The Anonymous Phone Call to the Tippits of Connecticut

[Paul Jolliffe]

42 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Pure speculation...

Maybe Oswald was removed from the custody of Emil Gardos during one of his legal battles. Maybe when he was deported. FBI didn't know what to do with him, but CIA said hmm, we have some ideas for a Russian speaking kid with no known relatives!

P.S. Jim, great find in that newspaper article, about Gardos never having a job. Perfect match for Oswald's "father" described in the FBI report!

The more I learn about and think about the FBI report, and related information, the more convinced I'm becoming that you guys have explained the FBI report accurately.

The only thing that bugs me about all this is why the boy would have been called Lee Harvey Oswald while he was still being cared for by Gardos. Or, if that wasn't the case, how Elizabeth Bentley knew that the boy was the same person as the later Lee Harvey Oswald.

 

Sandy,

Great question, one that I have wrestled with for years. The answer, I suppose, is that the apparent physical similarity between Marguerite Oswald's youngest son in Texas (the real Lee Harvey Oswald) and the recent refugee in NYC ("Oswald") had been noticed by someone in the intelligence world before the refugee was placed within the circles of the Gardos couple. 

The most likely conduit for such a similarity would be Edwin Ekdahl to his lawyer (the very well connected Fred Korth, Washington power-broker and future Secretary of the Navy) to someone that Korth knew who would want to take advantage of that physical similarity. 

The National Security Act of 1947 which established the CIA was not enacted until late July, and we think it is likely that our "Oswald" (the refugee little boy) was already in the custody of "Marguerite" down in Fort Worth by earlier that summer, so that means three things:

1. The Gardos couple (and or Fred Blair and or Louis Weinstock) did not have any meaningful interactions with our little "Oswald" after the summer of 1947, and

2. Elizabeth Bentley knew of the "Oswald"/Yorkville connection before that summer (she became an informant for the FBI beginning in the fall of 1945 and Emil Gardos would have been exactly the kind of target the FBI was interested in), and

3. Whatever the later "Oswald" project would eventually turn out to be, it certainly could not have been fully fleshed out in the mid 1940's when the resemblance between the two boys first came to the attention of men like Allen Dulles. The CIA had not even been created yet!

Someone (Dulles himself?) managed to get the Eastern European refugee little boy placed with a caretaker in Texas not long before Emil Gardos "voluntarily" self-deported to Hungary, along with his wife Grace and their little son, John. 

[John Kowalski]

6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Maybe Oswald was removed from the custody of Emil Gardos during one of his legal battles. Maybe when he was deported. FBI didn't know what to do with him, but CIA said hmm, we have some ideas for a Russian speaking kid with no known relatives!

That is a very interesting theory.

[John Kowalski]

5 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

The most likely conduit for such a similarity would be Edwin Ekdahl to his lawyer (the very well connected Fred Korth, Washington power-broker and future Secretary of the Navy) to someone that Korth knew who would want to take advantage of that physical similarity. 

Paul:

Have you done any research on the Boston trip? Apparently Ekdahl, Margaret Oswald and Lee when to Boston for 6 months. It is also interesting that Ekdahl's son, Dewey, did not know where his father lived for 3 years, and it was during this time period that the Boston trip was supposed to have taken place.

[John Kowalski]

6 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Can anyone here get ahold of a copy of the 1962 edition of "Circus Maximus"?

Why do you want the 1962 edition?

[John Kowalski]

6 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

John Butler, we know from the testimony of Nelson Delgado that "Oswald" apparently knew at least some Yiddish! Whether or not "Oswald" was indeed the biological son of the Gardos parents (and we now in 2024 know for a fact he was NOT their biological son), we are certain there must have been some connection between them, however brief. If there are any surviving elementary school records for either little John Gardos (or "Oswald"), the Ramaz School archives (if they exist) are a good place to start..

Ramaz website describes the school as Orthodox. Why would communists send their child and/or Oswald to a religious school?

[Jim Hargrove]

9 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

Does anyone know why Communists would be taking care of Oswald, given that he was been prepared for some future role in an intelligence operation?

John,

Here’s my take.  At the end of WW II, U.S. Intel surely realized that Russia would no longer be an uneasy ally but a flat-out enemy.  I just looked it up, and Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech on March 5, 1946.  By then, the time had already passed to start upping the U.S. spy game!

Who better to serve as a spy for the U.S. than a Russian-speaking, Commie-spouting kid who could assume an American identity and travel to Russia where he could act like a disgruntled American, but one who could secretly understand all the Russian conversations around him.  John A. has written about how Russian-speaking Harvey Oswald was said to have read Communist books and talked readily about Communism early in his life, for example, with Henry Timmer in North Dakota in 1953 and with Palmer McBride and the New Orleans Amateur Astronomy Association members a few years later.

I think a program encompassing two Lee Harvey Oswalds could have started even before the creation of the CIA.  As you probably know, there are a surprising number of references in U.S. records to “Harvey Lee Oswald.”

Sandy’s speculation that Oswald might have been taken away from Gardos “during one of his legal battles” had never occurred to me before, but it might have ended that phase of Oswald’s commie education.  He might have gotten some more lefty tips earlier in Europe, but that is even more speculative.

On the Maraz school, I know of no evidence that either Oswald ever attended it, although Paul notes that Nelson Delgado said [Harvey] Oswald knew a few words of Yiddish.  I spent the first 10 years of my life living in Manhattan, and despite the fact that I’m not Jewish, I learned a few Yiddish words too.  It’s hard not to in NYC.  Despite all that, perhaps Godless Commies wouldn’t mind at all if someone under their care went to a good Jewish school, especially one dedicated to low-profile exposure of its students.

On your Boston question,  John A wrote the following on the Early Years page of our website:

"In September (1945), according to Robert Oswald, the family drove in Ekdahl's car from Dallas to Port Gibson, MS where Robert and John entered the Chamberlain Hunt Military Academy. Robert Oswald told the FBI that his mother, Ekdahl, and LEE then drove to Boston, MA where they resided until June, 1946, but it appears that Robert was mistaken. Records show that LEE Oswald entered the "low first grade" at the Benbrook Common School on October 31, 1945. He was 6 years old and his address was Route 5, Box 567, Benbrook, TX. Young Oswald attended this school for 82 days, was absent 15 days, and his guardian was listed as E. A. Ekdahl."

Please let me know how I can help with your efforts to locate Mrs. Tippit’s notes and/or descendants.  
 

[Jim Hargrove]

7 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Jim,

We know for a fact that Grace Gardos was living in Yorkville in the mid 1940's. John Butler provided these screenshots in 2019:

• Jim, here is my reply from 2019 to the late John Butler after he posted these screenshots:

John B.,

Good. That's exactly what I  (Paul Jolliffe) wanted to see.

OK it would appear from the address 217 E. 86th Street in NYC (which appears on Google Maps below to be largely unchanged since the 1940's), that there is an elementary school nearby with a very interesting history - The Ramaz School. 

From school's website:

" In the 1930's, the Upper East Side neighborhood known as Yorkville was an area where "Jewishness" was toned down; Jews of the area did not want to attract attention. In fact, in 1936, following the Depression and during the rise of Hitlerism, the pro-Nazi German-American Bund held street rallies up and down Third Avenue . . .

As darkness fell upon European Jewry, the light of European children began to fill the halls of the Ramaz School. Jews from France, Belgium, Germany and Holland were flocking to the United States. Their children came from the Lycées of France, the Tachkemoni of Antwerp and a myriad of other schools.

The refugee population especially concerned Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein. It was apparent to him that if the Ramaz School did not exist, these children would have difficulty finding a suitable Jewish school. By 1938, in order to ensure adequate space for these students, the Ramaz School rented several rooms in the Central Jewish Institute building at 125 East 85th Street. Seventy-one boys and girls enrolled, creating the need to lease the entire building as the school's new quarters.

The Ramaz School was becoming widely recognized as an institution known for its academic excellence. The Teacher's Institute of Yeshiva University began sending student teachers to observe and fulfill their student-teaching requirements. In 1942, the school received its provisional charter from the Board of Regents of the State of New York. Enrollment by this time had risen to one hundred and twenty students."

 

John Butler, we know from the testimony of Nelson Delgado that "Oswald" apparently knew at least some Yiddish! Whether or not "Oswald" was indeed the biological son of the Gardos parents (and we now in 2024 know for a fact he was NOT their biological son), we are certain there must have been some connection between them, however brief. If there are any surviving elementary school records for either little John Gardos (or "Oswald"), the Ramaz School archives (if they exist) are a good place to start..

https://www.ramaz.org/about-ramaz/history 

Here is what 217 E. 86th Street looks like today - except for the street level storefronts, the building itself looks unchanged for decades:

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7784686,-73.9530716,3a,75y,49.16h,104.6t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sET4Z9Mb_MJ4TVoPOVy1g6Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

So today, in 2024, we can confidently conclude that whether or not Emil and Grace Gardos were officially our "Oswald's" foster parents for a bit in the mid 1940's in Yorkville, they were living in the heart of a neighborhood in which a recent refugee from Eastern Europe (very possibly with a Jewish background) might have been placed in the immediate aftermath of World War II. 

We can also confidently state that Elizabeth Bentley would have been very familiar with the activities of communists living in this area at that time. 

As to "Circus Maximus", I am not aware that Grace Gardos translated that one. Do we have evidence for that? I know she did the translation for another book from the same publisher in Hungary at the same time, but are we certain of her connection to "Circus Maximus" itself?

Can anyone here get ahold of a copy of the 1962 edition of "Circus Maximus"? (The ones available on Amazon are in German, which in itself raises some interesting questions.)

 

Paul,

Thank you for pointing to John Butler’s solid evidence that Grace Gardos was living in Yorkville in 1944 as well as 1946.  I had completely forgotten it.  While admitting my shortcomings, please note that I meant to say Grace Gardos  (probably with Emil’s help) had translated into English “Kárpáti rapszódia (Carpathian Rhapsody)” published by Corvina Press, the same publisher as “Circus Maximus,” which was printed about the same time.  It's the second time I've made the same mistake <sigh>.

Geo Kozma may have a copy of “Circus Maximus” since he has sent some interior page scans of it,  but if Grace Gardos was listed as a translator, my guess is he already would have told us.

Also, in your answer to Sandy’s question about the names of our two boys, isn’t it possible that you’re putting too much emphasis on the July 1947 creation of the CIA?  Many people, including Frank Wisner and Allen Dulles, were prominent members of both the CIA and the earlier OSS.  The origin of the modern Communist Menace® clearly predates the CIA, if only by a few years.

[Paul Jolliffe]

58 minutes ago, John Kowalski said:

Ramaz website describes the school as Orthodox. Why would communists send their child and/or Oswald to a religious school?

I'm not so sure it was an Orthodox school back in the 1940's - it may have been, but by 1948, relatively sophisticated parents were sending their kids there. The diplomats to the U.S. from the brand new state of Israel were sending their children to Ramaz. Whatever else those guys were, I doubt the Israelis were sending Orthodox Jews as a major part of their diplomatic corps. That was not the image they wanted to present to the Americans in 1948. Jewish? Yes. Orthodox? No.

I suspected Ramaz may (MAY) have been the school for little John Gardos and maybe our "Oswald" for a bit in the mid-1940's because of its location - it was (and is still) located on 85th just west of 2nd in Yorkville. The Gardos family at 217 E. 86th was just one and a half blocks northeast of the school. It was less than a ten minute walk away. 

And, as the school's own website notes (and as I previously highlighted) the school itself was seen by 1938 as a haven for refugee children from Europe. 

If our "Oswald" was placed with some foster family (probably Mr. and Mrs. Gardos, but maybe one of their associates in the immediate neighborhood), then the Ramaz School would have been a viable option in the mid-1940's for foster parents, regardless of their religious convictions. 

Anyway, religion for committed communists was a matter of convenience - even Stalin himself encouraged Soviet propaganda to appeal to Eastern Orthodox Christians for help against the German invasion during the dark years of WWII. For a guy like Emil Gardos, sending a foster kid like "Oswald" to a nearby school with maybe some religious overtones to it in the 1940's would have been seen as perfectly expedient and not any issue.

After all, the great and good Joseph Stalin himself had recently reversed decades of "communist" policy and approved religious expression!

https://cruxnow.com/church/2016/05/how-even-stalin-once-benefited-from-religious-freedom 

(Again, Ramaz on 85th was literally around the corner from the Gardos family on 86th.)

[Paul Jolliffe]

1 hour ago, John Kowalski said:

Why do you want the 1962 edition?

I meant the 1963 edition. Typo. 

[Paul Jolliffe]

2 hours ago, John Kowalski said:

Paul:

Have you done any research on the Boston trip? Apparently Ekdahl, Margaret Oswald and Lee when to Boston for 6 months. It is also interesting that Ekdahl's son, Dewey, did not know where his father lived for 3 years, and it was during this time period that the Boston trip was supposed to have taken place.

No I have not. Ekdahl had to be the go-between Marguerite Oswald in Texas and the Deep State connections, but that does not necessarily mean that he himself was a spook (although he might have been.) I simply don't know enough about his life. 

 

[Geo Kozma]

On 3/3/2024 at 1:34 AM, Jim Hargrove said:

Paul,

if Grace Gardos was listed as a translator, my guess is he already would have told us.

 

No there is no translator name listed. Because it is just a few captions ...cca 100 drawings and only 63 titles...

 

Edited March 20 by Geo Kozma
To make it clearer

[Paul Jolliffe]

15 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

John,

Here’s my take.  At the end of WW II, U.S. Intel surely realized that Russia would no longer be an uneasy ally but a flat-out enemy.  I just looked it up, and Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech on March 5, 1946.  By then, the time had already passed to start upping the U.S. spy game!

Who better to serve as a spy for the U.S. than a Russian-speaking, Commie-spouting kid who could assume an American identity and travel to Russia where he could act like a disgruntled American, but one who could secretly understand all the Russian conversations around him.  John A. has written about how Russian-speaking Harvey Oswald was said to have read Communist books and talked readily about Communism early in his life, for example, with Henry Timmer in North Dakota in 1953 and with Palmer McBride and the New Orleans Amateur Astronomy Association members a few years later.

I think a program encompassing two Lee Harvey Oswalds could have started even before the creation of the CIA.  As you probably know, there are a surprising number of references in U.S. records to “Harvey Lee Oswald.”

Sandy’s speculation that Oswald might have been taken away from Gardos “during one of his legal battles” had never occurred to me before, but it might have ended that phase of Oswald’s commie education.  He might have gotten some more lefty tips earlier in Europe, but that is even more speculative.

On the Maraz school, I know of no evidence that either Oswald ever attended it, although Paul notes that Nelson Delgado said [Harvey] Oswald knew a few words of Yiddish.  I spent the first 10 years of my life living in Manhattan, and despite the fact that I’m not Jewish, I learned a few Yiddish words too.  It’s hard not to in NYC.  Despite all that, perhaps Godless Commies wouldn’t mind at all if someone under their care went to a good Jewish school, especially one dedicated to low-profile exposure of its students.

On your Boston question,  John A wrote the following on the Early Years page of our website:

"In September (1945), according to Robert Oswald, the family drove in Ekdahl's car from Dallas to Port Gibson, MS where Robert and John entered the Chamberlain Hunt Military Academy. Robert Oswald told the FBI that his mother, Ekdahl, and LEE then drove to Boston, MA where they resided until June, 1946, but it appears that Robert was mistaken. Records show that LEE Oswald entered the "low first grade" at the Benbrook Common School on October 31, 1945. He was 6 years old and his address was Route 5, Box 567, Benbrook, TX. Young Oswald attended this school for 82 days, was absent 15 days, and his guardian was listed as E. A. Ekdahl."

Please let me know how I can help with your efforts to locate Mrs. Tippit’s notes and/or descendants.  
 

Jim,

After re-reading CE 1874, I am not convinced that Robert was wholly mistaken. I agree with you that Marguerite, Lee and Ekdahl were residing in Benbrook at some point during the 1945/46 school year, but the window from "September" (probably early September - that's when most schools start) to Halloween is at least six weeks. 

Whatever the FBI claimed that Robert told them, Robert testified to the Warren Commission that Lee did not start at Benbrook until "early" in 1946. I bet Robert was wrong - Lee probably started the previous Halloween. That's what O.H. Stowe, the county superintendent testified.

OK, but my point still remains:

Whether young Lee started at Benbrook in "early" 1946 or on October 31, 1945 leaves a significant unexplained time gap either way. There definitely was a period between (presumably) early September and the end of October for Marguerite, Lee and Ekdahl to have been in Boston that fall for at least six weeks.

[Sandy Larsen]

What's the significance of Boston? I seemed to have missed that.

 

[Jim Hargrove]

Paul and Sandy,

Many of us suspect that Edwin Ekdahl may well have had something to do with the early phases of the Oswald project, though we need to remember that Marguerite Oswald worked for the U.S. Navy during WW II.  The FBI’s fine work conducting a background investigation of Edwin after the assassination included the information that “records do not indicate where Ekdahl worked from 1943 to 1953.”  This despite the fact the FBI published his Social Security number!

John K. probably asked about the alleged Boston trip to consider the possibility that Ekdahl might have had something to do with LHO and the New York commies.   Paul’s analysis opened up a brief window in the fall of 1945 when Marguerite, Edwin, and Lee might have been in Boston, a relatively short distance away from NYC. 

Edited March 3 by Jim Hargrove

[Jim Hargrove]

12 hours ago, Geo Kozma said:

No there is no translator name listed. Because it is just a few captions ...cca 100 drawings and only 63 titles...

I think Gardos going in daily because of his other translation (which he helped to do for his wife) he might have just corrected a few titles and in that day it was done in the office not at home (and my mom did the typewriting and corrctings. 

Also we must not forget the Jewish name-relations were known to them: GArdosh knew he had a name-relation on the Oswald family Tree in the Archives. But KAján the cartoonist had a wife whose original name (Roth) also exists among the many gardosh families - and my mother maternal name Keller also exists on the Oswald family tree lists.

I suppose he knew this distant "family" link- and also that it wa not sure it was really family due to the NAme Limit Priciple - most typical names did pop up in all families.  But he evidently did not share it. (if he did, my mom would have told me about it... Even if he did not suppose Oswald will become more famous than he was with his Soviet fling...it was better for him not to say anything...Except maybe asking somone in the Corvina  to send this book to Oswald. It was not forbidden.

Geo,

Thanks for the confirmation that no translator was listed by Corvina for "Circus Maximus."  Several of the little comics you sent from its pages still strike me as quite funny, even after all this time.

Hope you hear from your Corvina Press contact tomorrow.  It will be very interesting to see if the publisher had any U.S. distributors in 1963, although you already said they probably didn't.  If that is the case, then it is most likely that someone sent the book to Oswald, IF Marina's story is true.