Was the assassination rifle posted to the Neely Street address?

[Gerry Down]

2 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

If the May 14th form had been endorsed by a postal clerk, authenticated and discussed under oath by Harry Holmes (like all of Oswald’s other postal records that made it into evidence from ‘63), and acknowledged as legitimate instead of avoided by the plague by the Postal Inspection Service (they wouldn’t even acknowledge it existed - unlike the May 15th form from Irving) I’d be more inclined to believe that’s what really happened. The Irving postal clerk J.G. Davis telling inspectors unambiguously that he never saw the May 15th form when he took over the delivery route in late July so he started delivering Oswald’s mail to Ruth Paine’s house is another big one. 

Unfortunately, the May 10th and May 15th forms were buried, so we don’t know what options were selected - but the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that Marina selected “entire family or firm” on her May 10th form. Your scenario of Oswald’s May 15th form being an over-engineered way to forward Marina’s mail to New Orleans may be correct, but it really doesn’t have any evidentiary support.

If the Dallas Post Office could make the clerical error of forgetting to endorse the May 14th form, which is the only way your scenario makes any sense, they could just as easily have made the more subtle error of forgetting to officially close out P.O. Box 2915 based on a family forwarding order from a secondary renter. They also just might not have processed the May 10th form until the 14th - the May 14th date is simply stamped on the back of the form Oswald mailed May 9th, effective May 12th, which may reflect the reason the form wasn’t endorsed: the Oswalds were no longer receiving mail in Box 2915. May 10th was a Friday, so it’s definitely possible something like this happened. 

I think it’s important to point out though that even if even if Marina did select “individual signer only” on the May 10th form, it doesn’t make it any better. The government went through a hell of a lot of trouble to cover up that change of address, and the motive for all the disappearing evidence and unconscionable non-questioning of Marina on this topic would be exactly the same: concealment of Marina’s access to P.O. Box 2915. 

Another possibility is that Marina went to the post office on May 10th to have her mail delivered to Ruths house and due to the language barrier the clerk or Marina ticked the box "entire family or firm" thinking she wanted to close the box. Then when Lees May 9th mail forwarding order came in (possibly on May 14th) they realized their clerical error that the box should not have been closed on May 10th as Marina didn't own the box and so now the box was being officially closed on May 14th instead. Such a mix up like this might explain the reason the May 14th form was not endorsed properly. Such a scenario would preserve the position that the post office were telling the truth that Oswald's box was closed on May 14th.

[Gerry Down]

1 hour ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

Seems the Russians always knew things a few days earlier... dated May 5, 1963. 

Prob. a typo as I thought he got the Magazine St appt on May 9th and

mentions 4907 Magazine St i.s.o. 4905...

 

 

That's an oddity.

[Tom Gram]

1 hour ago, Gerry Down said:

Another possibility is that Marina went to the post office on May 10th to have her mail delivered to Ruths house and due to the language barrier the clerk or Marina ticked the box "entire family or firm" thinking she wanted to close the box. Then when Lees May 9th mail forwarding order came in (possibly on May 14th) they realized their clerical error that the box should not have been closed on May 10th as Marina didn't own the box and so now the box was being officially closed on May 14th instead. Such a mix up like this might explain the reason the May 14th form was not endorsed properly. Such a scenario would preserve the position that the post office were telling the truth that Oswald's box was closed on May 14th.

That’s definitely possible, though I think such a scenario would have to have come about by Oswald calling the Dallas Post Office, which is actually likely IMO based on his behavior (sending the May 15th form to Irving, changing his address separately with all his subversive subscriptions to 4907 Magazine St. etc). The reason for that is that Marina selecting “entire family or firm” was an entirely valid way to close out the P.O. Box since she had the same last name as Lee, even if she wasn’t the primary renter. The same rules apply today. 

I found an internal memo very recently from SA Alfred Ellington (who was almost certainly Holmes’ FBI handler) on the early morning of Nov. 23rd stating that his contacts at the Post Office told him the box was closed on May 14th - so I think the May 14th stamp on the application is likely legitimate. What’s interesting though is Ellington states that the next postal clerk on shift, who would be coming in around 8:00 a.m., would turn over the postal records to the FBI. When that happened, and agents (probably Ellington himself) made it to the Post Office, all of a sudden the highest levels of the FBI start reporting that “up until May 10th the box was being used by Mrs. Lee H. Oswald”, that “Mrs. Lee H. Oswald” and/or “Oswald’s mother” was the primary renter of the box, and that that information had been confirmed by the Dallas Field Office. The information made it to the highest levels of government, including Hoover himself telling the White House there was “no doubt at all” that the box was “maintained by his mother”. 

I think the most likely explanation is that there was a disconnect between the internal records of the Post Office and the box application - with the internal records stating that “Mrs. Lee H. Oswald” closed the box on May 10th, which caused the confusion that the box was in her name, and the application itself stating the box was closed May 14th. The scenario you proposed here or some variation might be how that disconnect came about. 

[Gerry Down]

2 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

That’s definitely possible, though I think such a scenario would have to have come about by Oswald calling the Dallas Post Office, which is actually likely IMO based on his behavior (sending the May 15th form to Irving, changing his address separately with all his subversive subscriptions to 4907 Magazine St. etc). The reason for that is that Marina selecting “entire family or firm” was an entirely valid way to close out the P.O. Box since she had the same last name as Lee, even if she wasn’t the primary renter. The same rules apply today. 

I found an internal memo very recently from SA Alfred Ellington (who was almost certainly Holmes’ FBI handler) on the early morning of Nov. 23rd stating that his contacts at the Post Office told him the box was closed on May 14th - so I think the May 14th stamp on the application is likely legitimate. What’s interesting though is Ellington states that the next postal clerk on shift, who would be coming in around 8:00 a.m., would turn over the postal records to the FBI. When that happened, and agents (probably Ellington himself) made it to the Post Office, all of a sudden the highest levels of the FBI start reporting that “up until May 10th the box was being used by Mrs. Lee H. Oswald”, that “Mrs. Lee H. Oswald” and/or “Oswald’s mother” was the primary renter of the box, and that that information had been confirmed by the Dallas Field Office. The information made it to the highest levels of government, including Hoover himself telling the White House there was “no doubt at all” that the box was “maintained by his mother”. 

I think the most likely explanation is that there was a disconnect between the internal records of the Post Office and the box application - with the internal records stating that “Mrs. Lee H. Oswald” closed the box on May 10th, which caused the confusion that the box was in her name, and the application itself stating the box was closed May 14th. The scenario you proposed here or some variation might be how that disconnect came about. 

Regarding the “Mrs. Lee H. Oswald”. Another possibility could be that in the hours after the assassination when it became known that Lee had been in New Orleans that summer, it was then assumed Lee and Marina went to together at the same time to New Orleans that summer, whereas in actual fact Lee went on April 24th and Marina went on May 10th. In other words, it was assumed Marina had gone to New Orleans too on April 24th. 

If this assumption was made by the FBI, then when the Dallas post office reported in the hours after the JFK assassination that a "Mrs. Lee H. Oswald" went to the Dallas post office on May 10th and filed a mail forwarding order to have her mail delivered to Ruth Paines house, the FBI assumed, thinking that Marina was in New Orleans at that time with Lee, that this "Mrs. Lee H. Oswald" was Oswalds mother. And wrongly assumed Oswalds mother and Ruth Paine knew each other in order for her to be forwarding her mail to Ruth Paines house. 

The question then becomes - how did the FBI come to think that Marina and Lee had moved to New Orleans at the same time that summer?

I could be misremembering here, but is there a story somewhere about a witness seeing the FBI watching Oswalds house after he moved to New Orleans? Is that story in John Newmans book "Oswald And The CIA"? I could be imagining that so don't quote me on it. 

The FBI might have known that Lee was in New Orleans in April 1963, and then made the assumption that Marina was there with him too in that time frame. The FBI might have known that Lee was in New Orleans since April if:

1 - That is what Lee told FBI agent Warren DeBrueys when they were working together that summer in New Orleans. And therefore DeBrueys made the assumption Marina must have been in New Orleans with Lee since April.

2 - Or Lieutenant Martello told the FBI what Lee had told him while interviewing him after the Bringuier incident. Martello told the WC the following:

OSWALD was then asked what religion he practiced and he stated he was a Lutheran and also that he was presently unemployed but had worked at William B. Reily Coffee Company, New Orleans, about three months, working on heavy machinery and earned $60 per week. He worked from May to July 17, 1963 at that company. He further stated that he had worked for Jax Brewery approximately 1 1/2 months

https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/martell1.htm

Oswald told Martello that he had worked at Jax Brewery for one and a half months prior to working at Reilly coffee company. Why did Lee tell Martello this false story? Because such a scenario would put Lee in New Orleans since the last week of March or the first week of April. It would put Oswald in New Orleans during the time of the Walker shooting should Martello in any way make the connection between the right wing Walker and the left wing Lee and begin to consider Lee a suspect in the Walker shooting. 

If the FBI were certain that Marina had moved to New Orleans in April with Lee, this could be one reason why they became so certain after the JFK assassination that the "Mrs. Lee H. Oswald" who filed the May 10th mail forwarding order to Ruth Paines house was Oswalds mother. But would that be enough to make the Dallas post office be so sure that "Mrs. Lee H. Oswald" was the primary renter of PO box 2915? I'm not sure.

The "Dallas Teletype" as discussed in "Rethinking Oswalds Mail" states that:

On May 10, last, USPO, main branch, Dallas, received forwarding order for any mail for Mrs. Lee H. Oswald to be forwarded from Box 2915, located main PO, Dallas, to 2515 West Fifth St., Irving Texas. On May 14 Last, PO received forwarding order again for mail in Box 2915, Dallas, for Mr. Lee H. Oswald to be forwarded to 4907 Magazine, New Orleans, LA. Post Office subsequently had forwarding order from Mrs. Lee H. Oswald, date unknown, to forward all mail for Mrs. Lee H. Oswald to Box 30061 New Orleans, LA. On Oct. 11 Last, cancellation received at PO from Irving, Tex., from Mrs. Lee H. Oswald, 2515 West Fifth St., Irving, to cancel forwarding order to New Orleans, Box 30061.

Something seems to have made the Dallas post office and FBI think that the first "Mrs. Lee H. Oswald" mentioned in it was Oswalds mother while the second "Mrs. Lee H. Oswald" forwarding her mail to the New Orleans PO box 30061 was Lees wife as surely the FBI must have known that Marguerite Oswald had no connection to New Orleans. 

[Tom Gram]

5 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

Regarding the “Mrs. Lee H. Oswald”. Another possibility could be that in the hours after the assassination when it became known that Lee had been in New Orleans that summer, it was then assumed Lee and Marina went to together at the same time to New Orleans that summer, whereas in actual fact Lee went on April 24th and Marina went on May 10th. In other words, it was assumed Marina had gone to New Orleans too on April 24th. 

If this assumption was made by the FBI, then when the Dallas post office reported in the hours after the JFK assassination that a "Mrs. Lee H. Oswald" went to the Dallas post office on May 10th and filed a mail forwarding order to have her mail delivered to Ruth Paines house, the FBI assumed, thinking that Marina was in New Orleans at that time with Lee, that this "Mrs. Lee H. Oswald" was Oswalds mother. And wrongly assumed Oswalds mother and Ruth Paine knew each other in order for her to be forwarding her mail to Ruth Paines house. 

The question then becomes - how did the FBI come to think that Marina and Lee had moved to New Orleans at the same time that summer?

I could be misremembering here, but is there a story somewhere about a witness seeing the FBI watching Oswalds house after he moved to New Orleans? Is that story in John Newmans book "Oswald And The CIA"? I could be imagining that so don't quote me on it. 

The FBI might have known that Lee was in New Orleans in April 1963, and then made the assumption that Marina was there with him too in that time frame. The FBI might have known that Lee was in New Orleans since April if:

1 - That is what Lee told FBI agent Warren DeBrueys when they were working together that summer in New Orleans. And therefore DeBrueys made the assumption Marina must have been in New Orleans with Lee since April.

2 - Or Lieutenant Martello told the FBI what Lee had told him while interviewing him after the Bringuier incident. Martello told the WC the following:

OSWALD was then asked what religion he practiced and he stated he was a Lutheran and also that he was presently unemployed but had worked at William B. Reily Coffee Company, New Orleans, about three months, working on heavy machinery and earned $60 per week. He worked from May to July 17, 1963 at that company. He further stated that he had worked for Jax Brewery approximately 1 1/2 months

https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/martell1.htm

Oswald told Martello that he had worked at Jax Brewery for one and a half months prior to working at Reilly coffee company. Why did Lee tell Martello this false story? Because such a scenario would put Lee in New Orleans since the last week of March or the first week of April. It would put Oswald in New Orleans during the time of the Walker shooting should Martello in any way make the connection between the right wing Walker and the left wing Lee and begin to consider Lee a suspect in the Walker shooting. 

If the FBI were certain that Marina had moved to New Orleans in April with Lee, this could be one reason why they became so certain after the JFK assassination that the "Mrs. Lee H. Oswald" who filed the May 10th mail forwarding order to Ruth Paines house was Oswalds mother. But would that be enough to make the Dallas post office be so sure that "Mrs. Lee H. Oswald" was the primary renter of PO box 2915? I'm not sure.

The "Dallas Teletype" as discussed in "Rethinking Oswalds Mail" states that:

On May 10, last, USPO, main branch, Dallas, received forwarding order for any mail for Mrs. Lee H. Oswald to be forwarded from Box 2915, located main PO, Dallas, to 2515 West Fifth St., Irving Texas. On May 14 Last, PO received forwarding order again for mail in Box 2915, Dallas, for Mr. Lee H. Oswald to be forwarded to 4907 Magazine, New Orleans, LA. Post Office subsequently had forwarding order from Mrs. Lee H. Oswald, date unknown, to forward all mail for Mrs. Lee H. Oswald to Box 30061 New Orleans, LA. On Oct. 11 Last, cancellation received at PO from Irving, Tex., from Mrs. Lee H. Oswald, 2515 West Fifth St., Irving, to cancel forwarding order to New Orleans, Box 30061.

Something seems to have made the Dallas post office and FBI think that the first "Mrs. Lee H. Oswald" mentioned in it was Oswalds mother while the second "Mrs. Lee H. Oswald" forwarding her mail to the New Orleans PO box 30061 was Lees wife as surely the FBI must have known that Marguerite Oswald had no connection to New Orleans. 

Good stuff Gerry. Here’s another potential clue I found to the “Oswald’s mother” situation. The CIA on Saturday (there’s no timestamp) told the FBI that Marina had been receiving mail in P.O. Box 2915. However, check out item (1) where it says that Mrs. M. Oswald was “believed to be subject’s mother” - basically the exact same language used in the early FBI memos about the box, but in this case actually referring to Marguerite.  

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=145505#relPageId=41

The FBI also had the following mail intercept from the Soviet Embassy where Marina gave her name as “Mrs. M. Oswald”, and said that P.O. Box 2915 was her box:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10407#relPageId=369

Could this be what caused the confusion? Like if someone screwed up cross referencing the intercept with the information from the CIA? 

The problem I still have with this, and with what you proposed above, is the Belmont memo where he says that Gordon Shanklin confirmed by his agents going to the Dallas Post Office that the box was rented in the name of Oswald’s mother. None of the above came out of the Dallas FBI Field Office or Post Office - and almost immediately prior to the Belmont memo Alex Rosen specifically mentioned the May 10th change of address by Mrs. Lee H. Oswald to Belmont and didn’t mention Lee at all. Thus I still think there was something in the internal Dallas postal records that we’ve never seen before. 

Another possibility that kind of goes along with your comment is the following. We know that Marina was still getting her mail in P.O. Box 2915 after Oswald went to New Orleans on Apr. 24th. Was there any mechanism for her to have taken over as the official primary renter of the box that would not reflect on sections 1 and 2 of the original box application? I have no idea. 

Edited September 10, 2022 by Tom Gram

[Gerry Down]

3 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

Good stuff Gerry. Here’s another potential clue I found to the “Oswald’s mother” situation. The CIA on Saturday (there’s no timestamp) told the FBI that Marina had been receiving mail in P.O. Box 2915. However, check out item (1) where it says that Mrs. M. Oswald was “believed to be subject’s mother” - basically the exact same language used in the early FBI memos about the box, but in this case actually referring to Marguerite.  

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=145505#relPageId=41

The FBI also had the following mail intercept from the Soviet Embassy where Marina gave her name as “Mrs. M. Oswald”, and said that P.O. Box 2915 was her box:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10407#relPageId=369

Could this be what caused the confusion? Like if someone screwed up cross referencing the intercept with the information from the CIA? 

The problem I still have with this, and with what you proposed above, is the Belmont memo where he says that Gordon Shanklin confirmed by his agents going to the Dallas Post Office that the box was rented in the name of Oswald’s mother. None of the above came out of the Dallas FBI Field Office or Post Office - and almost immediately prior to the Belmont memo Alex Rosen specifically mentioned the May 10th change of address by Mrs. Lee H. Oswald to Belmont and didn’t mention Lee at all. Thus I still think there was something in the internal Dallas postal records that we’ve never seen before. 

Another possibility that kind of goes along with your comment is the following. We know that Marina was still getting her mail in P.O. Box 2915 after Oswald went to New Orleans on Apr. 24th. Was there any mechanism for her to have taken over as the official primary renter of the box that would not reflect on sections 1 and 2 of the original box application? I have no idea. 

Is there any memo from the post office that specifically says that Mrs Lee H. Oswald was Oswald's mother? Or is the idea of this being Oswald's mother originating from the fbi?

In other words, was the post office simply saying that there was a change of address by Mrs Lee H. Oswald on May 10th and then the FBI, because of specific information they may have had on file such as Warren Debrueys believing that Marina had moved to New Orleans in April with Lee for example, are interpreting the raw data from the post office regarding this Mrs Lee H. Oswald as being Oswald's mother?

I'm just wondering if the post office ever actually said Mrs. Lee H. Oswald was Oswald's mother at all. That this whole idea of this being Oswald's mother was strictly an FBI interpretation.

[Tom Gram]

1 hour ago, Gerry Down said:

Is there any memo from the post office that specifically says that Mrs Lee H. Oswald was Oswald's mother? Or is the idea of this being Oswald's mother originating from the fbi?

In other words, was the post office simply saying that there was a change of address by Mrs Lee H. Oswald on May 10th and then the FBI, because of specific information they may have had on file such as Warren Debrueys believing that Marina had moved to New Orleans in April with Lee for example, are interpreting the raw data from the post office regarding this Mrs Lee H. Oswald as being Oswald's mother?

I'm just wondering if the post office ever actually said Mrs. Lee H. Oswald was Oswald's mother at all. That this whole idea of this being Oswald's mother was strictly an FBI interpretation.

From what I can tell there is no Post Office memo that says that. The Belmont memo that says Dallas agents had “checked with the post office” and found out the box was rented in the name of Oswald’s mother is as close as it gets.

However, Harry Holmes himself reported to his own agency, the Postal Inspection Service, that the box was rented in the name of “J. H. Oswald” which alone is pretty ridiculous since the box application is in the name of “Lee H.” not “L. H” - but what’s truly incredible is that Holmes’ report was revised no less than three times before its inclusion in the official report from the Postal Inspection Service to the WC, CE1799, and the supposed “typo” was left in the report, despite extensive revisions to the exact same sentence that mentions “J. H. Oswald” in every single draft. The supposed typo wasn’t even corrected in 1968 when the Postal Inspection Service put together an official history of the assassination investigation for the LBJ Library. Thus according to the agency with the most power to know who rented a post office box, P.O. Box 2915 was rented in the name of “J. H. Oswald”. This was one of the weirdest things I found when researching the essay, since a simple typo is just not a credible explanation. 

Holmes also did not authenticate the P.O. Box 2915 application under oath, and gave bizarre and extremely questionable testimony when the topic came up with David Belin.

The above is part of what led me to suspect that the early FBI reports about the box might have merit, and that “Mrs. Lee H. Oswald”, “M. Oswald”, “M.N. Oswald”, etc. may have been reflected as the primary renter of the box either in internal postal records, or possibly even on the real application form.

On the last point, the Oswald signature on the box application in evidence was noted by James Cadigan as having unique features that both Cadigan himself and Alwyn Cole testified could be indicative of a forgery if seen in questioned handwriting, specifically that it was written so rapidly that it appeared distorted, contained evidence of a light retrace, and increased in size from left to right. It is the only Oswald signature in evidence for which Cadigan mentioned such unique features, but both he and Cole did give the opinion that the form was indeed signed by Oswald. Would they have said so though if they really had genuine doubts? 

On the Oswald’s mother issue, Hoover made the exact same ”mistake” in a Saturday morning phone call to LBJ by saying that the information about the rifle in the blanket, which was obviously obtained from Marina, was actually obtained from Oswald’s mother. It’s a weird coincidence, and it made me wonder if the whole Oswald’s mother thing might have just been a tactic used to avoid linking a Soviet citizen to the P.O. Box on the record. 

Edited September 10, 2022 by Tom Gram

[Gerry Down]

5 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=145505#relPageId=41

It would be interesting to know if Lee was a registered name on any PO box Marguerite Oswald owned. I would imagine growing up Lee would have been a secondary name on Marguerite Oswald's PO boxes. The book "Lee" by Robert Oswald talks about the goings on at the DPD on the night of the assassination. Marguerite Oswald was in the thick of things that night. I wonder if she said anything about owning a PO box and having Lee as a registered user that then got misinterpreted as referring to PO box 2915. 

[Gerry Down]

39 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

On the Oswald’s mother issue, Hoover made the exact same ”mistake” in a Saturday morning phone call to LBJ by saying that the information about the rifle in the blanket, which was obviously obtained from Marina, was actually obtained from Oswald’s mother. It’s a weird coincidence, and it made me wonder if the whole Oswald’s mother thing might have just been a tactic used to avoid linking a Soviet citizen to the P.O. Box on the record. 

And of course Marina and Marguerite Oswald arrived in to the DPD HQ that night together which could have led to confusion between the two especially seeing how the interpreter at that moment was Ruth Paine who was not fluent in Russian.

I wonder if Ruth Paine even knew about PO box 2915 at all. In other words that Marina had kept that a secret from her and at the DPD that night did not want to admit to being connected to it and substituted Marguerite Oswald as being connected to PO box 2915 so as to avoid admitting to Ruth Paine she had hid a PO box from her.

[Tom Gram]

5 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

And of course Marina and Marguerite Oswald arrived in to the DPD HQ that night together which could have led to confusion between the two especially seeing how the interpreter at that moment was Ruth Paine who was not fluent in Russian.

I wonder if Ruth Paine even knew about PO box 2915 at all. In other words that Marina had kept that a secret from her and at the DPD that night did not want to admit to being connected to it and substituted Marguerite Oswald as being connected to PO box 2915 so as to avoid admitting to Ruth Paine she had hid a PO box from her.

I’m just not sure that kind of mix up could have made it all the way to Hoover himself. Hoover did make some mistakes in those early phone calls though, so who knows? The information from Marina’s affidavit about the blanket rifle was reported to the Director’s office at 5:39 a.m. on Saturday, and the teletype is crystal clear that the information came from Marina. Hoover’s phone call to LBJ was a little over an hour later - it’s just weird. 

The second part is almost certainly not true. May 10th when Marina filed the change of address to Paine’s house was the same day Paine drove Marina to New Orleans. Marina had no car and supposedly didn’t speak English, so I think it’s a safe bet that Paine drove her to the post office and even helped her fill out the form. It might have been Paine’s idea in the first place so that Marina wouldn’t miss any mail in New Orleans. 

On the other hand, when Marina gave Paine her mailing address in March ‘63, she gave it as 214 Neely St. A letter from Paine to Marina is the only example in evidence of any mail sent to that address. 

[Gerry Down]

It seems to me that if Holmes was forging any documentation after the JFK assassination, then he should have forged an endorsement of the May 14th COD form Lee sent to Dallas. The fact no effort was made to forge initials on that document to make it look like a proper endorsement seems to me to weaken the case that Holmes was forging anything. 

Additionally, the Walker note makes it seem as though Marina knew very little about PO box 2915 prior to the at least early April 1963. This significantly weakens the case that she may have picked up the assassination rifle at the post office.

All this makes me think that the sequence of events regarding Lees mail is benign in nature. The points you make in "Rethinking Oswald's Mail" are valid but I find it difficult to assemble them into a logical story of where something sinister is going on. You always have to assume something is a clerical error before assuming something sinister is going on.

I've been throwing out a few scenarios here to see if any of them clicked or made sense to you seeing how you are more familiar with all the documentation regarding the mail than I and so in a better position to make a judgement. But it seems none of my scenarios have helped move the story along. I guess the more possible scenarios you can have, the more difficult it is to actually get to the truth.

But what "Rethinking Oswald's Mail" shows me is that the FBI had a poor understanding of PO box 2915 prior to the assassination to the point of on the night of the assassination thinking it belonged to Marguerite Oswald and Lee only had the use of it. This shows that the FBI did not have an indepth understanding of Lee prior to the assassination. Neither did they have an indepth understanding of Ruth Paine if they thought she was friends with Marguerite Oswald in order for Marguerite to be forwarding her mail to Ruths house back in May.

Edited September 10, 2022 by Gerry Down

[Tom Gram]

6 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

It would be interesting to know if Lee was a registered name on any PO box Marguerite Oswald owned. I would imagine growing up Lee would have been a secondary name on Marguerite Oswald's PO boxes. The book "Lee" by Robert Oswald talks about the goings on at the DPD on the night of the assassination. Marguerite Oswald was in the thick of things that night. I wonder if she said anything about owning a PO box and having Lee as a registered user that then got misinterpreted as referring to PO box 2915. 

I’m not aware of anything like this. I think a scenario like the one I proposed with the two links is a lot more likely, since the FBI supposedly came to believe that “Mrs. Lee H. Oswald”, a title that unambiguously refers to Lee’s wife, was his mother. These guys weren’t idiots though, which makes me think one of the only ways such an egregious mistake could have happened is if someone screwed up cross referencing something that said “M. Oswald”, like Marina Embassy intercept, with the info from the CIA, or something like that. 

The problem though again is the information was apparently verified with Dallas, twice, which is why it ended up getting reported to the highest levels of government. Alex Rosen specifically referred to the May 10th change of address in his memo to Belmont, but didn’t mention Lee at all. Rosen’s information likely came from the “Dallas Teletype” that was sourced from Holmes, but I doubt he would have reported anything to Belmont, his boss, without calling Dallas to verify the info. 

It’s a good thing he did, since Belmont called Shanklin very shortly after getting the memo from Rosen and Shanklin confirmed that his agents had “checked with the post office”. 

Thus I think it’s pretty clear that the initial information, whether it was a mistake or not, came from postal records. The box wasn’t reported by the FBI as actually belonging to Oswald until Saturday night, other than the previously mentioned internal memo from SA Ellington to Shanklin, which was sent before any FBI agents actually went to the Dallas Post Office. The Ellington memo suggests that the Mrs. Lee H. Oswald/Oswald’s mother business was reported instead of the information appearing on the actual box application after a new postal worker took over to liason with the FBI. 

I think the simplest explanation is that this replacement postal worker looked at the internal records and they said the box had been closed by Mrs. M. Oswald or something via the May 10th change of address. The May 14th form wasn’t endorsed, but more importantly in this case there is also no “date entered” on the form, so it likely wasn’t entered in whatever file the Post Office had of valid forwarding orders. 

[Tom Gram]

37 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

It seems to me that if Holmes was forging any documentation after the JFK assassination, then he should have forged an endorsement of the May 14th COD form Lee sent to Dallas. The fact no effort was made to forge initials on that document to make it look like a proper endorsement seems to me to weaken the case that Holmes was forging anything. 

Additionally, the Walker note makes it seem as though Marina knew very little about PO box 2915 prior to the at least early April 1963. This significantly weakens the case that she may have picked up the assassination rifle at the post office.

All this makes me think that the sequence of events regarding Lees mail is benign in nature. The points you make in "Rethinking Oswald's Mail" are valid but I find it difficult to assemble them into a logical story of where something sinister is going on. You always have to assume something is a clerical error before assuming something sinister is going on.

I've been throwing out a few scenarios here to see if any of them clicked or made sense to you seeing how you are more familiar with all the documentation regarding the mail than I and so in a better position to make a judgement. But it seems none of my scenarios have helped move the story along. I guess the more possible scenarios you can have, the more difficult it is to actually get to the truth.

The massive amount of disappearing evidence was certainly not a clerical error, neither was the WC’s failure to ask Marina a single question about the box or how Oswald had acquired the rifle. There was no need to forge an endorsement because every single document (at least four change of address forms) that could potentially call into question the validity of the May 14th change of address was buried. It’s a subtle detail, and no one really noticed it until I did in 2021. 

The Walker Note actually makes it even worse. The WC never asked Marina when she actually learned about the box, if she’d ever been to the Post Office, anything, despite the information on the Walker note, and Harry Holmes’ report stating that Oswald claimed Marina had picked up his mail on occasion. Again, they didn’t even ask her if she knew how Oswald had acquired the rifle. These were smart lawyers. The topic of the P.O. Box and rifle purchase was deliberately avoided, period.

Marina had been using that box, and giving it out as her address since fall ‘62, so she obviously knew about it. She also testified that Oswald had intercepted a returned letter she’d sent to an ex-boyfriend in early ‘63, which is ample motive for her to have started retrieving her own mail if she hadn’t been already. There were two keys issued to the box, and Oswald surely didn’t take both with him every day to JCS. Marina was also not an idiot, and didn’t need Oswald to find her own post office box if she wanted to. 

Edited September 10, 2022 by Tom Gram

[Greg Doudna]

5 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

The massive amount of disappearing evidence was certainly not a clerical error, neither was the WC’s failure to ask Marina a single question about the box or how Oswald had acquired the rifle. There was no need to forge an endorsement because every single document (at least four change of address forms) that could potentially call into question the validity of the May 14th change of address was buried. It’s a subtle detail, and no one really noticed it until I did in 2021. 

The Walker Note actually makes it even worse. The WC never asked Marina when she actually learned about the box, if she’d ever been to the Post Office, anything, despite the information on the Walker note, and Harry Holmes’ report stating that Oswald claimed Marina had picked up his mail on occasion. Again, they didn’t even ask her if she knew how Oswald had acquired the rifle. These were smart lawyers. The topic of the P.O. Box and rifle purchase was deliberately avoided, period.

Marina had been using that box, and giving it out as her address since fall ‘62, so she obviously knew about it. She also testified that Oswald had intercepted a returned letter she’d sent to an ex-boyfriend in early ‘63, which is ample motive for her to have started retrieving her own mail if she hadn’t been already. There were two keys issued to the box, and Oswald surely didn’t take both with him every day to JCS. Marina was also not an idiot, and didn’t need Oswald to find her own post office box if she wanted to. 

Tom I have not gone into this like you, but from what I pick up from you it sounds like two things: that Marina was involved in the rifle (via the p.o. box) more than ever came out, and that there was a coverup of that fact. Assuming those two statements are reasonable conclusions the next question is why and why. Because I cannot imagine Marina being interested on her own in ordering the rifle etc., so why is she involved in that at all? The only thing that makes sense is Lee asked her to do so, and she cooperates (why? just to be a cooperative wife? what did he tell her was going on? that he was involved in an undercover firearms investigation and would be getting paid for it?). On why the later coverup of Marina's involvement in the rifle, that does not seem too complicated to find motive: the alternative would be to have it come out that Marina was involved and that would open up all sorts of public questions not only as to Marina's, but Soviet etc. involvement in the assassination (in fact there was none, but it would take a lot of energy to explain that to the public and some still would not accept that no matter how much it was explained--simpler to "not go there" in the first place...?) There may have been an unspoken (or spoken) quid pro quo that "they" (federal agencies) would not go after Marina on deportation issues or otherwise such as the rifle or giving false answers to a federal law enforcement officer, in exchange for her cooperating with testimony (by cooperating not meaning asking her to give specific untruthful answers, but simply answering questions, talking, "cooperating", instead of clamming up and refusing to offer information as she briefly did with the FBI initially). 

Also, I assume Marina was telling some untruths from day one of the assassination, attempting not to be implicated in what she assumed (because that is what it looked like) Lee had done, distancing herself, downplaying how much she knew of Lee's activities. Bringing out the truth of her involvement in the rifle would necessarily bring out some earlier fibbing? It wasn't as if Marina had been involved in any plan or intent to kill anyone with the rifle, so bringing it out would not actually "go anywhere". So it was just decided not to go there, steer clear of opening up anything that would go negative or potentially criminal on Marina? Plus, from what I read there was quite a bit of public sympathy for Marina, in the background of what was probably a conscious decision of WC counsels not to go after Marina hard, not to be perceived as piling on to a widow who had public sympathy and support. Hence the general courteous and softball-questions tenor of the questioning of Marina.

From your research would you find these two explanations plausible in accounting for the facts of what you have found?

[Tom Gram]

2 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Tom I have not gone into this like you, but from what I pick up from you it sounds like two things: that Marina was involved in the rifle (via the p.o. box) more than ever came out, and that there was a coverup of that fact. Assuming those two statements are reasonable conclusions the next question is why and why. Because I cannot imagine Marina being interested on her own in ordering the rifle etc., so why is she involved in that at all? The only thing that makes sense is Lee asked her to do so, and she cooperates (why? just to be a cooperative wife? what did he tell her was going on? that he was involved in an undercover firearms investigation and would be getting paid for it?). On why the later coverup of Marina's involvement in the rifle, that does not seem too complicated to find motive: the alternative would be to have it come out that Marina was involved and that would open up all sorts of public questions not only as to Marina's, but Soviet etc. involvement in the assassination (in fact there was none, but it would take a lot of energy to explain that to the public and some still would not accept that no matter how much it was explained--simpler to "not go there" in the first place...?) There may have been an unspoken (or spoken) quid pro quo that "they" (federal agencies) would not go after Marina on deportation issues or otherwise such as the rifle or giving false answers to a federal law enforcement officer, in exchange for her cooperating with testimony (by cooperating not meaning asking her to give specific untruthful answers, but simply answering questions, talking, "cooperating", instead of clamming up and refusing to offer information as she briefly did with the FBI initially). 

Also, I assume Marina was telling some untruths from day one of the assassination, attempting not to be implicated in what she assumed (because that is what it looked like) Lee had done, distancing herself, downplaying how much she knew of Lee's activities. Bringing out the truth of her involvement in the rifle would necessarily bring out some earlier fibbing? It wasn't as if Marina had been involved in any plan or intent to kill anyone with the rifle, so bringing it out would not actually "go anywhere". So it was just decided not to go there, steer clear of opening up anything that would go negative or potentially criminal on Marina? Plus, from what I read there was quite a bit of public sympathy for Marina, in the background of what was probably a conscious decision of WC counsels not to go after Marina hard, not to be perceived as piling on to a widow who had public sympathy and support. Hence the general courteous and softball-questions tenor of the questioning of Marina.

From your research would you find these two explanations plausible in accounting for the facts of what you have found?

I think at a minimum Marina knew about Oswald ordering the rifle, despite her later denials to the HSCA for example. According to a Feb ‘64 FBI report she actually slipped up and mentioned that Oswald had received the rifle through the mail. Of course there was no follow up.

I also think it’s very possible that Marina picked up the package from the post office, or was even involved in mailing the order forms based on Oswald’s JCS timecard and Marina’s access to a ride that same day - but she might have had nothing to do with it at all. With how quickly the change of address forms linking Marina to P.O. Box 2915 disappeared, along with section three of the box application, it could have just been a snap decision national security cover up to eliminate even the slightest implication that a Soviet citizen could have had any connection whatsoever to the assassination. The WC in that case would have been pigeonholed into avoiding the topic with Marina simply because they didn’t trust her to not mention evidence that had already been buried e.g. her May 10th change of address. 

A bonus of course would be eliminating the possibility of anyone besides Oswald having access to the P.O. Box, which could have created a reasonable doubt that Oswald received the rifle. 

That’s the most “innocent” explanation for the cover up I can think of, and there was a cover up of this stuff. It’s simply a fact.

I think it’s pretty damning that the government would be willing to suppress so much key evidence just to avoid a scenario that wasn’t at all incompatible with the lone assassin conclusion. That’s what makes me wonder if there wasn’t more to it, like if Marina really did have some involvement in the rifle purchase - and there’s evidence suggesting that she did. As for a motive, I have no idea, and I agree that assisting Oswald makes the most sense, but it could be a whole lot weirder than that.

The Hidell alias I think is critical to understanding what was really going on, and Marina’s statements on the topic are sketchy as all hell. 

Edited September 10, 2022 by Tom Gram