The Far-Reaching Influence of “Harvey and Lee”

[James Norwood]

This thread is dedicated to showing how an understanding of the two Oswalds has served to finally clarify what has heretofore been complete confusion in orthodox biographical profiles of Lee Harvey Oswald.  The study of this topic unfolds a narrative that extends from shortly after the end of World War II through the day of the assassination of President Kennedy.  The case is made in John Armstrong’s book Harvey and Lee and in extremely detailed essays on the website https://harveyandlee.net

This thread invites contributions from those who have studied Harvey and Lee and discovered how the understanding of this topic advances our knowledge of the JFK assassination.  For example, researcher Steve Thomas has compiled a fascinating list of 44 instances when LHO was identified as “Harvey Lee Oswald.”  It may be that there is a plausible explanation for all 44 examples.  But the only way to arrive at that conclusion is to study each example in the original context of its usage.

By contrast, unfounded attacks on research into the two Oswalds have been made by untutored, opinionated posters on this forum who have clearly not studied the book or the articles.  One user named Jeremy Bojczuk demonstrates his ignorance of the literature of the JFK assassination when he writes that Harvey and Lee “hasn’t [had] an impact with JFK assassination specialists even after more than two decades of promotion.”  The exact opposite is true.  In the groundbreaking publication of JFK and the Unspeakable, James W.  Douglass brings his analysis of Oswald to a close with the two Oswalds who are apprehended in the Texas Theater, one Oswald taken out the front door and the second through the rear exit in the alleyway.  Douglass's analysis closely follows the coverage of the Texas Theater of John Armstrong that was published five years prior to Douglass’s book.  James DiEugenio, one of the most meticulous of JFK researchers, includes a chapter written by Armstrong in the invaluable book The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK, and Malcolm X, which DiEugenio co-edited with Lisa Pease, another exemplary scholar of the assassinations of the 1960s.  The exceptional researcher Dick Russell includes a chapter in his book On the Trail of the JFK Assassins entitled “The Lingering ‘Double Oswald’ Mystery.”  And it is impossible to fully appreciate Russell’s monumental study The Man Who Knew Too Much without a basic understanding of the two Oswalds.  John Armstrong appears regularly on the programs of Len Osanic on Black Op Radio.  Osanic produced one of the finest JFK documentary series at the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination in his 50 Reasons for 50 Years episodes.  This is only a short list of “specialists” who have recognized the significance of Harvey and Lee.

The reality is not that Harvey and Lee has never gained traction over the past twenty years, but that the JFK assassination has been marginalized in the mainstream media and book publications to the degree that, with the passing of time, we are in danger of forgetting the significance of this turning point in our history.

As a starting point for this thread, I have written a point-by-point rebuttal to a nearly incomprehensible critique of the evidence of Oswald having attended Stripling Junior High School written by a user named Mark Stevens.  The link to Stevens’ critique is:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/

The rebuttal appears below.
 
************

James Norwood’s Point-By-Point Rebuttal of Mark Stevens, “The Stripling Episode - Harvey & Lee: A Critical Review”

(1)  Newspaper Coverage of Stripling:  It is a fact that Stripling Junior High School was identified in newspapers as one of the schools attended by Lee Harvey Oswald.  The critic attempts to discount this evidence and faults the reporters for not interviewing teachers and students to verify that Oswald actually attended classes at Stripling.  But when Stripling was first mentioned in the papers in 1959, the focus was on a United States Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union.  The reporters had no obligation to visit the schools to confirm Oswald’s status as a student.  The schools he attended were facts surrounding the greater story of a local boy turned traitor.  In his section on Frank Kudlaty, the critic returns to the newspaper evidence to speculate that “another possibility is that the local FBI was aware of newspaper articles referencing a Marine defector from Fort Worth who attended Stripling” and the article prompted the FBI to pay a visit to Stripling Junior High School to confiscate the school records.  In other words, the newspaper evidence was credible enough for the FBI to lead them to Stripling, but not good enough for the critic to take seriously today. The critic has failed to offer any proof that the newspaper reporting about Stripling was erroneous.    

(2)  Robert Oswald:  Robert Oswald has been a notoriously unreliable eyewitness to history, as apparent in his pseudo biography Lee—A Portrait of Lee Harvey Oswald by His Brother Robert Oswald (1967).  To both newspaper reporters and in his Warren Commission testimony, Robert mentions Stripling as a school attended by his younger brother.  But in his book Lee, Robert studiously avoids mentioning Stripling, while identifying the names of other schools that his brother attended:  Benbrook Elementary School, Ridglea West School, Junior High School No. 117 in the Bronx, Beauregard Junior High School, and Warren Easton High School in New Orleans.  With no reference to Stripling, Robert moves on to Lee Harvey’s enlistment in the Marines on October 24, 1956.  Robert’s pre-assassination statement that his younger brother attended Stripling, as well as his Warren Commission testimony sworn under oath, must be factored in to the complete body of Stripling evidence.  The critic has failed to offer a plausible explanation for why Robert would identify Stripling on multiple occasions to the press and to the Warren Commission, then omit it in his book.     

(3)  Videotaped Interview with Frank Kudlaty:   Stripling Vice-Principal Kudlaty, a man of unimpeachable character, describes in the video interview the transaction he made with FBI agents when he surrendered the file on the student Lee Harvey Oswald that had been maintained in the school’s administrative office.  The critic works up a tortured argument in the attempt to downplay the FBI’s visit to Stripling by suggesting that “on the morning after the assassination the FBI sent agents to all local schools in areas Oswald lived.”  This astonishing statement begs the question of why, one day following the assassination of an American president, the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency would be expending this much effort to track down school records of the alleged assassin.  Much time is spent by the critic in pure speculation on what might have been included in Oswald’s academic file, when Kudlaty admitted that he only had time to glance at the file before the agents arrived to collect it.  It is obvious that the crucial information that the FBI wanted expunged from the documentary record was that Oswald had been enrolled in a public school in Fort Worth during the academic year 1954-55.  Otherwise, why were the contents of the file never disclosed to the Warren Commission, and why did the file vanish from the historical record?  It is unfortunate that in his zeal to undermine the testimony of Kudlaty, the critic is missing a golden opportunity to understand a key point about the JFK assassination, which is how the FBI was rewriting history in the days and weeks following the event.  One salient point emerges from the testimony of Frank Kudlaty:  he was called in to work on a Saturday morning to hand over to FBI agents the school records related to Lee Harvey Oswald, and the eyewitness has consistently maintained the same account over the years.  The critic is unable to undermine that unassailable fact.         

Note:  It takes a careful reading of the first 120 pages of Harvey and Lee to understand that, for years, Oswald was being intentionally moved around from school to school in order to create confusion and to avoid the exposure of two boys using the same name and attending different schools concurrently.  During the period of 1954-56, there were three consecutive instances in which Oswald enrolled in a school, then suddenly dropped out.  The goal of the constant moves was to keep the two boys separate and buy time until they reached the age when they could permanently drop out of school and enlist in the Marines.

(4)  Videotaped Interview with Fran Schubert:  The critic attempts to undermine Fran Schubert’s description of Oswald as both “cocky” and “nondescript” from her experience of him as a fellow student at Stripling.  Yet this paradoxical thinking is perfectly in keeping with the fragmentary impressions she would have retained of a student whom she had only passed in the halls and noticed occasionally on the playground.  She confidently recalls the academic year 1954-55 as the time when she witnessed Oswald attending the school.  She certainly may be forgiven for uncertainty about identifying the season in a state that does not have clearly defined winters, but she does note the time she remembers Oswald occurred in one of the colder months.  In a more detailed conversation with John Armstrong than the short video interview, Schubert recalled seeing Oswald cross the street to go home for lunch:  “The one thing I remember clearly was him walking home for lunch….it made me mad that he could go home for lunch and I couldn’t.”  Living across the street from the school, young Oswald clearly had a perk that made the memory of him leaving the campus at lunchtime stand out in Schubert’s mind.  The three main points recalled by Schubert are (a) Oswald was a fellow student at Stripling whom Schubert passed in the halls and saw on the playground; (b) the timeframe that Oswald attended Stripling was clearly identified as 1954-55 at a time when Schubert was in the eighth grade; and (c) Oswald would leave the school grounds at lunchtime to walk across the street to his home at 2220 Thomas Place.  The critic fails to offer a persuasive rationale for why Schubert’s recall would be inaccurate on these three points.

Note:  The sources for the following eyewitness testimony of Doug Gann, Bobby Pitts, and Mark Summers are from interviews personally conducted by John Armstrong in the 1990s.  Citations from the interviews appear in the book Harvey and Lee and are carefully documented in endnotes.  Armstrong’s work product in conducting the interviews is documented in the massive Baylor University archive.  Armstrong tape recorded all of the interviews and still retains the complete audio recordings of these interviews.

(5)  Doug Gann:  Gann’s testimony complements that of Fran Schubert, and he recalls actually attending classes with Oswald at Stripling, possibly in the same home room.  He also recalls shooting baskets on the courts after school.  Like Schubert, he also recalls Oswald living across the street from the school.  Inexplicably, the critic dismisses the entirety of Gann’s testimony with the blanket statement, “there does not appear to be any record of Gann’s statements.”  The record is the interview he gave to John Armstrong!  The critic then writes this extraordinary statement: “For me to state with good conscience that Gann saw Oswald, I would have to know how he made the distinction and identified the person as Oswald.”  Here, the critic appears one step removed from stating that all eyewitness testimony is existentially invalid.  If Gann took classes with Oswald and played basketball with him, it naturally follows that he knew the boy’s name and “identified the person as Oswald”!  The fact remains that Doug Gann’s recall is precisely what one would expect from a short-lived acquaintance with a schoolmate with whom he shared classes and shot baskets.  The critic has failed to offer any reasonable explanation for why Gann is not a bona fide eyewitness.

(6)  Bobby Pitts:  Bobby Pitts’ testimony is important for two reasons:  (a) he explicitly recalled Oswald living at 2220 Thomas Place and (2) he recalled the time frame as the academic year 1954-55.  The critic challenges the veracity of Pitts’ testimony, arguing that because Pitts was not a student at Stripling at the time, “how did he know this was Oswald?”  The answer is simple:  Pitts resided next door to Oswald at 2224 Thomas Place.  From his perspective as a neighbor, Pitts observed Oswald sanding on the porch at 2220 Thomas Place watching the group playing touch football.  The critic continues to grasp for ways to undercut the testimony when he writes that “any person who resided in the rear apartment would not ‘hang out’ on the front porch of the apartment, which would be part of the front apartment.”  But the critic has no knowledge of the layout of the duplex and whether or not the front porch may have been shared communally by the two tenants.  Fran Schubert recalls the porch at 2220 Thomas Place as “large.”  It could have just as easily been a place where both residents could “hang out.”  The researcher should not be under the obligation to verify the use of a front porch by the tenants of that building; rather, he is only reporting what Pitts conveyed to him in the interview.  Pitts’ testimony corroborates that of both Fran Schubert and Doug Gann with the clear and distinct recall of Oswald residing at 2220 Thomas Place.  At the time, Pitts was not a student at Stripling, so he could not verify that Oswald was attending school there.  But Schubert, Gann, and Kudlaty are eyewitnesses that do recall Oswald as a Stripling student.  The critic has failed to demonstrate any flaws in Pitts’ basic recall of his experience.

(7)  Mark Summers:  Summers was a gym instructor, math teacher, and war hero who began teaching at Stripling in September, 1950.  He recalled that Oswald was a student in his class in the seventh grade.  But, as the critic points out, this has to be inaccurate because Oswald would have been in the ninth grade in the academic year 1954.  The critic has located an anomaly in Summers’ testimony, as apparent in John Armstrong’s typewritten notes on the Baylor site, which suggest that Summers also recalled teaching Robert Oswald for two years.  On the face of it, this is impossible because Robert only attended Stripling for a single academic year (1948-49), which was one year before Summers began teaching there.  In his written notes taken during the phone interview with Summers and prior to typing up the notes, the single point written by Armstrong was that Summers began teaching at Stripling in September, 1950 and that LHO was student in his seventh-grade class.  The following is a screenshot of Armstrong’s written notes from the Baylor archive:
 

 

 

I contacted John Armstrong for clarification, and he plans to review his written notes and the audio recording of the complete interview with Summers.  In the interim, I made an attempt to contact Mark Summers myself to learn his story first-hand.  I was able to reach a relative, who informed me that Summers had passed away in 1998.  In his book Harvey and Lee, Armstrong devotes only three sentences to the testimony of Summers.  Based on anomalies in the evidence and the passing of Mark Summers, it is impossible to draw any firm conclusions about whether Oswald was a student in one of Summers’ classes at Stripling.    

(8)  Ricardo Galindo:  In 1993, Armstrong was in touch with the principal of Stripling at the time, Ricardo Galindo, who indicated that it was “common knowledge” that Oswald had attended Stripling.  By “common knowledge,” Galindo presumably means “word of mouth.”  Because Galindo was not the principal at the time the school records were rounded up by the FBI, his testimony carries substantially less weight than that of Frank Kudlaty, who physically handled the records and recalls surrendering them to the FBI agents.  It is not clear why Galindo’s testimony appears to be the capstone piece of the critic’s argument, when it is clearly a much smaller evidentiary piece of the puzzle than that of the eyewitnesses who knew Oswald first hand and recalled specific details about him.

SUMMARY

An objective critic should approach the Stripling evidence impartially, but the bias of Mark Stevens is apparent throughout his review of the evidence.  Stevens uses the same approach to undermining the testimony of the Stripling eyewitnesses that has been used for decades by Warren Commission apologists to discredit “inconvenient” witnesses in Dealey Plaza who heard gunshots fired from behind the picket fence or to impugn the integrity of the medical staff at Parkland who almost universally recalled that President Kennedy had received bullet wounds from shots fired from in front of the limousine.  Stevens offers a valid critique of the anomalies in the interview of Mark Summers.  After I followed up with an interview of a relative and learned that Summers is deceased, I am unable to conclude decisively whether Oswald was a student in Summers’ class at Stripling.  But, for all of the other eyewitness testimony, the evidentiary record is compelling precisely because it is what one would expect about a student who had spent only a couple of months at the school, prior to dropping out.  The recall of shooting baskets, seeing Oswald sitting on a porch, passing him in the halls of the school, or watching him walk across the street to his home at lunchtime, are all examples of the precise kind of memories students would retain about a kid who had spent only a brief time at the school.

CONCLUSION

The most compelling Stripling evidence is (a) the testimony of the school administrator Frank Kudlaty who recalled surrendering the school records to the FBI and (b) that of a student, Fran Schubert, who recalled Oswald attending the school in 1954-55 and living across the street.  In turn, the eyewitness testimony of Doug Gann and Bobby Pitts supports the videotaped interview of Fran Schubert.  Taken together, the eyewitnesses corroborate one another in a way that allows the evidence to coalesce around three main points:  (a) Lee Harvey Oswald attended Stripling Junior High School for a brief period; (b) the timeframe was the academic year 1954-55; and (c) he resided across the street from the school at 2220 Thomas Place.  Newspaper coverage identifying Oswald as a Stripling student and the recall of Stripling by Robert Oswald in both newspapers and his Warren Commission testimony add more weight to a critical mass of evidence placing Lee Harvey Oswald in Forth Worth as a student at Stripling Junior High School for a brief period in 1954-55.  

Edited July 22, 2020 by James Norwood

[Jim Hargrove]

6 minutes ago, James Norwood said:

One user named Jeremy Bojczuk demonstrates his ignorance of the literature of the JFK assassination when he writes that Harvey and Lee “hasn’t [had] an impact with JFK assassination specialists even after more than two decades of promotion.”  The exact opposite is true. 

Thanks so much for this, Dr. Norwod.  Although some H&L critics try to pretend Harvey and Lee does not have far-reaching influence, the facts clearly prove them wrong.

Just two feature-film length video talks by John Armstrong posted on YouTube by “MrChrillemannen” have a total of more than 615,000 views, up about a hundred thousand since I last checked three months ago. The videos are:

Captain Westbrook, officer Tippit and Oswald's double

and

Who impersonated Lee Harvey Oswald?

Even more significantly, recently at least three books have been published, two based almost exclusively on Harvey and Lee, and one based partly on it.

Three other books based on “Harvey and Lee:”  

The JFK Assassination and the Uncensored Story of the Two Oswalds

From an Amazon review: “I'd read a good chunk of Armstrong's Harvey and Lee, but Shannan provided clarity for me on the matter of Marguerite Oswald in particular and the whole thesis in general. So much easier to read this digest than the master's unedited tome.”

DOPPELGANGER: The Legend of Lee Harvey Oswald

From the publisher’s blurb: “More than 300 sources, including many sworn testimonies & affidavits, were consulted, as well as John Armstrong’s massive research project HARVEY AND LEE. One fact led to another, until a coherent picture began to emerge from the immense pile of puzzle pieces…. That picture includes the background of Harvey as a juvenile immigrant fluent in Russian, and the creation of the second ‘Lee Harvey Oswald’ and the second ‘Marguerite Oswald.’ The picture continues with the recruitment of both Lee Oswald and Harvey Oswald by the ONI and the CIA, followed by Harvey’s assumption of Lee’s identity, his ‘defection’ to Russia, and Lee’s involvement with the Cuban revolution and the CIA..…”

Mistaken Identity

From the publisher’s blurb:  "New forensic and evidentiary material not published, proves that two individuals known as "Lee Harvey Oswald" enlisted in the U.S. Marines in 1956 using the same birth certificate. Recent genealogical research identifies them as second cousins through intermarriage of second-generation French families in New Orleans. It created a nightmare of identity for the FBI."

[Jim Hargrove]

Now, let's take a look at some more of the evidence that one of the two Lee Harvey Oswalds attended Stripling School during the fall semester of 1954.  The H&L critics are always begging me to repost this, and let's consider the newspaper and media evidence.

First, of course, is the prerequisite proof that the two LHOs attended two different schools just ONE YEAR before the Stripling School attendance.

Because both the FBI and the Warren Commission missed this detail and neglected to cover it up, school records published in the Warren volumes show that both LHOs attended a full fall 1953 school semester in New York City and New Orleans simultaneously.

In the fall semester of 1953, one LHO attended Public School 44 in the Bronx borough of 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.

Also in the fall semester of 1953, the other LHO was present at Beauregard Junior High School in New Orleans for 89 school days.

One year later, one LHO attended Beauregard School in New Orleans while the other was indeed enrolled in Stripling School in Fort Worth.

It was, and still is, common knowledge among local Stripling School district residents and current and former students and teachers that Lee Harvey Oswald attended Stripling School in the 1950s.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram confirmed this simple fact in an article published in 2017 and updated in 2019.

  Quote

Once again, 

This 1959 Fort Worth Star-Telegram article indicates LHO attended Stripling.

This 1962 Fort Worth Star-Telegram article indicates LHO attended Stripling.

Published two days after the assassination of JFK, this Fort Worth Star-Telegram article reported: “He attended Stripling Junior High School and Arlington Heights High School before joining the Marines.”

In his 1964 Warren Commission testimony, Robert Oswald said that LHO attended Stripling School.

This May 11, 2002 Fort Worth Star-Telegram article indicated that “a boy walked to Stripling from a home nearby.  His mother was living in a home behind the school on Thomas Place by 1963, when the world learned the name Lee Harvey Oswald.”

And then, of course, there is the Fort Worth Star-Telegram article from 2017 mentioned above.

Way back on December 27, 1993, John Armstrong wrote to Ricardo Galindo, the then current principal of Stripling School, asking if there were any records for Lee Harvey Oswald's attendance the school.  Mr. Galindo telephoned John back and said that, although there were no records, it was “common knowledge” that LHO had attended the school. [Harvey and Lee, p. 97]

In this 1997 interview, Stripling Student Fran Schubert watched LHO walk from the school to his house at 2220 Thomas Place just across the street from the school.

And, of course, in a 1997 interview, the assistant principal of Stripling School described how he met two FBI agents at Stripling less than 24 hours after the assassination and gave them the records for LHO.  H&L critics can only say that Frank Kudlaty, who went on to become the Superintendent of Schools for Waco, Texas, was mistaken (about his entire story of meeting FBI agents hours after the assassination???) or lying.

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

I will let Mark Stevens reply as he sees fit, since this is purportedly dealing with his thread, and he sure doesn’t need help from me or anyone else.  

But I have a question:

Why is your reply to Mark Stevens not posted in the thread to which you’re replying?

If you don’t know, but would like to, I can tell you why.

Because you’d love nothing more than to see that thread sink into the ether.  

You don’t want people to read what he actually said, just your flaccid response.  

In which we see that you do not respond to everything Mark posted, just what you want to reply to.

So you don’t post your reply where it actually belongs.

Is this not cowardly, particularly for a man of letters?

Can we expect you to beg the mods for the ban-hammer again?  Because nothing displays your confidence in your utterings better than "please kill my opponents."

Why are you people so frightened?

Run away all you like.  Other Forum members will just keep bumping Mark’s thread back to the top, where you cannot hide from it.

But, since I'm here anyway... Kudlaty's confusion over two school principals.  Drop your excuses for this right here:___________________________________________________

Do continue.

[Jim Hargrove]

1 hour ago, James Norwood said:

As a starting point for this thread, I have written a point-by-point rebuttal to a nearly incomprehensible critique of the evidence of Oswald having attended Stripling Junior High School written by a user named Mark Stevens.  The link to Stevens’ critique is:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/

The rebuttal appears below.
 

I recommended that Dr. Norwood begin his critique in a new thread so it wouldn't be buried in the mire of the other.  Is the link Dr. Norwood provided just too difficult to click?  Even though you are a source of endless insults, such as in the post above, you H&L deniers sure get outraged easily!  

[James Norwood]

Jim,

Yes, I am enormously surprised by the degree of animosity that exists on this forum.  In my rebuttal of Mark Stevens' critique of the Stripling evidence, I attempted to respond to him respectfully.  But, I must confess that his writing and thinking, as expressed in his critique, were some of the most incoherent and bizarre that I have ever read in my life.

James

[James DiEugenio]

I stay out of these things, since they are so vituperative --I mean even for the JFK case.  I have never been able to figure out why.

But to say John's ideas did not have any influence, that is simply wrong.  They did.

Its a matter of how you want to spin it.  People like Jeremy seem to think the influence is the worst thing since Posner. Maybe worse.

People like Hargrove think its the most important development in decades.

But John's work did have an influence.  And whatever one thinks of his main thesis, his book and his archives at Baylor are full of information which I have never seen before either in print or in raw data form.  For example, his work on Mexico City, the rifle, and Ferrie and the CAP are all exceptional.  And if you take a look at the work he did  e.g. on Kerry Thornley in his archives, again, that was really good work.  His recent work on the Tippit shooting was also good.

But somehow all of that gets ignored.  I have problems with Walt Brown, but he wrote that John's book was a remarkable piece of work.

This will be my first and lost comment on the subject. But I will say this: if Jim wanted the professor to post his findings on a separate thread,  so what? Norwood would have just posted what he just said on the other one. Would his conclusions have been different? I don't think so.

Edited July 22, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Mark Stevens]

3 hours ago, James Norwood said:

This thread is dedicated to showing how an understanding of the two Oswalds has served to finally clarify what has heretofore been complete confusion in orthodox biographical profiles of Lee Harvey Oswald.  The study of this topic unfolds a narrative that extends from shortly after the end of World War II through the day of the assassination of President Kennedy.  The case is made in John Armstrong’s book Harvey and Lee and in extremely detailed essays on the website http://harveyandlee.net

This thread invites contributions from those who have studied Harvey and Lee and discovered how the understanding of this topic advances our knowledge of the JFK assassination.  For example, researcher Steve Thomas has compiled a fascinating list of 44 instances when LHO was identified as “Harvey Lee Oswald.”  It may be that there is a plausible explanation for all 44 examples.  But the only way to arrive at that conclusion is to study each example in the original context of its usage.

By contrast, unfounded attacks on research into the two Oswalds have been made by untutored, opinionated posters on this forum who have clearly not studied the book or the articles.  One user named Jeremy Bojczuk demonstrates his ignorance of the literature of the JFK assassination when he writes that Harvey and Lee “hasn’t [had] an impact with JFK assassination specialists even after more than two decades of promotion.”  The exact opposite is true.  In the groundbreaking publication of JFK and the Unspeakable, James W.  Douglass brings his analysis of Oswald to a close with the two Oswalds who are apprehended in the Texas Theater, one Oswald taken out the front door and the second through the rear exit in the alleyway.  Douglass's analysis closely follows the coverage of the Texas Theater of John Armstrong that was published five years prior to Douglass’s book.  James DiEugenio, one of the most meticulous of JFK researchers, includes a chapter written by Armstrong in the invaluable book The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK, and Malcolm X, which DiEugenio co-edited with Lisa Pease, another exemplary scholar of the assassinations of the 1960s.  The exceptional researcher Dick Russell includes a chapter in his book On the Trail of the JFK Assassins entitled “The Lingering ‘Double Oswald’ Mystery.”  And it is impossible to fully appreciate Russell’s monumental study The Man Who Knew Too Much without a basic understanding of the two Oswalds.  John Armstrong appears regularly on the programs of Len Osanic on Black Op Radio.  Osanic produced one of the finest JFK documentary series at the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination in his 50 Reasons for 50 Years episodes.  This is only a short list of “specialists” who have recognized the significance of Harvey and Lee.

The reality is not that Harvey and Lee has never gained traction over the past twenty years, but that the JFK assassination has been marginalized in the mainstream media and book publications to the degree that, with the passing of time, we are in danger of forgetting the significance of this turning point in our history.

As a starting point for this thread, I have written a point-by-point rebuttal to a nearly incomprehensible critique of the evidence of Oswald having attended Stripling Junior High School written by a user named Mark Stevens.  The link to Stevens’ critique is:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/

The rebuttal appears below.
 
************

James Norwood’s Point-By-Point Rebuttal of Mark Stevens, “The Stripling Episode - Harvey & Lee: A Critical Review”
 

First, to all members of this forum...I apologize for yet another "Harvey & Lee" thread polluting the front page. With this, there are now three separate front page threads on largely the same topic.

Second, I'm honored and humbled, truly. As a "regular guy" who has followed this forum since 2005, has been a member since 2014, and at the time of this post has 104 posts, I am honored that I have so threatened the "Harvey & Lee" tale, at least as it pertains to Stripling, that this was necessary.

Why was it necessary though? I have a thread on the topic of Stripling, which was started just within the last week. Why the need to make an entirely different thread, just to reply to that one? Maybe it's just me, maybe sliding isn't a tactic or an unstated rule which shouldn't be violated, or maybe it just seems obtrusive to make a new thread just to reply to the topic of another thread.

On that note...

Quote

(1)  Newspaper Coverage of Stripling:  It is a fact that Stripling Junior High School was identified in newspapers as one of the schools attended by Lee Harvey Oswald.  The critic attempts to discount this evidence and faults the reporters for not interviewing teachers and students to verify that Oswald actually attended classes at Stripling.  But when Stripling was first mentioned in the papers in 1959, the focus was on a United States Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union.  The reporters had no obligation to visit the schools to confirm Oswald’s status as a student.  The schools he attended were facts surrounding the greater story of a local boy turned traitor.  In his section on Frank Kudlaty, the critic returns to the newspaper evidence to speculate that “another possibility is that the local FBI was aware of newspaper articles referencing a Marine defector from Fort Worth who attended Stripling” and the article prompted the FBI to pay a visit to Stripling Junior High School to confiscate the school records.  In other words, the newspaper evidence was credible enough for the FBI to lead them to Stripling, but not good enough for the critic to take seriously today. The critic has failed to offer any proof that the newspaper reporting about Stripling was erroneous.

Again, maybe it's of those just me things, but it seems like a bad look to start a rebuttal of my statements by beginning with a point I never actually raised and statements I never actually made.

The only reference I make to teachers at Stripling, outside of the witnesses, is the one teacher presented who was a teacher at Stripling as well as who researched Lee Harvey Oswald for another news publication. I reference her, and the lack of any other teacher presented in almost 60 years, as a challenge to the credibility of Ricardo Galindo's statements claiming it was "common knowledge" Oswald attended Stripling. This information, taken together with the notes from John Armstrong which show the amount of teachers and students who he contacted regarding Oswald attending Stripling which had no knowledge of such occurrence, impugns the statement to the point of exclusion. 

At no point do I fault the paper for not interviewing other teachers or students.

I only fault "Harvey & Lee," for the basic point brought above. In almost every instance, evidence is presented which is impugned to the point of exclusion by other evidence and information.

In any event, I do believe if you read what I actually said regarding the newspaper articles/stories valid points are presented. The link to the topic is given in the OP by Norwood, I would definitely appreciate feedback from anyone regarding any potential errors. 

Quote

(2)  Robert Oswald:  Robert Oswald has been a notoriously unreliable eyewitness to history, as apparent in his pseudo biography Lee—A Portrait of Lee Harvey Oswald by His Brother Robert Oswald (1967).  To both newspaper reporters and in his Warren Commission testimony, Robert mentions Stripling as a school attended by his younger brother.  But in his book Lee, Robert studiously avoids mentioning Stripling, while identifying the names of other schools that his brother attended:  Benbrook Elementary School, Ridglea West School, Junior High School No. 117 in the Bronx, Beauregard Junior High School, and Warren Easton High School in New Orleans.  With no reference to Stripling, Robert moves on to Lee Harvey’s enlistment in the Marines on October 24, 1956.  Robert’s pre-assassination statement that his younger brother attended Stripling, as well as his Warren Commission testimony sworn under oath, must be factored in to the complete body of Stripling evidence.  The critic has failed to offer a plausible explanation for why Robert would identify Stripling on multiple occasions to the press and to the Warren Commission, then omit it in his book.   

One of those "just me" things again...but it seems like a bad look to state Robert Oswald is notoriously unreliable, while using his statements to support your argument.

I also did not reference his book, but it also adds to the other information which challenges the credibility of Robert's Oswald's statements regarding Oswald attending Stripling. I'm not sure why a rebuttal of my statements does not include a rebuttal to my statements but is instead another rebuttal to something else.

In any event, I do believe if you read what I actually said regarding Robert Oswald's statements valid points are presented which challenge their credibility. The link to the topic is given in the OP by Norwood, I would definitely appreciate feedback from anyone regarding any potential errors. 

Quote

(3)  Videotaped Interview with Frank Kudlaty:

This point was longer, and actually in reference to something I said(!). Thanks, big of you to include a point I raised in a rebuttal. With this in mind, it was so big (that's what she said) I had to break it down...

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Stripling Vice-Principal Kudlaty, a man of unimpeachable character, describes in the video interview the transaction he made with FBI agents when he surrendered the file on the student Lee Harvey Oswald that had been maintained in the school’s administrative office.

Curious to how you assessed his character? Your fellow supporter Sandy Larsen presented a good point earlier, which I can quote for you if you like.

Quote

The critic works up a tortured argument in the attempt to downplay the FBI’s visit to Stripling by suggesting that “on the morning after the assassination the FBI sent agents to all local schools in areas Oswald lived.”  This astonishing statement begs the question of why, one day following the assassination of an American president, the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency would be expending this much effort to track down school records of the alleged assassin.

I actually said the FBI visiting local schools was a possibility based on information presented in "Harvey & Lee." I am not as familiar with federal investigations as you. I am not sure how such an investigation might unfold. Maybe with your FBI, or other background in federal investigations, you can enlighten us. As I mentioned though, this was mentioned as a possibility based on information in "Harvey & Lee" where John Armstrong references a similar visit to another local school.

Instead of asking me "why" the FBI might have went to area schools, ask the person who included in his book. I only referenced it.

Quote

Much time is spent by the critic in pure speculation on what might have been included in Oswald’s academic file, when Kudlaty admitted that he only had time to glance at the file before the agents arrived to collect it. 

Again, this is not something I did but something I referenced. John Armstrong and Frank Kudlaty did this speculation and made interesting comments during that speculation which directly challenged the credibility of Kudlaty's statements. 

With this, point "(3)" is a rebuttal to Armstrong and Kudlaty, and not to me. I guess I shouldn't have said "big on you."

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It is obvious that the crucial information that the FBI wanted expunged from the documentary record was that Oswald had been enrolled in a public school in Fort Worth during the academic year 1954-55.  Otherwise, why were the contents of the file never disclosed to the Warren Commission, and why did the file vanish from the historical record?  It is unfortunate that in his zeal to undermine the testimony of Kudlaty, the critic is missing a golden opportunity to understand a key point about the JFK assassination, which is how the FBI was rewriting history in the days and weeks following the event.  One salient point emerges from the testimony of Frank Kudlaty:  he was called in to work on a Saturday morning to hand over to FBI agents the school records related to Lee Harvey Oswald, and the eyewitness has consistently maintained the same account over the years.  The critic is unable to undermine that unassailable fact.  

I don't really know what to say here...I guess if Stripling never actually happened then all this is kind of a moot point.

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Note:  It takes a careful reading of the first 120 pages of Harvey and Lee to understand that, for years, Oswald was being intentionally moved around from school to school in order to create confusion and to avoid the exposure of two boys using the same name and attending different schools concurrently.  During the period of 1954-56, there were three consecutive instances in which Oswald enrolled in a school, then suddenly dropped out.  The goal of the constant moves was to keep the two boys separate and buy time until they reached the age when they could permanently drop out of school and enlist in the Marines.

Cool story bro.

In any event, I do believe if you read what I actually said regarding Frank Kudlaty's statements valid points are presented which question their credibility. The link to the topic is given in the OP by Norwood, I would definitely appreciate feedback from anyone regarding any potential errors. 

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(4)  Videotaped Interview with Fran Schubert: 

Like eating an elephant...one bite at a time.

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The critic attempts to undermine Fran Schubert’s description of Oswald as both “cocky” and “nondescript” from her experience of him as a fellow student at Stripling.  Yet this paradoxical thinking is perfectly in keeping with the fragmentary impressions she would have retained of a student whom she had only passed in the halls and noticed occasionally on the playground.

This was actually another example by "the critic" of what Norwood brilliantly describes as "fragmentary impressions." This is exactly the point raised by the critic(s). Her recall is questionable, yet for Norwood her recall is only questionable on points he disagrees with. Helpful coincidence.

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She confidently recalls the academic year 1954-55 as the time when she witnessed Oswald attending the school.  She certainly may be forgiven for uncertainty about identifying the season in a state that does not have clearly defined winters, but she does note the time she remembers Oswald occurred in one of the colder months.

She is absolutely not confident. Look at her interview at (:22) when she states "would be during the 54-55 school year…right?" She is clearly looking to Armstrong for reassurance and is definitely not confident. Armstrong even gives a reassuring "mm-hmm."

She was though confident about the months, "because they had the jackets on." She didn't need Armstrong's reassurance on that.

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In a more detailed conversation with John Armstrong than the short video interview, Schubert recalled seeing Oswald cross the street to go home for lunch:  “The one thing I remember clearly was him walking home for lunch….it made me mad that he could go home for lunch and I couldn’t.”  Living across the street from the school, young Oswald clearly had a perk that made the memory of him leaving the campus at lunchtime stand out in Schubert’s mind. 

This epitomizes Armstrong's journalistic methods, standards, integrity. An off camera detailed interview? An on camera vague interview? If the off camera was detailed, this one would have to be less than detailed...

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The three main points recalled by Schubert are (a) Oswald was a fellow student at Stripling whom Schubert passed in the halls and saw on the playground; (b) the timeframe that Oswald attended Stripling was clearly identified as 1954-55 at a time when Schubert was in the eighth grade; and (c) Oswald would leave the school grounds at lunchtime to walk across the street to his home at 2220 Thomas Place.  The critic fails to offer a persuasive rationale for why Schubert’s recall would be inaccurate on these three points.

Note:  The sources for the following eyewitness testimony of Doug Gann, Bobby Pitts, and Mark Summers are from interviews personally conducted by John Armstrong in the 1990s.  Citations from the interviews appear in the book Harvey and Lee and are carefully documented in endnotes.  Armstrong’s work product in conducting the interviews is documented in the massive Baylor University archive.  Armstrong tape recorded all of the interviews and still retains the complete audio recordings of these interviews.

In any event, I do believe if you read what I actually said regarding Fran Schubert's statements valid points are presented which challenge their credibility. The link to the topic is given in the OP by Norwood, I would definitely appreciate feedback from anyone regarding any potential errors. 

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(5)  Doug Gann:  Gann’s testimony complements that of Fran Schubert, and he recalls actually attending classes with Oswald at Stripling, possibly in the same home room.  He also recalls shooting baskets on the courts after school.  Like Schubert, he also recalls Oswald living across the street from the school.  Inexplicably, the critic dismisses the entirety of Gann’s testimony with the blanket statement, “there does not appear to be any record of Gann’s statements.”  The record is the interview he gave to John Armstrong!  The critic then writes this extraordinary statement: “For me to state with good conscience that Gann saw Oswald, I would have to know how he made the distinction and identified the person as Oswald.”  Here, the critic appears one step removed from stating that all eyewitness testimony is existentially invalid.  If Gann took classes with Oswald and played basketball with him, it naturally follows that he knew the boy’s name and “identified the person as Oswald”!  The fact remains that Doug Gann’s recall is precisely what one would expect from a short-lived acquaintance with a schoolmate with whom he shared classes and shot baskets.  The critic has failed to offer any reasonable explanation for why Gann is not a bona fide eyewitness.

A record is not "Gann told me." A record is a recording (hence the word record) of Gann's statements. Even documents are considered hearsay and not records. Unless the document is a transcript, or a business record, it is not a record and is just a guy saying something. A record is Kudlaty's interview, is Schubert's interview. Where are those records for the other witnesses?

In any event, I do believe if you read what I actually said regarding Gann's statements valid points are presented which challenge their credibility. The link to the topic is given in the OP by Norwood, I would definitely appreciate feedback from anyone regarding any potential errors. 

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(6)  Bobby Pitts:  Bobby Pitts’ testimony is important for two reasons:  (a) he explicitly recalled Oswald living at 2220 Thomas Place and (2) he recalled the time frame as the academic year 1954-55.  The critic challenges the veracity of Pitts’ testimony, arguing that because Pitts was not a student at Stripling at the time, “how did he know this was Oswald?”  The answer is simple:  Pitts resided next door to Oswald at 2224 Thomas Place.  From his perspective as a neighbor, Pitts observed Oswald sanding on the porch at 2220 Thomas Place watching the group playing touch football. 

I have lived in my current house for two years and I do not know a single name of any of my neighbors. This is true literally everywhere. Some neighbors are friendly, some aren't. Even neighbors I waved and talked to I didn't know their names. Residing next to someone is not proof you know their name. All we have is his statement that he saw a boy on a porch.

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The critic continues to grasp for ways to undercut the testimony when he writes that “any person who resided in the rear apartment would not ‘hang out’ on the front porch of the apartment, which would be part of the front apartment.”  But the critic has no knowledge of the layout of the duplex and whether or not the front porch may have been shared communally by the two tenants.  Fran Schubert recalls the porch at 2220 Thomas Place as “large.”  It could have just as easily been a place where both residents could “hang out.”

Maybe it is a grasp, I don't know. I was simply relaying my life experience in context of the contradiction to the "Harvey & Lee" story made by Pitts.

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The researcher should not be under the obligation to verify the use of a front porch by the tenants of that building; rather, he is only reporting what Pitts conveyed to him in the interview.  Pitts’ testimony corroborates that of both Fran Schubert and Doug Gann with the clear and distinct recall of Oswald residing at 2220 Thomas Place.  At the time, Pitts was not a student at Stripling, so he could not verify that Oswald was attending school there.  But Schubert, Gann, and Kudlaty are eyewitnesses that do recall Oswald as a Stripling student.  The critic has failed to demonstrate any flaws in Pitts’ basic recall of his experience.

Absolutely correct, no researcher should have to do this or the numerous other things Armstrong has made the researchers responsibility due to his lack of journalistic methods, standards, and integrity.

In any event, I do believe if you read what I actually said regarding Pitts' statements valid points are presented which challenge their credibility. The link to the topic is given in the OP by Norwood, I would definitely appreciate feedback from anyone regarding any potential errors. 

Quote

 

(7)  Mark Summers:  Summers was a gym instructor, math teacher, and war hero who began teaching at Stripling in September, 1950.  He recalled that Oswald was a student in his class in the seventh grade.  But, as the critic points out, this has to be inaccurate because Oswald would have been in the ninth grade in the academic year 1954.  The critic has located an anomaly in Summers’ testimony, as apparent in John Armstrong’s typewritten notes on the Baylor site, which suggest that Summers also recalled teaching Robert Oswald for two years.  On the face of it, this is impossible because Robert only attended Stripling for a single academic year (1948-49), which was one year before Summers began teaching there.  In his written notes taken during the phone interview with Summers and prior to typing up the notes, the single point written by Armstrong was that Summers began teaching at Stripling in September, 1950 and that LHO was student in his seventh-grade class.  The following is a screenshot of Armstrong’s written notes from the Baylor archive:

[PICTURE REMOVED FROM REPLY]

I contacted John Armstrong for clarification, and he plans to review his written notes and the audio recording of the complete interview with Summers.  In the interim, I made an attempt to contact Mark Summers myself to learn his story first-hand.  I was able to reach a relative, who informed me that Summers had passed away in 1998.  In his book Harvey and Lee, Armstrong devotes only three sentences to the testimony of Summers.  Based on anomalies in the evidence and the passing of Mark Summers, it is impossible to draw any firm conclusions about whether Oswald was a student in one of Summers’ classes at Stripling.    

Armstrong has an audio recording of Summers??!?!?!!?

Again, in my humble opinion, This epitomizes Armstrong's journalistic methods, standards, integrity.

I appreciated the addendum of "war hero" though. I didn't realize this before. Since, like Ray Finkel, I'm "one hell of a model American," I'll refrain from discussing his statements in this post.

In any event, I do believe if you read what I actually said regarding Summers' statements valid points are presented which challenge their credibility. The link to the topic is given in the OP by Norwood, I would definitely appreciate feedback from anyone regarding any potential errors. 

Quote

(8)  Ricardo Galindo:  In 1993, Armstrong was in touch with the principal of Stripling at the time, Ricardo Galindo, who indicated that it was “common knowledge” that Oswald had attended Stripling.  By “common knowledge,” Galindo presumably means “word of mouth.”  Because Galindo was not the principal at the time the school records were rounded up by the FBI, his testimony carries substantially less weight than that of Frank Kudlaty, who physically handled the records and recalls surrendering them to the FBI agents.  It is not clear why Galindo’s testimony appears to be the capstone piece of the critic’s argument, when it is clearly a much smaller evidentiary piece of the puzzle than that of the eyewitnesses who knew Oswald first hand and recalled specific details about him.

By "common knowledge," Galindo is inferred by "Harvey & Lee" (book and supporters) to mean "everybody knew." Because no real population of people have presented knowledge of Oswald at Stripling, this comment carries no substantial weight. It has nothing to do with when he was the Principal.

His portion was not so much the capstone, just the last thing I mentioned since he said "common knowledge," and my "incomprehensible critique" seemed to flow better that way. I believe by the end, reasonable doubt had been established which challenged the credibility of "common knowledge."

In any event, I do believe if you read what I actually said regarding Galindo's statements valid points are presented which challenge their credibility. The link to the topic is given in the OP by Norwood, I would definitely appreciate feedback from anyone regarding any potential errors. 

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SUMMARY

An objective critic should approach the Stripling evidence impartially, but the bias of Mark Stevens is apparent throughout his review of the evidence. 

I really don't think I was biased in my review. While the fact that I disagree may be clear, I don't believe I was inherently biased and would appreciate anyone else pointing this out to me so I can be more critical of my writing style and approach.

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Stevens uses the same approach to undermining the testimony of the Stripling eyewitnesses that has been used for decades by Warren Commission apologists to discredit “inconvenient” witnesses in Dealey Plaza who heard gunshots fired from behind the picket fence or to impugn the integrity of the medical staff at Parkland who almost universally recalled that President Kennedy had received bullet wounds from shots fired from in front of the limousine. 

If you say so.

Quote

CONCLUSION

The most compelling Stripling evidence is (a) the testimony of the school administrator Frank Kudlaty who recalled surrendering the school records to the FBI and (b) that of a student, Fran Schubert, who recalled Oswald attending the school in 1954-55 and living across the street.  In turn, the eyewitness testimony of Doug Gann and Bobby Pitts supports the videotaped interview of Fran Schubert.  Taken together, the eyewitnesses corroborate one another in a way that allows the evidence to coalesce around three main points:  (a) Lee Harvey Oswald attended Stripling Junior High School for a brief period; (b) the timeframe was the academic year 1954-55; and (c) he resided across the street from the school at 2220 Thomas Place.  Newspaper coverage identifying Oswald as a Stripling student and the recall of Stripling by Robert Oswald in both newspapers and his Warren Commission testimony add more weight to a critical mass of evidence placing Lee Harvey Oswald in Forth Worth as a student at Stripling Junior High School for a brief period in 1954-55.

Again, to all members of this forum, I apologize for this nonsense.

In closing, I do believe if you read what I actually said regarding all of this, valid points are presented which challenge the credibility of it all. The link to the topic is given in the OP by Norwood, I would definitely appreciate feedback from anyone regarding any potential errors. 

Edited July 22, 2020 by Mark Stevens
formatting

[James Norwood]

3 hours ago, Mark Stevens said:

I would definitely appreciate feedback from anyone regarding any potential errors. 

 Mark,

Here is some feedback for you.

In an earlier post, you implied that you were interested in a debate, and I took you up on your offer.  I have read all of your comments above, but I cannot discern any issues that you still want to debate. 

A debate is not so much about errors, but rather the development of an argument.  I am sorry, but your writing is not persuasive, and it is shot through with a transparent bias.  Amazingly, after all of your abstruse writing, you appear unable to put any of the issues on the table. 

Your writing is also filled with wild speculation that is neither supported by the evidence nor by sound reasoning.  Another user on this site referred to your reasoning as comparable to “The Twilight Zone.”  While I might not select that metaphor, it does seem like a number of your sentences carry a meaning that only you understand.

If you are hearing from multiple forum participants that your writing is not persuasive and you are willing to accept honest feedback, then you should take what we are saying to heart.

James 

[Steve Thomas]

16 hours ago, James Norwood said:

 For example, researcher Steve Thomas has compiled a fascinating list of 44 instances when LHO was identified as “Harvey Lee Oswald.”  It may be that there is a plausible explanation for all 44 examples.  But the only way to arrive at that conclusion is to study each example in the original context of its usage.

 

James,

For me, the most profound example of the use of Harvey Lee Oswald is Item# 9,

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD: SUBJECT - HARVEY LEE OSWALD

a) This was meant to be preserved. It was "for the record"; and,

b) It tells me that the name Harvey Lee Oswald was not a transposition of names. It was not a mistake, or a typo, or as someone put it to me once, a case of "bureaucratic bungling". It was real. It was genuine. It was a thing.

Here is the Memo:

9. MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD: SUBJECT - HARVEY LEE OSWALD

RIF# 104-10209-10001 (04/05/72) CIA# 80T01357A

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=18291&search=%22Harvey_Lee+Oswald%22#relPageId=2&tab=page

HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm - reel 44: HTLINGUAL, Oswald) Item# 105 page 2.

https://www.maryferrell.org/php/showlist.php?docset=1160

NARA Record Number: 104-10209-10001

The author of this memorandum is unknown. The subject of the memo is Harvey Lee Oswald. This memo is dated April 6, 1972.

1. “The DC/CI (counterintelligence) advised me that the Director had relayed via the DDP (Deputy Director of Plans) the injunction that the Agency was not, under any circumstances, to make inquiries or ask questions of any source or defector about Oswald.”

2. I will arrange to have the questions about Oswald sent to SB/CI for use with the defector Oleg Lyalin returned to me and will advise C/SB/CI of the injunction.”

Document Number 1562-1115-B 201-0289243”

c) I'm pretty sure that SB/CI means Soviet Bureau/Counterintelligence. It appears to me that use of the name Harvey Lee Oswald was to be confined to that Soviet Desk. The memo was dated April 6, 1972, long after the issue of Oswald's correct name should have been settled.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Lyalin

 

“Oleg Adolfovich Lyalin (Russian: Олег Адольфович Лялин; 24 June 1937[1] – 12 February 1995) was a Soviet agent who defected from the KGB. His defection led to the expulsion of 105 Soviet officials suspected as being Soviet spies from Britain on 25 September 1971.

Lyalin was sent by the KGB to London in the 1960s, posing as an official with the Soviet Trade Delegation. His defection came about after he was arrested in London by policeman Charles Shearer for drunk driving in the early morning of 31 August 1971.”

Steve Thomas

 

Edited July 22, 2020 by Steve Thomas

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

James Norwood writes:

Quote

James W.  Douglass brings his analysis of Oswald to a close with the two Oswalds who are apprehended in the Texas Theater, one Oswald taken out the front door and the second through the rear exit in the alleyway.  Douglass's analysis closely follows the coverage of the Texas Theater of John Armstrong that was published five years prior to Douglass’s book.

And Douglass was just as wrong as Armstrong. As I explained in another thread, there is no good reason to suppose that two Oswalds were arrested in the Texas Theater, each of them giving away the plot by telling the cops that his name was Oswald (whoops!):

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

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

James DiEugenio writes:

Quote

People like Jeremy seem to think the influence is the worst thing since Posner. Maybe worse.

The point I've been making is slightly different. It's that the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense has the potential to be harmful.

At the moment, the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense is very much a minority point of view, despite its heavy promotion by a small number of propagandists. But imagine what might happen if a sufficient number of gullible newcomers got the impression that Armstrong and White's preposterous long-term doppelganger scheme was part of the standard interpretation of the assassination. Even worse, imagine what would happen if Hargrove and Armstrong ever got their movie deal (if that's what it is they are working towards), and the general public started to become aware of the notion that there were two Oswalds and two Marguerites and all the associated craziness.

If enough recognition of the 'Harvey and Lee' crackpottery were to build up beyond specialist JFK assassination circles, the media would be able to use it to portray all critics of the lone-nut theory as a bunch of crackpots.

That's their preferred method of misleading the general public and avoiding discussion of the evidence, as Oliver Stone knows. Don't listen to him, he's a 'conspiracy theorist'! You know, like those people who think the world is run by a top-secret cabal of shape-shifting lizards! That's what all those JFK people are like! The 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense belongs with the lizard illuminati, but rational criticism doesn't.

Posner served the interests of power in a different way, by providing the media with an allegedly authoritative source to refer to, again so that the media could keep any discussion of the evidence to a minimum.

The real danger with all the tin-foil-hat stuff that the JFK assassination attracts (and the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense isn't the worst example) is that it is liable to prevent a genuine resolution of the case. Without the support of the general public, the case will not get resolved.

[Sandy Larsen]

Watch out... here come the ideologues!

 

[James Norwood]

5 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

For me, the most profound example of the use of Harvey Lee Oswald is Item# 9,

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD: SUBJECT - HARVEY LEE OSWALD

a) This was meant to be preserved. It was "for the record"; and,

b) It tells me that the name Harvey Lee Oswald was not a transposition of names. It was not a mistake, or a typo, or as someone put it to me once, a case of "bureaucratic bungling". It was real. It was genuine.

Steve,

Very nice breakdown of the ninth of your forty-four examples of known uses of the name "Harvey Lee Oswald."

Another point to make about so many instances where the first name appears as Harvey is the human element.  The usage is not merely the way the name appears in official documents.  Rather, people are actually calling this man by the name Harvey, and he would appear to prefer to be called Harvey over Lee.

A particularly striking example comes from Ruth Hyde Paine.  In her Warren Commission testimony, Paine informed attorney Albert E. Jenner, Jr. that “I didn’t know Lee had a middle name until I had occasion to fill out forms for Marina in Parkland Hospital,” [1] suggesting that his preferred name was always Lee.  But she was caught in the lie when she recalled a tender moment between Oswald and his daughters, wherein she was thinking of him in the familiar not as Lee, but as Harvey:  “He went out to buy groceries, came in with a cheery call to his two girls, saying ‘Yabutchski,’ which means girls, the Russian word for girls, as he came in the door.  It was more like Harvey than I had seen him before.” [2] 

In publishing the interviews with Paine, The Warren Commission neatly separated her statement that his preferred name was always Lee in Volume IX from the moment that she let slip that she thought of him as "Harvey" in Volume III. 

---

[1] Warren Commission Hearings, Vol. IX, 359.

[2] Warren Commission Hearings, Vol. III, 8. 

 

[Richard Price]

It was more like Harvey than I had seen him before.” [2]

James, does this seem to imply that Ruth knew both "Harvey" and "Lee" since it has a comparative reference?