Home
Portal
Events
ROKC Wiki
Gallery
Search
Register
Log in
Vinny- Posts : 3362
Join date : 2013-08-27
The Second Oswald
Tue 14 Jul 2020, 1:41 pm
Long before Armstrong another researcher named Richard Popkin came up with the theory of Two Oswald's. Armstrong appears to have borrowed his theory and further expanded it. Here are some excerpts from Popkin's book The Second Oswald published in 1966.
The Second Oswald
[size=43]T[/size]he twenty-six volumes contain numbers of strange episodes in which people report that they saw or dealt with Oswald under odd or
suggestive circumstances: for example, that Oswald was seen at a rifle range hitting bull’s eyes, that he and two Latin types tried to get
financing for illegal activities from Mrs. Sylvia Odio; that Oswald tried to cash a check for $189 in Hutchinson’s Grocery Store. These instances, and there are many of them, were dismissed by the Commission—though it continued to consider them up to the very end—principally on the grounds that they occurred when Oswald apparently was not there, or they involved activities Oswald reportedly did not engage in, such as driving a car.
Of course it is not uncommon for false reports of identification to turn up during a much publicized criminal investigation. However, in many of
the cases ultimately dismissed by the Warren Commission, after much investigation and consideration, the witnesses seem reliable, and have no
discernible reason for telling falsehoods so far as one can judge; they seem to be, in the Commission’s overworked term, “credible.” For example,
Bogard, a car salesman, reported that on November 9, 1963, a customer came in to his showroom, gave his name as Lee Oswald (and, of course,
looked exactly like the late Lee Harvey Oswald), went driving with him, and told him that he (Oswald) would come into a lot of money in a couple
of weeks. Not only did Bogard have the corroboration of his fellow employees and an employee’s wife, but he was also given a lie-detector
test by the FBI. The FBI reported on February 24, 1964, that “the responses recorded were those normally expected of a person telling the
truth” (XXVI: 577-78).
When the Commission had just about concluded its work, somebody still worried about this, so on September 1, 1964, the FBI was queried as to what questions Bogard had been asked when he underwent the lie detector test. On September 19, 1964, the FBI replied, giving the questions and Bogard’s answers. What they had asked amounted to an interrogation as to whether his story was true, whether Oswald had been his customer, and whether a photograph of Oswald portrayed his customer (XXVI:682). All one can say is that by normal standards of credibility, the FBI had established, both through finding corroborating witnesses and by its polygraph test, that Bogard was a credible witness.
Nevertheless, the Commission had satisfied itself from other testimony that (a) Oswald didn’t drive, and (b) he spent November 9th in Irving, writing a strange letter to the Soviet Embassy. Cases such as the Bogard episode, varying in their degrees of confirmation and reliability, have attracted the attention of critics from the time of Leo Sauvage’s article in Commentary in the Spring of 1964. They stirred rumors in the
press from late November, 1963, onward. If these cases could not have actually involved Oswald and yet seem actually to have happened, then
what? The Commission chose finally to dismiss them since Oswald could not have been the person in question. Leo Sauvage suggested someone
was trying to imitate Oswald, that there was a second Oswald. Critics have brought up the second Oswald as an insufficiently explored phenomenon that might throw light on the case.
But why a duplicate Oswald? The Commission picture of Oswald is that of a pretty trivial individual of no significance until November 22,1963. But the cases suggesting that duplication occurred begin at least as early as September 25, 1963, the day Oswald left for Mexico, when a second Oswald went into the office of the Selective Service Bureau in Austin, Texas, gave his name as Harvey Oswald, and wanted to discuss his dishonorable discharge. Yet Oswald at this time was riding a bus toward Mexico. (See Report, 731-33.)
To Be Continued
The Second Oswald
[size=43]T[/size]he twenty-six volumes contain numbers of strange episodes in which people report that they saw or dealt with Oswald under odd or
suggestive circumstances: for example, that Oswald was seen at a rifle range hitting bull’s eyes, that he and two Latin types tried to get
financing for illegal activities from Mrs. Sylvia Odio; that Oswald tried to cash a check for $189 in Hutchinson’s Grocery Store. These instances, and there are many of them, were dismissed by the Commission—though it continued to consider them up to the very end—principally on the grounds that they occurred when Oswald apparently was not there, or they involved activities Oswald reportedly did not engage in, such as driving a car.
Of course it is not uncommon for false reports of identification to turn up during a much publicized criminal investigation. However, in many of
the cases ultimately dismissed by the Warren Commission, after much investigation and consideration, the witnesses seem reliable, and have no
discernible reason for telling falsehoods so far as one can judge; they seem to be, in the Commission’s overworked term, “credible.” For example,
Bogard, a car salesman, reported that on November 9, 1963, a customer came in to his showroom, gave his name as Lee Oswald (and, of course,
looked exactly like the late Lee Harvey Oswald), went driving with him, and told him that he (Oswald) would come into a lot of money in a couple
of weeks. Not only did Bogard have the corroboration of his fellow employees and an employee’s wife, but he was also given a lie-detector
test by the FBI. The FBI reported on February 24, 1964, that “the responses recorded were those normally expected of a person telling the
truth” (XXVI: 577-78).
When the Commission had just about concluded its work, somebody still worried about this, so on September 1, 1964, the FBI was queried as to what questions Bogard had been asked when he underwent the lie detector test. On September 19, 1964, the FBI replied, giving the questions and Bogard’s answers. What they had asked amounted to an interrogation as to whether his story was true, whether Oswald had been his customer, and whether a photograph of Oswald portrayed his customer (XXVI:682). All one can say is that by normal standards of credibility, the FBI had established, both through finding corroborating witnesses and by its polygraph test, that Bogard was a credible witness.
Nevertheless, the Commission had satisfied itself from other testimony that (a) Oswald didn’t drive, and (b) he spent November 9th in Irving, writing a strange letter to the Soviet Embassy. Cases such as the Bogard episode, varying in their degrees of confirmation and reliability, have attracted the attention of critics from the time of Leo Sauvage’s article in Commentary in the Spring of 1964. They stirred rumors in the
press from late November, 1963, onward. If these cases could not have actually involved Oswald and yet seem actually to have happened, then
what? The Commission chose finally to dismiss them since Oswald could not have been the person in question. Leo Sauvage suggested someone
was trying to imitate Oswald, that there was a second Oswald. Critics have brought up the second Oswald as an insufficiently explored phenomenon that might throw light on the case.
But why a duplicate Oswald? The Commission picture of Oswald is that of a pretty trivial individual of no significance until November 22,1963. But the cases suggesting that duplication occurred begin at least as early as September 25, 1963, the day Oswald left for Mexico, when a second Oswald went into the office of the Selective Service Bureau in Austin, Texas, gave his name as Harvey Oswald, and wanted to discuss his dishonorable discharge. Yet Oswald at this time was riding a bus toward Mexico. (See Report, 731-33.)
To Be Continued
_________________
Out With Bill Shelley In Front.
- Vinny
- Posts : 3362
Join date : 2013-08-27
Re: The Second Oswald
Tue 14 Jul 2020, 1:50 pm
Some have suggested that the point might have been to frame Oswald, but only a few instances of this kind seem to have any relevance to such a goal. I would suggest that the cases of apparent duplication can be classified in two distinct groups, according to the times when they took place. Rather than dismiss them, I suggest that it is more plausible to interpret them as evidence that Oswald was involved in some kind of conspiracy which culminated in the events of November 22, when the duplication played a vital role both in the assassination and the planned denouement, and may have been the reason for Tippit’s death. Although the hypothesis of a second Oswald must necessarily be tentative and conjectural at this stage, I would suggest that it can resolve a large number of troubling problems concerning the assassination and provide a more plausible explanation of the case than that offered by the Commission.
If we turn to the data in a search for clues as to when Oswald might have started to get involved in affairs that might form some meaningful pattern, we find that the record compiled by the Commission indicates that as far back as Oswald’s stay in New Orleans, some strange conspiratorial activities were going on. On the one hand, the correspondence of Marina Oswald and Ruth Paine indicates that Oswald was unhappy both because of his family life and his economic life, and wanted to return to Russia with his family.
On the other hand, from late May onward. Oswald started his pro-Castro activities, corresponded actively with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New York, the Communist Party, and the Socialist Workers Party, usually giving them false or misleading information about his activities. He spent a good part of his meager funds printing leaflets, membership applications and cards, etc., and hiring people to distribute literature.
But, very significantly I think, he made no effort to change his FPCC Organization from a fiction into a reality. It never had any members except Oswald and the clearly fictitious “Alec J. Hidell”! Mark Lane devotes Chapter 10 of Rush to Judgment to the problem of Hidell, and makes much of the fact that there was a Marine whomOswald knew, John R. Heindel, who, in an affidavit, declared that “I was often referred to as ‘Hidell’”. Lane suggests that this is what Oswald may have called him and tries to show that the Commission did an inadequate job by purporting to demonstrate that Hidell was a fictitious person. However, the Hidell who plays a part in Oswald’s life definitely seems to have been fictitious. A Sgt. Robert Hidell was given as a reference by Oswald in New Orleans around May 16, 1963 (XXII: 145). A Dr. A. J. Hideel (sic) is listed on Oswald’s international vaccination form as having given Oswald a vaccination on June 8, 1963 (XVII:693). The name is printed with Oswald’s equipment, and the doctor’s address is P.O. Box 30016, New Orleans, whereas Oswald’s Post Office box was No. 30061. A. J. Hidell appears as a name on various identification cards that Oswald had in his possession when he was arrested, including a Selective Service card which had Oswald’s photo on it. The signature of A. J. Hidell on various documents is in Oswald’s inimitable handwriting, including the order blank for the Carcano (XVII:677-8 and 681-3). Exhibit
819, Oswald’s membership card in the New Orleans branch of the FPCC, is signed “A. J. Hidell” by Marina. All the checking by various investigative groups could turn up no Hidell who met the conditions of being a participant in Oswald’s life in Dallas and New Orleans, and the data certainly makes it look as if Oswald was inventing a series of Hidells with various functions. Lane is, of course, right in saying that Sgt. Heindel was never asked whether he had played any part in Oswald’s life. Heindel, incidentally, was from New Orleans. His affidavit, in fact, deals mainly with what a poor soldier Oswald was when he was stationed in Japan (VIII: 318).
In any case, Oswald made no effort to look for local leftists or to seek sympathizers for the FPCC, for instance at Tulane University, where he might have found them. The one person who came to see him, Marina says, he treated as an anti-Castroite plant. To confuse matters, Oswald even put the address of the anti-Castroites on some of his literature. Oswald lied to the FPCC, the police, and the FBI about his organization, claiming it had thirty-five members, that it met at people’s homes, that he, Oswald, received telephone or postal instructions from Hidell. These deceptive activities culminated in August 1963, with Oswald’s visit to the anti-Castroites, Carlos Bringuier and friends, and his expression of interest in joining, and helping their para-military activities. In a few days he followed this with his distribution of FPCC literature near their headquarters, which caused a fight with them—they felt they had been betrayed by him. But according to the reports of the police and others, the fight was not a fight at all: Oswald simply put his arms down and told Bringuier (a former functionary under Batista) to hit him. Subsequently, Oswald pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace, when he was clearly innocent, and Bringuier pleaded innocent, when he had in fact struck the blow. In jail Oswald demanded to see the FBI, and tried toconvince agent Quigley that he, Oswald, really was involved in pro-Castro activities. The arrest was followed by Oswald’s appearance on radio and TV defending Cuba against Bringuier and others. Oswald sent distorted reports and clippings of his achievements to the FPCC, and, in an undated memorandum to himself, outlined all of the data he now had to show that he actually was a pro-Castro activist (XVI: 341-43).
This memorandum seems to have been designed for the Cuban Embassy in Mexico to convince them of his bona fides. But a problem remains—why, if Oswald was pro-Castro, and wanted to go to Cuba, didn’t he organize real FPCC activities instead of fake ones? Why did he lie about and distort his accomplishments to the FPCC, the Communist Party, and apparently the Cuban Embassy? It is interesting that Oswald lied to almost everybody, whether friend or foe. In Russia, even from the outset, he put false information about his family on forms, false
information that differed from form to form about his mother being dead, having no siblings, etc. (XVIII:427, for example). The memorandum suggests he wanted to fool the Cubans, since his organization of materials is deliberately misleading. Oswald last wrote to the FPCC on August 17, 1963, telling of all that had happened, and indicating that a good many people were now interested (on August 1, 1963, he had revealed that there were no members of his branch); that he had received many telephone calls (Oswald had no phone); and that he wanted lots of
literature, especially about travel restrictions to Cuba (XX:530). The FPCC didn’t hear from him again, but on September 1, 1963, both the Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party heard from him that he was planning to move to Washington, Baltimore, or Philadelphia, and wanted to contact them there. But Oswald didn’t write them again until November 1, 1963. As far as we can tell he wrote to no one until then.
Marina says Oswald had decided to go to Cuba via Mexico in August. The letters announcing his plans to move East may have been to mislead the FBI, if Oswald knew they were reading his mail, and his insistence on an interview with Quigley may have been to make sure that they were aware of his existence. Was Oswald really trying to get to Cuba and Russia through Mexico? The evidence suggests that he was not. He had earlier applied for a visa to go to Russia, and he had his new passport. On July 1, 1963, Oswald had asked the Russians to rush Marina’s visa, but to treat his separately. He didn’t write them again, as far as we know, until the letter of November 9th, though Marina had written on July 8th pressing her case. In August, the Russian Embassy had informed the Oswalds that the material had been sent to Moscow for processing, and Oswald made no effort to speed up the matter.
On September 22, 1963, he told Mrs. Paine’s friend, Mrs. Kloepfer, that it usually takes six months to go to Russia (XXIII: 725). Then he apparently went to Mexico City a couple of days later, on September 25th, on a fifteen-day visa (not the six-month one that he might easily have obtained), visited the Cuban Embassy and asked for a transit visa to go to Russia via Cuba. By linking his trip to Cuba with a Russian voyage, he led the Cubans to call the Russian Embassy, who said the case would take months to handle. Oswald then became furious with the Cubans, not the Russians, and, according to Sylvia Duran of the Cuban Embassy, he claimed he was entitled to a visa because of his background, partisanship, and activities (XXV: 636).
Any investigation of these probably would have led to his being turned down. He said he needed a visa right away because his Mexican one was running out and he had to get to Russia immediately. He obviously could have gotten to Russia faster by traveling from New Orleans to Europe.The Russian Embassy apparently was not helpful and indicated it would take four months before anything was done. Though the Report (p. 735,note 1170, based on confidential information) says that Oswald came back to both the Cuban and Russian Embassies, there is no evidence that he really pressed his case. Señora Duran had given him her phone number, yet he doesn’t seem to have used it. He doesn’t seem to have known of or cared about the final disposition of his case by the Cubans a few weeks later. By linking his application for a Cuban visa to a Russian one, Oswald seems to have precluded any rapid action. If the Report is
correct that Oswald had only $200 when he left New Orleans, he couldn’t have gotten to Russia anyway. Oswald’s dealings with Russian bureaucracy surely taught him, as his notes on Russia indicate, that quick action was most unlikely.
The abortive trip to Mexico seems to have involved a good many mysterious and as yet unexplained elements. The same could be said about Oswald’s political activities in New Orleans during that summer. In both cases, however, there are signs of a similar sort of pattern. Oswald seems to have contrived to give people the impression that he was engaged in pro-Castro activities, and that he intended to travel to Cuba and Russia. His actual behavior was, however, in contradiction to these apparent aims in various respects; and his behavior in Mexico seems almost to have been designed to make sure that he could not succeed in his avowed aim of going to Cuba and Russia. Much remains to be clarified about Oswald’s activities in New Orleans and Mexico, but from what we already know, these activities strongly suggest some sort of conspiratorial involvement.
To Be Continued
If we turn to the data in a search for clues as to when Oswald might have started to get involved in affairs that might form some meaningful pattern, we find that the record compiled by the Commission indicates that as far back as Oswald’s stay in New Orleans, some strange conspiratorial activities were going on. On the one hand, the correspondence of Marina Oswald and Ruth Paine indicates that Oswald was unhappy both because of his family life and his economic life, and wanted to return to Russia with his family.
On the other hand, from late May onward. Oswald started his pro-Castro activities, corresponded actively with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New York, the Communist Party, and the Socialist Workers Party, usually giving them false or misleading information about his activities. He spent a good part of his meager funds printing leaflets, membership applications and cards, etc., and hiring people to distribute literature.
But, very significantly I think, he made no effort to change his FPCC Organization from a fiction into a reality. It never had any members except Oswald and the clearly fictitious “Alec J. Hidell”! Mark Lane devotes Chapter 10 of Rush to Judgment to the problem of Hidell, and makes much of the fact that there was a Marine whomOswald knew, John R. Heindel, who, in an affidavit, declared that “I was often referred to as ‘Hidell’”. Lane suggests that this is what Oswald may have called him and tries to show that the Commission did an inadequate job by purporting to demonstrate that Hidell was a fictitious person. However, the Hidell who plays a part in Oswald’s life definitely seems to have been fictitious. A Sgt. Robert Hidell was given as a reference by Oswald in New Orleans around May 16, 1963 (XXII: 145). A Dr. A. J. Hideel (sic) is listed on Oswald’s international vaccination form as having given Oswald a vaccination on June 8, 1963 (XVII:693). The name is printed with Oswald’s equipment, and the doctor’s address is P.O. Box 30016, New Orleans, whereas Oswald’s Post Office box was No. 30061. A. J. Hidell appears as a name on various identification cards that Oswald had in his possession when he was arrested, including a Selective Service card which had Oswald’s photo on it. The signature of A. J. Hidell on various documents is in Oswald’s inimitable handwriting, including the order blank for the Carcano (XVII:677-8 and 681-3). Exhibit
819, Oswald’s membership card in the New Orleans branch of the FPCC, is signed “A. J. Hidell” by Marina. All the checking by various investigative groups could turn up no Hidell who met the conditions of being a participant in Oswald’s life in Dallas and New Orleans, and the data certainly makes it look as if Oswald was inventing a series of Hidells with various functions. Lane is, of course, right in saying that Sgt. Heindel was never asked whether he had played any part in Oswald’s life. Heindel, incidentally, was from New Orleans. His affidavit, in fact, deals mainly with what a poor soldier Oswald was when he was stationed in Japan (VIII: 318).
In any case, Oswald made no effort to look for local leftists or to seek sympathizers for the FPCC, for instance at Tulane University, where he might have found them. The one person who came to see him, Marina says, he treated as an anti-Castroite plant. To confuse matters, Oswald even put the address of the anti-Castroites on some of his literature. Oswald lied to the FPCC, the police, and the FBI about his organization, claiming it had thirty-five members, that it met at people’s homes, that he, Oswald, received telephone or postal instructions from Hidell. These deceptive activities culminated in August 1963, with Oswald’s visit to the anti-Castroites, Carlos Bringuier and friends, and his expression of interest in joining, and helping their para-military activities. In a few days he followed this with his distribution of FPCC literature near their headquarters, which caused a fight with them—they felt they had been betrayed by him. But according to the reports of the police and others, the fight was not a fight at all: Oswald simply put his arms down and told Bringuier (a former functionary under Batista) to hit him. Subsequently, Oswald pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace, when he was clearly innocent, and Bringuier pleaded innocent, when he had in fact struck the blow. In jail Oswald demanded to see the FBI, and tried toconvince agent Quigley that he, Oswald, really was involved in pro-Castro activities. The arrest was followed by Oswald’s appearance on radio and TV defending Cuba against Bringuier and others. Oswald sent distorted reports and clippings of his achievements to the FPCC, and, in an undated memorandum to himself, outlined all of the data he now had to show that he actually was a pro-Castro activist (XVI: 341-43).
This memorandum seems to have been designed for the Cuban Embassy in Mexico to convince them of his bona fides. But a problem remains—why, if Oswald was pro-Castro, and wanted to go to Cuba, didn’t he organize real FPCC activities instead of fake ones? Why did he lie about and distort his accomplishments to the FPCC, the Communist Party, and apparently the Cuban Embassy? It is interesting that Oswald lied to almost everybody, whether friend or foe. In Russia, even from the outset, he put false information about his family on forms, false
information that differed from form to form about his mother being dead, having no siblings, etc. (XVIII:427, for example). The memorandum suggests he wanted to fool the Cubans, since his organization of materials is deliberately misleading. Oswald last wrote to the FPCC on August 17, 1963, telling of all that had happened, and indicating that a good many people were now interested (on August 1, 1963, he had revealed that there were no members of his branch); that he had received many telephone calls (Oswald had no phone); and that he wanted lots of
literature, especially about travel restrictions to Cuba (XX:530). The FPCC didn’t hear from him again, but on September 1, 1963, both the Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party heard from him that he was planning to move to Washington, Baltimore, or Philadelphia, and wanted to contact them there. But Oswald didn’t write them again until November 1, 1963. As far as we can tell he wrote to no one until then.
Marina says Oswald had decided to go to Cuba via Mexico in August. The letters announcing his plans to move East may have been to mislead the FBI, if Oswald knew they were reading his mail, and his insistence on an interview with Quigley may have been to make sure that they were aware of his existence. Was Oswald really trying to get to Cuba and Russia through Mexico? The evidence suggests that he was not. He had earlier applied for a visa to go to Russia, and he had his new passport. On July 1, 1963, Oswald had asked the Russians to rush Marina’s visa, but to treat his separately. He didn’t write them again, as far as we know, until the letter of November 9th, though Marina had written on July 8th pressing her case. In August, the Russian Embassy had informed the Oswalds that the material had been sent to Moscow for processing, and Oswald made no effort to speed up the matter.
On September 22, 1963, he told Mrs. Paine’s friend, Mrs. Kloepfer, that it usually takes six months to go to Russia (XXIII: 725). Then he apparently went to Mexico City a couple of days later, on September 25th, on a fifteen-day visa (not the six-month one that he might easily have obtained), visited the Cuban Embassy and asked for a transit visa to go to Russia via Cuba. By linking his trip to Cuba with a Russian voyage, he led the Cubans to call the Russian Embassy, who said the case would take months to handle. Oswald then became furious with the Cubans, not the Russians, and, according to Sylvia Duran of the Cuban Embassy, he claimed he was entitled to a visa because of his background, partisanship, and activities (XXV: 636).
Any investigation of these probably would have led to his being turned down. He said he needed a visa right away because his Mexican one was running out and he had to get to Russia immediately. He obviously could have gotten to Russia faster by traveling from New Orleans to Europe.The Russian Embassy apparently was not helpful and indicated it would take four months before anything was done. Though the Report (p. 735,note 1170, based on confidential information) says that Oswald came back to both the Cuban and Russian Embassies, there is no evidence that he really pressed his case. Señora Duran had given him her phone number, yet he doesn’t seem to have used it. He doesn’t seem to have known of or cared about the final disposition of his case by the Cubans a few weeks later. By linking his application for a Cuban visa to a Russian one, Oswald seems to have precluded any rapid action. If the Report is
correct that Oswald had only $200 when he left New Orleans, he couldn’t have gotten to Russia anyway. Oswald’s dealings with Russian bureaucracy surely taught him, as his notes on Russia indicate, that quick action was most unlikely.
The abortive trip to Mexico seems to have involved a good many mysterious and as yet unexplained elements. The same could be said about Oswald’s political activities in New Orleans during that summer. In both cases, however, there are signs of a similar sort of pattern. Oswald seems to have contrived to give people the impression that he was engaged in pro-Castro activities, and that he intended to travel to Cuba and Russia. His actual behavior was, however, in contradiction to these apparent aims in various respects; and his behavior in Mexico seems almost to have been designed to make sure that he could not succeed in his avowed aim of going to Cuba and Russia. Much remains to be clarified about Oswald’s activities in New Orleans and Mexico, but from what we already know, these activities strongly suggest some sort of conspiratorial involvement.
To Be Continued
_________________
Out With Bill Shelley In Front.
- Vinny
- Posts : 3362
Join date : 2013-08-27
Re: The Second Oswald
Sat 18 Jul 2020, 12:46 pm
Eight
The Two Oswalds in Texas
At the very same time that Oswald was in Mexico, a series of unusual events was occurring in Texas. On September 25, the visit of “Harvey Oswald” to the Selective Service in Austin (for 30 minutes) took place. The Report (p. 732) dismisses it because Oswald wasn’t in Austin. Mrs. Lee Dannelly, the Assistant Chief of the Administrative Division, interviewed this purported Oswald, and on November 24, 1963, before she knew that it couldn’t have been Lee Harvey Oswald, told her boss in great detail what had taken place in this meeting.
She described how Oswald had told her that he was registered in Florida, and was living in Fort Worth, how he was having difficulties in employment because of his discharge from the Marines, etc. Mrs. Dannelly,like most of the others who saw the second Oswald, definitely identified Oswald as the person she had dealt with from his photograph (XXIV: 729-34).
A Texas newspaper editor, Ronnie Dugger, said that Mrs. Dannelly is reliable (XXIV:736). Her account is also somewhat confirmed by reports that Oswald was seen that day in a car in Austin by a printer and a waitress (XXIV:734. 73(5. 740, and 743). On the evening of September 25, a Mrs. Twiford of Houston received a phone call from Oswald between 7 and 9 P.M. Oswald could not have been in Houston then, according to all known means of surface transportation that were then available to
him (he doesn’t seem to have traveled by air either), yet it appeared to be a local call. Oswald claimed he wanted to see Mr. Twiford, the Socialist Labor Party leader for Texas, before flying to Mexico (XXIV:726 and XXV:4-5). This may have been Oswald, calling long distance, though why, if he was planning to defect to Cuba, he should care to see Twiford is a mystery. Could it have been the second Oswald creating mystifying data about Oswald’s whereabouts?
On September 26, the striking incident involving Mrs. Sylvia Odio issupposed to have occurred. Mrs. Odio, a Cuban refugee leader in Dallas, reported to the Commission that she and her sister were visited by two Latins and one “Leon Oswald,” who claimed they had come from New Orleans,were about to leave on a trip, and wanted backing for some violent activities. Then, and in a phone call the next day, Mrs. Odio was told more about Leon Oswald by one of the Latins called Leopoldo: The next day Leopoldo called me... then he said, “What do you think of the American?”
And I said, “I don’t think anything.”And he said, “You know our idea is to introduce him to the underground in Cuba, because he is great, he is kind of nuts … He told us we don’t have any guts, you Cubans, because President Kennedy should have been assassinated after the Bay of Pigs, and some Cubans should have done that … And he said, “It is so easy to do it.” He has told us (XI: 372).
She was also told that Oswald had been in the Marine Corps and was an excellent shot. When Mrs. Odio heard of the assassination, she was sure these men were involved. When she saw Oswald’s picture, she knew! (XI:367-89). When Mrs. Odio testified, attorney Liebeler asked her,“Well, do you have any doubts in your mind after looking at these picturesthat the man in your apartment was the same man as Lee Harvey Oswald?” to which she immediately replied, “I don’t have any doubts.”
(See Appendix III). The Commission made sporadic attempts to discount Mrs. Odio’s story, though she had the corroboration of her sister who was present when the three gentlemen called upon Mrs. Odio, but they kept finding that Mrs. Odio was a quite reliable person, sure of what she had reported. Finally, Manuel Ray, the leftist anti-Castro leader, gave her a testimonial and said she would not have made up the story nor have had delusions; Cisneros, the former leader of JURE, said she was reliable (XXVI:838-39). The only conflicting evidence was that of a Mrs. Connell, who said Mrs. Odio had told her she had previously known Oswald and that he had spoken to anti-Castro groups, which if true would indicate that Oswald had been more involved with anti-Castro elements in the Dallas area than Mrs. Odio admitted.
In August, 1964, the Commission apparently became concerned about the Odio episode, thinking it might really indicate a conspiracy. On August 28, 1964, Rankin, the Commission’s chief counsel, wrote J. Edgar Hoover, “It is a matter of some importance to the Commission that Mrs.Odio’s allegations either be proved or disproved”
(XXVI: 595. See Appendix IV). The Commission had figured out that Oswald actually had enough time to leave New Orleans, come to Dallas and meet Mrs. Odio,
then go on to Houston and Mexico, though this seemed very unlikely. It was probably with great relief that they received the FBI report of September 21, 1964. (See Appendix V.) This stated that on September 16 the FBI had located one member of the group that had visited Mrs. Odio and he had denied Oswald had been there, but had given the names of the other two, one of whom was a man “similar in appearance to Lee Harvey Oswald.” The FBI said it was continuing research into the matter and “The results of our inquiries in this regard will be promptly furnished to you” (XXVI:834-35).
The Commission seems to have been satisfied that it had established that Oswald had not visited Mrs. Odio, and did not care that it appeared to have also established a strong possibility that there was a double for Oswald, that is, a man who looked like him and may have used his name. One would have expected that, if the Commission had really been interested in clearing up all of the questions and rumors about the case, it would have stopped everything, located this man and the other two, found out if he had been masquerading as Oswald, and, if so, why. Weisberg uses this as crucial evidence that the Commission had established a
conspiracy, and subsequently ignored it. But Epstein shows that by September 21, the mad rush to publish the Report was so great that this took precedence over anything else.
The FBI report does appear to support Mrs. Odio’s account that a meeting took place. One wonders then, gnawingly, what did they find out next? Was the man “similar in appearance” acting as a double for Oswald? Did he use Oswald’s name? What was he involved in when he went to see Mrs. Odio? Was he connected with the other double-Oswald episodes?
This matter remained in the dark until very recently. Lane, in his Rush to Judgment, pp. 340-42, reports on some of the subsequent developments,based on material that has come to light in the National Archives. These documents, (Commission Document No. 1553), were sent to the Commission by the FBI on November 9, 1964, long after the Report had appeared. (See Appendix VI.) Right after obtaining the testimony of Mrs. Loren Hall about the meeting with Mrs. Odio, the FBI checked with the other alleged participants, both of whom denied ever having met Mrs.Odio.
Both also denied having been in Dallas together. Mrs. Odio was shown photographs of all of the parties, as well as photos of some others who had been involved with this group. Both she and her sister stated that none of the individuals seemed to be the ones they had seen, with the possible exception of one who looked something like “Leopoldo.” In fact, by the time J. Edgar Hoover sent his letter concerning the matter to the Commission on September 21, 1964, the FBI had pretty well discredited its report, which Hoover was passing on to the Commission.
Lane does not discuss some interesting new information in the FBI documents. They show that all of the people involved with Hall were engaged in anti-Castro paramilitary activities, and the purpose of their trips to Dallas (there were at least two, in September and October, 1963), was to get financing and equipment for a military venture against Cuba.
The Two Oswalds in Texas
At the very same time that Oswald was in Mexico, a series of unusual events was occurring in Texas. On September 25, the visit of “Harvey Oswald” to the Selective Service in Austin (for 30 minutes) took place. The Report (p. 732) dismisses it because Oswald wasn’t in Austin. Mrs. Lee Dannelly, the Assistant Chief of the Administrative Division, interviewed this purported Oswald, and on November 24, 1963, before she knew that it couldn’t have been Lee Harvey Oswald, told her boss in great detail what had taken place in this meeting.
She described how Oswald had told her that he was registered in Florida, and was living in Fort Worth, how he was having difficulties in employment because of his discharge from the Marines, etc. Mrs. Dannelly,like most of the others who saw the second Oswald, definitely identified Oswald as the person she had dealt with from his photograph (XXIV: 729-34).
A Texas newspaper editor, Ronnie Dugger, said that Mrs. Dannelly is reliable (XXIV:736). Her account is also somewhat confirmed by reports that Oswald was seen that day in a car in Austin by a printer and a waitress (XXIV:734. 73(5. 740, and 743). On the evening of September 25, a Mrs. Twiford of Houston received a phone call from Oswald between 7 and 9 P.M. Oswald could not have been in Houston then, according to all known means of surface transportation that were then available to
him (he doesn’t seem to have traveled by air either), yet it appeared to be a local call. Oswald claimed he wanted to see Mr. Twiford, the Socialist Labor Party leader for Texas, before flying to Mexico (XXIV:726 and XXV:4-5). This may have been Oswald, calling long distance, though why, if he was planning to defect to Cuba, he should care to see Twiford is a mystery. Could it have been the second Oswald creating mystifying data about Oswald’s whereabouts?
On September 26, the striking incident involving Mrs. Sylvia Odio issupposed to have occurred. Mrs. Odio, a Cuban refugee leader in Dallas, reported to the Commission that she and her sister were visited by two Latins and one “Leon Oswald,” who claimed they had come from New Orleans,were about to leave on a trip, and wanted backing for some violent activities. Then, and in a phone call the next day, Mrs. Odio was told more about Leon Oswald by one of the Latins called Leopoldo: The next day Leopoldo called me... then he said, “What do you think of the American?”
And I said, “I don’t think anything.”And he said, “You know our idea is to introduce him to the underground in Cuba, because he is great, he is kind of nuts … He told us we don’t have any guts, you Cubans, because President Kennedy should have been assassinated after the Bay of Pigs, and some Cubans should have done that … And he said, “It is so easy to do it.” He has told us (XI: 372).
She was also told that Oswald had been in the Marine Corps and was an excellent shot. When Mrs. Odio heard of the assassination, she was sure these men were involved. When she saw Oswald’s picture, she knew! (XI:367-89). When Mrs. Odio testified, attorney Liebeler asked her,“Well, do you have any doubts in your mind after looking at these picturesthat the man in your apartment was the same man as Lee Harvey Oswald?” to which she immediately replied, “I don’t have any doubts.”
(See Appendix III). The Commission made sporadic attempts to discount Mrs. Odio’s story, though she had the corroboration of her sister who was present when the three gentlemen called upon Mrs. Odio, but they kept finding that Mrs. Odio was a quite reliable person, sure of what she had reported. Finally, Manuel Ray, the leftist anti-Castro leader, gave her a testimonial and said she would not have made up the story nor have had delusions; Cisneros, the former leader of JURE, said she was reliable (XXVI:838-39). The only conflicting evidence was that of a Mrs. Connell, who said Mrs. Odio had told her she had previously known Oswald and that he had spoken to anti-Castro groups, which if true would indicate that Oswald had been more involved with anti-Castro elements in the Dallas area than Mrs. Odio admitted.
In August, 1964, the Commission apparently became concerned about the Odio episode, thinking it might really indicate a conspiracy. On August 28, 1964, Rankin, the Commission’s chief counsel, wrote J. Edgar Hoover, “It is a matter of some importance to the Commission that Mrs.Odio’s allegations either be proved or disproved”
(XXVI: 595. See Appendix IV). The Commission had figured out that Oswald actually had enough time to leave New Orleans, come to Dallas and meet Mrs. Odio,
then go on to Houston and Mexico, though this seemed very unlikely. It was probably with great relief that they received the FBI report of September 21, 1964. (See Appendix V.) This stated that on September 16 the FBI had located one member of the group that had visited Mrs. Odio and he had denied Oswald had been there, but had given the names of the other two, one of whom was a man “similar in appearance to Lee Harvey Oswald.” The FBI said it was continuing research into the matter and “The results of our inquiries in this regard will be promptly furnished to you” (XXVI:834-35).
The Commission seems to have been satisfied that it had established that Oswald had not visited Mrs. Odio, and did not care that it appeared to have also established a strong possibility that there was a double for Oswald, that is, a man who looked like him and may have used his name. One would have expected that, if the Commission had really been interested in clearing up all of the questions and rumors about the case, it would have stopped everything, located this man and the other two, found out if he had been masquerading as Oswald, and, if so, why. Weisberg uses this as crucial evidence that the Commission had established a
conspiracy, and subsequently ignored it. But Epstein shows that by September 21, the mad rush to publish the Report was so great that this took precedence over anything else.
The FBI report does appear to support Mrs. Odio’s account that a meeting took place. One wonders then, gnawingly, what did they find out next? Was the man “similar in appearance” acting as a double for Oswald? Did he use Oswald’s name? What was he involved in when he went to see Mrs. Odio? Was he connected with the other double-Oswald episodes?
This matter remained in the dark until very recently. Lane, in his Rush to Judgment, pp. 340-42, reports on some of the subsequent developments,based on material that has come to light in the National Archives. These documents, (Commission Document No. 1553), were sent to the Commission by the FBI on November 9, 1964, long after the Report had appeared. (See Appendix VI.) Right after obtaining the testimony of Mrs. Loren Hall about the meeting with Mrs. Odio, the FBI checked with the other alleged participants, both of whom denied ever having met Mrs.Odio.
Both also denied having been in Dallas together. Mrs. Odio was shown photographs of all of the parties, as well as photos of some others who had been involved with this group. Both she and her sister stated that none of the individuals seemed to be the ones they had seen, with the possible exception of one who looked something like “Leopoldo.” In fact, by the time J. Edgar Hoover sent his letter concerning the matter to the Commission on September 21, 1964, the FBI had pretty well discredited its report, which Hoover was passing on to the Commission.
Lane does not discuss some interesting new information in the FBI documents. They show that all of the people involved with Hall were engaged in anti-Castro paramilitary activities, and the purpose of their trips to Dallas (there were at least two, in September and October, 1963), was to get financing and equipment for a military venture against Cuba.
_________________
Out With Bill Shelley In Front.
- Vinny
- Posts : 3362
Join date : 2013-08-27
Re: The Second Oswald
Sat 18 Jul 2020, 12:54 pm
The accounts, which do not always agree, indicate that at least some of this group visited another Cuban refugee in the same group of apartments where Mrs. Odio lived, and Hall originally thought he and some of the others had met her. In October, 1963, Hall and another man were even arrested in Dallas for possessing dangerous drugs and were interrogated by various intelligence services.
If the FBI findings in Commission Document No. 1553 finally suggest that these were not the people involved in the Odio incident, then who was? (One report, dated October 2, 1964, states without comment or further explanation that Mrs. Odio “had attempted suicide during the last week.”) Were there other anti-Castro groups in Dallas at the time, or was there some group pretending to be anti-Castro in order to introduce Mrs. Odio to the second Oswald? Since the evidence, including that in the later FBI reports, shows that Mrs. Odio is considered quite reliable by almost everyone who knows her, then who did visit her on September 26, 1963,
and why did they do so? (Also, why did the FBI not correct its report of September 21, when they already knew it to be questionable, and why did they let the Commission finish off its Report under the possibly mistaken impression that the participants in the Odio affair had been found, and did not include the real Lee Harvey Oswald?)
The Odio episode strongly indicated that duplication and conspiratorial activities involving Oswald were going on; and indeed the possibility remains open that Mrs. Odio was visited by Oswald himself, since the FBI’s later findings do not preclude this. Two items connected with Oswald’s return from Mexico to Dallas seem further suggestive. A Mexican bus roster shows the name “Oswald,” written in a different hand from the other names. It is known that Oswald was not on that bus, yet no satisfactory answer was ever found for his name being put on the roster,though it apparently happened after the trip on October 2 (XXII: 155;XXIV:620; XXV:578 and XXV:852).
On October 4, when Oswald was back in Dallas, the manager of radio station KPOY in Alice, Texas, reported that Oswald, his wife, and small child visited him for twenty-five minutes, arriving in a battered 1953 car.The Report diligently points out that (a) Oswald didn’t drive, and (b) he could not have been in Alice at that time (Report, p. 666). The incident is the first of several in which it appears that Oswald and his family may have been duplicated. Instead of seeing it as part of a possibly significant pattern and considering it further, the Commission was satisfied once Oswald had been disassociated, from the event.
In October there seems to have been little double-Oswald activity.This may be explained by the facts that Oswald was looking for a job at the time and that his second daughter was born on October 20. But a second group of incidents can be traced from early November until November 22, almost all in the Dallas-Irving area. (Irving is the Dallas suburb where Marina lived with Mrs. Paine.) These begin to occur at about the same time as Oswald’s resumption of conspiratorial activities. Having settled down in Mrs. Johnson’s rooming house and having obtained a job,Oswald attended two meetings, one on October 23 to hear General
Walker, the other on October 25, a meeting of the ACLU, at which he spoke up and criticized Walker, and told one person after the meeting that John F. Kennedy “is doing a real fine job, a real good job” (IX:465). The housekeeper at Mrs. Johnson’s, Earlene Roberts, said that Oswald never went out in the evenings. She was obviously mistaken (VI:437 and 442).
On November 1, Oswald rented a Post Office box and listed as users the FPCC plus, of all things, the ACLU. (Was he getting ready to set up a fake branch of that organization for some dark purpose?) On the same date he wrote and posted a letter to Arnold Johnson of the Communist Party in New York. This was an airmail letter which was delivered, incidentally,after Oswald was dead, and which is almost entirely devoid of Oswald’s usual misspellings. In it he asked for advice on infiltrating and agitating within the ACLU (XX: 271-73). He also explained to Johnson that he had changed his summer plans to move East, and that he had now settled in Dallas. On November 4, he joined the ACLU and asked its national office how he could get in touch with “ACLU groups in my area” (XVII:673), although he had attended a meeting, knew well that Michael Paine was a member, and, in the November 1, 1963, letter to the Communist leader, Johnson, had stated when and where the ACLU meetings were regularly held in Dallas.
On November 6th or 7th, another interesting episode occurred.Someone looking like Oswald, of course, came into a furniture store in Irving, Texas, looking for a part for a gun. (The store had a sign indicating it was also a gun shop.) This person then went out and got his wife and two infants out of a car, returned, and looked at furniture for a while. The children turned out to be exactly the ages of the Oswald children. Two people saw and talked to this Oswald and later identified him and
Marina as the people in question. (When Marina was confronted by these witnesses, she insisted she had never seen them before, though they stuck to their story.) The “Oswalds” then drove off, after getting directions as to where to find, a gun shop (XXII: 524, 534-36, 546-49). This may well have been the day an Oswald took a gun into the Irving Sports Shop, right near by, an episode that occurred in early November.
A clerk in the shop found a receipt on November 23 that he had made to a man named Oswald for drilling three holes in a rifle. Yet Oswald’s rifle had two holes and they were drilled before Oswald got the gun. An anonymous caller told the FBl about this episode on November 24 (so as to make sure it was known?). The receipt seems genuine; the clerk is sure he ran into Oswald somewhere, and the clerk seems reliable. His boss was convinced, but the Commission dismissed the case since there was no evidence that Oswald owned a second rifle (XXII: 525 and 531; XI:224-40, 245753). Incidentally, all other Oswalds in the Dallas-Fort Worth
area were checked, and it was found that none of them was the Oswald who had had his gun repaired.
November 8 seems to have been a crucial day in the development of whatever conspiratorial activities Oswald and the second Oswald were up to. The Report blandly states that “the following Friday, November 8, Oswald as usual drove to the Paine house with Frazier” (p. 740), but there is no evidence for this. The footnote reference is to Wesley Frazier’s testimony, where he says nothing of the kind. And Marina has unequivocally stated that Oswald did not come home on November 8, that he claimed he was looking for another job, and that he came to Irving around 9 A.M. on the 9th, without explaining how he got there (XXIII: 804). (This
is a not-untypical example of the sloppy documentation in the Report, in which potentially interesting leads were overlooked.)
On November 8, two marked cases of double Oswaldism took place in Irving, Texas. A grocer, Hutchinson, reported that on that day Oswald came in to cash a check for $189, payable to Harvey Oswald (XXVI: 178- 79 and X: 327-40). He claimed that Oswald subsequently came to the store once or twice a week in the early morning and always bought a gallon of milk and cinnamon rolls, items that Oswald probably would not have purchased, according to Mrs. Paine and Marina. Such an event as the attempt to cash a check is no doubt memorable and, as Marina wondered, where would Oswald get $189?
Also, a barber, right near the grocer, reported Oswald came into his shop on the 8th with a fourteen-year-old boy, and they both made leftist remarks. The barber said Oswald had been in his shop on previous occasions—although it seems most unlikely that Oswald could have been in Irving at any of these times—and had indicated he had been in Mexico (X: 309-27). The barber had even seen Oswald driving, and going with Marina into the grocery store, though the real Marina insists she was never in the store. And, of course, both the barber and the grocer immediately identified the photos of Oswald as their customer. The Commission dismisses all these reports on grounds that Oswald could not have been present or that they are denied by Marina.
If the FBI findings in Commission Document No. 1553 finally suggest that these were not the people involved in the Odio incident, then who was? (One report, dated October 2, 1964, states without comment or further explanation that Mrs. Odio “had attempted suicide during the last week.”) Were there other anti-Castro groups in Dallas at the time, or was there some group pretending to be anti-Castro in order to introduce Mrs. Odio to the second Oswald? Since the evidence, including that in the later FBI reports, shows that Mrs. Odio is considered quite reliable by almost everyone who knows her, then who did visit her on September 26, 1963,
and why did they do so? (Also, why did the FBI not correct its report of September 21, when they already knew it to be questionable, and why did they let the Commission finish off its Report under the possibly mistaken impression that the participants in the Odio affair had been found, and did not include the real Lee Harvey Oswald?)
The Odio episode strongly indicated that duplication and conspiratorial activities involving Oswald were going on; and indeed the possibility remains open that Mrs. Odio was visited by Oswald himself, since the FBI’s later findings do not preclude this. Two items connected with Oswald’s return from Mexico to Dallas seem further suggestive. A Mexican bus roster shows the name “Oswald,” written in a different hand from the other names. It is known that Oswald was not on that bus, yet no satisfactory answer was ever found for his name being put on the roster,though it apparently happened after the trip on October 2 (XXII: 155;XXIV:620; XXV:578 and XXV:852).
On October 4, when Oswald was back in Dallas, the manager of radio station KPOY in Alice, Texas, reported that Oswald, his wife, and small child visited him for twenty-five minutes, arriving in a battered 1953 car.The Report diligently points out that (a) Oswald didn’t drive, and (b) he could not have been in Alice at that time (Report, p. 666). The incident is the first of several in which it appears that Oswald and his family may have been duplicated. Instead of seeing it as part of a possibly significant pattern and considering it further, the Commission was satisfied once Oswald had been disassociated, from the event.
In October there seems to have been little double-Oswald activity.This may be explained by the facts that Oswald was looking for a job at the time and that his second daughter was born on October 20. But a second group of incidents can be traced from early November until November 22, almost all in the Dallas-Irving area. (Irving is the Dallas suburb where Marina lived with Mrs. Paine.) These begin to occur at about the same time as Oswald’s resumption of conspiratorial activities. Having settled down in Mrs. Johnson’s rooming house and having obtained a job,Oswald attended two meetings, one on October 23 to hear General
Walker, the other on October 25, a meeting of the ACLU, at which he spoke up and criticized Walker, and told one person after the meeting that John F. Kennedy “is doing a real fine job, a real good job” (IX:465). The housekeeper at Mrs. Johnson’s, Earlene Roberts, said that Oswald never went out in the evenings. She was obviously mistaken (VI:437 and 442).
On November 1, Oswald rented a Post Office box and listed as users the FPCC plus, of all things, the ACLU. (Was he getting ready to set up a fake branch of that organization for some dark purpose?) On the same date he wrote and posted a letter to Arnold Johnson of the Communist Party in New York. This was an airmail letter which was delivered, incidentally,after Oswald was dead, and which is almost entirely devoid of Oswald’s usual misspellings. In it he asked for advice on infiltrating and agitating within the ACLU (XX: 271-73). He also explained to Johnson that he had changed his summer plans to move East, and that he had now settled in Dallas. On November 4, he joined the ACLU and asked its national office how he could get in touch with “ACLU groups in my area” (XVII:673), although he had attended a meeting, knew well that Michael Paine was a member, and, in the November 1, 1963, letter to the Communist leader, Johnson, had stated when and where the ACLU meetings were regularly held in Dallas.
On November 6th or 7th, another interesting episode occurred.Someone looking like Oswald, of course, came into a furniture store in Irving, Texas, looking for a part for a gun. (The store had a sign indicating it was also a gun shop.) This person then went out and got his wife and two infants out of a car, returned, and looked at furniture for a while. The children turned out to be exactly the ages of the Oswald children. Two people saw and talked to this Oswald and later identified him and
Marina as the people in question. (When Marina was confronted by these witnesses, she insisted she had never seen them before, though they stuck to their story.) The “Oswalds” then drove off, after getting directions as to where to find, a gun shop (XXII: 524, 534-36, 546-49). This may well have been the day an Oswald took a gun into the Irving Sports Shop, right near by, an episode that occurred in early November.
A clerk in the shop found a receipt on November 23 that he had made to a man named Oswald for drilling three holes in a rifle. Yet Oswald’s rifle had two holes and they were drilled before Oswald got the gun. An anonymous caller told the FBl about this episode on November 24 (so as to make sure it was known?). The receipt seems genuine; the clerk is sure he ran into Oswald somewhere, and the clerk seems reliable. His boss was convinced, but the Commission dismissed the case since there was no evidence that Oswald owned a second rifle (XXII: 525 and 531; XI:224-40, 245753). Incidentally, all other Oswalds in the Dallas-Fort Worth
area were checked, and it was found that none of them was the Oswald who had had his gun repaired.
November 8 seems to have been a crucial day in the development of whatever conspiratorial activities Oswald and the second Oswald were up to. The Report blandly states that “the following Friday, November 8, Oswald as usual drove to the Paine house with Frazier” (p. 740), but there is no evidence for this. The footnote reference is to Wesley Frazier’s testimony, where he says nothing of the kind. And Marina has unequivocally stated that Oswald did not come home on November 8, that he claimed he was looking for another job, and that he came to Irving around 9 A.M. on the 9th, without explaining how he got there (XXIII: 804). (This
is a not-untypical example of the sloppy documentation in the Report, in which potentially interesting leads were overlooked.)
On November 8, two marked cases of double Oswaldism took place in Irving, Texas. A grocer, Hutchinson, reported that on that day Oswald came in to cash a check for $189, payable to Harvey Oswald (XXVI: 178- 79 and X: 327-40). He claimed that Oswald subsequently came to the store once or twice a week in the early morning and always bought a gallon of milk and cinnamon rolls, items that Oswald probably would not have purchased, according to Mrs. Paine and Marina. Such an event as the attempt to cash a check is no doubt memorable and, as Marina wondered, where would Oswald get $189?
Also, a barber, right near the grocer, reported Oswald came into his shop on the 8th with a fourteen-year-old boy, and they both made leftist remarks. The barber said Oswald had been in his shop on previous occasions—although it seems most unlikely that Oswald could have been in Irving at any of these times—and had indicated he had been in Mexico (X: 309-27). The barber had even seen Oswald driving, and going with Marina into the grocery store, though the real Marina insists she was never in the store. And, of course, both the barber and the grocer immediately identified the photos of Oswald as their customer. The Commission dismisses all these reports on grounds that Oswald could not have been present or that they are denied by Marina.
_________________
Out With Bill Shelley In Front.
- Vinny
- Posts : 3362
Join date : 2013-08-27
Re: The Second Oswald
Sat 18 Jul 2020, 1:02 pm
The second Oswald became more active on the 9th. Except for a trip with Mrs. Paine to attempt to get a learner’s permit for driving a car, the real Oswald spent the day at the Paine house writing a letter to the Russian Embassy strongly implying he was a Russian agent. (See Appendix.VII.) The letter was probably unintelligible to them, in that it referred to all sorts of events they presumably knew nothing about. It also contained a good many false statements concerning a conversation with FBI agent Hosty that probably never took place. Oswald thought the letter important enough to draft by hand, and then to type (XVI:33 and 443), a unique event, since Oswald always sent anybody and everybody handwritten, misspelled documents. He then left the draft lying around, partly exposed, and made no effort to rush his letter off. It is post-marked November 12th. Mrs. Paine saw it, was startled by what it contained, and made a copy to show the FBI (III: 13-17).
The FBI intercepted it, and its report on the matter showed no interest at all in Oswald’s statements portraying himself as a man who had used a false name in Mexico, had “business” with the Soviet Embassy in Havana, and had been threatened by the “notorious FBI” for pro-Castro activities. The FBI report concluded that Oswald’s letter merely indicated he wanted a Russian visa (XVII: 803).
While Oswald was writing his strange letter, two second Oswald cases occurred. One was the Bogard incident, which I have already mentioned, when an Oswald tested a car, driving over 70 miles per hour,dropped hints about receiving lots of money in a couple of weeks, and told the credit manager that if he were not given credit, he would go back to Russia and buy a car (XXVI : 450-452, 664, 684-85, 687 and 702-03).
This memorable performance at the Lord-Lincoln agency was coupled with one of the first appearances of a second Oswald at a rifle range.(There are indications of an earlier appearance during his Mexico trip.)From November 9th onward someone who looked just like Oswald was noticed at the Sports Dome Range, by several witnesses, always at times when the real Oswald could not have been there, either because he was at work, or was with his family. The second Oswald was an excellent shot, who did a number of things to attract attention to himself, firing odd weapons (some of whose descriptions fit Oswald’s rifle), shooting at other
people’s targets, etc.
The Commission was impressed by the fact (Report, p. 318) that several witnesses, who seemed to be reliable, all gave similar descriptions of the man whom they saw, and of the kind of weapon that was being employed. Some of these witnesses had ample opportunity to observe the man in question. Malcolm Price, a friend of the owner of the rifle range, adjusted the scope on the man’s weapon, and talked to him on one occasion,and saw him hit bull’s-eyes (X: 370-72).
Garland Slack, a contractor and real estate developer, talked to “Oswald” on November 10th, and had an altercation with him on November 17th, when “Oswald” shot at Slack’s target (X: 380). A dentist, Homer Wood, and his son were shooting next to “Oswald.” “Oswald” was firing an odd weapon from which “a ball of fire” came out of the barrel each time it was used, and the marksman was shooting mostly bull’seyes.
Dr. Wood’s son talked briefly to “Oswald” and identified his rifle as an Italian 6.5 carbine. Both Dr. Wood and his son independently recognized Oswald as the man they had seen at the rifle range.The Report (p. 318), in evaluating these and other reports, said that in view of the number of witnesses and the similarity of their descriptions and reports, “there is reason to believe that these witnesses did see the same person at the firing range.” But the Report goes on to insist that
“’there was other evidence which prevented the Commission from reaching the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the person these witnesses saw” (p. 319). Among the evidence offered is that Oswald could not have been there. He was in Mexico City when Price reported having seen him.He was in the Paine house and in his rooming house when Slack is supposed to have run into him. Some of the witnesses said they saw Oswald driving a car, which he did not do. The weapon reported being fired by “Oswald” differed in some respects from Oswald’s Carcano.
For all of these and some other reasons, the Commission decided that it was not Oswald who was seen on the rifle range. But it could well have been second Oswald getting ready for his role in the assassination. I saw some of these rifle range witnesses being interviewed on television just after the Report was issued, and they still insisted that they had seen Oswald.
From November 12, the end of a long holiday weekend, until November 21, Oswald himself did not go to Irving. The weekend of the 16th and 17th he was reported to be at his room almost all of the time. He worked every week day. We know of no letters he wrote during this period, and of no extra-curricular activities at all. But a second Oswald is reported on November 13, at the grocery store in Irving with Marina; and on the rifle range on the 16th, 171h, 20th, and 21st.
The only information about Oswald’s own activities is from merchants in his Beckley Street area in Dallas: he went to a grocery (one also used by Jack Ruby); he made calls (apparently long distance) at a gas station (XXVI: 250); he was in a laundromat at midnight on the 20th or 21st (if the latter, it has to be second Oswald again); he took coffee at the Dobbs House restaurant on North Beckley in the early morning. One very suggestive sign of a second Oswald is a report by Mary Dowling, a waitress (XXVI: 516), that he had come into the Dobbs House on November 20 at 10 A.M. (when the real Oswald was at work) and had become very nasty about the way his order of eggs was prepared. (See Appendix VIII.) At this time, Officer J. D. Tippit was there “as was his habit” each morning at this hour, and glowered at Oswald. The FBI, in this report, rather than being excited at this sign that Oswald and Tippit had encountered each other before November 22, merely commented that Oswald was reported to have worked from 8:00 until 4:45 on November 20. They also showed no interest in why Tippit stopped on North Beckley each morning
when it was not in his district or near his home.
Another possible clue about Oswald or second Oswald is that the Secret Service thought Oswald was responsible for ordering the anti-Kennedy “Wanted for Treason” leaflets, distributed in Dallas on November 21. The Secret Service pointed out that the copy had Oswald’s typical spelling errors and that the person who ordered them around November
14 resembled Oswald, except for his hair (XXV: 657).
The next major, and final, report of the second Oswald’s appearance is right after the assassination. One eyewitness to the shooting from the Book Depository, J. R. Worrell, saw a part of a gun sticking out of the building, heard four shots (and he is one of the few who heard four, rather than three), and ran behind the building. He there saw a man come rushing out of the back of the building, and run around it in the opposite direction.
According to a Dallas policeman, K. L. Anderton, Worrell told him that when he saw Oswald’s picture on TV, “he recognized him as the man he saw run from the building” (XXIV: 294). It is an interesting indication of the Commission’s concern in clearing up mysteries in the case, that when Worrell testified, all he was asked about this episode is whether he told the FBI the man looked like Oswald. Worrell said he didn’t know (II:201). He was not asked if the man did in fact look like Oswald, which he had told Anderton.
The final appearance of the second Oswald was also reported by Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig, one of the most efficient policemen at the scene of the crime that day. (See Appendix IX.) Craig heard one shot, followed by two others, and like so many others of the Sheriff’s men at that time, he ran immediately up to the knoll and then to the railroad yards looking for the assassin. When he came back down to the area where Kennedy was shot, he ran into one of the puzzling witnesses, Rowland,
who, according to Craig, told him that he had seen two men in windows on the sixth floor of the Book Depository before the shooting, one of whom was holding a gun with a sight. After talking to Rowland, Craig looked for the place where the bullet that missed the Presidential car had struck.
About fifteen minutes after the shooting, he heard a whistle, and next saw a man run down from the Book Depository to the freeway, where he got in a light-colored Rambler station wagon, and then was driven away.Deputy Sheriff Craig tried to stop the car, but failed. Much later that day, around 5 P.M., after taking part in the search of the Book Depository, he telephoned in a report of what he had seen, and he was asked to come down to police headquarters and to look at the
suspect that they had in custody. He immediately and positively identified Oswald as the man he had seen get into the station wagon and be driven away (VI: 260-73, XIX: 524, XXIII: 817 and XXIV: 23).
Craig saw Oswald in Captain Fritz’s office, and reported that Oswald made several remarks. When asked about the station wagon, he said it belonged to Mrs. Paine, and that she had nothing to do with the matter.Then, after Craig identified him, Oswald said cryptically, “Everyone will know who I am now” (VI: 270). When Craig testified on April 1, 1964, he was asked if he felt that the man he saw in Captain Fritz’s office was the same man he had seen running towards the station wagon; he replied, “I still feel strongly that it was the same person” (VI: 273).The Warren Commission dismissed all these incidents as mistaken identifications since they couldn’t have been Oswald. The Commission treated Craig’s case very gingerly. Although Craig may have seen someone enter a station wagon 15 minutes after the assassination, the person he saw was not Lee Harvey Oswald, who was far removed from the building at that time (Report, p. 253). There are more cases than I have mentioned here. Some are dubious, some possible. I have also heard of some cases that are not in the twenty-six volumes but seem quite startling and
important. I noticed only one place in the twenty-six volumes where the conception of a second Oswald occurred to the Commission. One gets the impression that the hard-pressed staff found it convenient to ascribe all the incidents to tricks of memory and other aberrations, notwithstanding the fact that many witnesses were apparently reliable and disinterested people whose testimony was confirmed by others. Furthermore, they must have had considerable conviction to persist with their stories in the face of questioning b the FBI and Commission lawyers. The evidence seems to me compelling that there was a second Oswald, that his presence was being forced on people’s notice, and that he played a role on November 22,1963.
It is interesting, and may well be significant that the groupings of double Oswald occurrences can be correlated rather closely with news reports of Kennedy’s plans to come to Dallas and of his route through the city. Fred Graham correctly states in the New York Times of August 28th that “Oswald got his job at the School Book Depository on October 15th, amonth before anybody knew there would be a Presidential motorcade.”
But the Report tells us that the Dallas Times-Herald of September 13th stated that Kennedy was to visit Dallas; that both Dallas papers on September 26th (the date of the Odio episode) confirmed Kennedy’s plan to visit the city and indicated the event would take place on either November 21 or November 22 (Report, p. 40). Thereafter there was much comment about Kennedy’s impending visit in the papers, especially after the violent incidents that occurred during Adlai Stevenson’s visit on
October 24th. On November 8th (when second Oswald was seen in the grocery store and the barbershop, and when real Oswald’s location is not known) the plans for the visit were confirmed in the newspaper.
The Report also points out that the traditional parade route is down Main Street, which anyone could have figured out would bring Kennedy within one block of the Book Depository; after Main Street, the procession was to go on to the Trade Mart. This route was mentioned in the Dallas Times-Herald on November 16th, and a detailed plan of the route,including the fateful turn onto Houston and Elm, appeared in both papers on the 19th. Thus, the second Oswald might have been planning his
moves on the basis of the information about the Kennedy visit that he found in the press. We don’t know how well informed Oswald was about the President’s visit. Oswald apparently read other people’s newspapers in the lunchroom at the Book Depository, often a day later. When his wife asked him on the 21st where the parade was going to be, he professed no knowledge of the subject.
The FBI intercepted it, and its report on the matter showed no interest at all in Oswald’s statements portraying himself as a man who had used a false name in Mexico, had “business” with the Soviet Embassy in Havana, and had been threatened by the “notorious FBI” for pro-Castro activities. The FBI report concluded that Oswald’s letter merely indicated he wanted a Russian visa (XVII: 803).
While Oswald was writing his strange letter, two second Oswald cases occurred. One was the Bogard incident, which I have already mentioned, when an Oswald tested a car, driving over 70 miles per hour,dropped hints about receiving lots of money in a couple of weeks, and told the credit manager that if he were not given credit, he would go back to Russia and buy a car (XXVI : 450-452, 664, 684-85, 687 and 702-03).
This memorable performance at the Lord-Lincoln agency was coupled with one of the first appearances of a second Oswald at a rifle range.(There are indications of an earlier appearance during his Mexico trip.)From November 9th onward someone who looked just like Oswald was noticed at the Sports Dome Range, by several witnesses, always at times when the real Oswald could not have been there, either because he was at work, or was with his family. The second Oswald was an excellent shot, who did a number of things to attract attention to himself, firing odd weapons (some of whose descriptions fit Oswald’s rifle), shooting at other
people’s targets, etc.
The Commission was impressed by the fact (Report, p. 318) that several witnesses, who seemed to be reliable, all gave similar descriptions of the man whom they saw, and of the kind of weapon that was being employed. Some of these witnesses had ample opportunity to observe the man in question. Malcolm Price, a friend of the owner of the rifle range, adjusted the scope on the man’s weapon, and talked to him on one occasion,and saw him hit bull’s-eyes (X: 370-72).
Garland Slack, a contractor and real estate developer, talked to “Oswald” on November 10th, and had an altercation with him on November 17th, when “Oswald” shot at Slack’s target (X: 380). A dentist, Homer Wood, and his son were shooting next to “Oswald.” “Oswald” was firing an odd weapon from which “a ball of fire” came out of the barrel each time it was used, and the marksman was shooting mostly bull’seyes.
Dr. Wood’s son talked briefly to “Oswald” and identified his rifle as an Italian 6.5 carbine. Both Dr. Wood and his son independently recognized Oswald as the man they had seen at the rifle range.The Report (p. 318), in evaluating these and other reports, said that in view of the number of witnesses and the similarity of their descriptions and reports, “there is reason to believe that these witnesses did see the same person at the firing range.” But the Report goes on to insist that
“’there was other evidence which prevented the Commission from reaching the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the person these witnesses saw” (p. 319). Among the evidence offered is that Oswald could not have been there. He was in Mexico City when Price reported having seen him.He was in the Paine house and in his rooming house when Slack is supposed to have run into him. Some of the witnesses said they saw Oswald driving a car, which he did not do. The weapon reported being fired by “Oswald” differed in some respects from Oswald’s Carcano.
For all of these and some other reasons, the Commission decided that it was not Oswald who was seen on the rifle range. But it could well have been second Oswald getting ready for his role in the assassination. I saw some of these rifle range witnesses being interviewed on television just after the Report was issued, and they still insisted that they had seen Oswald.
From November 12, the end of a long holiday weekend, until November 21, Oswald himself did not go to Irving. The weekend of the 16th and 17th he was reported to be at his room almost all of the time. He worked every week day. We know of no letters he wrote during this period, and of no extra-curricular activities at all. But a second Oswald is reported on November 13, at the grocery store in Irving with Marina; and on the rifle range on the 16th, 171h, 20th, and 21st.
The only information about Oswald’s own activities is from merchants in his Beckley Street area in Dallas: he went to a grocery (one also used by Jack Ruby); he made calls (apparently long distance) at a gas station (XXVI: 250); he was in a laundromat at midnight on the 20th or 21st (if the latter, it has to be second Oswald again); he took coffee at the Dobbs House restaurant on North Beckley in the early morning. One very suggestive sign of a second Oswald is a report by Mary Dowling, a waitress (XXVI: 516), that he had come into the Dobbs House on November 20 at 10 A.M. (when the real Oswald was at work) and had become very nasty about the way his order of eggs was prepared. (See Appendix VIII.) At this time, Officer J. D. Tippit was there “as was his habit” each morning at this hour, and glowered at Oswald. The FBI, in this report, rather than being excited at this sign that Oswald and Tippit had encountered each other before November 22, merely commented that Oswald was reported to have worked from 8:00 until 4:45 on November 20. They also showed no interest in why Tippit stopped on North Beckley each morning
when it was not in his district or near his home.
Another possible clue about Oswald or second Oswald is that the Secret Service thought Oswald was responsible for ordering the anti-Kennedy “Wanted for Treason” leaflets, distributed in Dallas on November 21. The Secret Service pointed out that the copy had Oswald’s typical spelling errors and that the person who ordered them around November
14 resembled Oswald, except for his hair (XXV: 657).
The next major, and final, report of the second Oswald’s appearance is right after the assassination. One eyewitness to the shooting from the Book Depository, J. R. Worrell, saw a part of a gun sticking out of the building, heard four shots (and he is one of the few who heard four, rather than three), and ran behind the building. He there saw a man come rushing out of the back of the building, and run around it in the opposite direction.
According to a Dallas policeman, K. L. Anderton, Worrell told him that when he saw Oswald’s picture on TV, “he recognized him as the man he saw run from the building” (XXIV: 294). It is an interesting indication of the Commission’s concern in clearing up mysteries in the case, that when Worrell testified, all he was asked about this episode is whether he told the FBI the man looked like Oswald. Worrell said he didn’t know (II:201). He was not asked if the man did in fact look like Oswald, which he had told Anderton.
The final appearance of the second Oswald was also reported by Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig, one of the most efficient policemen at the scene of the crime that day. (See Appendix IX.) Craig heard one shot, followed by two others, and like so many others of the Sheriff’s men at that time, he ran immediately up to the knoll and then to the railroad yards looking for the assassin. When he came back down to the area where Kennedy was shot, he ran into one of the puzzling witnesses, Rowland,
who, according to Craig, told him that he had seen two men in windows on the sixth floor of the Book Depository before the shooting, one of whom was holding a gun with a sight. After talking to Rowland, Craig looked for the place where the bullet that missed the Presidential car had struck.
About fifteen minutes after the shooting, he heard a whistle, and next saw a man run down from the Book Depository to the freeway, where he got in a light-colored Rambler station wagon, and then was driven away.Deputy Sheriff Craig tried to stop the car, but failed. Much later that day, around 5 P.M., after taking part in the search of the Book Depository, he telephoned in a report of what he had seen, and he was asked to come down to police headquarters and to look at the
suspect that they had in custody. He immediately and positively identified Oswald as the man he had seen get into the station wagon and be driven away (VI: 260-73, XIX: 524, XXIII: 817 and XXIV: 23).
Craig saw Oswald in Captain Fritz’s office, and reported that Oswald made several remarks. When asked about the station wagon, he said it belonged to Mrs. Paine, and that she had nothing to do with the matter.Then, after Craig identified him, Oswald said cryptically, “Everyone will know who I am now” (VI: 270). When Craig testified on April 1, 1964, he was asked if he felt that the man he saw in Captain Fritz’s office was the same man he had seen running towards the station wagon; he replied, “I still feel strongly that it was the same person” (VI: 273).The Warren Commission dismissed all these incidents as mistaken identifications since they couldn’t have been Oswald. The Commission treated Craig’s case very gingerly. Although Craig may have seen someone enter a station wagon 15 minutes after the assassination, the person he saw was not Lee Harvey Oswald, who was far removed from the building at that time (Report, p. 253). There are more cases than I have mentioned here. Some are dubious, some possible. I have also heard of some cases that are not in the twenty-six volumes but seem quite startling and
important. I noticed only one place in the twenty-six volumes where the conception of a second Oswald occurred to the Commission. One gets the impression that the hard-pressed staff found it convenient to ascribe all the incidents to tricks of memory and other aberrations, notwithstanding the fact that many witnesses were apparently reliable and disinterested people whose testimony was confirmed by others. Furthermore, they must have had considerable conviction to persist with their stories in the face of questioning b the FBI and Commission lawyers. The evidence seems to me compelling that there was a second Oswald, that his presence was being forced on people’s notice, and that he played a role on November 22,1963.
It is interesting, and may well be significant that the groupings of double Oswald occurrences can be correlated rather closely with news reports of Kennedy’s plans to come to Dallas and of his route through the city. Fred Graham correctly states in the New York Times of August 28th that “Oswald got his job at the School Book Depository on October 15th, amonth before anybody knew there would be a Presidential motorcade.”
But the Report tells us that the Dallas Times-Herald of September 13th stated that Kennedy was to visit Dallas; that both Dallas papers on September 26th (the date of the Odio episode) confirmed Kennedy’s plan to visit the city and indicated the event would take place on either November 21 or November 22 (Report, p. 40). Thereafter there was much comment about Kennedy’s impending visit in the papers, especially after the violent incidents that occurred during Adlai Stevenson’s visit on
October 24th. On November 8th (when second Oswald was seen in the grocery store and the barbershop, and when real Oswald’s location is not known) the plans for the visit were confirmed in the newspaper.
The Report also points out that the traditional parade route is down Main Street, which anyone could have figured out would bring Kennedy within one block of the Book Depository; after Main Street, the procession was to go on to the Trade Mart. This route was mentioned in the Dallas Times-Herald on November 16th, and a detailed plan of the route,including the fateful turn onto Houston and Elm, appeared in both papers on the 19th. Thus, the second Oswald might have been planning his
moves on the basis of the information about the Kennedy visit that he found in the press. We don’t know how well informed Oswald was about the President’s visit. Oswald apparently read other people’s newspapers in the lunchroom at the Book Depository, often a day later. When his wife asked him on the 21st where the parade was going to be, he professed no knowledge of the subject.
_________________
Out With Bill Shelley In Front.
Permissions in this forum:
You cannot reply to topics in this forum|
|
|