Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War

Fri 08 Dec 2017, 11:58 am

Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War

The research has never stopped, and additional material developed since publication is provided here. This will be added to future editions of these volumes.

Edwin Ekdahl
Edward Ekdahl’s potted bio:
·         Born Boston, September 26, 1895
·         Engineering degree from MIT 1916
·         World War I service
·         Aid work for NY Lutheran operated Society of Inner Mission and Rescue up to 1919. The work involved arranging alleged holidays with parishioners in rural areas for underprivileged children. The Gettysburg Times notes that year that the demand for girls outstripped what could be supplied due to parental refusal to allow their daughters to take part
·         Moves to China in 1919 to work for Amos Bird & Co (a canning company) in Shanghai and marries Danish national Rasmina
·         Has a son whom they name Dewey – it is likely this is after psychologist and philosopher John Dewey who is also living in China at the time
·         Date of return to the US is unknown but the family is listed in the 1940 census as living in New York
·         The Hydes likewise are listed in the 1940 census as living in New York. Daughter Ruth is the same age as Dewey Ekdahl. William Hyde takes Ruth to Socialist Party rallies headed by Norman Thomas. The Hydes, the Ekdahls and Norman Thomas and John Dewey are all heavily involved in the Cooperative Movement. They would also all have anti-communism in common. These facts combined lead to the distinct possibility that they all knew each other. In fact, at the very least, Thomas and Dewey knew each other very well.
·         By this time Ekdahl is employed by Ebasco, an electrical engineering and project company with government contracts in nuclear energy
·         It can be stated here that the nuclear spy ring is made up largely of Electrical Engineers including Julius Rosenberg himself. Other electric engineers involved include Martin Sobell. Sobell works for Ebasco parent company General Electric.
Note: I am not advocating that Ekdahl was part of the spy ring but that the possibility exists that he knew one or more of them, with that knowledge becoming useful at some stage, or even that he was an informant against one or more of them. It is known that while married to Marguerite Oswald, they travelled around because of his work and that this travel did place them in the same locations where some of the spy meetings were taking place, including Santa Fe.

Overview of “A Spy's Guide to Santa Fe and Albuquerque”
When thinking of New Mexico, few Americans think spy-vs.-spy intrigue, but in fact, to many international intelligence operatives, the state's name is nearly synonymous with espionage, and Santa Fe is a sacred site. The KGB's single greatest intelligence and counterintelligence coups, and the planning of the organization's most infamous assassination, all took place within one mile of Bishop Lamy's statue in front of Saint Francis Cathedral in central Santa Fe.

The assassination referred to above was that of Leon Trotsky. Michael Paine’s father had once stood as a Socialist Worker Party (SWP) candidate for the Council of Manhattan – the party which he would later help split through Trotskyist factionalism, and which the Hydes and (probably) Ekdahls had supported. Parenthetically (and perhaps also paradoxically, perhaps not), Michael Paine’s mother was friends with Mary Bancroft who would go on to be recruited by the OSS in WWII and have an affair with future head of the CIA, Alan Dulles. Both Bancroft and Dulles would become entangled in a plot to assassinate Hitler.

Note that Paine is campaigning on keeping the US out of WWII as per SWP policy at that time.
The SWP in New York circa 1940 may in fact lead to a connection between not just the Hydes and Ekdahls, but also put the Paines into the mix. In fact, such connections could be the very reason that both Mike and Ruth claimed such poor memory of the politics of their parents during this period.

From Marguerite’s testimony:
That was all the money I had from Mr. Ekdahl, and when we traveled, for instance, we were in Santa Fe, N. Mex., and he was with all the businessmen…

From the Smithsonian Magazine
“When Klaus Fuchs confessed in January 1950, his revelations would lead to the arrest of the man to whom he had passed the atomic secrets in New Mexico, even though the courier had used an alias. Harry Gold, a 39-year-old Philadelphia chemist had been ferrying stolen information, mainly from American industries, to the Soviets since 1935. When the FBI found a map of Santa Fe in Gold's home, he panicked and told all.”

Edwin only has eyes for Marguerite
Ekdahl left his wife and child in New York sometime in 1942 for the southern states and began his New Orleans pursuit of Marguerite Oswald.

The circumstances and timing of the meeting between the two are somewhat clouded by differing accounts. Without going into the details and the evidence, it is my opinion that they met while Marguerite was working at Algiers Naval Base – a job she never mentioned to the FBI or WC but was discussed in her biography by author Jean Stafford. It’s possible it wasn’t mentioned prior simply because the base itself was not her employer – that she was working for a private company on the base. If so, then it was probably Pittsburgh Plate Glass – an employee she was known to have, though the location of the employment was never raised.

It is also possible that Ekdahl had a hand in getting the kids into the Lutheran Orphanage given his past association with Lutheran mission work in New York with kids.

Meanwhile there are question marks over some of Marguerite’s addresses throughout this period. Two addresses she gave a doctor for example, were unable to be confirmed by the FBI. However, one of those addresses – the one on Atlantic Ave did contain a family of Oswalds – headed by 80 years old Bob Oswald who may or may not have been related to our Oswalds. The FBI simply failed to investigate that possibility. I suspect that Marguerite was already living with Ekdahl and that she had given phony (mail only?) addresses to hide this since they were not married.

Today this may be considered a pre-marriage trial period. In the end, Marguerite rejected him and he went to stay at the Roosevelt Hotel – where CIA asset George Hunter White was headquartered while he and his team toured Southern Bases testing marijuana as a truth drug. The Algiers Naval Base would be one of those bases since it was so close by.

In the end, Ekdahl’s sister Elvira came down and talked Marguerite into marrying her brother, as discussed by Albert Jenner with Marguerite’s friend, Myrtle Evans.

Mr. JENNER - His sister came down from Boston, is that right, to sort of see how he was getting along here, is that correct?
Mrs. EVANS - That's right. I guess that's what prompted her to come down here, because he had had this trouble, and I guess she was concerned about him.
Mr. JENNER - And that courtship between him and Marguerite ripened into marriage then; is that right?
Mrs. EVANS - Yes.
Mr. JENNER - Did Ekdahl's sister approve of Marguerite?
Mrs. EVANS - Oh, yes; she wanted her to marry Ekdahl, and before she went back to Boston, Margie made her a promise that she would look after him.
Mr. JENNER - Then Margie moved to Texas with Mr. Ekdahl; is that right?
Mrs. EVANS - Yes, sir.

The whole deal with this was bizarre on the surface of it. Ekdahl was a married man, very comfortably off financially and not in the best of health. He separated from his wife and son, moved to New Orleans and allegedly became infatuated with a struggling widow with three kids. Even more bizarre is that the Secret Service – not the FBI – was asked by the Warren Commission to find evidence that Edwin had divorced Rasmina, but the search proved fruitless in Dallas and Tarrant Counties. On advice from Robert Oswald that Ekdahl was from Boston, a search was made of the Suffolk Superior Court Probate records which also proved negative. It appears that they never did divorce and the marriage to Marguerite was bigamous. Indeed, Edwin and Elvira ended up being buried side by side.

After the marriage and subsequent temporary periods of separation from Marguerite we get yet more story twists. The Fort Worth school records contain two records showing that Edwin Ekdahl was the “father” of Lee with no mother listed during his time at Lily. B Clayton Elementary and at his next school, George C Clark Elementary.

On the face of it, those records indicate that Lee was in the sole care of Edwin Ekdahl between January 29, 1947 and June 2, 1948. The dates used here represent the start date at the first school and the exit date for the second. Edwin was granted the divorce on June 24.

The wedding itself, as shown, seems to have been a bigamous one. Moreover, Marguerite seems to have been specially targeted for this marriage, sight unseen, for purposes not yet exposed.

Was the divorce (required to extinguish even a bigamous marriage) therefore nothing but an indicator that this hidden purpose had been achieved, or had failed? In any event, a divorce here would require some disregard of the legal requirements for annulment.

Following is an excerpt from the article “Systemic Lying” by Julia Simon-Kerr. This part of the article looks at systemic lying in court during divorce proceedings to get around the need to find “fault”. It references the era preceding “no-fault” divorce. I have emboldened relevant passages.

In response to fault requirements that seemed out of step with social beliefs and the wishes of an increasing number of couples seeking divorce, a familiar pattern emerged. Divorce seekers began to “perjure themselves in order to have their marriage[s] dissolved.” Couples either went to a state where they could more easily obtain a divorce, made a “fabricated statement of domiciliary intention” in order to gain citizenship in the state and then petitioned for divorce in that state, or they made out a case for divorce in their home jurisdiction by “perjuring themselves as to . . . the conduct of their spouses.” As a law professor put it in the New York Times, “Americans adjust to strict divorce laws in either of two ways: by running away from them (seeking out-of-state or foreign divorces) or by staying at home and resorting to collusion and fraud.” Both responses to strict divorce regimes present examples of systemic lying. Litigants, attorneys, judges and often paid witnesses cooperated in maintaining and accepting the lies that facilitated fault divorces in large numbers of cases in which no actual fault, or alternatively no jurisdiction over the case, existed. This lying became routine and was done across cases (and states) all for the same reason: to obtain a legal divorce when one would otherwise not be available. These practices became an accepted and acknowledged feature of the U.S. divorce system. Couples with sufficient means who lived in states with relatively strict divorce regimes could leave the state for a short period, comply with facial domiciliary requirements in a state with a less strict fault regime, such as residence for six weeks, falsely swear that they intended to remain in the state, and obtain a divorce from courts fully aware that the whole enterprise was a charade. In Nevada, for example, a popular state for migratory divorces because of its relaxed fault grounds, a divorce plaintiff, in addition to meeting the six-week residency requirement, would be asked if it was still his or her present intention “to live here indefinitely and make Nevada your home?” Affirmative answers would go unchallenged, “even if the plaintiff leaves Nevada the day after receiving a decree.” These so-called “migratory divorces” were all the more appealing because several states allowed for an uncontested divorce requiring the presence of only one spouse.  If a couple did not have the means or time to leave a state with a strict fault regime, their best option was to fabricate fault. In New York, for example, a de facto regime developed under which “all that is required [to obtain a divorce] is proof that the defendant was found in a room with a person of the opposite sex (who need not be identified beyond the positive fact that such person was not the husband or wife of the defendant).” An industry arose involving private detective agencies who hired women who would “arrange to be found in bed in the same room as the newly arrived defendant.” The industry was profiled in a 1949-1954 report of the New York County District Attorney describing “a woman who played the role of a correspondent in scores of arranged hotel raids.” Another report that looked at testimony in divorce cases between 1929-1933 identified a “surprising state of undress in which the defendant and co-respondent are generally found.” A smaller study looking at 104 undefended divorce cases in New York revealed that “close relationships” existed between the defendant and witnesses for the complainant in 81 of those cases. Yet another report from a New York County Grand Jury Presentment found that “widespread fraud, perjury, collusion and connivance pervade matrimonial actions of every type.” Judges presiding over divorce cases were aware that perjury was routine. One New York Supreme Court Judge described the prototypical divorce case as follows: “[s]he is always in a sheer pink robe. It is never blue – always pink. And he is always in his shorts when they catch him.” Nevertheless, courts accommodated those seeking divorces on trumped up fault grounds by not demanding rigorous proof and ignoring clear indicators that the participants lacked credibility. Many factors made it obvious that divorce proceedings often involved collusion, fraud, and perjury, including the large number of uncontested cases, the large percentage of unnamed co-respondents, the large numbers of defendants and hotel room women who opened the door while scantily clothed, the commonplace of the defendant’s friend testifying against him, and the “unusually short period commonly intervening between the alleged adultery and the service of process.” Sworn complaints alleging adultery and evidence to the effect that “a man and a woman who are not married [were] found together in a hotel bedroom” were accepted “despite the fact that in many cases the court is probably not actually deceived.”

From Marguerite Oswald’s testimony. Again, relevant sections have been bolded:

So, I called his office, I was familiar with, knew his secretary, and I was going to tell her that Mr. Ekdahl would be delayed 3 or 4 days. But immediately she said, "Mrs. Ekdahl, Mr. Ekdahl is not in, he has gone out to lunch."

So, I said, the general conversation went "When will he be back" and so on, and so that evening 1 took the car and I went to the Texas Electric Co., works for the Ebasco, the main office in New York, but he was working in Fort Worth at the time, went to the building and saw him leave the building and I followed him and to an apartment house, saw him go into this apartment house.

Then I went back home, and my oldest son, John Edward Pic, who is in the service, had a friend at the house who was about 2 years older. I told them about what happened. So it was night by this time. The kids went with me.

I called Mr. John McClain, who is an attorney, and we live next door to Mr. McClain, and told him that I had seen Mr. Ekdahl go into a home when he was supposed to be out of town and what should I do.

He said, "Mrs. Oswald, just ring the phone. Do you know the woman?"
And I said, "Yes."

"Just ring the phone and let him know that you know he is there, that you saw him." After I thought about it I thought that is not a good idea because he could leave and say he was just there on business and I wanted to catch him there.

So the kids and I planned that we would say she had a telegram, so we went up the stairs, I believe it was the second or the third floor, and the young man knocked on the door and said, "Telegram for Mrs. Clary"--was her name.

She said, "Please push it under the door" and I told him no; he said, "No, you have to sign for it."

So with that she opened the door to sign for it and with that I, my son, and with the other young man walked into the room and Mrs. Clary had on a negligee, and my husband had his sleeves rolled up and his tie off sitting on a sofa, and he said, "Marguerite, Marguerite, you have everything wrong, you have everything wrong."

Who was this other woman named as “Mrs. Clary”? She was the mother of Fred Clary, a friend of Robert Oswald! We are expected to believe then that this mother of a boy the same age as Robert was lounging around in a negligee with a partially dressed Ekdahl in the early evening? Unfortunately, we never got to find out what color Mrs. Clary’s negligee was because Edwin decided to take a different tack and filed for divorce before Marguerite – a decision which would severely cut any win-fall Marguerite may have otherwise obtained. In the end, the divorce was granted after Ekdahl’s lawyer, Fred Korth, paraded a series of witnesses, none of whom Marguerite had previously met, but who all swore that Marguerite had treated Edwin very badly indeed!

The marriage was a sham. The divorce was a sham. The eldest boys were kept away in orphanages and boarding schools. School records indicate that Ekdahl had sole care of Lee for around 18 months leading up to the divorce.

If all those points are valid, we can speculate that the hidden purpose of the marriage was to give Edwin Ekdahl access to young Lee, though this too, would be for purposes unknown.

And it presents yet another problem. If Ekdahl came to New Orleans specifically to marry Marguerite to in turn obtain access to Lee, how did he find out about her and Lee in the first place? If these lines of inquiry have any validity, this question cannot be ignored.

More inter-connections
As it happens, there is a possible answer. Lee Oswald had an aunt on his father’s side, Hattie, who had married a wealthy New Orleans businessman named James Coker. The following research on Coker was by a trusted correspondent who requires anonymity for professional reasons. His work is quoted here as it was sent to me.

Coker was a partner in the Wall Street firm, E. A. Pierce (forerunner of Merrill Lynch) from 1935 until 1940. After that he became a member of the New York Cocoa Exchange, and soon after joined the Agricultural Marketing Administration. I am wondering if this move may have been associated with Nelson Rockefeller's appointment as Co-ordinator of Inter-American Affairs. One of the goals of that office was the control and stockpiling of Latin American commodities -- and of course, cocoa would qualify in this respect.  Coker was already a member of the Cotton Exchange.

Interestingly, one of E. A. Pierce's clients was William F Buckley, Sr -- and his Pantepec Oil firm. I am wondering if Coker may have known Buckley.  In fact, two of Coker's partners -- Edward A. Pierce and Joseph Hendrix Himes -- were very close to Buckley and were in fact among the directors of Pantepec. Buckley was president and Pierce was vice president of the firm.

Joseph Himes was, furthermore, a member of the New York Cotton Exchange -- another reason he would have been close to Coker.

But most interesting of all, Joseph Himes turns out to have been a long-time board member of General Dynamics Corporation. In fact, during the 1950s he sat on the board with Frank Pace, who would later head the firm, and would have known people such as Mason Lankford, Max Clark, I B Hale, etc.

Of course, the official story is that James and Hattie Coker had nothing whatsoever to do with Marguerite, Lee and family. But the connections are interesting.

Sidney Souers was a Naval Reserves Intelligence Officer for 8 years until 1940. In 1945, he became Deputy Chief of Naval Intelligence and in the following year, was first Director of the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), soon to morph into the CIA. Souers had lived for many years in New Orleans where he was involved in banking, real estate, mortgages and insurance. But he had also been Vice President of the New Orleans Dock Board where he would have become acquainted with Adolfo Hegewisch who passed his freight forwarding company on to his understudy, Gerald F Tujague. Also interesting is the identity of the person who was Dock Board president above Souers. His name was Edward S. Butler – grandfather to Ed Butler of INCA fame. Souers cited Butler as a “close personal friend” as his reason for not taking his place as president, though urged to by Huey Long. Finally, Souers has been connected to Joseph H. Himes, partner of James Coker and Edward A. Pierce through board membership of the Piggly Wiggly Company.

Himes himself is of no less interest - and not only for his board membership of General Dynamics. He got on board the Military Industrial Complex in its infancy. He was also publisher of the Army and Navy Journal.

Although unproven, it is more than possible that Hattie and James Coker ran in the same circles as the Paines, Hydes and Ekdahls.

The common denominator may again be the SWP/Norman/Dewey connections.
This excerpt is from “Offensive Intelligence: An Epistemic Community in the Transition from Cold War Liberalism to Neoconservatism” a thesis by Tom Griffin of the University of Bath. I have bolded the most relevant parts.

Josselson had worked in psychological warfare in the US army during the war before joining OMGUS and later the US High Commission (Saunders, 1999, p.12). Some months after the Tagliche Rundschau’s attack, in the autumn of 1948, he joined the CIA’s new covert action arm, the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) (Saunders, 1999, p.42).

Josselson’s work would soon involve him in countering communist propaganda in the United States itself. On 25 March 1949, he was in New York for the Cominform’s Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace, where with the help of David Dubinsky, he funded a group of intellectuals who sought to subvert the conference at the Waldorf Astoria, and who subsequently held a rally at Freedom House (Saunders, 1999, pp.54-55).

Calling itself Americans for Intellectual Freedom, this group was led by the philosopher Sydney Hook, who had founded the Committee for Cultural Freedom in the late 1930s.

Two points:
·         Michael Paine recalled David Dubinsky during his testimony
·         Sidney Hook had co-founded the Committee for Cultural Freedom with John Dewey
It can also be noted that Souers had set up the Office of Strategic Operations (OSO). James Angleton became its Deputy Director in 1951.

Meanwhile the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) mentioned in the excerpt, was formed by Frank Wisner. In simple terms, OSO collected intelligence while OPC was involved in subversion. Two sides of one coin. Flipping that coin was Kim Philby.

The Committee for Cultural Freedom had aims that reflect some of the apparent thinking of people like Mike Paine and Lee Oswald in later years. This is from the above link:

The Committee for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was an American political organization active from 1939 to 1951 which advocated opposition to the totalitarianism of both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in foreign affairs, and promoted pro-democratic reforms in public and private institutions domestically. Co-founded by influential philosopher and educator John Dewey and the anti-Soviet Marxist academic Sidney Hook, it was reorganized in January 1951 into the American Committee for Cultural Freedom.

The Committee for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was founded on May 14, 1939. The genesis of the CCF was a disagreement among communists, socialists, leftists, and centrists in the United States over the value of forming a popular front and the need for violence, revolution, and dictatorship in establishing a more just society. Many American far left-wing intellectuals in the 1920s and 1930s were Trotskyists who believed in democracy and were opposed to the totalitarianism advocated by Joseph Stalin and Stalinism. The CCF was an attempt by John Dewey and other leftists to break with what they argued was the totalitarianism of the Communist Party USA and "cleanse" left-wing politics to make it more palatable to the mainstream of American voters. But the goals of the group's founders were not uniform on this. Dewey saw the CCF as an independent organization. Hook saw the CCF as a means of undermining the popular front. Dewey believed that he could persuade other left-wing organizations to give up their belief in revolution and dictatorship and join with the CCF in promoting leftist ideals.[8] Hook secretly worked against him in these negotiations. The CCF's statement of purpose was signed by 96 intellectuals in May 1939. However, it did not hold its first meeting until October 1939.

The Committee for Cultural Freedom was also in lock-step with the Cooperative Movement insofar as they were both seen as part of the wider Socialist and Labor movements and crossed paths at various junctures.

Sidney Hook among others, however were Cultural Warriors for the intelligence community. It was out of this Trotskyist milieu that the Neoconservative movement sprang.

Fred Korth
Fred Korth’s potted bio:
·         Born in Yorktown, Texas September 9 1909
·         Obtain law degree at George Washington University in 1935
·         Married September 12, 1934 separated soon after the assassination and finally divorced in 1966
·         Had 4 children – one – Verita – committed suicide via 20 gage shot-gun on May 1 1969 in her home in Austin Texas. She was married to lawyer and banker Alex Sheshunoff.
·         Lieutenant colonel Air Transport Command, Army of the United States, 1942-1946.
·         Partner in Wallace and Korth 1946 – 1951
·         Acted as divorce lawyer for Edwin Ekdahl against Marguerite Oswald. Ekdahl at the time was working out of the Texas Electric Service Company (TESCO) Building at 408 West Seventh St. At 411 West Seventh was the office of Wallace and Korth. I have not been able to pin down what, if any area of law Korth specialized in, but it’s hard to imagine a future Secretary of the Navy being a divorce lawyer, so it seems likely, his acting for Ekdahl in this matter would be a little unusual. Fred’s brother Romeo provides another link as he was heavily involved in the Rural Electrification Program and was president of the Texas Electric Cooperative.
·         Deputy Counsellor, Department, of the Army 1951-1952
·         Assistant Secretary of Army for Manpower & Reserve Affairs 1952-1953. This position was elevated in prominence at the time Korth took over the role because of the issues coming out of the Korean War. He left the post due to a change in White House admonistration but remained a consultant in these areas until 1960
·          Executive Vice-President Continental National Bank, Fort Worth 1953-1959
·         President Continental National Bank, Fort Worth 1959-1962
·         Director of Bell Aerospace and also Director of the Panama Canal Company 1961
·         Secretary of the Navy Jan 4, 1962 – Nov 1, 1963. Was forced to resign because of the growing scandal over the TFX contract given to General Dynamics and because he had used Secretary of the Navy letterhead to invite “extra good customers” of the Continental National Bank for what amounted to a joy ride on the Navy’s official yacht, the Sequoia
·         Korth was also a trustee of Meridian International Center in Washington. It was one of those Department of State-NGO-private sector hybrids which provided a lot of cover for CIA activity
We are far from finished with Fred Korth and will return to him later.

John Pic
John Pic’s potted bio:
·         Half-brother to Lee Oswald and the eldest of Marguerite’s 3 sons
·         Married Marge Furhman who was born in NY to Hungarian immigrant parents
·         Joined the Coast Guard in January 1950
·         After boot camp, was attached to CG Cutter Rockaway May 1950 to Jan 1951
·         Jan 1951 to June 1951 was at CG Training Station on Groton Conn.
·         From June 1951 until January 1952, I was stationed at U.S. Coast Guard Base, St. George, Staten Island, N.Y.
·         From January 1952 until April 1952, was stationed at U.S. Naval Training Station, Bainbridge, Md. This was during a major outbreak of streptococcal infection on the base which was being investigated by the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board under Charles Rammelkamp. Also studying the outbreak were bacteriologists from Fort Detrick’s biological warfare unit. Recall that this team had commenced under the leadership of Alwin Pappenheimer, Harvard bacteriologist and uncle by marriage to Michael Paine. I do not believe he was still in that position in 1952, but have not been able to verify it one way or the other. Bottom line though is, he was a leading expert in this field, so his involvement in the work at Bainbridge would hardly surprise.
·         April 1952 until February 1953, was stationed at U.S. Coast Guard PSU, which is Port Security Unit, Ellis Island, N.Y.

From “Security Isn’t Free”, a 2002 article from Naval History Magazine:

The port security mission dates to the beginning of the 20th century, but the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 presented a different challenge. President Harry S. Truman directed the U.S. Coast Guard not only to increase its patrols of the nation's harbors, but also to eliminate risks from suspected communist merchant seamen and waterfront workers. The number of those "weeded out" probably was greater than the toll of victims in any other loyalty or security program of the day. Yet this aspect of the Coast Guard Port Security Program attracted little attention at the time and receives little attention to this day… [the Coast Guard would determine], on the basis of information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), who in the Merchant Marine were security risks.

Pic commenced in this role in April 1952. Lee Oswald and Marguerite came to live with him in August of that year. Lee was still only 12 years old. Immediately following his 13th birthday is when we see Lee start to become a truant. His truancy ended around the time Pic concluded his time at the PSU.

What was the reason Marguerite and Lee moved to NY in the first place – there are a number offered up, but one is most intriguing. It comes from Marguerite’s friend Myrtle Evans:

Mrs. EVANS - He [Ekdahl] was very high caliber, a very fine man, and he had a very fine position. The papers said she was dragged from pillar to post, but that wasn't true. It was his work that took them to places. That's why she went to New York, because of his position. He didn't drag her from pillar to post at all. I don't know what happened to them then, because I didn't see them again.

Ekdahl had indeed moved back to New York to work out of Ebasco head office – which happened to be at 2 Rector St – less than 8 miles from John Pic’s apartment on East 92nd St. He died in January 1953, only 5 months after Lee and Marguerite arrived.
Potted Pic bio continued:
·         February 1953 until September 1953, was stationed aboard the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Firebush.
·         September 1953 until April 1954 stationed at US Naval Hospital Portsmouth, Va.
·         Apr ’54 to Jan ’56 on the Cutter Halfmoon
·         Joined the USAF and stationed at Mitchel AFB on Long Island Oct 1958
·         10 November 1958 until 17 July 1962 stationed at Tachikawa, Japan
·         From Aug 1962 stationed at Wilford Hall Air Force Hospital, Lackland Air Force Base where he was non-commissioned officer in charge of the Special Procedures Branch, Department of Pathology

Thanksgiving 1962 saw Pic drive his family to Robert’s place for what was purported to be a family reunion (minus Marguerite), but there was no shortage of strangeness about this get-together either. Pic brought with him a note-book he used to record mileage. This is most often done to claim travel expenses for work related trips and indeed, Pic did record the mileage from Lackland AFB to Fort Worth. But his notebook was also used to have a written conversation with Marina – making notes to each other on the subjects they had most in common – drugs and pathology – Marina having been a qualified pharmacist back in Minsk. I’m assuming that’s not a normal discussion for Thanksgiving. The nature of the notes and the recording of the mileage for the trip (indicative of the trip being work-related) leads me to suspect that this get-together was more of a debrief than a reunion.

Sylvia Hyde Hoke
Hoke was employed by the US Department of Labor 1949 – 1953 – which was during the height of CIA recruitment of anti-Communist Labor leaders from across the globe, making this department a hive of intelligence activity.

She was employed as a Personnel Research Technician in the Placement and Employee Relations Division of the Army under the Director of Civilian Personnel. This however, was just cover. Her real employer by now – if not before – was the CIA. Her employment in this position has been relatively well known. What was not known was the location or nature of the employment. This information was hiding in plain sight on the web in a series of technical reports from the Human Resources Research Organization based at Fred Korth’s alma mater, George Washington University. Recall that Korth, during this period, was a consultant to the Army on manpower issues, so it is not inconceivable that at some stage, he was literally peering over her shoulder. What is utterly incredible though, was the nature of the research being undertaken. It was on manpower issues concerning the FICON project, one of 2 or 3 precursor programs to the much better known U2 program. The focus was on maintenance and repair and the work appears to have been wound up in September 1956 – just prior to Oswald joining the Marines requesting assignment in – you guessed it - aircraft maintenance and repair. This was also around the same time that the U2 was first used. After placing only 46th out 54 in maintenance and repair, Oswald was transferred to study radar and aircraft surveillance. On what basis this transfer was made, eludes me. In any case, he went from maintenance and repair of aircraft – potentially reconnaissance aircraft - to using radar to track reconnaissance aircraft in the form of the U2.

Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War Pic1

Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War Pic2

Though Gary Powers and his U2 took off from Pakistan in its final flight over the Soviet Union in May 1960, the plane was based at Atsugi in 1957.

Sylvia Hoke was living near CIA headquarters when visited by her sister Ruth Paine in September 1963 on that circuitous journey to pick up Marina Oswald in New Orleans and take her to Irving.

The Rosenbergs
Julius Rosenberg was born in NY in 1918. He became interested in politics at 15 (https://books.google.com.au/books?id=8g6JU4hTJ2AC&lpg=PA87&dq=julius%20rosenberg%20street%20fifteen%20mooney&pg=PA87#v=onepage&q&f=true) when, on a New York street corner, he was given some pamphlets on framed unionist Tom Mooney. Eventually he joined the Young Communist League. The story about Lee Oswald turning to Marxism at 15 after being given a pamphlet on the Rosenberg case has been lifted straight from this incident, first written about by Julius himself in his letters from prison.

The tale with Lee as the pamphlet receiver came from Aline Mosby in a story published post-assassination and allegedly based in notes made while interviewing Lee in Moscow. This story not only included the incident in question, it was entirely unflattering in its portrayal of the young man. By way of contrast, Mosby’s original story, published on December 14, 1959, did not contain the Rosenberg pamphlet incident, and was much more even-handed in the language used in describing him.

Julius graduated from City College in Electrical Engineering along with future spy partner Morton Sobell and he married Ethel Greenglass in 1939.

The Rosenbergs lived in an apartment building at 142 Goerick St (which at some point had a change of name to Baruch, though apparently the FBI thought it was two separate addresses). This was built and operated by the Lavenburg Foundation, via Lavenburg Homes. The foundation itself was controlled by the Straus Family and it also built and operated Youth House where Oswald spent some time under observation.

The Director of Lavenburg Homes was Dr. Abraham Goldfeld. Goldfeld was listed as one of the references supplied with Rosenburg’s application for his civilian job with the Army Signal Corps. He was also a sponsor of the Jewish People’s Committeewhich was characterized by the House Un-American Activities Committee as a Communist Front.

We are left then to ask how a former member of the Young Communist League and indeed, the Communist Party and, who had among his references, a sponsor of a Communist Front organization, managed to be granted a security clearance to work with the Army Signal Corps?

Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War Rosenberg1

Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War Rosenberg2

In 1943, Julius began to work for the Soviets and convinced Ethel’s brother David who was working at Los Alamos in the Manhattan Project, to steal secrets. It was not just atomic secrets passed on. Two other electrical engineers in the group, Joel Barr and Alfred Sarrant specialized in radar and electronics, while Rosenberg also passed on a weapons part called a proximity fuse. This radar device is widely believed to have allowed the Soviets to shoot down Powers U2.

The conviction against Julius Rosenberg when it came, was cinched by David Greenglass when he testified about Julius tearing a jello box-top in half so that he (Greenglass) and his contact Harry Gold could recognize each other. The original plan was to meet in a movie theater in Denver but this was later changed to a grocery store in Albuquerque. The prosecution even produced a similar jello box-top and asked Greenglass to show what Rosenberg had done with it. This admitted court prop is now in the archives.

The conviction against Ethel Rosenberg when it came, was also cinched by Greenglass who sacrificed his sister to save his wife through the perjured testimony that it was Ethel who transcribed Manhattan secrets on a portable typewriter.

Both stories were bunk, but that was not known by many for a long time. The first, about the jello box-top was torpedoed by one of the Roseberg’s sons, Michael Meeropol, who wrote in his review of “The Invisible Harry Gold”

the famous story of Julius Rosenberg cutting a Jello-box in half is revealed as a total lie. According to that report, before leaving for New Mexico to live with her husband, Ruth Greenglass will “give us material and verbal passwords in case we need to restore contact with her.” The Jello-box could not have been cut in January if the “material and verbal passwords” had not been agreed upon by February. Hornbloom either didn’t read “The Haunted Wood” or purposely ignored it

As mentioned previously, a torn box-top was allegedly found on Oswald just prior to the first police line-up. As with the false story of the Rosenberg pamphlet, the idea to plant this evidence was lifted straight from the Rosenberg case. It has the two key elements – the box-top and the theater. Had Oswald been killed in the theater, this alleged evidence would have been used to show Oswald was to meet a KGB cutout contact.

In other ways, the Rosenberg jello box-top played a similar role to the infamous 6th floor bag, leading to the question as to whether Buell Wesley Frazier and his sister Linnie Mae Randle played similar roles to David and Ruth Greenglass?

The whole story of how Greenglass got to work on the Manhattan Project is even more unbelievable than how Julius got his job with the Signal Corps. According to a 2014 NY Times story, Greenglass, was an army sergeant with only a basic education, but had some talent as a machinist and on that basis, was sent to work on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos to replace a soldier who had gone AWOL. Then we find he had lied on his security clearance report (as Rosenberg must have) because he had been a former member of the Young Communist League. Additionally, he coached his references in how to respond so that only glowing reports came back. Army Intelligence would go on to record that “All evidence indicates subject to be loyal, honest and discreet.” It has to be somewhat doubtful that Greenglass could provide such coaching without knowledgeable help.

The story also reports that when he was drafted into the army, he was an “ardent, preachy Communist” but no one in the barracks took him very seriously. Does that not also sound like a familiar story?

Sat 09 Dec 2017, 5:54 am

Thanks for the updates, Greg.

Fascinating as a cautionary tale: those who do not study the history of conspiracy are doomed to be suckered in by its repetition as "original".

Sat 09 Dec 2017, 10:38 am

Terry W. Martin wrote:Thanks for the updates, Greg.

Fascinating as a cautionary tale: those who do not study the history of conspiracy are doomed to be suckered in by its repetition as "original".

Very little originality used here at all, Terry, in creating this legend.

They have borrowed from the Rosenberg case, from William Morgan's exploits and his letters home from Cuba, and they have borrowed from Russian literature, and from news articles on a Youth House success story which was provably fictitious. But the boy and his widowed mother in that story could have been Lee and Marguerite so similar were they - except it was written in the late 40s!

Morgan wrote home to his parents saying how they would not understand what he was doing. Oswald wrote a similar letter home. Morgan wrote another one stating he would kill any Americans who got in the way with the revolution. Oswald wrote a similar letter to Robert. And both had books written about then before they became well known.

Wed 05 Jun 2019, 12:44 pm

Wed 05 Jun 2019, 1:28 pm

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10569&relPageId=3

Wed 05 Jun 2019, 8:44 pm

John Edward Pic (with thanks from Malcolm Blunt)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mBzTSgYQpuIfBePEHBgvlQTDAaGb48gF/view?usp=sharing

Fred Korth
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18az1dVtPso63wd2sReVJJizojfEBzKLl/view?usp=sharing

Wed 05 Jun 2019, 10:40 pm

Really fascinating stuff Greg. John Pic in particular is a really interesting character. Hovering like a grey blur in the background. The H and L fantasy turned him into an one dimensional cipher..an extra..he delivers his one line before he goes shuffling back off into the chorus line.
Instead of jumping up and down waving the Bronx Zoo photo above their empty heads( remember St Fezs wonderful collage? Purporting t show "Harvey" ( the mark 1 Harvey model complete with Karl Malden schnozz) in relation t "Lee" it looked like an invitation t a necrophiliacs banquet.." yes sir Pan fried haunch of doppelganger served with a tangy wild goat's teet sauce is a house specialitg..we recommend a 1939 Chateaux Marguerite") rambling on about a misinterpreted quote. ...There's a hell of a difference between " isn't the way i remember him" and " I've never seen this fucking big nosed Hungarian cunt before in my life" but t understand this would involve a degree l of subtlety ( and honesty) far beyond what's required t create and maintain a preposterous fantasy basically designed t appeal t wild eyed self styled "troofers"-uurgh what a degrading term ..tinged with the unmistakable odour of stale b.o...large unathletic men in soiled camouflage jackets grunting ecstatically as their binoculars steam..why do UFOs always seem t hover above nurses dormitories or all girls colleges?- Pics background should have been seriously investigated long ago..
The Ekdahl/ Pic link sounds really promising...
Incidentally Greg have you ever considered contacting the Meerepol boys?
If you want i could put you in touch with someone who studied with one of them( Robert?) at Kings College back in the 70s. He used t babysit me when we first came over here. He's an old family friend. He always used t talk about the Rosenberg case, even when the Venona stuff came out he still firmly proclaimed their innocence. He kept in touch with both boys and was heavily involved in their various campaigns.
If you want t email me privately we could discuss it. I swear I'm not making this up he always kept gerbils..i swear!! I remember watching them scuttle about when wed visit him..don't remember hearing any untoward rumblings or anxious yelps though..although maybe if i went t a hypnotherapist...flammable gerbils can burrow quite deeply into the subconscious..and i suppose the memory( and the sensation) of burning paws scampering up one's rectum is a memory one might actively repress..what say you Mr Doyle? I bet you've got more repressed memories than a dormitory full of Victorian curates..

Thu 06 Jun 2019, 7:53 am

Greg will a Vol. 3 be released someday along with an updated Vols. 1 & 2? Goodness I can only imagine....when you're writing about Lee Oswald....continued or eternal updating is probably necessary lol.

Thu 06 Jun 2019, 9:27 am

barto wrote:John Edward Pic (with thanks from Malcolm Blunt)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mBzTSgYQpuIfBePEHBgvlQTDAaGb48gF/view?usp=sharing

Fred Korth
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18az1dVtPso63wd2sReVJJizojfEBzKLl/view?usp=sharing

Thanks for these Bart!

Thu 06 Jun 2019, 9:28 am

alex wilson wrote: Really fascinating stuff Greg. John Pic in particular is a really interesting character. Hovering like a grey blur in the background. The H and L fantasy turned him into an one dimensional cipher..an extra..he delivers his one line before he goes shuffling back off into the chorus line.
Instead of jumping up and down waving the Bronx Zoo photo above their empty heads( remember St Fezs wonderful collage? Purporting t show "Harvey" ( the mark 1 Harvey model complete with Karl Malden schnozz) in relation t "Lee" it looked like an invitation t a necrophiliacs banquet.." yes sir Pan fried haunch of doppelganger served with a tangy wild goat's teet sauce is a house specialitg..we recommend a 1939 Chateaux Marguerite") rambling on about a misinterpreted quote. ...There's a hell of a difference between " isn't the way i remember him" and " I've never seen this fucking big nosed Hungarian cunt before in my life" but t understand this would involve a degree l of subtlety ( and honesty) far beyond what's required t create and maintain a preposterous fantasy basically designed t appeal t wild eyed self styled "troofers"-uurgh what a degrading term ..tinged with the unmistakable odour of stale b.o...large unathletic men in soiled camouflage jackets grunting ecstatically as their binoculars steam..why do UFOs always seem t hover above nurses dormitories or all girls colleges?- Pics background should have been seriously investigated long ago..
The Ekdahl/ Pic link sounds really promising...
Incidentally Greg have you ever considered contacting the Meerepol boys?
If you want i could put you in touch with someone who studied with one of them( Robert?) at Kings College back in the 70s. He used t babysit me when we first came over here. He's an old family friend. He always used t talk about the Rosenberg case, even when the Venona stuff came out he still firmly proclaimed their innocence. He kept in touch with both boys and was heavily involved in their various campaigns.
If you want t email me privately we could discuss it. I swear I'm not making this up he always kept gerbils..i swear!! I remember watching them scuttle about when wed visit him..don't remember hearing any untoward rumblings or anxious yelps though..although maybe if i went t a hypnotherapist...flammable gerbils can burrow quite deeply into the subconscious..and i suppose the memory( and the sensation) of burning paws scampering up one's rectum is a memory one might actively repress..what say you Mr Doyle? I bet you've got more repressed memories than a dormitory full of Victorian curates..

Would love to get in touch with them. I know one had great doubts about the torn box top story.

Thu 06 Jun 2019, 9:36 am

BC_II wrote:Greg will a Vol. 3 be released someday along with an updated Vols. 1 & 2? Goodness I can only imagine....when you're writing about Lee Oswald....continued or eternal updating is probably necessary lol.

It's all on the to-do list, but am concentrating on my script, and also working on a book of ROKC research for now.

A number of reasons for putting it back further on the list, but am still keen to do it.

Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War

Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War

Re: Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War

Re: Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War

Re: Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War

Re: Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War

Re: Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War

Re: Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War

Re: Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War

Re: Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War

Re: Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War

Re: Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War

Re: Key figures from Volumes One & Two of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War