Interview with lady who met two different Oswalds

[Jonathan Cohen]

1 hour ago, Lance Payette said:

Harvey & Lee is one of the most absurd theories this side of "the Queen was a reptilian alien." Going down that rabbit hole is intellectual suicide. Don't do it. David says he "doesn't suffer fools." Oh, yes, he does, in spades.

Amen to this.

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

Please fill me in on the "cancelled", as I have zero knowledge on the US bank system regarding a check that's "cancelled"

 

Jean Paul,

Here is my 18,000 word response to your question.

A check that has been processed by the banking system is said to be "canceled" because it cannot go through the system again.

 

BTW, the postal money order that was allegedly used to buy the Carcano rifle has nothing to do with the H&L theory.

 

[Charles Blackmon]

56 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

 

BTW, the postal money order that was allegedly used to buy the Carcano rifle has nothing to do with the H&L theory.

 

Yes I was wondering how the original subject about Oswald "impersonators/doubles" morphed into something completely different. Its all good though!

[Guest]

It was indeed the word "cancelled" that got me confused, I guess I translated it wrong, in Belgium that would literally be a "re-called" check (a possible thing, but requires some paperwork, I couldn't match it with this case).

But I get it now (and I have found some very long discussions on the subject, I had no idea where to begin...)

To stamp or not to stamp, that's the question.   

[Greg Doudna]

3 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

Oh, dear, Jean Paul, you have no idea what you have asked. I refuse to go down this INSANE rabbit hole one more time.

I'll give you the $0.02 version, and then "lawyer Sandy" can spend 18,000 words, with another 20,000 by David Josephs, explaining the absurdity of my legal reasoning. The First National Bank of Chicago was a member of the Federal Reserve System. The Postal Money Order, duly endorsed by Klein's as the money order regulations required, was deposited into Klein's account at the First National Bank of Chicago. The First National Bank then needed to be reimbursed by the Postal Service for its payment of the money order. Under Federal Reserve regulations and an agreement between the Treasury Department and the Postal Service, Postal Money Orders were processed through the Federal Reserve System as "cash items" - i.e., same as cash. If you deposit cash in the bank, there is no "endorsement" on the bills - duh. Pursuant to the regulations, the First National Bank of Chicago separately packaged cash items and transmitted them to the Federal Reserve Bank that serviced the Chicago region. The regional bank transmitted it to the Treasury Department, and the First National Bank got reimbursed. The paid Postal Money Order eventually made its way to the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, VA, where it was stamped with a File Locator Number to facilitate recovery in case there was ever a need to locate it (for use in a court case, for example). The Postal Money Orders, which were sold in the millions at the time, were retained for six months and then destroyed. The entire purpose of the system was for Postal Money Orders to flow through the Federal Reserve System with minimal fuss. The File Locator Number is the number at the top of the money order, the significance of which I discovered.

There were old Postal regulations, predating the Federal Reserve System, that talked about endorsements. It is POSSIBLE, even after the establishment of the Federal Reserve System, that a non-member bank might accept and pay a Postal Money Order. When that non-member bank transmitted the money order into the Federal Reserve System for payment, it is POSSIBLE the non-member bank, as a "stranger" to the Federal Reserve System, might have been required to stamp the money order. The Klein's money order was in the Federal Reserve System from the get-go. The File Locator Number shows it made its way through the System and into the Records Center.

Enough! I wrote the above from memory and am never commenting on this silly issue again.

But even another Harvey & Lee factoid got blown out of the water in my work on the Postal Money Order: The Harvey & Lee book and website until recently referred to the testimony of a First National Bank official named Wilmouth who supposedly said the Postal Money Order "should have" multiple bank stamp endorsements by the First National Bank of Chicago and the regional Federal Reserve Bank. I DEMONSTRATED THAT THIS WAS TOTALLY FALSE - neither Wilmouth nor anyone else said ANYTHING like this. Whereupon, the Harvey & Lee website was quietly changed. DVP archived at his site my post on this nonsense, to wit:

Without explanation or apology, Armstrong has tap-danced away from the “Wilmouth statement” on which "Harvey and Lee" (and subsequent researchers) had relied as the sole authority for the assertion that the postal money order should have multiple bank stamps. Nothing of the sort is now attributed to Wilmouth.

Indeed, nothing of the sort is now attributed to anyone. Instead, Armstrong’s write-up simply assumes that the money order should have multiple bank stamps. The "failure" of Belin and Waldman to notice the absence of these stamps that the money order “should” have had is deemed “suspicious.” For you fans of logic (there are surely some of you out there, are there not?), this is the fallacy known as “assuming that which is to be proven.”

Armstrong’s write-up completely ignores the File Locator Number – ignores not merely its significance but its very existence. How seriously should we to take a researcher who obsesses over the minutiae that Armstrong presents but blithely ignores the smoking elephant on the face of the money order?
In other threads, we were assured that Armstrong was going to rehabilitate his theory by explaining both his seeming fabrication of the Wilmouth statement and why the File Locator Number does not have the dispositive significance it might appear to have. Moreover, we were assured that Armstrong would soon produce a highly experienced bank executive who would verify that the money order should have multiple bank stamps and explain to us dolts how the process actually works. I failed to note any of this in his write-up.

Armstrong also makes much of the fact that the envelope in which the money order was mailed bears a Zone 12 postmark that places it miles from the post office where the money order was purchased. I happen to have had a recent experience where my sister-in-law mailed my wife a birthday card in an envelope that was postmarked Phoenix, AZ 85012 (and only Phoenix). I didn’t think she'd been anywhere near Phoenix and asked her where she had mailed it. She had dropped it in a mailbox at a small town about 20 miles west of Tucson, more than 100 miles from Phoenix – but the only stamp was for zip code 85012 in the middle of Phoenix. A fair guess would be that Oswald took the money order back to his workplace and put the envelope with his employer’s outgoing mail, as many of us have done, or perhaps dropped it in some nearby mailbox that happened to be processed at the post office in Zone 12.

One who is not a certified conspiracy loon cannot help but notice that Armstrong repeatedly fills in the gaps in his latest write-up with his “belief” that items were “fabricated” or are “suspicious.” If one begins with the axiom that one’s theory must be correct, then one will inevitably find everything that doesn’t mesh with said theory to be “fabricated” or “suspicious.” For you fans of logic, Armstrong has committed the fallacy of “proving too much.” He has concocted such a Rube Goldbergian conspiracy that I, at least, was unable to read his latest write-up without laughing out loud. Surely even the most wild-eyed conspiracy theorists don’t really believe that a conspiracy to purchase a rifle by mail using a postal money order eight months before the assassination could possibly involve so many conspirators and elements and make so little sense from start to finish?

READ MY LIPS, JEAN PAUL: Harvey & Lee is one of the most absurd theories this side of "the Queen was a reptilian alien." Going down that rabbit hole is intellectual suicide. Don't do it. David says he "doesn't suffer fools." Oh, yes, he does, in spades.

Thanks for this explanation Lance. It makes good sense. I deposit checks from my business (window cleaning accounts) in an automated bank teller machine every few days and for years have not endorsed any of the checks, no stamp, no signature, nothing. Just put my card in the machine and follow instructions on the screen, put in the checks in groups of 10 at a time, the machine clicks and hums and returns a receipt, smooth as clockwork. As long as the batch is identified there is no need for individual endorsements on each check (and that was told to me explicitly by bank persons). 

I don't think you need to worry about Jean Paul Ceulemans going down any Harvey and Lee rabbit hole Lance. He is very astute. I think he asked because he lives in Belgium.

Incidentally on the "12" the idea of that meaning a "zone 12" far from where Oswald was may be a fallacy. I learned this from a discussion of David von Pein, who interviewed a post office veteran who explained it differently, that it was a sorting machine number. The sorting machine would have been located at the main post office in downtown Dallas. At least that was one lifetime postmaster's explanation of that.   

The only remaining anomaly I see is the question of how Oswald was able to purchase a money order on March 12 (date of the money order) that went out in the mail at 10:30 am March 12 (postmark on the envelope), when his job record shows him at Jaggers from 8-12 that morning. The main post office in Dallas today opens at 8 a.m., and 8 a.m. I see (from some checking) is a common time for opening of post offices. I have not been able to verify what time the Dallas main post office opened in 1963, but have found no comparative examples of post offices opening earlier than 8. I am not sure of my memory on this (I have used a lot of post offices) but I vaguely recall times when at a side window opening into the outer post office box area, not at the regular counter, a postal employee would sometimes as a courtesy help customers who needed something or other done before formal opening hours (though usually post offices stick to posted hours strictly to the minute). In the case of Oswald and that money order I see two possibilities: either he was able to purchase it at 7 or 7:30 a.m. because that is when that post office opened in 1963, fill it out, put it in the envelope, stamp and mail it and then walk to Jaggers; or else he was at the post office sometime between 8 and 10:30 a.m. that morning no matter what his job hours at work say. Actually I just thought of a third possibility (?--not sure on this): Oswald goes after 5 the day before and buys a money order which the post office machine has now set the date-stamp to the next day (the main Dallas post office today is open until 10 p.m.).   

[Jonathan Cohen]

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

BTW, the postal money order that was allegedly used to buy the Carcano rifle has nothing to do with the H&L theory.

But it has everything to do with people on this forum who expect reasonable thinkers to believe that nearly every single piece of evidence in this case is fake, which is as ludicrous of a proposition as "Harvey and Lee" itself.

[David Von Pein]

16 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Just because somebody printed an FLN on the money order doesn't mean it was legit. What a ridiculous notion.

"How many things that appear to be legitimate about the Hidell money order does it take for a stubborn CTer to admit that the money order is, in fact, very likely a legitimate document?" --DVP; January 9, 2016

-----------------------

"And now some conspiracy theorists are moving those goalposts (just as I expected), with some CTers now saying they think the ten-digit File Locator Number was faked by plotters. (What a surprise.)

So that would mean that the plotters, who were all members of the "Brilliant One Minute & Dumb As A Box Of Rocks The Next" club, were smart enough to forge the 10-digit File Locator Number on the Hidell money order, but too stupid to forge a First National Bank stamp (which most CTers still think should have been affixed to the Hidell money order).

"Let's Frame Oswald, Inc." evidently had Albert Einstein as its President and Homer Simpson as Vice President." --DVP; Circa 2015-2016

-----------------------

http://DVP's JFK Archives / The "Hidell" Money Order (Archived Discussions)

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Tom Gram]

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

Thanks for this explanation Lance. It makes good sense. I deposit checks from my business (window cleaning accounts) in an automated bank teller machine every few days and for years have not endorsed any of the checks, no stamp, no signature, nothing. Just put my card in the machine and follow instructions on the screen, put in the checks in groups of 10 at a time, the machine clicks and hums and returns a receipt, smooth as clockwork. As long as the batch is identified there is no need for individual endorsements on each check (and that was told to me explicitly by bank persons). 

I don't think you need to worry about Jean Paul Ceulemans going down any Harvey and Lee rabbit hole Lance. He is very astute. I think he asked because he lives in Belgium.

Incidentally on the "12" the idea of that meaning a "zone 12" far from where Oswald was may be a fallacy. I learned this from a discussion of David von Pein, who interviewed a post office veteran who explained it differently, that it was a sorting machine number. The sorting machine would have been located at the main post office in downtown Dallas. At least that was one lifetime postmaster's explanation of that.   

The only remaining anomaly I see is the question of how Oswald was able to purchase a money order on March 12 (date of the money order) that went out in the mail at 10:30 am March 12 (postmark on the envelope), when his job record shows him at Jaggers from 8-12 that morning. The main post office in Dallas today opens at 8 a.m., and 8 a.m. I see (from some checking) is a common time for opening of post offices. I have not been able to verify what time the Dallas main post office opened in 1963, but have found no comparative examples of post offices opening earlier than 8. I am not sure of my memory on this (I have used a lot of post offices) but I vaguely recall times when at a side window opening into the outer post office box area, not at the regular counter, a postal employee would sometimes as a courtesy help customers who needed something or other done before formal opening hours (though usually post offices stick to posted hours strictly to the minute). In the case of Oswald and that money order I see two possibilities: either he was able to purchase it at 7 or 7:30 a.m. because that is when that post office opened in 1963, fill it out, put it in the envelope, stamp and mail it and then walk to Jaggers; or else he was at the post office sometime between 8 and 10:30 a.m. that morning no matter what his job hours at work say. Actually I just thought of a third possibility (?--not sure on this): Oswald goes after 5 the day before and buys a money order which the post office machine has now set the date-stamp to the next day (the main Dallas post office today is open until 10 p.m.).   

FWIW, the money order stub supposedly reflected that the PMO was purchased on the morning of March 12th, but there’s nothing on the actual money order showing time of purchase, and the stub was never entered into evidence. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62262#relPageId=51

DVP’s interview on the “zone 12” issue is interesting but it’d be nice to have some corroboration on that. Also, if you’ve read the WC testimonies of James Cadigan and Alwyn Cole you’ll know that they go into excruciating, letter-by-letter detail when describing their conclusions on questioned documents. However, neither of them gave any testimony whatsoever on the money order Hidell signature, which is more than a little bit weird.

Marina signed the name Hidell on other documents for Oswald, she had access to a car on March 12th, and her sample Hidell signatures for the HSCA, as you previously pointed out, look almost exactly like the signature on the money order. Hmm…

[Guest]

*deleted*

(suggested something, just found it had been done already)

 

Edited February 9, 2023 by Jean Paul Ceulemans

[David Von Pein]

ALBERT DOYLE SAID:

Do you understand that the Money Order could be processed, or partly processed, and still be 'handled' through the system in order to frame Oswald?

In other words, it could have a legitimate File Locator stamp and still be planted on Oswald in order to frame him.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

I love that constant moving of the goalposts by CTers.

Since it couldn't be more obvious that the Hidell money order now has a proper path to legitimacy (and conspiracy theorists like Albert Doyle know it), we're now treated to more sheer crackpot speculation about how the LEGITIMATE money order (with Oswald's writing on it that was bought and handled by Oswald HIMSELF) was being used to frame Oswald anyway.

The CTer mind is a spinning whirlwind of ever-expanding and forever changing concocted claptrap.

IOW --- Whatever it takes to pretend Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy on 11/22/63, an Internet CTer is ready and eager to do it -- even if the number of goalposts that must be moved reaches triple digits.

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/10/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-1058.html

[Charles Blackmon]

Back to the original subject: I looked up Larry Crafard's picture and he doesn't resemble Oswald except in a very general sense i.e. you would not mistake him for LHO if you were facing right in front him as Laura Kittrell was.

[Sandy Larsen]

On 2/9/2023 at 12:16 PM, Greg Doudna said:

I deposit checks from my business (window cleaning accounts) in an automated bank teller machine every few days and for years have not endorsed any of the checks, no stamp, no signature, nothing.

 

There is no federal regulation stating that banks must require an endorsement or bank stamp on checks they cash. It is up to each bank to decide whether or not they will accept an unendorsed check.

Banks know that if they cash a check without it being endorsed, the originating bank is not required to honor it, and the bank that accepted it might well be stiffed.

Banks often will accept non-endorsed checks from customers they've had for a while.

That said...

Federal law DOES require that postal money orders be bank stamped. (At least that was the case in the 1900s... I don't know about now.) And the PMO supposedly used  to purchase the Carcano rifle did NOT have bank stamps. It likely had not been cashed. in other words, it likely had been forged.

 

 

[Greg Doudna]

On 2/10/2023 at 9:53 AM, Charles Blackmon said:

Back to the original subject: I looked up Larry Crafard's picture and he doesn't resemble Oswald except in a very general sense i.e. you would not mistake him for LHO if you were facing right in front him as Laura Kittrell was.

That may be true as to your (and my) take on their photos but the case for Laura Kittrell’s “second Oswald” as Craford is decisive to the point of being unequivocal from these points:

+ Laura Kittrell positively identified from photos of Craford that Craford was the second one.

+ Laura Kittrell confirmed that a file on Craford existed in her office of the Texas Employment Commission, confirming he was a client in that office, and compatible with Craford being the client of fellow employment counselor Brooks of that office whom her “second Oswald” originally was (by Kittrell’s account).

+ the details of the “second Oswald” of Kittrell match very specifically to Craford. This includes Craford’s employment history in California, his reference to Kittrell of the Texas State Fair, his wearing a motorcycle jacket (Craford had motorcycles and a motorcycle license), and his telling Kittrell that he had had a baby five months earlier in May (true of Craford’s separated wife). 

It was definitely a second person not Oswald so who else would it be than the one that it sounds like, the one Kittrell said it was, and the one who was a client in that office in that approximate time frame. It can be shown Laura Kittrell confused in memory two distinct persons without intentional impersonation on the part of the second one. 

The only negative argument against it being Craford comes down to, in later years Craford denied it (to Whitmey).

As for Craford’s later denial, the best explanation of that is the denial was not true. From Kittrell’s last encounter with her “second Oswald” (whom she positively identified from photos was Craford), Craford was attempting to pull some sort of legal scam by means of a Teamsters Union membership. That would relate to the Ruby/Craford and Teamsters-related shady mob underworld. Someone in mob/Teamsters circles suggested or offered to help Craford get a free unemployment check from claiming a union membership, was the “scam” idea (even if possibly borderline legal). 

But that aside there is a very obvious reason for Craford’s denial of that even years later: he actually was in legal jeopardy over unreported income tax issue and false statements potentially if he was claiming to be unemployed, while receiving money from Ruby. That would be why he unconvincingly kept claiming in his WC testimony that he was never paid by Ruby… sure he was, it just wasn’t being reported, either to the IRS or to the Texas Employment Commission. He was paid, it just was under the table. As for his missing front teeth, since Kittrell never mentioned missing teeth I assume he was wearing dentures sometimes including his TEC visits. 

Edited May 10 by Greg Doudna

[Karl Kinaski]

Back on topic. Maybe this site is of some help: