption that the actions of someone like Oswald, or the Paines, or de Mohrenschildt were "unwitting" - and then see where the evidence takes me using that approach.  

I prefer that approach to making an initial assumption that their actions were "witting", and then try to convince myself that I'm not wiggling the evidence to fit inside the jigsaw puzzle.

As investigators, we will find ourselves having to make a judgment call about whether someone's action were witting or unwitting in a variety of contexts.

If I'm going to have to make that call, I'll be in the best shape if I've been eating my vegetables - which to me is trying to understand all the mundane facts of the JFK case - before I go off to have my dessert - which to me is who shot JFK and who set it up.  

 

 

[Bill Simpich]

I took a look at James Norwood's well-written article on Oswald's Proficiency in the Russian Language and realized that if readers like Mr. Norwood are going to look for a Harvey and Lee-type analysis in my work, they are not going to find it.

I read John Armstrong's Harvey and Lee several times over a period of five years.  It is great research.  It is one of the most important books written on the JFK case.  He really took his time and went over an immense array of evidence and did a fine job with much of it.

I am convinced that LHO was impersonated on a number of occasions, especially during 1963.  When I go to Jim Hargrove's fine website on Harvey and Lee, my problem is that I literally cannot keep up with the varying theories regarding the schools and the like and the chronologies - because they are not hyperlinked.

All of us have different styles - for me, I want the key documents in the Harvey and Lee analysis hyperlinked so I don't have to hunt them down - the Harvey and Lee site's failure to use hyperlinks in its chronologies and on a consistent basis makes it hard for me.  Yes, some documents are provided - but not enough for me.

I like to be able to see the primary source for myself.  I want to see what's not referenced, not simply what is referenced.  That's a big reason why I put my material on the internet rather than on paper.

I am also willing to consider the possibility that a different version of Lee returned to the US - I am willing to entertain the possibility that the entire Oswald family in New Orleans were intelligence operatives.  My problem is that I cannot find enough data points for me to make that leap.  

What I have written is my analysis about the individuals that created his legend.  I'm certainly willing to do it elsewhere, but I do not want to argue about Harvey and Lee - because you are not going to find that analysis in my series.   If that's what you want to do, please don't do it on a thread about my series, do it somewhere else.

 

[James Norwood]

7 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

I took a look at James Norwood's well-written article on Oswald's Proficiency in the Russian Language and realized that if readers like Mr. Norwood are going to look for a Harvey and Lee-type analysis in my work, they are not going to find it.

Dear Bill,

Thank you for having a look at my article and for the work you have done on the important topic of the Oswald legend.

I'm not looking for a Harvey and Lee-type analysis.  But I am looking for a defensible rationale for why Oswald spent two-and-a-half years in the Soviet Union. 

In examining this topic, it is inevitable that the historian must address Oswald's exceptional fluency in the Russian language.  So, in analyzing the legend of Oswald, students of the JFK assassination will find it essential to understand why, when, and where Oswald learned Russian. 

The topic of the legend opens a Pandora's Box of questions about the truth lying beneath the legend.  It is not enough to merely assert that he was a "wannabe spy," given (a) the careful planning of the venture to the Soviet Union in 1959; (b) Oswald's exceptional foreign language skills; (c) the feigning of his ignorance of Russian in the Minsk years; and (d) the ease with which he returned to the United States in 1962. 

At the close of my article, I conclude that, far from being a wannabe spy, Oswald was a bona fide 100% agent of the United States.  Once we understand that reality, then it becomes apparent why there has been a concerted effort for over 50 years to conceal from the public the truth about Oswald's connection to American intelligence.  And when we understand that connection, it is possible to see clearly who planned the assassination of President Kennedy.

James 

[Matt Allison]

Oswald's dyslexia and difficulty with writing would have precluded him from becoming an actual CIA officer. But that's not to say he couldn't have been useful to them in other ways.

[Bill Simpich]

James,

I would welcome having a dialogue with you on it elsewhere on the Education Forum - can we pick a good spot to do it?

I agree with you that "students of the JFK assassination will find it essential to understand why, when, and where Oswald learned Russian."  But that's not what I am writing about here.   I'm writing about his babysitters and the people who massaged his file for molehunting purposes and more - John Armstrong was a major factor regarding my beliefs about Oswald's Russian abilities - and for that matter, Marina's English abilities.

I would very pleased to move this particular conversation to another spot at the Ed Forum, focusing on LHO's language abilities and whatever other factors you want to cite to your statement that he was a "bona fide 100% CIA spy".  How about if either you or me starts a new thread today, and Jim Hargrove and anyone else can join in a focused conversation?  I would really look forward to it.

 

 

[James Norwood]

Bill,

Yes, I believe a thread devoted to the topic of Oswald's language abilities and the evidence related to his adventure in the Soviet Union (1959-62) to be instructive.  Please feel free to start a thread, and I will be keeping an eye out for it.

Thank you!

James

[Bill Simpich]

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Oswald_Legend_3.html  - Part 3 is now up at MFF.

This has been revised to offer what I consider a good thread of analysis  on the role of ONI and the State Dept in the LHO renunciation story and that Oswald did not actually threaten to expose classified info - contrary to my original belief.  I also follow up on Peter Dale Scott’s finding that the Marines committed fraud in the flim flam they used to downgrade his discharge - and the Navy may have done something similar in hiding from Fred Korth the entire discharge battle.

Edited June 22, 2020 by Bill Simpich

[Greg Doudna]

Bill your article raises the question whether Secretary of the Navy Fred Korth saw the Connally Feb. 23, 1962 reply to LHO's letter of Jan. 30, 1962 ("did Korth know about this proceeding at any time before it was final?"). Connally's reply to Oswald stated that he was "no longer connected to the Navy" and that he has "referred your [LHO's] letter to the office of the Secretary of the Navy in Washington, D.C."

It may be of interest that Captain Andy Kerr, counsel in the Secretary of the Navy's office, described receiving the LHO letter and showing it to and discussing it with his boss the Secretary of the Navy, who would have been Korth. I found this and related documents in Chapter 4 of Pierre Sundborg, Tragic Truth (2016), from the memoir of Kerr, A Journey Among the Good and the Great (1987).

There is a wrinkle here though: although Korth was Secretary of the Navy in February 1962, Kerr speaks of his boss in Washington, D.C. with whom he discussed LHO's Jan. 30, 1962 letter, the Secretary of the Navy, as "Connally", even though Korth, not Connally, was Secretary of the Navy at that point. Sundborg notes this anomaly in Kerr's account and in a footnote reconstructs what he, Sundborg, believes is the explanation:

""Kerr wrote 'aboard our 43-foot sailing cutter Andiomo III at anchor in lovely Cook's Bay, Moorea, in Fench Polynesia...from memory. ....Without access to...files...there are doubtless...errors.' There was one problem--Kerr confused the already-resigned Connally with the successor Korth. What you will read here has been corrected in that regard, otherwise it's as Captain Kerr wrote" (Sundborg, fn. Q, p. 95).

Since the Sundborg book is not available online and there are only ca. 300 paper copies in existence (from the author's information), I quote below the account from Kerr in full as it appears in Sundborg. Where Kerr evidently wrote "Connally" Sundborg replaces with bracketed "[new Secretary Korth]" in quoting the Kerr passage. Here is the passage, cited as from pp. 1-3 of Kerr, Journey Among the Good and the Great, quoted in Sundborg at pp. 95-96:

"One day we got a letter from Lee Harvey Oswald. The name meant nothing to us then. The letter was long and handwritten and was mailed from Russia...It had been processed routinely in the secretary's mail room. Someone there decided that I, as special counsel to the secretary, should 'staff' the letter. The decision was logical because [it] had legal overtones. So it fell to me to decide what to do with the letter. ...

"Those unfamiliar with the U.S. military services should know at this point that the Marine Corps is part of the Navy Department. Even the secretary of the navy needed to remind himself of this fact from time to time to avoid oversights damaging to delicate Marine Corps sensibilities. [There was] a sign over the door leading out of this office that read, 'Remember the Marines.' It reminded him to call the Marine Corps commandant to apprise him of important decisions before they became public. The flamboyant commandant at that time, General David Shoup, could become particularly peevish if this was not done.

"When Oswald left the Marine Corps and went to live in Russia, he was given an administrative discharge that was less than commendatory...'undesirable.' He thought that characterization unfair. Later events were to prove the epithet to have been exceptionally mild. The letter was an attention getter. You don't find many Marines defecting to the Soviet Union.

"I sent to Marine Corps Headquarters for Oswald's record, and studied the circumstances of his defection and subsequent discharge. There were no conflicts of fact between his letter and his record. A review of the statutes and regulations governing administrative discharges let to the conclusion that Oswald's discharge was in complete3 compliance with all legal requirements.

"That, however, was not the end of it. The secretary can exercise clemency if he feels that there are strong extenuating circumstances. He may also intervene if an applicant's service was exceptionally meritorious.

"Neither applied to Oswald. He had been a lousy Marine.

"So I prepared the usual two papers that accompany all correspondence going into the secretary's 'action' basket. The first was a brief, setting forth everything I thought the secretary needed to know in order to make an informed decision. It concluded with a recommendation for action. The second was a paper for the secretary to sign that would put the recommended action into effect.

"In Oswald's case, my conclusions were that his complaint had no legal basis, his request was without merit, and that [new Secretary Korth] [[here is where Kerr evidently ACTUALLY WROTE, erroneously, "Connally"--gd]] should not involve himself in any way. I recommended that he refer to the letter to the commandant of the Marine Corps for 'appropriate action.' This phrase meant, in clear officialese, that the secretary was washing his hands of the case. The commandant could do with it as he wished. No one could doubt what the result would be. It was a kiss-off.

"A day or two later, [Korth] [[again, according to Sundborg, Kerr actually wrote "Connally" here--gd]] called me into his office. He had obviously read the entire file and was intrigued. We discussed the case for half an hour or so, and at the end he said, 'I agree with you, Andy--this is the way we should handle it.' He then signed the second piece of paper that sent Oswald's letter on its way, we thought, to oblivion.

"But that's not the way it turned out. On 22 November 1963, while riding beside President Kennedy in a motorcade in Dallas, John Connally, then governor of Texas, was shot through his arm and lung by Lee Harvey Oswald. President Kennedy was shot and killed in the same incident. The history books say it slightly differently--that Connally was wounded during Oswald's assassination of President Kennedy. The assumption is always that Oswald was shooting at Kennedy and that Connally was hit by accident or as a secondary target of opportunity. Could it not, however, have been the other way around? In spite of all of the investigations, including that of the Warren Commission, and the continuing fascination with and theories about the event, no one has yet come up with a credible motive for the shooting of Kennedy by Oswald. Against this, we know for a fact that Oswald once asked Connally for help in what may have been a cri du coeur. He was turned down flat. What greater motivation does a psychopath need?

"Thus, by fortune I am able to provide a footnote to history..."

[Bill Simpich]

Greg, much appreciation for running down this line of discussion!

Andrew Kerr - historian and legal counsel to the Navy - may still be alive - if so he is almost 100 - it may be a relative...

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2019/january/converting-merchant-ships-missile-ships-win

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1987/06/14/lest-we-forget/9a2fd83e-c0ef-4030-8668-e03a1468c9f5/ is a review of Kerr's oral history by the Washington Post in 1987 - 

But, in any case, although I like what I could read of Pierre Sundborg's book Tragic Truth - he has a theory that LHO was shooting at Connally, that's the premise of his entire book.

Kerr wrote a brief about LHO for Connally - discussed it with Connally for half an hour - I believed Kerr got it right, it was Connally who made the decision. to pass on upgrading the discharge and told him that to pass it on to the Assistant Director of Personnel Tompkins, who wrote a 3/7/62 letter to LHO saying that the Secretary of the Navy kicked it to him.

I'm willing to be wrong, all right - but not based on Sundborg's work, if i have to weigh it on Kerr's memory and Sundborg's supposition.

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by Bill Simpich

[Bill Simpich]

 

I found these posts indicating

1) Nellie Connally said  "John Connally was involved in not reinstating LHO's discharge back to Honorable"; what does "involved" mean?

2) that Connally signed his dishonorable discharge papers; still looking for those papers

3) Connally felt LHO's anger at him was misplaced; that could mean anything

4) Connally researched the case for years and concluded LHO acted alone - and believed that LHO was shooting at him and hit JFK by accident.

JFK got hit at least twice, and at least once in the head - Connally got hit once - I find his opinion bewildering.

These came from two sources, courtesy of Alistair Briggs on the Ed Forum three years ago:

"Nellie told Larry King in 2003 that John Connally was involved in not re-instating LHO's discharge back to Honorable IIRC. Nellie also felt LHO was shooting at her husband & hit JFK by accident."

Here is a section from the book 'From Love Field (our final hours with president John F Kennedy)' written by Nellie Connally and Mickey Herskowitz. First published 2003."

 

"Enough has been written about that horrible time, and
the Warren Commission itself, to fill a thousand volumes.
Suffice it to say that the weight of the evidence we know
about convince both John and me that Oswald -- a twenty-
four-year-old stock clerk who had been hired a month before
to work in the Book Depository -- had acted alone: a fact
supported by a little investigation we conducted on our own
almost ten years later.

When then-President Nixon appointed my husband
as secretary of the treasury in 1973, John found himself in
charge of our nation's major intelligence branches. With
an obvious personal interest in the case and a stake in an
unbiased outcome, he pored over every classified document,
every memo, every report prepared on the subject. Along
with his other duties, he spent months researching every scrap
of evidence and found nothing to change his mind. As he said
on the twentieth anniversary of the tragedy in 1983, "Nobody
in America can keep a secret that big for that long."

More chilling to us personally was the fact that Oswald's
dishonorable discharge papers had been signed by none other
than Kennedy's then-secretary of the Navy, John Connally.
We learned Oswald had written letters protesting that decision,
but if his anger had been directed at John, it was misplaced.
At the time of Oswald's discharge, my husband was back in
Texas, busily campaigning to be its next governor.

We'll never know if Oswald knew his imaginary
anatgonist was in the same car as the President he hated, but
the idea that John might have been a target still sends chills up
and down my spine."

 

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by Bill Simpich

[Greg Doudna]

Bill S., I agree Sundborg's supposition bears no weight whereas Kerr's memory does bear weight. Also I agree with you in rejecting Sundborg's Connally-shooting-target argument thesis which also is irrelevant to the point here. The relevant point is: do not the uncontested dates and chronology of the facts have even greater weight and conflict with, and because of that conflict do they override, Kerr's memory?

According to this museum's website, Naval Heritage and History, "Fred H. Korth was appointed Secretary of the Navy by President Kennedy on 11 December 1961, to succeed John B. Connally, who resigned after one year in office to return to Texas as a gubernatorial candidate. He takes the Oath of Office on 20 January 1962, the effective date of Mr. Connally's resignation" (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/library/research-guides/modern-biographical-files-ndl/modern-bios-k/korth-fred-h.html). 

LHO's letter is addressed to Connally in Fort Worth and dated Jan 30, 1962 ("Jan. 30, 1961" in LHO's handwriting on the letter is universally understood to be a mistake for 1962), evidently delivered in Fort Worth where Connally was at this point, with Connally's reply to LHO on Feb. 23, 1962 at the same time as Connally forwarded the materials to D.C.--apparently Connally writing from Fort Worth--saying "As I am no longer connected with the Navy", he, Connally, was forwarding LHO's letter to the "office of the Secretary of the Navy in Washington, D.C." 

How then can the account of Andrew Kerr, who is located at the Dept. of Navy in D.C., of receiving the letter some time later than Jan. 30, and then discussing it with "'the secretary", who had "called me into his office", where there was a thirty-minute discussion of the case and a decision to forward it to the Marine Corps, refer to a conversation and a Secretary of the Navy action decision by Connally?

The only real alternative I can think of is that which would support your argument in your "Part 3", in which you show what seems to be some sleight-of-photocopying (if that is what was going on) with reference to whether Korth was "in the loop" on the LHO discharge status decision. In that case what appears prima facie to be a mistake on Kerr's part is not a mistake but actually accurate, i.e. he did talk to Connally, not Korth. That would, if correct, raise the question of why that was not made clearer in terms of the logistics, and why Korth, Kerr's boss and in the same building and the Secretary of the Navy, was not the "secretary" of the Navy Kerr discussed the matter with. 

In other words, it is either a mistake on Kerr's part, or if it was not a mistake and it was intentional on Kerr's part, it could support the other reasons you give for suggesting "sleight-of-paperwork" related to Korth and Oswald, on that detail. 

Again, Sundborg's opinion has nothing to do with this here. I cited Sundborg since that is where I saw Kerr quoted and I did not have the Kerr book to quote it directly (I have now ordered it). The issue is how to understand or interpret the facts of Kerr's memory in light of the facts of the chronology and dates.

You offer as a possible motive for Korth being intentionally left out of the loop (by Kerr?) that Korth might have acted mercifully on LHO's request (for some reason unwanted by other parties--to have leverage on LHO?). Korth after all in the past, as you bring out, had been a lawyer for Oswald's own stepfather (from the young LHO's point of view, LHO's father) when the stepfather divorced Marguerite; Korth knew of the family from his earlier law practice and might very well for that reason have responded sympathetically to Oswald's plea to review the facts of his case.

Kerr's statement that LHO's letter and military record agreed on the facts but the decision to change his discharge was legitimate makes little sense on the face of it, since the stated basis for the Navy's ex post facto change of Oswald's discharge to "undesirable" was "reliable information that you had renounced your United States citizenship" (Tompkins letter, March 7, 1962). Whereas as LHO labored futilely to explain, he as a factual matter had not renounced his US citizenship, never was other than a US citizen uninterruptedly, and LHO advised specifically how that fact could be verified--by calling the US embassy in Moscow who would back up that fact. Marguerite's letters on LHO's behalf also labored to make this same factual point, to no avail. Oswald's alleged later actions aside, Oswald plea on the face of it had a case, yet Oswald could not even get it reviewed. It gives every appearance of being a predetermined bureaucratic punishment of Oswald at the direction of or a signal from "higher authority".

Normally the decider of Oswald's fate in this case would be the Secretary of the Navy, Korth. However you suggested Korth may never have actually been part of or seen the facts of LHO's case or LHO's letter intended for the Secretary of the Navy.

On the strength of Kerr's memory and odd speaking of Connally instead of Korth--in a time frame in which Korth is expected--I wonder if you may be right on this. I wonder if Korth ever commented on this directly later--on his knowledge or lack thereof of the LHO discharge case at the time. Was Kerr acting solely out of his own or Navy culture's Cold-War bias and ideology in blowing off Oswald's plea and making the recommendation for action to Connally (or Korth, whichever it was). Or was Kerr carrying out some more overt signal outside of himself as to the politically-correct indicated decision?  

But in favor of the "Kerr mistake" interpretation, why does Kerr not make clear, if his references to Connally actually mean Connally, that he is referring to the former Secretary of the Navy, instead of writing as if it is the current Secretary, his current boss? 

Anyway thanks for this as well as all of your research.

[Bill Simpich]

Greg,

Thanks to you as well for your careful approach towards to what I consider a conundrum.  Nellie thinks John was involved in Oswald not getting reinstated - sounds like John does too.   

But what is John's involvement?  He wasn't Secretary of the Navy at the time of the original discharge in August 1960.

He wasn't Secretary of the Navy in early 1962, when the issue re-emerged following LHO's 1/30/62 letter.   He said I have no power to do anything.  How is John involved?

Nellie keeps it very vague.  Misplaced anger?   John told LHO "I can't do anything."

There are at least two basic ways to look at this:  The Kerr Mistake,  and Hide-It-From-Korth.  Both have serious problems.

1.  The Kerr Mistake.  He spoke to Korth, not Connally.  That leads us to two scenarios, one innocent, one not.

a.  If Kerr spoke to Korth - Korth had a conflict of interest in this matter - common for lawyers.  The lawyer's approach to this would be to kick it back to Connally.  Connally fibbed to Oswald and sent it directly to Tompkins - but why is the cc missing on the version of the letter that went to Oswald? 

There was room on the letter for the cc.  Was it considered "bad form" for some reason to include the cc?  The practical thing to do is to include the cc, so LHO has the address of the right man and is not tempted to write a follow-up letter to Connally.  Not the end of the story.

b.  Or Korth may have decided he had no conflict, decided no upgrade, and sent it directly to Tompkins - again, why is the cc missing on Oswald's letter?  Not the end of story.

2.  Hide-it-from-Korth.  There is no proof that Korth saw either set of these discharge review docs in early 62 or July 63 that I can find - still looking.

This whole question comes back to the Secretary of the Navy - clearly Korth - in July, 1963.  Again - there is no proof that he sees this new set of discharge review papers, either.   The form letter says the decision was reviewed by the Secretary of the Navy.   But Undersecretary Paul Fay signs the papers - instead of Korth.

Edited June 22, 2020 by Bill Simpich

[Greg Doudna]

Bill S., after more thinking I think it is your "1b".

I think two basic points are (1) the Jan. 30, 1962 letter went from LHO to Connally in Texas where Connally answered it in Texas. This is established by the "Connally for Governor" with Fort Worth letterhead of Connally's reply, consistent with Connally's whereabouts at that time. This precedes Connally's reply letter going simultaneously to LHO and cc to Secretary of the Navy Korth's office in D.C., as indicated in Connally's reply. That Andrew Kerr in Korth's office, who got that incoming cc, would not have shown it to Korth and processed it without Korth's knowledge does not seem to me to be in keeping with how bureaucracies work--staff get fired for doing things like that. Therefore Kerr's account of first researching the case, then showing it to his boss, makes perfect sense as normal procedure. It could hardly have been any other than that. Therefore Kerr's saying he discussed it with Connally must be a simple mistake for speaking to Korth, and not more complicated than that. Kerr was writing from memory 25 years later, in 1987. Kerr had worked for Connally most of the time up to that point, and Connally's name was involved in the case, and Kerr just conflated from his memory. That is how I interpret that, simply because no interpretation that Kerr's discussion with his boss in Feb 1962 in D.C. could actually accurately refer to Connally makes sense.

The second point (2) is the differences in the copies of the letter as you note, between the Connally letter found in LHO's belongings, and the copy that Korth's office in D.C. received. The content and the type font is the same, but LHO's letter has no "cc Korth" at the bottom, and Korth's cc copy has no Connally for governor campaign logo in the letterhead. The way I interpet that is in mundane office procedure without larger significance. As I imagine it, the typist had the surface sheet being a Connally campaign letterhead, with carbon and blank sheet and carbon and blank sheet. That accounts for the Connally campaign letterhead missing on the Korth cc. The typist typed the body of the letter down to the point of John Connally's name, took out the top sheet with the Connally for Governor letterhead, and that was signed by Connally and mailed to Oswald. The typist then must have removed the carbon paper and typed below Connally's name on the next sheet (the sheet of the first carbon copy) the "cc Korth" information. Then that was sent to Korth's office.

Either the typist's behavior was a correction of an earlier oversight (of forgetting to type the "cc" in the first place) or was some routine office procedure obscure to us, but in either case of no further significance. Certainly there was no motive to conceal from LHO that a copy was going to Korth's office since the body of the letter ends with the explicit statement that that is where Connally is forwarding it.

Anyway that is how I read it.

Edited June 24, 2020 by Greg Doudna