The Straus Family

As revealed in Lee Harvey Oswald's Cold War, this is a family who well and truly slipped under the radar. 

Post contains some information and speculation that did not make it into the book.

Oscar Straus
Fred Lavanburg was the brother-in-law of Oscar Straus. Staus was Secretary of Commerce and Labor which incorporated the Bureau of Immigration. The flood-gates through Ellis Island would not be opened on Straus's watch. Under Straus, excludability extended to persons with epilepsy, tuberculosis, trachoma, two bouts of insanity, various categories of mental retardation, and to anarchists, professional beggars, former deportees, and prostitutes. 

Since the book came out, I have also discovered that Straus was instrumental in assisting Hay in his Panama games. 
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/39144/39144-h/39144-h.htm


Roger Straus
The son of Oscar was the President of the Lavenburg Foundation. Fred Lavenburg died soon after appointing RS as president. The Foundation would concern itself with the problems of immigration. This entailed control of ethnic groups and the process of "Americanizing" them. One group though, needed special attention. East Europeans, particularly Jews, who may harbor traces of socialism, communism or a multitude of other isms. This problem was resolved by building them their own housing estate which would be operated by the foundation under the watchful eye of an Estate Manager named Nathaniel Goldfeld. Although unproven in this particular case, such estates historically ran their own network of informants. One of the families housed in this estate during WWII was the Rosenbergs. Goldfeld in fact had acted as a reference for Julius Rosenberg to help him gain civilian employment with the Army Signal Corps. 

The other control/Americanization issue was with the children of these immigrants. It was difficult to Americanize them if they were not attending their daily dose of propaganda schooling. The children of immigrants had the worst of the worst school attendance records. 

One solution was to introduce the doctrine now common in Western culture of Parens Patriae - giving the State the inherent right to take a child into care. This opened up opportunities for a charitable fund like the Lavenburg Foundation to build and fund somewhere to house such children. Thus was born the Hanavah Lavanburg Home for Working Girls - which in 1940 morphed into Youth House for boys. 

Roger Straus, Jr 
The son of Roger Straus. He was co-founder of publishing firm Farrer, Straus & Giroux. This firm was the publisher of E. Howard Hunt's pulp fiction. Straus and Farrer were interviewed by the FBI in relation to Hunt obtaining a security clearance for work in the European Recovery Program under Harriman. This work however was merely cover for the CIA. As shown elsewhere in this forum, Hunt most likely came to know Dallas White Russian, Paul Raigorodsky during his time in Europe https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t148-did-paul-raigorodsky-know-e-howard-hunt . Farrer and Straus told the FBI that Hunt would make "an excellent United States Government employee" and that they could vouch for his "character, loyalty and associates.”

Donald B Straus 
Was a cousin to Roger, Jr. Donald rented a holiday home on Naushon Island where the Paines regularly vacationed. Ruth Paine visited the island before going to pick up Marina in New Orleans.  http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=351851

Abraham & Straus Department Store
This was owned by the father and uncle of Donald Straus - Isador and Nathan Straus.  It employed Albertina White - the wife of George Hunter White. This store was just down the road from Martin's Department Store where Marguerite was working, and it has been established by other writers that Albertina frequented both Martin's and Lerner's (another employee of Marguerite). When one considers that White was staying at the same hotel in New Orleans as Edwin Ekdahl at the time Ekdahl was hot to trot for Margie baby and that Margie was working at the Algier's Naval Base while White was visiting such bases in the South testing marijuana on suspected com-symps - it all becomes a bit much for me to swallow as mere happenstance. Also note that Marguerite was "talked into" dating naval personnel and take them out "all night". Shades of White's Operation Midnight Climax?

Nathan Straus III
Grandson of Nathan. In 1971, he headed a  "private" group called "The American Friends of a Free Haiti" which included Leon Cherne. Cherne had headed the CIA front, The International Rescue Committee".  
   
The Staus family-->Youth House-->Rosenergs-->CIA-->Paines
http://www.amazon.com/Harvey-Oswalds-Cold-Assassination-Reinvestigated-ebook/dp/B00IXOA5ZK/ref=la_B00IXYONKI_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397479463&sr=1-1

It starts out with Oscar Straus and Ellis island and concern over East European refugees and immigrants and comes almost full circle with John Pic marrying the daughter of east European immigrants and performing intelligence work on Ellis Island at the time his younger half-brother is brought to live with him. And at a time when the Port Security Unit was recruiting like crazy and taking short-cuts and opening up the criteria for employment in order to fill the perceived urgent need... John Pic was granted one or two weeks leave (he couldn't remember which) so he could show his kid brother around the Big Apple. Room in the apartment is only available because Pic's mother-in-law (who owned the apartment) decided to go and stay with one of her other daughters for a while. 

After the assassination, a multitude of reasons are proffered for the cause of the trip east - none of them entirely plausible (that is to say, they are probably semi-plausible), with one witness post-assassination claiming it was to give Lee mental tests at a hospital not at that time even in existence.

Post-assassination, we can also trace the development of the cover story for Lee and Marguerite moving out of the Pic apartment - the infamous knife story. LHOCW destroys that story. It served to give the appearance of ill-will between Lee and Pic and therefore no "connection" in the intervening years. That too is BS. Lee provided two names to the USMC as beneficiaries should he die in service. Marguerite and Pic. The one NOT named was Robert. 

It follows that there was a reason for Marge and Lee moving out of that apartment that we are not supposed to know about. 

It is just a month prior to Lee turning 13 and he is moved from a private Lutheran school to a public school. His truanting does not commence until he actually turns 13. Their new address is not all that far from where Edwin Ekdahl is working. Ekdahl likely knew the Superintendent of NY schools, William Jansen (see LHOCW) and this was all happening in the middle of a number of inquiries into communist infiltration of public schools - including one being run by Jansen. As a result of all this, there were more informants, professional witnesses, union infiltrators and provocateurs than you could poke a stick at. Anyone who thinks that no one would ever use kids as informants needs to just spend a few minutes googling. In some jurisdictions, there is a minimum age requirement of 13 for such "employment". 

The result of the truanting? Lee goes to Youth House, and we have come full circle in the Straus Waltz.       

Post YH, he starts attending school more regularly, but begins a pattern of provocative behavior including a refusal to salute the flag - a refusal which saw others end up in court to determine the right of a school to enforce such behavior. In those cases, the refusal was on religious grounds, and so it was known from the start that the root cause was NOT anti-Americanism or Pro-Communism. In Lee's case, they do not know why he is refusing, and they do no not ask why he is refusing (or at least nothing is noted in Lee's records indicating either of these things). In the middle of a Cold War, in the midst of raging paranoia about communist infiltration of schools, that nothing is asked about Lee's apparent lack of respect for US symbols of patriotism, is IMO, what is telling. It smells like the actions of a provocateur - and known to be by the school principal.

Interesting info Greg. It seems from the research you have done that Oswald was at the very least sculpted by the relevant experiences of his youth or perhaps the people around him. His later enchantment with Herbert Philbrick, his provocative actions in the Marines, his Marxist appearance on television, his pro and anti Cuban activities. The conflicting actions that led to his attempted defection and revocation of citizenship, the U.S. government's allowing him and his family's return and loaning him the money to do so. The many officially documented interactions with Agency and Bureau personnel and subsequent denials that followed. If the conspirators sought a a nearly perfect dupe with a history of provocative actions, no finer example in modern history exists, in my view. I look forward to reading your book.

What was a resettlement house?
http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/settlement-houses/

Ruth also testified to this:

Mr. JENNER - Now, these cooperative studies, my information indicates that in the first quarter of 1950, that is, January through March, you were recreation instructor and a leader in the Jewish community at Indianapolis, Ind. 
Mrs. PAINE - That is correct. 
Mr. JENNER - And do I correctly summarize in capsule form the nature of your work at the Jewish Community Center in Indianapolis? 
Mrs. PAINE - Yes. 
Mr. JENNER - That is recreation instructor and leader? 
Mrs. PAINE - Yes. 
Mr. JENNER - Then in the summer of 1950 you were a camp counselor at Big Eagle Camp at Indianapolis, Ind.? 
---------------------------

Housing, cooperative movements and Americanization (resettlement) of German Jews arriving because of the war... all of paramount importance to the Lavanburg foundation and to the Straus family going back to Oscar. Nathan would end up right in the thick of it all. 

The cooperative movement was seen as essential to the rehabilitation of Jews affected by the war.

http://www.visit-newyork-online.com/new_york_city_guide.htm (talks about New York settlement houses and the Lavanburg Homes)

http://search.archives.jdc.org/multimedia/Documents/NY_AR2132/00025/NY_AR2132_02905.pdf (shows various members of the Straus family heavily involvement in resettlement, reconstruction and cooperative movement)

And as shown in Lee Harvey Oswald's Cold War, this movement was also big with Ekdahl and his sister who even wrote a book on the subject. Also with the Hydes in general - as is well known, William Hyde spread the cooperative movement through USAID.

Another little snippet on Nathan Straus
 

I am convinced that the Hydes, Ekdahls and Strauses all knew each other and worked toward the same goals.

What about Ruth's involvement with YMHA Young Men's Hebrew Assassination while in college?