Stripling VP confirms LHO school records in 1998

[Denny Zartman]

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/the-two-oswalds/

Sorry if this is old news, but it was new to me. I stumbled across it while researching another aspect of the assassination and I found it interesting.

It seems that for Texas Monthly magazine's November 1998 issue, reporter Joe Nick Patoski interviewed John Armstrong for a story entitled "The Two Oswalds." Apparently by coincidence, Patoski had been a student at Stripling Junior High in Fort Worth at the time of the assassination. Officially Oswald attended Junior High in New York and New Orleans, not in Fort Worth.

Patoski contacted former Stripling Junior High vice principal Frank Kudlaty. Retired in Waco, Texas in 1998, Kudlaty apparently confirmed to Patoski that the day after the assassination the principal of Stripling Junior High (identified in the story as Mr. Wylie) asked Kudlaty to pull Oswald's records and give them to FBI agents.

According to Patoski (who characterises himself as disbelieving the Harvey & Lee theory) Kudlaty looked at Oswald's records and that Oswald's grades weren't very good. Kudlaty expressed doubt that a student with such grades could successfully teach himself the Russian language on his own.

[Sandy Larsen]

Denny,

Thanks for bringing that to our attention.

In John Armstrong's book, Harvey & Lee, John mentions the principal of Stripling Junior High when the FBI got LHO's records. Unfortunately, instead of using the correct name, Harry Wylie, he used the name of the principal when LHO was attending Stripling, Weldon Lucas.

Of course, the anti-Harvey & Lee group made a big fuss over the error, as though it somehow proved them right.

But the truth remains that the witnesses (including family members) say that LHO attended Stripling in the fall semester of 1954, while only the Warren Commission and Greg Parker say that he attended Beauregard Junior High -- because of the extant Beauregard record. Which really is evidence for two Oswalds, one attending Stripling and the other attending Beauregard.

 

[Michael Griffith]

8 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/the-two-oswalds/

Sorry if this is old news, but it was new to me. I stumbled across it while researching another aspect of the assassination and I found it interesting.

It seems that for Texas Monthly magazine's November 1998 issue, reporter Joe Nick Patoski interviewed John Armstrong for a story entitled "The Two Oswalds." Apparently by coincidence, Patoski had been a student at Stripling Junior High in Fort Worth at the time of the assassination. Officially Oswald attended Junior High in New York and New Orleans, not in Fort Worth.

Patoski contacted former Stripling Junior High vice principal Frank Kudlaty. Retired in Waco, Texas in 1998, Kudlaty apparently confirmed to Patoski that the day after the assassination the principal of Stripling Junior High (identified in the story as Mr. Wylie) asked Kudlaty to pull Oswald's records and give them to FBI agents.

According to Patoski (who characterises himself as disbelieving the Harvey & Lee theory) Kudlaty looked at Oswald's records and that Oswald's grades weren't very good. Kudlaty expressed doubt that a student with such grades could successfully teach himself the Russian language on his own.

Yes, I stumbled across that Texas Monthly article a few years ago and was impressed by it. To be honest, I do not want to accept Armstrong's theory because its implications are disturbing and fantastic, but Patoski's article supports Armstrong's case.

[Jonathan Cohen]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

But the truth remains that the witnesses (including family members) say that LHO attended Stripling in the fall semester of 1954, while only the Warren Commission and Greg Parker say that he attended Beauregard Junior High -- because of the extant Beauregard record. Which really is evidence for two Oswalds, one attending Stripling and the other attending Beauregard.

Absolute nonsense, because there never were "two Oswalds." Mark Stevens authoritatively shredded the Stripling theory in this thread.

[Michael Griffith]

9 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Absolute nonsense, because there never were "two Oswalds." Mark Stevens authoritatively shredded the Stripling theory in this thread.

Stevens' article is mostly a bunch of nit-picking and accusing witnesses he does not like of lying, exaggerating, or misremembering. WC apologists always apply draconian standards to conspiracy witnesses but apply extremely lax standards to lone-gunman witnesses. And when parts of a pro-WC witness's story are clearly problematic, WC apologists ignore the dubious parts and accept the parts that support their view. Can you say "Helen Markham" and "Howard Brennan" and "William Whaley"?

[Sandy Larsen]

37 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Mark Stevens authoritatively shredded the Stripling theory....

 

You wish.

 

37 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

in this thread.

 

Yes.... I invite everybody to compare Mark Steven's arguments against Jim Hargrove's.

Funny thing is, there is also a second instance of LHO attending two schools at the same time.... Public School #44 in New York City and Beauregard Junior High in the fall of 1953. Except in this case the FBI apparently didn't notice the problem and left the school records intact. So for this one we have documentary proof of Oswald attending both. Or rather, one Oswald attending one school and the other Oswald attending the other.

Oh well, these sorts of mishaps are bound to happen when an intelligence agency uses one teenager's background for another teenager.

 

[Jonathan Cohen]

17 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

Stevens' article is mostly a bunch of nit-picking and accusing witnesses he does not like of lying, exaggerating, or misremembering. WC apologists always apply draconian standards to conspiracy witnesses but apply extremely lax standards to lone-gunman witnesses. And when parts of a pro-WC witness's story are clearly problematic, WC apologists ignore the dubious parts and accept the parts that support their view. Can you say "Helen Markham" and "Howard Brennan" and "William Whaley"?

This is also a ridiculous assessment of Mark's work, and the work of other accomplished posters on this subject such as Robert Charles Dunne and Jeremy Bojczuk. Are you accusing Mark of being a "WC apologist" simply because he rejects the shoddy research and the accompanying preposterous interpretations Armstrong draws from it?

[Jonathan Cohen]

10 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Oh well, these sorts of mishaps are bound to happen when an intelligence agency uses one teenager's background for another teenager.

There was no "Oswald Project" and there was one and only one historical Lee Harvey Oswald. Everything else is just delusion.

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Absolute nonsense, because there never were "two Oswalds." Mark Stevens authoritatively shredded the Stripling theory in this thread.

Thanks. He helps expose a tremendous problem in conspiracy research. First, tracking down potential witnesses 30 years after the fact and asking them questions for which they  might not have known the answer even 5 years after the fact. And second, cherry-picking through their statements to extract a chosen narrative, which is not supported by the totality of their statements.

This kind of "journalism" is deceptive at best and a scam at worst. 

[Michael Griffith]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

There was no "Oswald Project" and there was one and only one historical Lee Harvey Oswald. Everything else is just delusion.

The delusion is that there is no evidence of two Oswalds. I would invite interested readers to check out Jim Hargrove's responses to Mark Stevens:

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/?do=findComment&comment=424663

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/?do=findComment&comment=424694

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/?do=findComment&comment=424733

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/?do=findComment&comment=424759

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/?do=findComment&comment=424838

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/?do=findComment&comment=424839

 

[Sandy Larsen]

You'll never see Pat Speer's face when Jim Hargrove is here to debate the case with anyone who thinks he can.

Fact is, the evidence for two young Oswalds is overwhelming. Unfortunately, an emotional response keeps some from even considering it's possible.

 

[Charles Blackmon]

I read the first few chapters of Harvey and Lee but moved on to other things. The evidence described in the book of two different guys sharing an identity seems compelling. I am having a problem, however, understanding what the impetus would have been for "someone" to create doppelgangers.

[Denny Zartman]

6 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Thanks. He helps expose a tremendous problem in conspiracy research. First, tracking down potential witnesses 30 years after the fact and asking them questions for which they  might not have known the answer even 5 years after the fact. And second, cherry-picking through their statements to extract a chosen narrative, which is not supported by the totality of their statements.

This kind of "journalism" is deceptive at best and a scam at worst. 

So what are the totality of Kudlaty's statements that show he said the opposite of what Patoski reported?

[Denny Zartman]

6 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

a tremendous problem in conspiracy research. First, tracking down potential witnesses 30 years after the fact and asking them questions for which they  might not have known the answer even 5 years after the fact.

I admit I don't understand your logic here. Asking questions of people in the know is what reporters and investigators do. And one wouldn't know whether a witness "might not have known the answer even 5 years after the fact" until one asks.

And you say 30 years like it's too long and that there is an inherent flaw in asking a witness about an event decades past. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. I don't think information a potential witness has would have an expiration date. Also, we are talking about an event people said they would always remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard JFK was shot. It's practically a cliche. Is holding the accused assassin's school records in your hands and interacting with FBI agents the day after the president's assassination events you genuinely think people would forget about? Either way, what could be the harm in asking. I just can't understand why you would reflexively think that any witnesses' answers wouldn't have value because too much time had passed or because it wasn't certain if they knew the answers or not at some arbitrary time of your choosing.

Do you think if Armstrong had made a claim about Oswald attending Stripling that Patoski should not have made an effort to confirm or refute it if possible? If Kudlaty had responded with either "I don't remember" or "I can confirm that never happened", should Patoski have reported it? Wouldn't that also have been useful information for us all to know?

[Pat Speer]

9 minutes ago, Denny Zartman said:

I admit I don't understand your logic here. Asking questions of people in the know is what reporters and investigators do. And one wouldn't know whether a witness "might not have known the answer even 5 years after the fact" until one asks.

And you say 30 years like it's too long and that there is an inherent flaw in asking a witness about an event decades past. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. I don't think information a potential witness has would have an expiration date. Also, we are talking about an event people said they would always remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard JFK was shot. It's practically a cliche. Is holding the accused assassin's school records in your hands and interacting with FBI agents the day after the president's assassination events you genuinely think people would forget about? Either way, what could be the harm in asking. I just can't understand why you would reflexively think that any witnesses' answers wouldn't have value because too much time had passed or because it wasn't certain if they knew the answers or not at some arbitrary time of your choosing.

Do you think if Armstrong had made a claim about Oswald attending Stripling that Patoski should not have made an effort to confirm or refute it if possible? If Kudlaty had responded with either "I don't remember" or "I can confirm that never happened", should Patoski have reported it? Wouldn't that also have been useful information for us all to know?

I'm 62. Prior to my illness, my memory was as good as almost anybody's--probably in the top 1%. And yet there is no way I could remember what the people playing across the playground looked like when I was in junior high. I KNEW people. And I KNEW the name to almost everyone in my grade (roughly 500 people). But I could not remember the appearance of people I didn't know at the time 30 years later. Now, from the article it's obvious Robert Oswald got Lee's timeline mixed up, and placed him at a school he probably wasn't attending. And it follows from this that word would get out that Oswald went there. And that people would then say "Yeah, I think I saw him once." That's human nature.  But it's not solid evidence. There are no records placing him there. There are no photos placing him there.