Peter Dale Scott on “Harvey Lee Oswald”

[John Butler]

45 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Why on earth would they both be there? 

Harvey and Lee were a spy team.  They worked in many places together.  That was their purpose.  That is what the government (CIA) trained them for years to be a double spy team.  The records show that Harvey and Lee were separated for a time.  Harvey is in the Minsk Experimental Shop as a Regulator.  Regulator was the Soviet term for Supervisor.  That's why he got the big money.  The same money as the Plant Supervisor.  Lee activities are more mysterious.  There are various records of Lee in Japan at Atsug in 1958.  In the same year I believe Harvey went AWOL in New Orleans for most of 1958.  There are gaps in his record.  This maybe the time that he studied radar and U2 with the US Army.  He claims he had two classes with the Army.  Why, if he was a Marine?

Harvey Oswald was given a Supervisor role in the Experimental shop.  According Steve's information Lee Oswald was given a job as assembler at the Minsk plant.  Frankly, this throws off the thinking about who went to Russia first as a false defector.  The note has both Oswalds in Russia. 

Harvey and Lee contends that the only Oswald in Russia was the man known as Lee Harvey Oswald (Harvey Oswald) and Lee Oswald was not there.  At the beginning Harvey hides his language ability and appears not have Russian language proficiency.   On the other hand, Harvey did have Russian proficiency as demonstrated by Marina and others.  I do not believe Harvey Oswald could have fooled the KGB on his language ability or any other thing.  Nor do I believe Lee Oswald could have fooled the KGB with his record.  Whoever was first into Russia must have went through screening by the KGB.  Whoever was first into Russia had to convince the KGB with his story and offer an incentive on how he could help the Soviets.  I believe this was Lee Oswald and his knowledge of radar secrets and the U2 secrets across the Pacific and in California.

In Japan at Atsugi, Lee Oswald lived in the same barracks as the U2 maintenance and repair crew.  Lee Oswald was trained in aircraft maintenance and repair.  He also was trained in radar techniques.  Before leaving Atsugi, he could have assembles valuable knowledge from his radar work and living with the U2 maintenance crew.  In 1959 just before he left Marines. he went to various top secret radar bases.

The record for Lee Oswald is mysterious with long time periods amounting to months with no information on his where abouts.  This was after his discharge from the Marines in March 1959.  There is very little information to disclose Lee's where abouts from March, 1959 to January, 1961.  He could have been in Russia or Florida or some other place.  The records don't say where he was for most of that time.   

 

  

 

[Paul Brancato]

Is there any evidence that the Soviets who monitored Oswald knew there were two? 

[Jonathan Cohen]

42 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Is there any evidence that the Soviets who monitored Oswald knew there were two? 

Absolutely none, which stands to reason, since there was one and only one Lee Harvey Oswald.

[Sandy Larsen]

On 5/22/2022 at 6:31 AM, Steve Thomas said:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1135#relPageId=447&tab=page

On page 433 of that CE Exhibit (CE 985), it says that “Citizen” Harvey Lee Oswald was hired as a regulator at the Minsk Radio Plant on January 13, 1960.

 

Did you guys notice that in the above document LHO is referred to as "Citizen Harvey Lee Oswald" in one paragraph, but as "Citizen Lee Harvey Oswald" in another?

I doubt that both Oswalds defected to Russia. Certainly the Russian authorities would scrutinize very carefully any American defector, and would have noticed the name similarities between the two Oswalds.

I think it's much more likely that HARVEY was placed as an assembler at first, and then quickly promoted to "Regulator" so that he would have a prestigious job and higher income that he could impress his American friends with back in America.

As for pictures "from Russia" with LEE in them (I can think of one right now), I have a possible explanation for that. I believe that HARVEY took with him a variety of photos when he defected, some of those photos being of LEE. HARVEY would later pass them off as being photos of himself. I have a real example of HARVEY doing just that.

You know that military ID card that Oswald fiddled around with? A copy of which Richard Case Nagell also fiddled around with? (It's the one on the cover of Harvey & Lee, the book.) The lower right corner of the photo has a semicircular white area that has been stamped. A few years ago I identified that as a Russian stamp.

Well, that photo is a composite... half HARVEY and half LEE. It had to have been created in America. HARVEY took it with him to Russia (probably took a set of them to be used as needed) and used it when getting some Russian ID card. HARVEY then brought the card back to America. For kicks and giggles, he and Nagell practiced doing some spycraft by creating fake American IDs. HARVEY removed the HARVEY/LEE  composite photo from his old Russian ID and used it for the American ID he was faking. Problem is, it had the white semicircular area and Russian stamp that needed to be camouflage. What HARVEY did was create what appears to be some type of time stamp using a combination of various other stamps. When you first look at it it seems like an official stamp. Upon closer inspection you can see that it is nonsense. (IIRC, Nagell's solution for hiding the white semicircle and Russian stamp was by drawing a suit and tie on the Oswald figure, making the suit coat large enough to cover up the Russian stamp.

Anyway....

That is how I know that HARVEY quite possible took photos of LEE with him, because he most certainly did take the HERVEY/LEE composite photo.

(Note & Disclaimer: I later discovered that the style of that Russian stamp was very commonly used in European countries. I MAY also have determined that the "Russian" stamp that I've been talking about, may possibly have been issued in some other European country instead of Russia, when HARVEY was traveling to Russia. I probably made a note of my conclusions but I don't know where it is.)

(P.S. It just occurred to me that I should have tried to see if that style of stamp was also used in America around that time. Because if it was, that blows my whole theory.. everything I've written here. Doh!  LOL)

 

Edited May 24, 2022 by Sandy Larsen

[Steve Thomas]

10 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

I doubt that both Oswalds defected to Russia. Certainly the Russian authorities would scrutinize very carefully any American defector, and would have noticed the name similarities between the two Oswalds.would later pass them of as being photos of himself. 

Sandy,

I'm not convinced in my own mind that Harvey Lee Oswald was a flesh and blood human being. I've often said that he was a name, a file, a dossier.

CE 2695 (WC vol XXVI) is a Secret Service interview of Billy Joe Lord (who traveled to Europe with Oswald aboard the SS Marion Lykes). The Report identifies Oswald as Harvey Lee Oswald seven times in the same document.

That's not clerical error. That's muscle memory.

Steve Thomas

[Jim Hargrove]

Steve,

Your suspicion that the references to Lee Harvey at the Minsk radio plant are just file entries of some sort makes more sense to me than the two Oswalds actually being there at the same time.  Otoh, as you suggested  in your comment about Laura Kittrell earlier, you do seem to believe there were two people claiming the LHO identity, right?

It always seemed to me that "the woman at the Unemployment office," Laura Kittrell, offered one of the clearest description we have of the two Oswalds. As John A. wrote on our website, "Mrs. Kittrell gave a thirty-page statement to the U.S. Attorney in Dallas. Her statement was hand carried to the Warren Commission by the Secret Service. But her 30-page statement and subsequent 90-page manuscript in which she discusses her interviews of the two Oswalds, were ultimately ignored and suppressed."

Julian Evans told the Warren Commission, "Lee couldn't talk to his mother in a soft voice or a low voice; it was always a very loud. insolent voice, and it seemed like he got to raising his voice all the time, and he didn't seem to care whoheard him or what he said. He had what I would call a foghorn voice, and he didn't seem to make any effort at all to control it. He would just blare out, and it did disturb others around the house ..... You don't see a voice in a kid like that, at 13 years old, very often." [H&L p. 82]

Then note how, years later when Laura Kittrell met a second person claiming to be LHO, she described the second Oswald as follows: “And he had this peculiar way of laughing and talking so that people all over the room could hear him, and Mr. Oswald [the first LHO she met] wasn’t like that at all."

Loud and boisterous hardly describes the Oswald killed by Ruby, but it sure as heck sounds like American-born Lee.
  

Edited May 23, 2022 by Jim Hargrove

[Jim Hargrove]

13 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

That is how I know that HARVEY quite possible took photos of LEE with him, because he most certainly did take the HERVEY/LEE composite photo.

(Note & Disclaimer: I later discovered that the style of that Russian stamp was very commonly used in European countries. I MAY also have determined that the "Russian" stamp that I've been talking about, may possibly have been issued in some other European country instead of Russia, when HARVEY was traveling to Russia. I probably made a note of my conclusions but I don't know where it is.)

(P.S. It just occurred to me that I should have tried to see if that style of stamp was also used in America around that time. Because if it was, that blows my whole theory.. everything I've written here. Doh!  LOL)

Sandy,

Hope you find some time to research this, because it's a fascinating theory.  I can try too, but you're probably well ahead of me on this topic.

 

[Steve Thomas]

1 hour ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Steve,

Your suspicion that the references to Lee Harvey at the Minsk radio plant are just file entries of some sort makes more sense to me than the two Oswalds actually being there at the same time.  Otoh, as you suggested  in your comment about Laura Kittrell earlier, you do seem to believe there were two people claiming the LHO identity, right?

 

Jim,

Yes, I believe that there are occasions in the Lee Harvey Oswald biography where you have two people being in different places at the same time, both claiming to be Lee Harvey Oswald. His Marine records are one, One being in Mexico City while at the same time in Alice, Texas is another. II think you and John have given him the name Harvey, I don't know enough about your thesis to know if a Harvey, calling himself Harvey, appears anywhere.

Harvey Lee Oswald is a third entity. So far, I haven't seen a flesh and blood person that ever appears, saying, "Hi, I'm Harvey Lee Oswald". The closest I've come is the tenant register at 1026 N. Beckley, where the register is signed O.H. Lee.

I've always interpreted that as Oswald, Harvey Lee.

Steve Thomas

[John Butler]

On 5/22/2022 at 7:18 AM, Jim Hargrove said:

For the life of me, despite your photo analysis, I don’t see much evidence that both Oswalds were in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s. Wish I could trust the photographic record more.   Recall that there are all kinds of incidents involving LHO in America during this very period.  The Bolton Ford incident, for example, occurred on 1/20/1961.

Jim,

There is a long period of time from March 19, 1959 to January 20, 1961 where there is very little information about Lee Oswald.  We assume he was somewhere in the south ranging from Florida to Texas working on anti-Castro projects.  But, that is an assumption,  Look at David Joseph's Timeline.  It has a long series of blanks for this time for Lee Oswald.

I don't know if Lee Oswald was in Russia contemporarily with Harvey.  But, there are certain indications he may have been.  These indications have gotten stronger within the last few days with the document posted earlier in this thread and John Newman making the statement that he did.  My memory is rather foggy at the moment to be detailed and precise.  I'll take a few moments to look up these "indications" and make a list for you.

Lee Oswald in the Soviet Union:  Notes and suggestions that such might be

 

1.     Jim Rizzuto (Steven H. Landesberg, the student) said that he met Steve L'eandes (Steven R. Landesberg, the actor) and Lee Oswald in the Marine Corps at Camp Lejune in the summer of 1956.  This indicates Lee Oswald was in the service before Harvey, possibly as early as March, 1956.

1a.   In the fall of 1956, while HARVEY Oswald and Allen Felde were stationed at San Diego, LEE Oswald was at the Marine Corps Air Facility at El Toro, CA, 10 miles south of Camp Pendleton. It was in El Toro that Sergeant Wallace Ransberger first met Private First Class LEE Oswald, and a year later associated with him at Atsugi, Japan. Ransberger and LEE Oswald were assigned to the same unit and their duties were to furnish repair parts for vehicles and generators.  This indicates Lee Oswald was already in the service before Harvey enlisted.      

2.     Lee Oswald was trained in aircraft maintenance and repair.  He was also trained in radar technology.  Lee, compared to Harvey had the superior knowledge of radar technology and U2 information by being at Atsugi, Japan and living in the same barracks as the U2 maintenance and repair crew.  He later visited secret radar bases prior to leaving the Marines in early 1959.  Lee had access to secret radar technology, codes, flight plans, air defense strategy across the pacific from the Philippines to China to Japan and to California.  In other words, key secret technology and secret information spanning the Pacific defense of the US military.  This was something the Soviets would greatly desire to have and would be willing to pay for it. 

3.     David Joseph’s Timeline- Between March 19, 1959 to 1 January, 1961 there are 4 mentions concerning what Lee Oswald was doing during that almost 2 year period.

4.     The Steenbarger incident-  In mid-October, 1959 Mrs. Louise Steenbarger took a MATS (military flight) to visit her husband stationed in France.  The flight involved leaving from McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey.  A passenger sitting next to her and her son identified himself as Lee Oswald.  He was dressed in a Marine Corps uniform with a name tag, Lee Oswald.  Oswald got off the plane in Rhine/Maine or Frankfurt, Germany.

5.     October 15, 1959 (Thursday) Oswald arrives in USSR via Finland.  Is this Harvey or Lee?  Possible Lee since this is mid-October. More likely this is Harvey due to the next note.

6.     More information from John Armstrong indicates Oswald, Lee and not Harvey, Steve L’eandes (Landesberg) and Earl Perry were in Europe and Russia.  They visited Stockholm, Lennigrad, and Moscow in 1960 and sent postcards.

7.     Quotes from John Newman and Peter Dale Scott:  PDS (Peter Dale Scott): ... and then, by the way… this is just a question… are you absolutely convinced that the man who was “Lee Harvey Oswald” in Russia was, in fact, the man picked up in Dallas in 1963?
JN (John Newman): Not at all.  And I’ve gone over to the view that in Mexico City that, maybe it’s him, maybe it’s not. So I’m not going to be dogmatic about it. He could have been there and impersonated or could have been not there at all.

8.     Marina Oswald indicated she had two husbands in a French newspaper article.  Basically, she said that she had two busbands.  Lee was a kind and gentle man, the father of her children and Harvey, a mad man, who was the man who shot President Kennedy.  The article is written as there were two men and not psychological states of one man.  Since she knew two men one can assume this could both be in Russia and the US.

9.  Then there is the Minsk Report of Dec. 11, 1961.  This report mentions both Harvey Oswald and Lee Oswald as being in the Minsk factory.  Citizen Harvey Oswald was a regulator (supervisor) and Citizen Lee Oswald was an assembler (lathe operator).

These 9 statements present a weak case for Lee Oswald being in Russia at some point.

  

Edited May 23, 2022 by John Butler

[Jim Hargrove]

23 hours ago, John Butler said:

Jim,

There is a long period of time from March 19, 1959 to January 20, 1961 where there is very little information about Lee Oswald.  We assume he was somewhere in the south ranging from Florida to Texas working on anti-Castro projects.  But, that is an assumption,  Look at David Joseph's Timeline.  It has a long series of blanks for this time for Lee Oswald.

John,

You’re exactly right about that, but I still have a hard time believing both LHOs were in the Soviet Union at the same time. For one thing, it would have required the cooperation of the U.S. State Department and Soviet authorities, and I just don’t see that happening.  Do you?

Otoh, your list of "indications" about Lee and Russia is interesting, and I've saved it to study some more.
 

[Jim Hargrove]

23 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Jim,

Yes, I believe that there are occasions in the Lee Harvey Oswald biography where you have two people being in different places at the same time, both claiming to be Lee Harvey Oswald. His Marine records are one, One being in Mexico City while at the same time in Alice, Texas is another. II think you and John have given him the name Harvey, I don't know enough about your thesis to know if a Harvey, calling himself Harvey, appears anywhere.

Harvey Lee Oswald is a third entity. So far, I haven't seen a flesh and blood person that ever appears, saying, "Hi, I'm Harvey Lee Oswald". The closest I've come is the tenant register at 1026 N. Beckley, where the register is signed O.H. Lee.

I've always interpreted that as Oswald, Harvey Lee.

Steve Thomas

Steve,

Yeah, I agree entirely.  One possibility, perhaps, is that the Soviet “Harvey Lee Oswald” was some sort of “marked card,” to root out certain people considered undesirable.  That is the same argument some people give to the CIA’s “Lee Henry Oswald” cable, which I believe was a direct attempt, along with members of FBI Div. 5, to clear the way for the patsification of "Lee Harvey Oswald" for the JFKA. Otoh, that hardly explains all the non-Soviet references to HLO.  

On your question about whether there is evidence that one Oswald ever asked to be called “Harvey,” the answer is yes, going all the way back to his school days.  Oddly enough, this same guy, at times, apparently asked NOT to be called Harvey.  I can try to dig up more on this if you’re interested.
 

[John Butler]

6 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

You’re exactly right about that, but I still have a hard time believing both LHOs were in the Soviet Union at the same time.

JIm,

As I said it is a minority (weak) argument.  But, some of the facts seem to indicate just that.  I am really not that convinced.  I can hold two opposing arguments in my mind until there is sufficient evidence to make a final decision.  This argument of mine is years old.  It has recently been strengthen by John Newman and Steve Thomas' Russian Document.  OBTW, that document smells like a plant of some kind.  It doesn't ring true.

  

6 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

For one thing, it would have required the cooperation of the U.S. State Department and Soviet authorities, and I just don’t see that happening.  Do you?

No.  If Lee Oswald entered Russia in would be as a clandestine operation.  It would be below the radar of the KGB.  Harvey would be at the Minsk plant's experimental shop without the knowledge necessary to make new radar equipment necessary to shoot down a U2.  Lee had that training and information.  He would need to replace Harvey in their usual manner in order to do that. 

He would not have to be there long.  I think the U2 was shot down on May 1, 1960.  Harvey went to Minsk about January 13, 1960.  Here's where I go off the beaten path.  He may have been there more than once.  That would be necessary to be part of Marina's "I had two husbands".  Which I actually think is a reality rather than just a mistake in grammar on Marina's part.

Now, what I have just said is entirely speculation except for Lee Oswald's knowledge of the U2 and radar.  It was superior to Harvey's knowledge.  While Lee was at Atsugi with the U2 people in the barracks, and in the "bubble" doing radar work, Harvey was AWOL in New Orleans.  This is one of the reasons I think Lee could have been in Russia.

I forgot to add a couple of things, "indications", due to memory lapse.  Marilyn Dorothea Murret, Lee's cousin, told John Pic in Japan that Lee was in Europe (one note says Germany) prior to the public announcement of his defection.  The big question is how did Dorothea Murret know that?  How did she obtain that information?

Another question is was Dorothea in communication with Oswald on a regular basis when he was in Japan?  And, not just with Harvey at Iwakuni just prior to his departure for the US.  

Sylvia Meagher and Mae Brussells believed that Oswald and the U2 disrupted the 1960 summit for peace.      

Edited May 24, 2022 by John Butler

[Jim Hargrove]

15 hours ago, John Butler said:

He would not have to be there long.  I think the U2 was shot down on May 1, 1960.  Harvey went to Minsk about January 13, 1960.  Here's where I go off the beaten path.  He may have been there more than once.  That would be necessary to be part of Marina's "I had two husbands".  Which I actually think is a reality rather than just a mistake in grammar on Marina's part.

Yeah, the U2 situation was REALLY interesting.  More on that below.  Marina's comment about "two husbands" is tantalizing, but I don't think she knew about LEE, only HARVEY.  That's just an opinion, I suppose, and I do appreciate your thinking out of the box.  I was so convinced by John A's book that I rarely stray from his conclusions, but there is no reason for you to do that.

15 hours ago, John Butler said:

Now, what I have just said is entirely speculation except for Lee Oswald's knowledge of the U2 and radar.  It was superior to Harvey's knowledge.  While Lee was at Atsugi with the U2 people in the barracks, and in the "bubble" doing radar work, Harvey was AWOL in New Orleans.  This is one of the reasons I think Lee could have been in Russia.

One of the ingenious things about the Oswald project, to me, was that HARVEY could be dangled in front of the Soviets bragging about his time in the U2 radar bubble , when, in fact, he was never there and had little information to share about it.  I know Francis Gary Powers blamed Oswald for the shoot down, but he, of course, didn't know the full story.

[Robert Burrows]

William F. Buckley referred to Harvey Lee Oswald during his 1966 interview with Mark Lane.

https://youtu.be/-fPiKZBgXGg

[Steve Thomas]

One thing I cannot explain is that if Lee H, Oswald submitted an application for employment to the Radio-television plant on January 11, 1960.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1135#relPageId=440&search="Harvey_Lee+Oswald" page 426 (in English, I might add)

how could there be a Certificate of Employment saying Lee Harvey Oswald is "presently employed" as an assembler date January  1, 1960? (maybe they forgot the extra 1 between the number 1 and the number 11)

CE 985 page 111

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1135#relPageId=444&search=%22Harvey_Lee%20Oswald%22

Steve Thomas