Which came first, the bus or the Rambler?

[Jim Hargrove]

Allen,

I made the post below a couple of years ago on this Forum.  Perhaps it will help.

According to the 1964 testimony of Lt. Col. Allison G. Folsom, Lee Harvey Oswald answered four more questions right than wrong in a Russian language exam administered to him while he was still in the Marines.  The overall score was rated “poor,” which is the same rating he was given in a series of tests including English reading and vocabulary.

Before ever setting foot in the Soviet Union, Oswald scored as well in a Russian-language exam as he did in tests of his English.  Are we to believe this was merely because he was “motivated” to teach himself Russian?

A few years ago, a professional English/German foreign language instructor named Mathias Baumann posted on this forum about Oswald’s remarkable command of the Russian language. Here’s what Mathias wrote:

I'm not yet convinced of the two Oswalds theory, but I think the question how Oswald learned Russian so quickly does merit some serious consideration.

First of all I asked myself: How difficult was the test Oswald took? So I did some googling on U.S. Military language tests and I found this bit of information:

"People wishing to work as military language analysts are required to maintain at least L2/R2 proficiency." Source: https://www.german-way.com/levels-of-language-proficiency-my-life-in-germany/

L2/R2 is the level of an advanced beginner, which I think roughly equates to the A2 level of the Common European Framework (CEF). You need to take on average 80 to 120 individual (one-on-one) lessons (a lesson being 45 minutes) or 400 lessons of a group course to reach this level in the German language (provided that you already know the Roman Alphabet). These numbers do not include the time you need for homework, mind you.

And Russian is even more difficult than German. It's considered a level 3 language (German is level 2): https://www.thebalance.com/defense-language-aptitude-battery-3332702 So considering Oswald was of average intelligence I estimate he would've needed at least somewhere between 100 to 200 lessons of instruction plus about the same amount of time to prepare for the lessons in order to pass the Marine Corps test. And that is a low and optimistic estimate.

But maybe Oswald was highly intelligent and able to learn foreign languages more quickly than others? I took a look at his school career.

It turns out he was rather intelligent:

Lee scored an IQ of 118 on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. According to Sokolow, this indicated a "present intellectual functioning in the upper range of bright normal intelligence." 67 Sokolow said that although Lee was "presumably disinterested in school subjects he operates on a much higher than average level." 68 On the Monroe Silent Reading Test, Lee's score indicated no retardation in reading speed and comprehension; he had better than average ability in arithmetical reasoning for his age group. 69

Source: https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-7.html#newyork

But I found no evidence that he ever learned a foreign language at school, so I presume he was unfamiliar with the necessary techniques. On the other hand Nelson Delgado is supposed to have taught Oswald Spanish, which might indicate that Oswald learned languages quickly. But the important point here is that he had an instructor - Delgado.

Language is all about communication, so without an interlocutor it is very hard to learn a language, because actual practice is an integral part of the whole process. So my conclusion is that Oswald would not have passed the test without intensive regular instruction.

This link is also very interesting: http://www.dliflc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Generic-Fam-Guide-MC-CBu-updated.pdf

The target level of foreign language tests in the US military is L5/R5. So if Oswald got about 50 percent of the questions right, that means he reached level L2/R2. And without instruction that is EXTREMELY difficult, especially considering the difficulty of Russian. I'm sure he received extensive training.

Here's an image of a Russian language newspaper printed in San Francisco that is probably similar to the one Oswald reportedly read in the Marine corps while stationed in California.  Can you imagine teaching yourself to read, write, and speak this language without any formal instruction?

It seems to me there are only two possible explanations for Oswald's Russian-language ability before he ever travelled to Russia.  The first is that he had extensive training in Russian--suggesting he was being trained as a spy for the Russian assignment coming up--or second, that he learned Russian as a youngster, which is what John Armstrong, James Norwood, and quite a few others believe, including me.

Edited June 15, 2022 by Jim Hargrove

[Allen Lowe]

3 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Allen,

I made the post below a couple of years ago on this Forum.  Perhaps it will help.

According to the 1964 testimony of Lt. Col. Allison G. Folsom, Lee Harvey Oswald answered four more questions right than wrong in a Russian language exam administered to him while he was still in the Marines.  The overall score was rated “poor,” which is the same rating he was given in a series of tests including English reading and vocabulary.

Before ever setting foot in the Soviet Union, Oswald scored as well in a Russian-language exam as he did in tests of his English.  Are we to believe this was merely because he was “motivated” to teach himself Russian?

A few years ago, a professional English/German foreign language instructor named Mathias Baumann posted on this forum about Oswald’s remarkable command of the Russian language. Here’s what Mathias wrote:

I'm not yet convinced of the two Oswalds theory, but I think the question how Oswald learned Russian so quickly does merit some serious consideration.

First of all I asked myself: How difficult was the test Oswald took? So I did some googling on U.S. Military language tests and I found this bit of information:

"People wishing to work as military language analysts are required to maintain at least L2/R2 proficiency." Source: https://www.german-way.com/levels-of-language-proficiency-my-life-in-germany/

L2/R2 is the level of an advanced beginner, which I think roughly equates to the A2 level of the Common European Framework (CEF). You need to take on average 80 to 120 individual (one-on-one) lessons (a lesson being 45 minutes) or 400 lessons of a group course to reach this level in the German language (provided that you already know the Roman Alphabet). These numbers do not include the time you need for homework, mind you.

And Russian is even more difficult than German. It's considered a level 3 language (German is level 2): https://www.thebalance.com/defense-language-aptitude-battery-3332702 So considering Oswald was of average intelligence I estimate he would've needed at least somewhere between 100 to 200 lessons of instruction plus about the same amount of time to prepare for the lessons in order to pass the Marine Corps test. And that is a low and optimistic estimate.

But maybe Oswald was highly intelligent and able to learn foreign languages more quickly than others? I took a look at his school career.

It turns out he was rather intelligent:

Lee scored an IQ of 118 on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. According to Sokolow, this indicated a "present intellectual functioning in the upper range of bright normal intelligence." 67 Sokolow said that although Lee was "presumably disinterested in school subjects he operates on a much higher than average level." 68 On the Monroe Silent Reading Test, Lee's score indicated no retardation in reading speed and comprehension; he had better than average ability in arithmetical reasoning for his age group. 69

Source: https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-7.html#newyork

But I found no evidence that he ever learned a foreign language at school, so I presume he was unfamiliar with the necessary techniques. On the other hand Nelson Delgado is supposed to have taught Oswald Spanish, which might indicate that Oswald learned languages quickly. But the important point here is that he had an instructor - Delgado.

Language is all about communication, so without an interlocutor it is very hard to learn a language, because actual practice is an integral part of the whole process. So my conclusion is that Oswald would not have passed the test without intensive regular instruction.

This link is also very interesting: http://www.dliflc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Generic-Fam-Guide-MC-CBu-updated.pdf

The target level of foreign language tests in the US military is L5/R5. So if Oswald got about 50 percent of the questions right, that means he reached level L2/R2. And without instruction that is EXTREMELY difficult, especially considering the difficulty of Russian. I'm sure he received extensive training.

Here's an image of a Russian language newspaper printed in San Francisco that is probably similar to the one Oswald reportedly read in the Marine corps while stationed in California.  Can you imagine teaching yourself to read, write, and speak this language without any formal instruction?

It seems to me there are only two possible explanations for Oswald's Russian-language ability before he ever travelled to Russia.  The first is that he had extensive training in Russian--suggesting he was being trained as a spy for the Russian assignment coming up--or second, that he learned Russian as a youngster, which is what John Armstrong, James Norwood, and quite a few others believe, including me.

thanks for posting that.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Jim Hargrove writes:

Quote

Before ever setting foot in the Soviet Union, Oswald scored as well in a Russian-language exam as he did in tests of his English.  Are we to believe this was merely because he was "motivated" to teach himself Russian?

We are to believe that it was the real-life, one and only, native English-speaking Lee Harvey Oswald who took those language tests, and not some imaginary doppelganger with poorly defined language skills and a 13-inch head.

It was explained to Jim a couple of years ago that the tests Oswald took in English and Russian were not of the same standard.

The Marine Corps offered extra pay to native English-speaking Marines with skills in foreign languages. Their Russian language tests were not aimed at native speakers of that language. Their English language tests, however, were aimed at native speakers of that language.

Equivalent marks in each language would denote a higher level of skill in English than in Russian, which is exactly what we should expect to see if the person taking the test was a real-life native English-speaking American who began learning Russian in his late teens.

There's nothing suspicious about Oswald's exam scores. Jim has been told this already. He knows that doppelgangers are not required in order to explain Oswald's exam scores.

Jim continues:

Quote

Here's an image of a Russian language newspaper printed in San Francisco that is probably similar to the one Oswald reportedly read in the Marine corps while stationed in California.  Can you imagine teaching yourself to read, write, and speak this language without any formal instruction? 

This point too has been explained to Jim in the past. Oswald was using the Russian-language newspaper not to find out what was going on in the world, but to help himself learn the language.

It's a standard method: once you have acquired a basic competence in a language, you improve your reading knowledge by using a newspaper or magazine in combination with a dictionary. Oswald's Marine buddies testified that this is exactly what Oswald did. He used newspapers in combination with a Russian-English dictionary. Here's Mack Osborne:

Quote

Oswald was at that time studying Russian. He spent a great deal of his free time reading papers printed in Russian - which I believe he bought in Los Angeles - with the aid of a Russian-English dictionary.

(Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits, vol.8, p.321: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=36#relPageId=329)

Why else would Oswald have used a Russian-English dictionary in combination with a Russian-language newspaper? He was a native English-speaker learning Russian, not a native Russian-speaker brushing up on his English vocabulary.

There's nothing suspicious about Oswald's use of Russian-language newspapers. Jim has been told this already. He knows that doppelgangers are not required in order to explain Oswald's use of Russian-language newspapers.

Back to Jim:

Quote

there are only two possible explanations for Oswald's Russian-language ability before he ever travelled to Russia.  The first is that he had extensive training in Russian--suggesting he was being trained as a spy for the Russian assignment coming up

It is very likely that Oswald was given training in Russian. See this article by Greg Parker and Jim Purtell:

http://www.jfkconversations.com/lee-oswald-russian-language

That article provides a plausible scenario in which Oswald learned Russian in two ways: by himself, and through official tuition while he was in the Marines.

You don't need imaginary double-doppelganger projects to explain any of this. Oswald was a native English-speaking American who began learning Russian while in the Marines, at least partly in preparation for his false defection.

Oswald's level of Russian did not require him to have been a doppelganger. Why, then, would the masterminds in the OSS or CIA have decided to use doppelgangers when they didn't need to use doppelgangers?

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Let's see if Jim has finally managed to explain the central element of his double-doppelganger theory. Why would those masterminds have decided to use doppelgangers when they didn't need to use doppelgangers? Over to Jim:

Quote

Neither of us are prepared to analyze the decision-making process

Oh well. He still can't tell us why that imaginary double-doppelganger project would have been set up.

Quote

The whole idea of the Oswald project was to give a Russian-speaking youth an American identity so he could eventually travel to Russia and learn more about its culture.

So the doppelganger who defected was recruited as a young boy in order to learn about Russian culture. If that was "the whole idea", it makes no sense at all. You don't need to be a doppelganger to learn about Russian culture. Learning about Russian culture is one more item on the list of things that don't require doppelgangers.

The party line up to now has been that the doppelganger was recruited as a young boy so that he could use his native knowledge of Russian to understand what was being said around him when he eventually defected, a decade and a half later.

That was the foundation of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory. But cracks appeared in those foundations when it was pointed out that:

• You don't need to be a native speaker to understand what is being said around you.
• The real-life Lee Harvey Oswald's Russian was not at the level of a native speaker.
• By definition, the imaginary Oswald doppelganger defector likewise cannot have been a native speaker of Russian.

Since those mythical masterminds at the OSS or the CIA cannot have decided to set up their imaginary double-doppelganger project for reasons of language or culture, the question remains:

Why use doppelgangers when you don't need to use doppelgangers?

Quote

the planners felt that, for the project to work, the long-term impostor needed to have experiences at least similar to his counterpart.

The simplest way for the defector to have the same experiences as a genuine American would be for him to actually be a genuine American. Isn't that obvious? If you need someone with a genuine American background and genuine American experiences, who could possibly be better than a genuine American?

Again, why use doppelgangers when you don't need to use doppelgangers?

Quote

And the two needed to have similar appearances.

If you're going to recruit a pair of doppelgangers, of course they need to look similar (apart from their earlobes). But that requirement only arises if you decide to recruit doppelgangers. It doesn't have anything to do with why those masterminds would have decided to use doppelgangers in the first place.

Why use doppelgangers when you don't need to use doppelgangers?

Let's have another look at the list of things that don't require doppelgangers:

• You don't need to be a doppelganger in order to learn about Russian culture.
• You don't need to be a doppelganger in order to understand what is being said around you in a foreign language.
• You don't need to be a doppelganger in order to impersonate someone.
• You don't need to be a doppelganger in order to have a plausible American background.

Jim can't think of anything that required doppelgangers. If there was nothing that required doppelgangers, the 'Harvey and Lee' theory cannot be correct, can it?

If there was something that did require doppelgangers, what was it? Why would those masterminds have decided specifically to use doppelgangers?

[Jim Hargrove]

Jeremy spams this Forum by asking the same question again and again and pretending I haven’t answered it many times.  

As I said on the previous page of this topic, Jeremy continues to ignore my repeated question, but I’ll nevertheless  answer his question for the umpteeth time:  The purpose of the Oswald project was to give a Russian-speaking youth an American identity so he could eventually travel to Russia and secretly understand  more of what was being said in Russian by people around him.  As almost everyone except Jeremy understands, starting with a youth who already understood the Russian language had a huge advantage over anyone who might begin taking instructions as an adult or near adult.  It was also handy that Harvey was an orphan, with no real parents to look after him.

And on Jeremy’s endlessly repeated question about the use of doubles,  which he pretends hasn’t been answered many times, I’ve already given specific examples of how the doubles were used effectively in this very case, but, for now, I’ll just repeat what I said back on May 26:

As John A. wrote nearly two decades ago in the opening pages of Harvey and Lee (emphasis added):

The use of twins allows an intelligence agency to place "one person" in different
places at the same time. The first twin could be involved in an illegal or clandestine
operation, while the second twin was in a different location with people who could
provide an alibi if necessary. If the first twin was identified by witnesses as having
committed a crime, then he/she could be apprehended by authorities. When questioned by
authorities, the first twin would simply provide the names of witnesses who were with
his twin in a different location when the crime was committed. When authorities
interviewed those witnesses, and verified the story, the first twin would be released. Unless
the authorities knew about the second twin, it would be very difficult to charge the first
twin with a crime. In a professional and carefully planned covert operation no one would
realize what had happened, and both twins would walk away.

A similar operation could involve one of the twins, "C" (criminal), committing
a crime while the second twin, "P" (the Patsy), was in a different location and knew
nothing about what has happening. Twin "C" would commit the crime in the presence
of witnesses, but twin "P" would be identified as the culprit and subsequently arrested.
"P" would adamantly deny any involvement in the crime, but with numerous witnesses
placing him at the scene of the crime his denials would not be believed. If the crime
was serious, and the "Patsy" was killed before he had an opportunity to tell authorities
about his twin, then the truth about the crime might never be known.

An operation involving twins or "doubles," if carefully planned, is almost sure
to succeed. The use of twins has provided intelligence agencies with "plausible
deniability" for years, and allowed them to deny involvement in illegal operations.
"Plausible deniability" is an important part of all CIA operations, and was a term often
used by CIA Director Allen Dulles to explain away troubling situations.  [H&L  pp. 8-9]

Now that I’ve answered your question yet again, Jeremy, will you finally answer mine? 

For the SIXTH time now, I’ll ask:

Will you EVER share with us the earliest date you believe LHO was impersonated?  

If you ever answer this question, we could then take a look to see if there is strong evidence of an earlier impersonation.

[Jim Hargrove]

3 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

This point too has been explained to Jim in the past. Oswald was using the Russian-language newspaper not to find out what was going on in the world, but to help himself learn the language.

Of course he was.  He was trying to improve the Russian language skills he had learned as a child.  If he didn’t already know some Russian, please explain to me how a dictionary would help learn such a difficult language by translating a newspaper.  James Anthony Botelho indicated that “Oswald subscribed to a newspaper printed in Russian, which I believe he said was published in San Francisco.”

My bet is there was only one Russian language newspaper printed in San Francisco, and here, again, is an image of it. 

No doubt you’ll tell us that you could learn Russian by working with the above and a dictionary, but the position seems ludicrous.

On the military tests, the Russian speaking Oswald, compared to his exam-taking cohorts, scored approximately the same on a Russian language exam as he did on English language exams.  No rhetoric will change that.

Mr. ELY - All right. Now, moving further down page 7, we have the record of a Russian examination taken by Oswald on February 25, 1959. Could you explain to us what sort of test this was, and what the scores achieved by Oswald mean?
Colonel FOLSOM - The test form was Department of the Army, Adjutant General's Office, PRT-157. This is merely the test series designation.
Now, under "understands" the scoring was minus 5, which means that he got five more wrong than right. The "P" in parentheses indicates "poor." Under reading he achieved a score of 4, which is low. This, again, is shown by the "P" in parentheses for "poor."
Mr. ELY - This 4 means he got four more questions right than wrong?
Colonel FOLSOM - This is correct.
And under "writes" he achieved a score of 3, with "P" in parentheses, and this indicates he got three more right than he did wrong.
His total score was 2, with a "P" in parentheses meaning that overall he got two more right than wrong, and his rating was poor throughout.
Mr. ELY - Page 7 also summarizes the results of the battery of classification and aptitude tests taken by Oswald upon his entry into the Marine Corps, specifically on October 30, 1956. This battery was composed of six examinations. Oswald's scores I see range from as low as 92 to as high as 125.
Could you, Colonel, tell us about these six categories, what they are, and what Oswald's scores in each of them means?
Colonel FOLSOM - Yes. I will take this in sequence.
The "RV" indicates reading and vocabulary, and the score, Roman numeral II-125 indicates that he was in the second category. Categories throughout the test battery run from I to IV, with IV being the highest.The abbreviation "AC"---arithmetical computation--and the score Roman numeral III-108, indicates that he dropped into the third class."AR" is arithmetical computation, Roman numeral III-90, indicates that he was at the bottom of the Grade 3 in this area.
"PA" indicates pattern analysis, Roman numeral III-94 indicates that he was the bottom portion of the third group in this category.
Now, these four areas are grouped into a general classification test score, the abbreviation "GCT" represents that definition. And as a result of Oswald's composite scores, he was graded as a Grade 3, Roman III-103. At that time, Marine Corps average, I believe, was 107.
Mr. ELY - Would you explain the one designated "RCT"?
Colonel FOLSOM - The abbreviation "RCT" is--represents radio code test. There are three scores in this, ranging from one to three, with one being the highest. The minimum, or the range in Grade III is from 90 to 109. As Oswald achieved 92, he was in the bottom, practically, of Group III.
Mr. ELY - Which is the lowest group.
Colonel FOLSOM - Which is the lowest.

As Dr. James Norwood wrote on our website, “In a closed-door meeting of the Warren Commission, general counsel J. Lee Rankin suggested that Oswald might have received language instruction at the famed Monterey School of the Army, stating that ‘we are trying to find out what [Oswald] studied at the Monterey School of the Army in the way of languages.’ [18]  According to the website of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, California, the current basic course in Russian language lasts for forty-eight weeks of intensive study. [19]  In the 1950s, the duration almost certainly would not have been any shorter.  Oswald’s service records in the Marines demonstrate that he was never in residence anywhere near Monterey and that it would have been impossible for him to have spent as much as forty-eight weeks devoted to intensive foreign language studies during his years in the Marines.”
 

[18] James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable—Why He Died and Why It Matters (Ossining, N.Y.:  Orbis Books, 2008),  406, n. 122.  The complete dossier of J. Lee Rankin is housed in the National Archives with the following table of contents:  http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/finding-aids/rankin-records.html.

[19]  The home page of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center may be found at: http://www.dliflc.edu/about/languages-at-dliflc/

[Jim Hargrove]

4 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

It is very likely that Oswald was given training in Russian.

Are you now admitting that he was a spy?

[Sandy Larsen]

21 hours ago, Allen Lowe said:

well, without a detailed analysis and an explanation of HOW the results correspond to the language of a 10 year old we are left with just more hearsay. That is a data-based decision, but you continually cite it without data. You are correct, I don't know what I am talking about, because I am relying upon your information and you don't know what you are talking about. So we both sit here in the dark.

 

Yes I do know what I am talking about because I participated in the thread (or a related one) with Mathias Baumann that Jim described above, and Mathias gave an approximate age for a Russian child who would have gotten the score Oswald did. Which I recall was roughly ten.

Your statement that I don't know what I'm talking about is merely your opinion. Which is fine -- believe what you want -- but you should make clear it's your opinion.

 

[Allen Lowe]

10 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Yes I do know what I am talking about because I participated in the thread (or a related one) with Mathias Baumann that Jim described above, and Mathias gave an approximate age for a Russian child who would have gotten the score Oswald did. Which I recall was roughly ten.

Your statement that I don't know what I'm talking about is merely your opinion. Which is fine -- believe what you want -- but you should make clear it's your opinion.

 

I was merely repeating your own words back at you. You should’ve made clear it was your opinion.

Edited June 17, 2022 by Allen Lowe

[Sandy Larsen]

4 hours ago, Allen Lowe said:

I was merely repeating your own words back at you. You should’ve made clear it was your opinion.

 

Half the things I say about the JFK assassination are my opinion. Same is true with most people here. It's sort of understood.

Notice how Jim doesn't say with every one of his statements that it's his opinion. We know it is. If we wonder why he has some particular opinion, we ask him.

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Jim Hargrove writes:

Quote

Are you now admitting that he [the real-life, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald] was a spy?

There's a good case to be made that the real-life, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald's defection was not genuine, and that he was acting under instructions from one or another US intelligence organisation. He may or may not have been a formal employee of that organisation. Whether all of that makes him "a spy" depends on one's definition of the word.

He may have been sent over there to report on his experiences of Soviet life, or on the places he visited, or on the workplaces he was assigned to by the Soviet authorities, or on his treatment by those authorities, or for some other relatively mundane reason.

He wouldn't have found it easy to do much traditional spying, such as smuggling top-secret documents out of the country, since he was openly an American defector. He could expect his movements to be closely tracked, and his Russian language skills were not those of a native speaker. And he couldn't drive, so he wouldn't have had access to a bullet-proof Aston Martin.

Needless to say, nothing Oswald did over there required him to have been an alien from another planet, or one of the lizard people, or a member of a long-term project involving two pairs of doppelgangers that had been set up for no good reason a decade and a half earlier when he was a young boy.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Jim Hargrove writes:

Quote

I’ll nevertheless  answer his question for the umpteeth time

The question I've been asking is:

Why would the OSS or the CIA have decided specifically to use doppelgangers when they did not need to do so?

Jim has not yet provided a coherent answer to that question. He has dodged around it by suggesting, several times, that the masterminds wanted to obtain a false defector who was able to understand Russian (or learn about Russian culture!). But doppelgangers aren't required for any of that. Jim needs to explain the masterminds' thinking process. Since those masterminds could have achieved their goal without using doppelgangers, why did they decide specifically to use doppelgangers?

• You don't need to be a doppelganger to be able to understand what is being spoken around you in the Soviet Union.
• You don't need to be a native Russian speaker to be able to understand what is being spoken around you in the Soviet Union.
• All you need is to have learned Russian to a reasonable (but not native-speaker) level.

The only thing the masterminds needed to do was recruit one person, an American, and get him to learn Russian.

Why didn't they do that? What was their thinking when they supposedly decided to use doppelgangers despite the existence of a much simper solution? Why can't Jim answer this question? It's because no answer exists, isn't it?

There appears to have been no good reason for deciding to use doppelgangers at all, let alone setting up a preposterously complicated and implausible scheme involving two pairs of them, and keeping that scheme running for a decade and a half. Any number of intelligent, motivated Americans could have learned sufficient Russian in much less time than that.

That's the first problem Jim faces: no-one knows why his double-doppelganger scheme could ever have been implemented. If no good reason existed for implementing that scheme, no rational organisation would have implemented it.

The second problem is that all (or, to be generous, almost all) of the examples Jim keeps regurgitating from holy scripture have plausible alternative explanations. These explanations don't require the use of doppelgangers. They certainly don't require the implementation of a long-term project involving two pairs of doppelgangers.

We've just seen this in the case of Oswald's use of a Russian-English dictionary and his Russian exam. As I pointed out on this page, both of these examples can be plausibly explained as the actions of one American who had begun learning Russian in his late teens while in the Marines.

If we have an incident that can be explained in more than one way:

• a complex explanation involving a long-term double-doppelganger project, or aliens from another planet, or the lizard people,
• and a simple explanation involving one real-life human being but no aliens or doppelgangers or lizard people, 

we should use the simplest explanation, shouldn't we?

That's the only rational thing to do. Unfortunately for the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, pretty much any explanation that doesn't involve doppelgangers is going to be much simpler, and thus more plausible, than an explanation that does involve doppelgangers.

Does Jim accept that plausible alternative explanations exist for most or all of his 'Harvey and Lee' talking points? If he doesn't accept this obvious fact, there really isn't much point in continuing this discussion, because he will have admitted that he is just a closed-minded propagandist. These alternative explanations have been pointed out to him numerous times, so there's no excuse for denying their existence.

But if Jim does accept that plausible alternative explanations exist for his talking points, could he tell us why, in principle, he prefers complicated and implausible explanations over much simpler and more plausible explanations?

And if he does insist on believing that sinister masterminds in the OSS or CIA actually set up a long-term project involving two pairs of doppelgangers, could he tell us why, specifically, they decided to use doppelgangers when they had no need to do so?

[Sandy Larsen]

45 minutes ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Why would the OSS or the CIA have decided specifically to use doppelgangers when they did not need to do so?

 

Because apparently they thought it was a good idea.

 

[Jim Hargrove]

11 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

The question I've been asking is:

Why would the OSS or the CIA have decided specifically to use doppelgangers when they did not need to do so?

Jim has not yet provided a coherent answer to that question. He has dodged around it by suggesting, several times, that the masterminds wanted to obtain a false defector who was able to understand Russian (or learn about Russian culture!). But doppelgangers aren't required for any of that. Jim needs to explain the masterminds' thinking process. Since those masterminds could have achieved their goal without using doppelgangers, why did they decide specifically to use doppelgangers?

And in at least three different posts earlier in this very thread I explained to you that in addition to already having a working knowledge of Russian language and culture, the Oswald impostor (and, of course, the real Oswald) together provided the opportunity to plausibly deny almost anything either Oswald did, a technique that was used scores of times in this very case!

My bet is that the fine folks who brought us MKULTRA chose a war orphan to be the Oswald impostor because he could be treated not as a human being but as mere chattel, an outrage made all the easier because he had no real parents to protect him.

I have given you these answers at least four times now, and you continue to pretend I haven’t.  Why do you do that?  Are you determined to discuss philosophy instead of actual EVIDENCE in this case?

Now that I’ve answered your question yet again, Jeremy, will you FINALLY answer mine? 

For the SEVENTH time now, I’ll ask:

Will you EVER share with us the earliest date you believe LHO was impersonated?  

If you ever answer this question, we could then take a look to see if there is strong evidence of an earlier impersonation.

[Allen Lowe]

19 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Half the things I say about the JFK assassination are my opinion. Same is true with most people here. It's sort of understood.

Notice how Jim doesn't say with every one of his statements that it's his opinion. We know it is. If we wonder why he has some particular opinion, we ask him.

 

Sandy what are you doing? You said this in your last post to me: “Your statement that I don't know what I'm talking about is merely your opinion. Which is fine -- believe what you want -- but you should make clear it's your opinion.“

did you read that last sentence after you wrote it? It’s directly contrary to what you just said:

“Half the things I say about the JFK assassination are my opinion. Same is true with most people here. It's sort of understood..”

Edited June 18, 2022 by Allen Lowe