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Jim Hargrove writes:

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the project was started before the official  organization of the CIA.  It probably originated in an Office of Strategic Services program under the direction of Frank Wisner

The OSS ceased to exist on 20 September 1945. Shortly after that, some of its functions were taken over by the CIA.

The real-life, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald was born on 18 October 1939. He was four weeks short of his sixth birthday when the OSS was dissolved. This means that at least one, and presumably both, of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory's imaginary Oswald doppelgangers must have been recruited at the age of five. Or possibly at the age of four, or three, or ... And presumably the two Marguerite doppelgangers were recruited at the same time.

I realise that Jim is probably making this stuff up as he goes along, and it would be a waste of time asking him to produce specific documentary evidence for any of it. But I'd just like to be clear about this point of doctrine. The double-doppelganger project began when the two unrelated boys were no more than five years old. Is that correct?

The implication is that the OSS decided to set up a long-term project involving two unrelated boys who were no more than five years old, in the hope that when they grew up they would turn out to look virtually identical. Is that what Jim thinks happened?

The OSS came across an American boy who was no more than five years old. (How? When? Never mind.) They then trawled through their collection of eastern European orphan boys of the same age, and found one who looked similar to the American boy. They thought to themselves, "I bet he'll look just like that American boy when he grows up! Apart from his earlobes and his 13-inch head, of course. And those two women will look identical too, apart from their eyebrows!"

Does Jim seriously think that any of this actually happened?

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Why did the CIA continue the project?  I have repeatedly said that one of the main advantages of a project like H&L is built-in deniability

As I pointed out to Jim the last time he came up with this nonsensical rationalisation, there would be nothing to deny if there were no doppelgangers involved. It's only the 'Harvey and Lee' theory's insistence on having two doppelganger Oswalds, one with an American background and the other who was only pretending to have an American background, that creates the need to deny anything. If all the OSS or the CIA had was one person with a genuine American background, there would be nothing to deny.

Deniability cannot be the reason the CIA would have decided to continue with this ridiculous imaginary project, or the reason the OSS would have set it up in the first place. Would Jim care to have another go? Why would any rational organisation have set up a long-term project involving two pairs of doppelgangers at all, let alone doppelgangers who were no more than five years old?

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Nevertheless, the advantages of setting up a Russian-speaking child to be a Cold War spy in the Soviet Union are obvious.

The advantages of sending a false defector who understood Russian are obvious, but the need for that defector to have been a Russian speaker as a child is not obvious.

As I've been pointing out, you don't need to be a native speaker of a language in order to understand what is being said around you. The real-life, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald was not a native speaker of Russian, which implies that the 'Harvey and Lee' theory's equivalent imaginary doppelganger was likewise not a native speaker of Russian.

If you don't require a native speaker of Russian, why go to all the trouble of setting up a long-term project involving two pairs of doppelgangers, including a pair of five-year-olds?

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The Russians sent Konon Molody to Berkely, California at the age of 7 for equally obvious reasons.

But the case of Konon Molodiy (a.k.a. Gordon Lonsdale) did not resemble the 'Harvey and Lee' theory's imaginary doppelganger project:

  • Most obviously, Molodiy was one person, not a pair of doppelgangers.
  • He moved to the US at a young age, and learned English there. Neither of the imaginary Oswald doppelgangers moved to Russia at a young age and learned Russian there.
  • He took the identity of a deceased Canadian. Neither of the imaginary Oswald doppelgangers took the identity of a deceased Russian, or of any deceased person.
  • He travelled to the west without defecting, unlike the imaginary Oswald doppelganger who travelled to the Soviet Union specifically in order to defect.
  • His use of Lonsdale's identity ensured that the US and British authorities remained unaware for years that Molodiy had any connections at all to the Soviet Union. The Soviet authorities, on the other hand, would have suspected immediately that the imaginary Oswald doppelganger might have had connections to the US, simply because of his defection.
  • Molodiy's undercover work required him not to pretend that he did not understand English. The imaginary Oswald doppelganger who defected was required by the theory to pretend not to understand Russian.
  • Molodiy's English appeared to be that of a native speaker. The imaginary Oswald doppelganger's Russian was clearly not that of a native speaker.

In short, Molodiy's apparent background and his command of English allowed him to blend in with the society he was spying against, whereas the precise opposite applied to the imaginary Oswald doppelganger who defected.

The central feature of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory is doppelgangers. Molodiy was not a doppelganger. No doppelgangers feature in the story of Konon Molodiy.

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I may know why the patsy was chosen. Many of us believe the immediate intention of the JFK assassination plotters was to provoke an invasion of Cuba. With his assignment to Russia, his staged Fair Play for Cuba activities, and his commie-loving history dating back to the Marine Corps, it was simple to depict Oswald as a communist with ties to Castro.

Other factors may well have been instrumental in the setting up of Harvey.  Since he had ties to both the CIA and the FBI, it could be assumed in advance that government investigators, especially J. Edgar Hoover, would easily be coaxed into a full scale and elaborate cover-up.

Jim is probably on the right lines here. The assassination may have been intended to provoke an invasion of Cuba. Oswald may have been chosen as a patsy in order to implicate Cuba in the assassination. Oswald's probable affiliations with one or other US agencies may have been a factor in provoking a cover-up.

The problem is: none of this requires Oswald to have been a pair of imaginary doppelgangers. All of it applies perfectly well if we accept the obvious fact that Oswald was a singular, real person.

Doppelgangers were unnecessary (especially five-year-old doppelgangers). The 'Harvey and Lee' theory is incoherent.

Edited by Jeremy Bojczuk
Corrected a typo
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Sandy Larsen writes:

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Of course he (HARVEY) spoke Russian like a native. That was his native language.

The real-life, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald did not speak Russian like a native. Therefore the 'Harvey and Lee' theory's equivalent imaginary doppelganger also did not speak Russian like a native.

It really is not controversial that Oswald's Russian was not at the level of a native speaker. We settled this a couple of years ago on this forum. 

Several of Oswald's Marine buddies testified that he was teaching himself the language by using recordings, newspapers, and a Russian-English dictionary:

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26571-oswalds-language-abilities-and-evidence-related-to-his-soviet-soujourn-1959-63/?do=findComment&comment=427120

He did poorly in a Russian-language exam while in the Marines:

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26571-oswalds-language-abilities-and-evidence-related-to-his-soviet-soujourn-1959-63/?do=findComment&comment=427361

Even after having lived among native speakers for more than two years, Oswald made frequent grammatical mistakes:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=39#relPageId=138

None of this is controversial. Oswald's Russian was poor at first, it improved, it became very good, but it was never at the level of a native speaker.

The Oswald-was-a-real-person theory can explain this: Oswald began learning Russian in his late teens while he was in the Marines, via a combination of self-tuition and official tuition: http://www.jfkconversations.com/lee-oswald-russian-language.

The Oswald-was-a-pair-of-doppelgangers theory cannot explain this.

The 'Harvey and Lee' theory requires the equivalent Oswald doppelganger to have been a native speaker of Russian. It requires that doppelganger to have been recruited specifically for his native ability to speak Russian.

But the real-life Lee Harvey Oswald was not a native speaker of Russian. The theory is incoherent.

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12 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

The OSS ceased to exist on 20 September 1945. Shortly after that, some of its functions were taken over by the CIA.

That’s all very true.  But what Jeremy doesn’t say is that Frank Wisner, who helped bring thousands of Eastern European WWII refugees to the US, worked at both the OSS and then, starting in 1947, at the CIA.  I still think it is likely that this plan was hatched while the OSS was in existence.

VE Day was May 8, 1945. Even before then, there were untold numbers of European War orphans liberated from the Nazis.  That gave probably at least half a year for some of those orphans to be brought to the U.S. under OSS oversight.

Remember what Dr. Hartogs wrote about Oswald in his book, The Two Assassins: "... a slender dark-haired boy with a pale, haunted face.... I remember thinking how slight he seemed for his thirteen years.  He had an underfed look, reminiscent of the starved children I had seen in concentration camps."

children_ww2.jpg

There is some evidence of two Oswalds dating back to 1945.  As John A. wrote on our website, “In September (1945), according to Robert Oswald, the family drove in Ekdahl's car from Dallas to Port Gibson, MS where Robert and John [Pic] entered the Chamberlain Hunt Military Academy. Robert Oswald told the FBI that his mother, Ekdahl, and LEE then drove to Boston, MA where they resided until June, 1946. However, records indicate that Marguerite returned to Texas, and show that LEE Harvey Oswald entered the first grade in Mrs Ella Russell's class at the Benbrook Common School on October 31st, 1945.”

Of course, it’s possible that Robert got the years wrong, as he did for Stripling School.  But it  is hard to figure another likely time for the Boston episode.  Evidence for two Oswalds becomes much stronger by 1947.

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But the case of Konon Molodiy (a.k.a. Gordon Lonsdale) did not resemble the 'Harvey and Lee' theory's imaginary doppelganger project:

But the fact that Molody assumed another person’s identity and was sent to the U.S. at the age of 7 is a clear indication that Soviet Intel believed that learning foreign languages and customs from an early age was valuable enough to go to extraordinary measure to implement the ruse.  Just as was done in the Oswald Project. 

The Cubans sure had a doppelganger project going with the DeLaGuardia twins.

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If you don't require a native speaker of Russian, why go to all the trouble of setting up a long-term project involving two pairs of doppelgangers, including a pair of five-year-olds?

 

 

 

Probably because one was available;  an orphan to boot, who had no real family to watch out for him.  It was available, convenient, and worked beautifully.  Harvey Oswald could answer specific questions about the American-born Oswald’s life because he too had experienced many of them. Also, we only know LEE Oswald's exact age, not Harvey's.

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Jim is probably on the right lines here. The assassination may have been intended to provoke an invasion of Cuba. Oswald may have been chosen as a patsy in order to implicate Cuba in the assassination. Oswald's probable affiliations with one or other US agencies may have been a factor in provoking a cover-up.

I appreciate that, Jeremy.  In fact, it is more important to me that people understand this than the fact that there were two LHOs.  Nonetheless, I think it is impossible to understand this case without understanding the nature of the Oswald project, which may have started out as an entirely patriotic plan, but was ultimately taken over by snakes.

Classic Oswald®, pretending for a moment there was only one, was CLEARLY among the most impersonated Americans in our history.  The simplest explanation is that there were two of them. Do you deny this?  If you do, I'll have to start posting the EVIDENCE again.

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The implication is that the OSS decided to set up a long-term project involving two unrelated boys who were no more than five years old, in the hope that when they grew up they would turn out to look virtually identical. Is that what Jim thinks happened?

Yes, I do think that is what happened, although Harvey was probably a little older than Lee.  The two Oswalds looked similar, but were hardly identical.   Laura Kittrell, who interviewed both of them, told Gaeton Fonzi that they “looked the same, the same general outline and coloring and build….”

It is a simple matter to look at children and estimate how they will appear when grown.  Just look at the childhood pictures of movie stars.  It is often easy to match the child with the adult.  Women may be a bit more difficult since they're more inclined to change hairstyles, etc., but for men, at least, it is pretty clear.

John Butler and Sandy Larsen have some wonderful posts in this very thread about the photographed appearances of the two Oswalds.

Sandy’s post is HERE.

Edited by Jim Hargrove
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4 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

The OSS ceased to exist on 20 September 1945. Shortly after that, some of its functions were taken over by the CIA.

You need to go back and read earlier threads on this subject.  Or, maybe go over to the Harvey and Lee site and read the info there.  It has been fully discussed.  From the above statement you seem to know little to nothing of that time period.  Do you know why Truman disbanded the OSS?  Do you know the history of the transition of the OSS to the CIA in 1947? 

Do you know of the Tippit call?  How about the government order to use immigrants in intelligence operations? 

Edited by John Butler
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56 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

It is a simple matter to look at children and estimate how they will appear when grown.  Just look at the childhood pictures of movie stars.  It is often easy to match the child with the adult.  Women may be a bit more difficult since they're more inclined to change hairstyles, etc., but for men, at least, it is pretty clear.

These two photos of Harvey and Lee are separated into Harvey and Lee based upon the character traits I developed off of the mug shot of Harvey at the DPD.  Lee's character traits are picked up from various photos.

Harvey-and-Lee-as-young-children-a.jpg

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23 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

I may know.... Many of us believe the immediate intention of the JFK assassination plotters was to provoke an invasion of Cuba. With his assignment to Russia, his staged Fair Play for Cuba activities, and his commie-loving history dating back to the Marine Corps, it was simple to depict Oswald as a communist with ties to Castro.

Other factors may well have been instrumental in the setting up of Harvey.  Since he had ties to both the CIA and the FBI, it could be assumed in advance that government investigators, especially J. Edgar Hoover, would easily be coaxed into a full scale and elaborate cover-up.

It seems to me that a pre-selected patsy was absolutely critical to ensure the plotters could escape detection and prosecution.  Without one, the search for them surely would have been relentless.  And for that role, someone was needed who had demonstrated an ability to follow orders, even difficult ones, in order to be in the right place at the right time.  (Think what Oswald did to stop the Soviet authorities from kicking him out of Russia.  It must have been tough to slit his wrist and fake that suicide attempt.)

Jim,

I have always wondered when the decision to do the JFKA was made or perhaps finalized.  I speculate that would be sometime prior to mid-October 1962.  This is when Harvey went to work for the photo folks at Jaggers, Chile, and Stovall.  While there he memorized the entire map of Cuba in minute detail from satellite photos.  There was more than likely some operation in the works for Cuba. 

But, I feel this was dropped when the JFKA needed a patsy to work.  Harvey being sent to New Orleans to work in a anti-Castro/pro-Castro role was the detail that could confirm this. 

Edited by John Butler
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19 minutes ago, John Butler said:

But, I feel this was dropped when the JFKA needed a patsy to work.  Harvey being sent to New Orleans to work in a anti-Castro/pro-Castro role was the detail that could confirm this. 

Exactly!  That's my belief too.  There simply was no reason for Oswald to travel to New Orleans simply to get a low paying job.  This was clearly, in my mind at least, part of the patsyfication project. (How's that for a word?)

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14 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

This was clearly, in my mind at least, part of the patsyfication project. (How's that for a word?)

Excellent.  Here's one for Jeremy.  Doppelgangerfication.

Edited by John Butler
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22 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:
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Sandy Larsen said:

Of course he (HARVEY) spoke Russian like a native. That was his native language.

22 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

The real-life, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald did not speak Russian like a native.

 

What's your proof for that statement?

Had Oswald spoken Russian as a second language, and had he been raised in American, he would have spoken Russian with an American accent. But Marina said he had a Baltic accent.

 

Edited by Sandy Larsen
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Jim Hargrove writes:

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Of course, it’s possible that Robert got the years wrong, as he did for Stripling School.

It's possible that he got the whole thing wrong, as he did for Stripling school.

According to the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, Robert was in on the deception and would surely have been told not to give the game away. But he kept on giving the game away. That's one more aspect of the theory that makes no sense.

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Oswald ... was CLEARLY among the most impersonated Americans in our history.  The simplest explanation is that there were two of them.

No, the simplest explanation is that there was only one of him, and that most of the alleged impersonations had more plausible, everyday explanations, links to which I'll be happy to supply.

The few strong claims of impersonation also have a plausible non-doppelganger explanation: they were ad hoc impersonations to implicate Oswald as the sort of person who might go on to shoot a president.

Take away the claims that can be explained as faulty memories, or misinterpretations of documentary evidence, or genuine but ad hoc impersonations, and there's virtually nothing left (and I'm being generous with 'virtually').

Impersonations do not require doppelgangers, and certainly do not require long-term projects involving two pairs of doppelgangers, let alone five-year-old doppelgangers.

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The two Oswalds looked similar, but were hardly identical.

John Butler disagrees:

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These two photos of Harvey and Lee are separated into Harvey and Lee based upon the character traits I developed

I think John is pulling our collective leg! The earlobes look different? Those are two photos of the one and only Lee Harvey Oswald.

John should stick to identifying back-to-front cars and three-legged men in poor-quality copies of the Zapruder film.

Even among the faithful, there is no agreement about the doppelgangers' physical differences and similarities. The range of claims that have been made about this is laughable. One of the doppelgangers had sloping shoulders. One of them had a 13-inch head. One of them was 5' 11" tall, then shrank to 5' 6", then grew back to 5' 11". The doppelgangers were so similar that even their friends and families couldn't tell them apart. The doppelgangers were so different that eagle-eyed researchers decades later can easily tell them apart just by looking at photos. It's ridiculous, and it sums up the 'Harvey and Lee' cult's cherry-picking approach to the evidence.

Sandy Larsen writes:

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What's your proof for that statement?

See the second post from the top of this page.

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The fundamental problem remains: the defector was not a native speaker of Russian.

If the real-life Lee Harvey Oswald who defected was not a native speaker of Russian, the imaginary Oswald doppelganger who defected must also not have been a native speaker of Russian.

But the 'Harvey and Lee' double-doppelganger project required its defecting doppelganger to have been a native speaker of Russian. Even if the project had been set up without a future defection in mind, it must have involved the recruitment of an Oswald doppelganger who was a native speaker of Russian.

There is only one way in which such a project could have ended up with a defecting doppelganger who was not a native speaker of Russian. The boy in question must have been a native speaker of Russian when he was recruited, but the OSS/CIA must have allowed him to forget so much of his Russian that he resembled a non-native speaker.

That scenario cannot realistically have happened, can it? The OSS/CIA would not have invested so much time and manpower in a project, only to negate the essential purpose of the project by allowing its native Russian speaker to lose the very ability he was recruited for in the first place.

Is there any credible scenario in which the OSS/CIA would have set up a double-doppelganger project and ended up with a defector who was not a native speaker of Russian?

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4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Had Oswald spoken Russian as a second language, and had he been raised in American, he would have spoken Russian with an American accent. But Marina said he had a Baltic accent.

If Marina was telling the truth, that pretty much settles this issue.  In all honesty, though, I do have questions about her believability on this.  

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The few strong claims of impersonation also have a plausible non-doppelganger explanation: they were ad hoc impersonations to implicate Oswald as the sort of person who might go on to shoot a president.

Ah, so we both agree that LHO was repeatedly impersonated; we just disagree on how long the impersonation lasted.  That’s progress, I guess.

If Mr. Bojczuk would care to share the earliest date he believes LHO was impersonated, we could then take a look to see if there is strong evidence of an earlier impersonation.  I doubt Jeremy will do this, because he seems to hate seeing me post evidence, going so far as calling the evidence “spam.” Jeremy?

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Even among the faithful, there is no agreement about the doppelgangers' physical differences and similarities. The range of claims that have been made about this is laughable. One of the doppelgangers had sloping shoulders. One of them had a 13-inch head. One of them was 5' 11" tall, then shrank to 5' 6", then grew back to 5' 11". 

Why would we accept such conflicting observations when we have clear evidence from medical professionals who measured the height difference between the two LHOs?

The Oswald on a slab in the Dallas morgue was reported to be 5’ 9” (69 inches) tall.

But the 9/3/59 USMC medical exam and the 10/12/59 Armed Forces Report of Transfer or Discharge both list his height at 5’11”. That’s a two-inch difference.  

Are we to believe on young man shrunk this much in four years?

Height_9-3-59%20height.gif

Height_23:74_Discharge.jpg

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On 6/10/2022 at 3:09 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said:
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Sandy Larsen said:

Of course he (HARVEY) spoke Russian like a native. That was his native language.

 

On 6/10/2022 at 3:09 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

The real-life, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald did not speak Russian like a native.

He did poorly in a Russian-language exam while in the Marines...

 

HARVEY Oswald scored about what a ten-year-old Russian would score. Which is the approximate age HARVEY was when he immigrated to America and began speaking English.

Therefore he DID speak Russian like a native... a ten year old native.

 

Edited by Sandy Larsen
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Here's a thought...whether you subscribe to the Harvey & Lee theory or not.

What if Oswald's imperfect Russian speaking ability was to conceal a much higher level of UNDERSTANDING Russian?

In Minsk, would it be likely that the Russians might feel freer to discuss certain topics within earshot of Oswald if they thought he understood much less Russian than he actually did? Wouldn't that be an advantage for a false defector who knew he'd be returning to the USA?

Just a thought.

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