Stripling VP confirms LHO school records in 1998

[David Josephs]

15 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

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.

Have to correct you here my friend, Lucas was Kudlaty's boss when Oswald attended in 1954 and the weekend after the assassination

Lucas was principal from 1953 - 1963 but died in the summer of 1964 of a heart attack in the employee parking lot at Arlington Heights where he was to become principal in the fall of 1964.  Kudlaty was with Lucas in the hospital when he died.

2220 Thomas, owned by a friend of Fred Korth (attorney for Ekdahl in the divorce from Marguerite - not Harvey's caretaker) is across the street from Stripling

Marge lived at 2220 Thomas the day of the assassination despite having purchased 4029 Byers in 1962 with the Byers Ave deed was not recorded until 1965.
I have all these docs but have run out of room to post them.  I have all the Oswald real estate transactions which include Korth as trustee for Ekdahl in the purchase of commercial land before he went back to NY.

Harvey most certainly went to Stripling while Lee attended school at Beauregard JHS.  As to his attending there in the fall of 1953 in conflict with NYC records, it remains my POV they are mistaken about the conclusion of that analysis.  Search for "NYC school records"... I've written extensively on the topic.

 

[Jonathan Cohen]

There's no Harvey. Never was, never will be. Any reasonable person studying this case will plainly see that there are numerous perfectly logical explanations for any alleged "conflicts" in the school records that do not require doppelgangers or idiotic, decades-long government conspiracies.

[David Josephs]

22 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

There's no Harvey. Never was, never will be. Any reasonable person studying this case will plainly see that there are numerous perfectly logical explanations for any alleged "conflicts" in the school records that do not require doppelgangers or idiotic, decades-long government conspiracies.

Pithy analysis JC.  Thanks for the vapid support of your conclusion...

"It is because it is" says JC, and then adds the tried and true tactic:  only an unreasonable person can conclude there was a Harvey or even a need for one... and there's plenty of logical explanations... just can't think of one or offer one here, there or anywhere.

So fellow members, start to think and worry:   you don't want JC and his supporters here to think you're illogical and unreasonable do you?  

Edited July 14, 2023 by David Josephs

[Jonathan Cohen]

31 minutes ago, David Josephs said:

There's plenty of logical explanations... just can't think of one or offer one here, there or anywhere.

They've been offered countless times on this forum and others, so there's literally no need to repeat them.

[Michael Griffith]

19 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 you find Stevens' research convincing and Hargrove's research unconvincing? 

Do you believe that Oswald was ever impersonated in Dallas and/or Mexico City?

Who do you believe was behind the assassination?

[David Josephs]

42 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

So you find Stevens' research convincing and Hargrove's research unconvincing? 

Do you believe that Oswald was ever impersonated in Dallas and/or Mexico City?

Who do you believe was behind the assassination?

It is my understanding Mr. Speer believes Oswald did the shooting from the 6th floor....  his website is a wealth of information yet I for one disagree with his conclusions in a number of areas...  doesn't take away from an amazing body of work.

Kinda like H&L... The wealth of information no one had offered prior to his book since he and Malcolm spent year after year at the Archives (speaking of a research source for information not easily found in the public domain). Some areas and conclusions I simply cannot see given the evidence yet does not take away from H&L being a serious reference book.

Finally MG, there is simply no doubt Oswald's presence in Mexico was established by an impersonator on the phone and potentially a real person on the 27th walking past Teresa Proenza to talk with Ms. Duran.

CIA 104-10059-10423 describes the PROENZA PROJECT - I got mine from scans of Malcolm's collection from his years at the Archives which includes the ID Form cover page.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2022/104-10059-10423.pdf.   File #80T01357A

Maybe Pat can address the last question and correct me if I'm wrong.

[David Josephs]

8 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

They've been offered countless times on this forum and others, so there's literally no need to repeat them.

Offer 1 - show your work

[Michael Griffith]

On 7/13/2023 at 11:35 PM, Jonathan Cohen said:

There's no Harvey. Never was, never will be. Any reasonable person studying this case will plainly see that there are numerous perfectly logical explanations for any alleged "conflicts" in the school records that do not require doppelgangers or idiotic, decades-long government conspiracies.

"Perfectly logical explanations"? You mean explanations that claim that virtually every witness was lying or "mistaken," that nit-pick every minor discrepancy, that see discrepancies where there are none, and that chalk up all remaining evidence to coincidence. 

The Oswald who called the Soviet consulate in Mexico City spoke "terrible, hardly recognizable Russian," said the CIA translator who translated the call, but the real Oswald was fluent in Russian, according to numerous Russian speakers who knew him:

          Mrs. Natalie Ray, a native of Stalingrad, Russia, who met Oswald after his return from the Soviet Union, testified to the Warren Commission that his conversational Russian was "just perfect. . . . it's just too good speaking Russian for such a short time." [24] Mrs. Ray complimented Oswald while speaking in her own broken English: "I said, 'How come you speak so good Russian? I been here so long and still don't speak very well English." When Mrs. Ray was asked by attorney Wesley Liebeler, "You thought he spoke Russian better than you would expect a person to be able to speak Russian after only living...there only 3 years?", she replied, "Yes; I really did." 

          George de Mohrenschildt, another native Russian speaker, praised Oswald's skills in the Russian language, informing the Warren Commission that Oswald "had remarkable fluency in Russian. . . . he preferred to speak Russian than English any time. He always would switch from English to Russian." 

          Peter Gregory, a native of Chita, Siberia, told the Warren Commission that "I thought that Lee Oswald spoke [Russian] with a Polish accent, that is why I asked him if he was of Polish descent....It would be rather unusual...for a person who lived in the Soviet Union for 17 months that he would speak so well that a native Russian would not be sure whether he was born in that country or not." Gregory's son, Peter Paul Gregory, was a graduate student in Russian language and literature at the University of Oklahoma in the early 1960s. At the time, he conversed with Oswald and later told the Warren Commission that Oswald "was completely fluent. He understood more than I did and he could express any idea...that he wanted to in Russian."

          Other witnesses, including George Bouhe, Mrs. Teofil (Anna ) Meller, Elena Hall, and Mrs. Dymitruk, vouched for Oswald's exceptional skills in speaking Russian."

Edited July 15, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, David Josephs said:

It is my understanding Mr. Speer believes Oswald did the shooting from the 6th floor....  his website is a wealth of information yet I for one disagree with his conclusions in a number of areas...  doesn't take away from an amazing body of work.

Kinda like H&L... The wealth of information no one had offered prior to his book since he and Malcolm spent year after year at the Archives (speaking of a research source for information not easily found in the public domain). Some areas and conclusions I simply cannot see given the evidence yet does not take away from H&L being a serious reference book.

Finally MG, there is simply no doubt Oswald's presence in Mexico was established by an impersonator on the phone and potentially a real person on the 27th walking past Teresa Proenza to talk with Ms. Duran.

CIA 104-10059-10423 describes the PROENZA PROJECT - I got mine from scans of Malcolm's collection from his years at the Archives which includes the ID Form cover page.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2022/104-10059-10423.pdf.   File #80T01357A

Maybe Pat can address the last question and correct me if I'm wrong.

Ouch. Really? I have written book-length chapters on a number of aspects of the case, and remain on the fence on a number of issues. But after studying the behavior of Ball/Belin and analyzing the evidence linking Oswald to the sniper's nest and rifle, I am 99.8% convinced Oswald was not on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting, and did not kill JFK. 

The evidence for Oswald's guilt, and my conclusion this actually suggests his innocence, is discussed in chapters 4-4h. 

As far as who orchestrated the murder, I am on the fence. But I can say it's quite clear there is an element within research-land that is desperate to pin it on the CIA, and let LBJ, the Mafia, and the military... skate.  I am reluctant to do so. The CIA/mafia/anti-Castro Cuban attempts on Castro could very well be the window through which this problem should be viewed. Maheu was the middle-man, forging an alliance of sorts between three groups who largely hated Kennedy. Once united, these forces may very well have changed their target to someone on U.S. soil. But as to who was behind it, it's hard to say. Maheu worked for Hughes, but to whom he was ultimately loyal remains unclear. When one reads through the Church Committee testimony, it seems likely he convinced the CIA to authorize the mob's attempts on Castro and then made out it was their idea. If so, he could have convinced this apparatus to change their target to Kennedy while letting them think it was approved by the CIA, when it was actually a mob hit, or a Hughes hit on behalf of Johnson, etc. It's hard to say. That's the problem with cut-outs. If they have their own agenda, everything can get twisted. And Maheu really only served one man: himself. 

[David Josephs]

43 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Ouch. Really? I have written book-length chapters on a number of aspects of the case, and remain on the fence on a number of issues. But after studying the behavior of Ball/Belin and analyzing the evidence linking Oswald to the sniper's nest and rifle, I am 99.8% convinced Oswald was not on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting, and did not kill JFK. 

I stand corrected - I would have sworn you arrived at this conclusion fairly recently with .2% still left for doubt.  That percentage seemed to have been much bigger in years past.

Please accept my apology 

[David Josephs]

On 7/13/2023 at 12:29 AM, 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.

Been emailing John about this Denny.  John lived what he preached which is why over the many years I've known him I respect his never-ending attempt to get at the truth.  I don't have to agree with every page or idea, one just needs to have a little awareness of what internet-researchers such as myself bring to the table, versus those who were actually in the trenches, traveling the world in search of answers.

Haters gonna hate - as the song goes - and nothing said here will change that mindset.  
Take care

Joe Patoski flew from Texas to my home in Tulsa, OK. 

We spent two days together and he looked thru my files.

He told me that he knew Kudlaty, and I gave him 

Kudlaty's phone number and address. Patoski

could not understand why I spent so much time on

Oswald, but he trusted Kudlaty completely.

 

I showed him the video of Kudlaty, who he remembered from his days as a student at Stripling. He clearly respected and trusted Kudlaty. I also showed him the video of

fellow student Fran Schubert, who remembered that every day Oswald would walk across the street to his home at lunch time. Joe was not a student of JFK matters, and

had never heard about a 2nd LHO. We were together, in my home, looking over documents, photos, witness statements, etc for hours. Joe was very interested, but was 

overwhelmed and appeared perplexed as to the possibility/reality of a 2nd Oswald. He was also confused as to why I was focusing on Oswald and Oswald alone instead

of other areas of the assassination. A few week later I telephoned Joe, who told me that he had talked with Mr. Kudlaty who confirmed that Oswald had attended Stripling.

[Denny Zartman]

4 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Been emailing John about this Denny.  John lived what he preached which is why over the many years I've known him I respect his never-ending attempt to get at the truth.  I don't have to agree with every page or idea, one just needs to have a little awareness of what internet-researchers such as myself bring to the table, versus those who were actually in the trenches, traveling the world in search of answers.

Haters gonna hate - as the song goes - and nothing said here will change that mindset.  
Take care

Joe Patoski flew from Texas to my home in Tulsa, OK. 

We spent two days together and he looked thru my files.

He told me that he knew Kudlaty, and I gave him 

Kudlaty's phone number and address. Patoski

could not understand why I spent so much time on

Oswald, but he trusted Kudlaty completely.

 

I showed him the video of Kudlaty, who he remembered from his days as a student at Stripling. He clearly respected and trusted Kudlaty. I also showed him the video of

fellow student Fran Schubert, who remembered that every day Oswald would walk across the street to his home at lunch time. Joe was not a student of JFK matters, and

had never heard about a 2nd LHO. We were together, in my home, looking over documents, photos, witness statements, etc for hours. Joe was very interested, but was 

overwhelmed and appeared perplexed as to the possibility/reality of a 2nd Oswald. He was also confused as to why I was focusing on Oswald and Oswald alone instead

of other areas of the assassination. A few week later I telephoned Joe, who told me that he had talked with Mr. Kudlaty who confirmed that Oswald had attended Stripling.

Thanks for that. I respect John Armstrong's work and dedication. He's certainly done the research and the legwork. I respect those researchers who have gone out and actually interviewed witnesses.

I understand people being skeptical of the theory. I felt that same way when I first heard of it. It's one thing to have Oswald be impersonated by various folks, lookalikes or not (like the fellow photographed in Mexico City) in order to implicate him in a crime and/or confuse investigators. It's another thing to believe there were two lookalike boys raised separately with the same name as part of some mysterious multi-decade government scheme. I think it's reasonable to be skeptical of a theory that seems like something out of fiction.

Yet, there seems to be multiple pieces of circumstantial evidence supporting it.

I found this story of a skeptical reporter doing an independent verification of Oswald's Stripling Junior High records compelling. I don't really see a good reason to dismiss it as a lie or some sort of false memory brought on by the passage of time, especially if it's supported by someone that says they remember attending Stripling with Oswald.

When I studied journalism way back in the day I remember the teacher saying that in order for a reporter to report something, they needed a source and then another independent source to confirm it. It seems to me that the information coming from Kudlaty and Schubert would be enough for a reporter to report that Lee Harvey Oswald did attend Stripling Junior High.

[David Josephs]

8 minutes ago, Denny Zartman said:

When I studied journalism way back in the day I remember the teacher saying that in order for a reporter to report something, they needed a source and then another independent source to confirm it. It seems to me that the information coming from Kudlaty and Schubert would be enough for a reporter to report that Lee Harvey Oswald did attend Stripling Junior High.

We also failed to mention it was Robert who wrote in his book that his younger brother attended Stripling.

10 minutes ago, Denny Zartman said:

Thanks for that. I respect John Armstrong's work and dedication. He's certainly done the research and the legwork. I respect those researchers who have gone out and actually interviewed witnesses.

You are most welcome Denny.

John and I have had interesting discussion about that as I'd like to think I'm a decent internet-based researcher while he had done so much of the legwork when it was necessary and generated scores of reference notebooks.  Together I believe we've done a decent job assisting each other in our areas of concentration and on a few collaborative works.

John has always said his book was only intended to be a starting point for those interested in looking deeper... to move the ball further down the field as I hope I've done with the rifle and Mexico work.

A handful of people can offer rebuttals to isolated incidences yet fail to comprehend the totality of the evidence.

That totality was not lost on Rankin or Jenner:  "totally unfamiliar to Ely"

[Sandy Larsen]

On 7/13/2023 at 5:44 PM, Pat Speer said:

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.

 

As a 68-year-old, I can't recall many things I did even a couple weeks ago. But I remember vividly and in detail several key things that happened in my life as far back as sixty years ago. There are just some things one never forgets. Like having the FBI take the records of a boy who was accused of killing a president.

 

[Denny Zartman]

On 7/13/2023 at 9:09 AM, Michael Griffith said:

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.

I hear you on that. I feel very much the same way.

I usually stay out of the Harvey and Lee debate. I read about corpse teeth and mastoid scars, my eyes kind of glaze over. But this is one story simple enough for even me to understand. Hoover's 1960 memo about the FBI suspecting someone was using Oswald's identity is also very compelling, imho.

I guess I remember that initial feeling of how dubious it all seems and part of that memory still guides my feelings of being reluctant to embrace the theory today. I'm not trying to win arguments or debates. I'd just like to know what actually went on. In other words, if the Harvey and Lee theory was not true, it wouldn't affect me at all. I'm open to the counter argument. But honestly the counter arguments I've heard so far have been weak and unconvincing, as you've pointed out.

The only counter I've read to the Hoover memo was that Hoover was somehow mistaken or confused. I don't buy it. No one seems to ask what I see as the obvious question: if Oswald was really just some kooky loner nobody and the possible theft of his identity for some mundane and common criminal reason, why would the Director of the FBI be writing about it? Do all cases of possible identity theft go all the way to the Director?

As I see it, multiple pieces of circumstantial evidence exist that, at the very least, supports the possibility of Harvey & Lee theory being true.

I don't know. It's a mystery.