Stripling VP confirms LHO school records in 1998

[Denny Zartman]

37 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

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.

 

I think most people often forget things. I also think they rarely make up false memories of things that didn't happen. Most people who were around at the time say they remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard JFK has been assassinated. I imagine all the events related to the assassination would be more vivid in memory than the routine daily activities. I personally would never forget interacting with the FBI or holding the accused assassin of a president's school records in my hands. I can't imagine someone accidentally conjuring up all those false memories out of thin air. Seems very unlikely to me.

[Sandy Larsen]

On 7/13/2023 at 9:07 PM, David Josephs said:

On 7/13/2023 at 5:47 AM, 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.

On 7/13/2023 at 9:07 PM, David Josephs said:

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.

 

David,

I got my information from Armstrong in 2020. Jim Hargrove posted it here.

Are you certain that Lucas was still principal of Stripling in the fall semester of 1963 and not Wylie? If you are, then you should let them (and me) know. Because currently they believe that Wylie was principal at that time. (Or, at least Jim still believes that, as that is what his website still shows.)

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Michael Griffith writes:

Quote

Stevens' article is mostly a bunch of nit-picking and accusing witnesses he does not like of lying, exaggerating, or misremembering.

Mark didn't accuse any of the witnesses of lying. He examined each witness's evidence critically and pointed out some obvious flaws. It wasn't a case of dismissing "witnesses he does not like", but of providing actual evidence and argument to support his conclusion that these alleged witnesses:

• gave contradictory or confusing testimony;
• or failed to justify their assertions;
• or were not in a position to remember what they were supposed to have remembered.

Robert Oswald, for example, did not know which school his brother attended that year, because Robert was away in the Marines at the time and had little contact with his family. He assumed a few years later that Lee had gone to the same school he himself had attended, but he was in no position to know this. He appears to have made a trivial and understandable mistake.

Here's Mark summary of all this flimsy evidence:

Quote

• Robert Oswald – Refers to different timeframe
• Kudlaty – Gives confusing information regarding school records
• Schubert – Gives contradicting timeframe, gives contradicting descriptions of Oswald, gives contradicting location of where he lives (same house different apartment)
• Summers – Is clearly confused
• Gann – Does not make clear case for identification
• Pitts – Gives no information about Oswald attending Stripling
• Galindo – When weighed against totality of Stripling evidence, is clearly wrong

(https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/)

None of that is nit-picking.

One interesting fact that Mark includes in his critique is that Mrs Beulah Bratton, a teacher at Stripling during the period when Oswald is claimed to have been there, was featured in a Fort Worth Star-Telegram article in 1992 about famous people who attended Stripling. In that article ('Teacher Recalls Famous Students'), she mentions that after the assassination she was asked by the New York Times to do some research on the Oswald family. But, strangely, Mrs Bratton neglected to mention anything about the most famous (or infamous) person to, allegedly, attend the school.

I wonder why. Could it be that the CIA got to her and made her an offer she couldn't refuse? After all, it is a well-known fact in 'Harvey and Lee' circles that the CIA altered an Oswald doppelganger's dental records and found a way to perform a mastoidectomy on a six-year-old Oswald doppelganger at a hospital that hadn't been built yet. I suspect that's the most likely explanation! Well, it's either that or Oswald didn't actually attend Stripling.

Quote

WC apologists always apply draconian standards to conspiracy witnesses but apply extremely lax standards to lone-gunman witnesses.

That's true. It's also true, as Mark's piece makes clear, that double-doppelganger enthusiasts "apply extremely lax standards" to witnesses who support their case.

Michael implies that Mark Stevens is a "WC apologist". Is that true? Since most of the critics of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense are also critics of the lone-gunman nonsense, the odds are that Mark isn't a "WC apologist". Whether he is or isn't, his criticism of the Stripling evidence stands on its own merits.

By the way, Alex Wilson takes some time out from questioning the "fat Nazi did it" claims to offer some interesting thoughts on the topic of this thread, here:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2749-stripling-and-son-ride-again

N.B. The Steptoe and Son Alex refers to was a legendary BBC sitcom from the 1960s, which was made into a film, Steptoe and Son Ride Again (like most spin-offs, the film wasn't as good as the sitcom).

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Denny Zartman writes:

Quote

Hoover's 1960 memo about the FBI suspecting someone was using Oswald's identity is also very compelling, imho. ... 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?

The Hoover memo ("there is a possibility that an impostor is using Oswald’s birth certificate") had nothing to do with a possible impersonation of Oswald by any US agency. Prompted by Marguerite Oswald's claim that Oswald had taken his birth certificate with him when he defected to the Soviet Union, FBI officials were worried that the document might have got into the hands of the Soviet authorities. The theoretical impersonation of Oswald that Hoover was worried about was by the Soviets.

The context of Marguerite's behaviour, and of officialdom's response, is explained in Part 5 of Bill Simpich's The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend:

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Oswald_Legend_5.html

Tracy Parnell has written a good account of the Hoover memo and Oswald's birth certificate:

http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-truth-about-oswalds-birth.html

Tracy quotes Paul Hoch, who points out that the US officials took an interest in Marguerite's allegation because the Soviets were known to have misused such IDs in the past. Greg Parker, who helped Bill with the research for his article, makes the same point here (in reply to Denny when he brought up the Hoover memo a couple of years ago):

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2419-the-mullberry-bush#36818

Greg writes that Marguerite's "search for Lee and that comment [that he took his birth certificate with him when he defected], were discussed in a series of memos going up the line, escalating ala Chinese Whispers, into the possibility that someone may be using Oswald's ID."

Just because several officials discussed Marguerite's claim, doesn't mean that several officials independently had evidence that Oswald's ID was being misused. In fact, none of them had any evidence that Oswald's ID was being misused. The whole episode was a storm in a tea cup: it was not a response to any known impersonation, and provides zero support for any long-term double-doppelganger-related speculation.

[Michael Griffith]

20 hours 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. 

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. 

Ok, thanks for that clarification. I agree that pinning all the blame on the CIA is problematic. However, when we talk about anti-Castro Cubans, we are talking about CIA operatives or at least CIA-trained-and-supported fighters. And, yes, I certainly agree that we cannot dismiss the considerable evidence of Mafia involvement. Really, most of our best evidence in terms of identifying suspects points to Mafia figures, and certainly the Mafia had a powerful, existential motive for wanting JFK dead. It is beyond dispute that certain senior military officers were involved in the cover-up. As for LBJ, the most I will say is that he obviously benefitted from JFK's death.

[Pat Speer]

13 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

I think most people often forget things. I also think they rarely make up false memories of things that didn't happen. Most people who were around at the time say they remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard JFK has been assassinated. I imagine all the events related to the assassination would be more vivid in memory than the routine daily activities. I personally would never forget interacting with the FBI or holding the accused assassin of a president's school records in my hands. I can't imagine someone accidentally conjuring up all those false memories out of thin air. Seems very unlikely to me.

Greetings, Denny. As part of my obsession with the case circa 2006 I spent 3 to 4 months reading 2 or 3 articles per day on human cognition and memory, most of which I'd photo-copied from libraries. These were research papers, peer-reviewed, etc. I then followed up on that research by reading books and articles by cognitive psychologists like Loftus and Tversky, etc. 

In any event, the subject of false memories was discussed in many of these articles. And it's common-place. Essentially, our emotional brain dominates our rational brain. As a result, when someone asks us if we recall something and we can tell that it's important to them we are far more likely to say something like "Yeah, I think so." And that's just the tip of the iceberg. If they say "Did you see the green car turn the corner?" after showing us a film of a car racing from a crime scene,  a large percentage will say "Yes, I saw the green car" when in fact the car was blue. And even worse, when asked about it weeks later, the majority of people, without prompting, will now say the car was green. Humans are EXTREMELY prone to suggestion. 

We also have terrible memories. Researchers have found that while people want to believe they remember important and traumatic events with more accuracy than everyday activities, this just isn't true. As time passes, we can have clear-cut memories of our emotional response to an event, but the details are liquid. Even worse, when we remember an oft-told story we are usually accessing our last telling of the story, and not our initial recollections of the original event. That's lost forever. As a result, most every story about a traumatic event changes over time, and becomes more and more focused on the emotional response of the witness. ("It was so loud!!! Everyone was screaming!!!" or whatever).

There is a classic case of this that came to light with the ARRB. One of the Dallas doctors told Jeremy Gunn about how horrifying an experience it was, and that he'd never forget the sight of Jackie with blood smeared all over he white outfit. Her outfit, of course, was pink. But the contrast of red blood on white fabric is more shocking, is more emotional, so that was how he'd come to remember it. 

[Mark Knight]

I'm agnostic as to whether there's any "there" there in the Harvey and Lee story. Here's why.

I was born and grew up in a county in southern Indiana. I married a girl from the next county to the east, and we lived most of our married life in the second county to the east of my home county. A few years into our marriage, my wife was a patient in the local hospital. When I was getting her registered, the registrar asked me if I'd ever been a patient in the same hospital. I had not, and when I inquired why she was asking, I discovered that there was ANOTHER Mark Knight, down to the same middle initial, who had a substantial outstanding bill. Only after giving her my Social Security number did I establish in her mind that I was a different Mark Knight.

So I started asking questions. I discovered there was another Mark Knight, same middle initial, who had graduated high school the same year I had graduated, but in the county in which I was then living. We had grown up 25 miles apart, we weren't related as far as I'd been able to determine to date, and neither of us has ever met the other. But his credit problems came up every time I applied for credit, and I've had to dispute numerous items on my credit report over the years.

So as far as Harvey and Lee go, perhaps there's nothing nefarious involved. Maybe there are just a lot of coincidences such as what I discovered with my own "namesake" in southern Indiana. To this point, I remain unconvinced that the Harvey and Lee case involves a great depth of subterfuge. 

[Sandy Larsen]

33 minutes ago, Mark Knight said:

I'm agnostic as to whether there's any "there" there in the Harvey and Lee story. Here's why.

I was born and grew up in a county in southern Indiana. I married a girl from the next county to the east, and we lived most of our married life in the second county to the east of my home county. A few years into our marriage, my wife was a patient in the local hospital. When I was getting her registered, the registrar asked me if I'd ever been a patient in the same hospital. I had not, and when I inquired why she was asking, I discovered that there was ANOTHER Mark Knight, down to the same middle initial, who had a substantial outstanding bill. Only after giving her my Social Security number did I establish in her mind that I was a different Mark Knight.

So I started asking questions. I discovered there was another Mark Knight, same middle initial, who had graduated high school the same year I had graduated, but in the county in which I was then living. We had grown up 25 miles apart, we weren't related as far as I'd been able to determine to date, and neither of us has ever met the other. But his credit problems came up every time I applied for credit, and I've had to dispute numerous items on my credit report over the years.

So as far as Harvey and Lee go, perhaps there's nothing nefarious involved. Maybe there are just a lot of coincidences such as what I discovered with my own "namesake" in southern Indiana. To this point, I remain unconvinced that the Harvey and Lee case involves a great depth of subterfuge. 

 

Mark,

Coincidences do indeed happen. But the number of coincidences in Lee Harvey Oswald's case is ridiculously high.

 

[David Josephs]

2 hours ago, Mark Knight said:

So as far as Harvey and Lee go, perhaps there's nothing nefarious involved. Maybe there are just a lot of coincidences such as what I discovered with my own "namesake" in southern Indiana. To this point, I remain unconvinced that the Harvey and Lee case involves a great depth of subterfuge. 

Hi Mark, 

I'd suggest searching this forum for "NYC SCHOOL RECORDS" as the duality here rears its head in the fall of 1952.

The boy's permanent record is a mass of contradictions with the FBI simple counting days and filling blanks.  At the bottom are 3 versions of the same boy's NYC school permanent record, none ofd them being the continuation of the other as Perm Records do.

I fully understand the difficulty in accepting the conclusion... When we start to talk about the physical evidence available in support of this duality, we find a list that is extremely long and extremely detailed.  Not just a "name" thing, or a "photo" thing or even the testimony of Pic.

Children simply do not get smaller during puberty.  I contacted the Bronx Zoo to find the heights of the railing he leans upon to approximate this boy's height.  That boy is not yet 5' tall and weighs no where near his 6th grade weight, 18 months earlier.  He also cannot attend school for more days than there available to even go to school.  The FBI included every weekday thru June, July and August to arrive at their 200 days, when Ozzie did not attend summer school and was out for 3 week at YOUTH HOUSE during that period.

Can you help me understand this with alternative explanations?