the latest installment of the 12 who built the oswald legend

What follows is what is new (to me), what I can add to, and what I disagree with in number 12.

Bill Simpich is a member here and I'd be happy to debate any of the  disputed material in the same manner as I debated James Norwood. That debate can be viewed in the debate forum here. As with JN, Bill can name his terms and conditions.

After the assassination, Fred and Nancy Osborn went to the FBI to vouch for the Paines' good character. Fred's father, Fred Osborn, Sr., had helped create Radio Free Europe, and later worked with Allen Dulles and Time/Life/Fortune officer C. D. Jackson to form the Crusade for Freedom (CFF), an early CIA project that was modeled after Radio Free Europe. CFF merged with Radio Free Europe in 1962.

This is not quite right. The Osborn's did not go to the FBI to voluntarily vouch for the Paines. The Osborn's were contacted, as were many of their eastern friends and acquaintances, by the FBI as part of the FBI investigation of the Paines.  Frederick Osborn did not vouch for them. His comments were very non-committal - and the best that Nancy could muster was that she considered "both to be stable individuals of good background." Or in other words they were cashed up blue-bloods. 

Mrs Hagner was, by the standards of these people, almost scathing. Michael Paine apparently had a daddy complex and was desperate to prove he could stand on his own at Bell without Art Young. She indicates in so many words that both were immature and she was somewhat appalled that Ruth was seeing astrologists in relation to marital problems instead of a professional counselor. 

I don't know of any connections Mrs Hagner may have had to Allen Dulles, though.

The Ferry captain to Naushon Island, Richard Alberts was provided accommodation on the island. This happened to be next door to Michael Paine's place. 

Alberts makes a point of saying he was "friendly" to the Paines... but this was not reciprocated because, as he put it, he was not "on the same social level." and this meant they did "not mix socially". 

Albert stated to the FBI that the Paines owned homes in Paoli and Philadelphia as well as the house in Irving. 

So this couple wouldn't be seen dead at a social gathering mingling with a paid employee - but fell over themselves to take in the poverty stricken failed commie and his family.  Makes perfect sense. Just like another thing we learn in the Paine investigation: neither were "joiners" and as such, had not been ACLU members back east. But in Irving? Regular Social Justice Warriors. At least when not attending JBS meetings. 

In a heavily redacted document, the FBI was informed that Ruth's sister Sylvia Hyde Hoke was Naval Intelligence and was trying to obtain a top secret clearance. As we will see, her family's relationship with an attorney allegedly involved with Soviet espionage killed that opportunity in 1958.

This is new to me insofar as Sylvia Hoke being with "Navy Intelligence".  However, this document makes it sound like hearsay, If it was true, hopefully more can be found. 

Hoke had also worked with the Air Force as a personnel research technician in 1956-57 and had a final secret clearance.

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.

end part one.

As mentioned in Chapter 7, it helps to take a look at two separate but closely linked entities. Bill Hyde's Nationwide Insurance Company was part of the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), founded in 1922 and which still exists today. This is easily confused with the International Cooperation Administration (ICA), formed in 1954 and where Legend Maker #9 George de Mohrenschildt conducted petroleum intelligence in the fifties.

Fred Korth's brother, Romeo Korth (https://www.stec.org/sites/stec/files/PDF/Annual Report/75thHistoryTimeline.pdf), was president of "South Texas Electric Cooperative". This cooperative was a member of the International Cooperative Alliance. 

Edwin Ekdahl and his sister Elvira were both involved in the cooperative movement. Elvira wrote her thesis on the subject: The co-operative movement in Denmark

Edwin Ekdahl was living with his family in New York during the 1940 election. William Hyde was living in New York with his family during the 1940 election. Both men were fans of Norman Thomas who was running for president. Norman Thomas was a fan of the cooperative movement. Thomas's running mate was George A Nelson - a man of Danish parentage - same as the Ekdahls.

William would take his daughter Ruth to Norman Thomas rallies. It is quite possible that Edwin took his son Dewey, who was the same age as Ruth, to the same rallies. 
(this is all covered in Volume One of Lee Harvey Oswald's Cold War)

Ruth Paine commented: "The information about the CIA considering my father for Vietnam was a surprise. I doubt if he would have accepted such an invitation, if it was offered. He certainly didn't go. He went to Peru. He was working with the Agency for International Development. He helped to develop rural credit unions for the compasinos so that they could save enough money to make loans to themselves, instead of always paying the huge bank rates. He loved it. I know that USAID asked my father to appraise a situation in Georgetown, Guyana. He recommended against starting a project there, as he thought the local officials corrupt."

Initially this work was not as successful as Ruth Paine claimed above: the effort to capitalize on the desire for housing led to the formation of savings and loan associations. Peruvian legislation enacted in 1957
was the first to provide for the creation of a savings and loan system, though a 1965 AID report suggests that the movement did not really get underway until September, 1960. Associations had commenced operation in Chile by April, 1960.8 Technical experts advised, however, that the financing of housing required more saving than the prospective borrowers alone could be expected to accumulate.."
https://www.jec.senate.gov/reports/91st%20Congress/Thrift%20Institution%20Development%20in%20Latin%20America%20(484).pdf

But USAID was not the only agency active in Peru in 1957.

"...prepared in January 1957 by a 'working group on Latin America' - including representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Departments of State and Commerce, the US Information Agency and the military - was even more explicit about the 'threat' to Western interests posed by a growing census count south of the border."
https://twn.my/title/peru-cn.htm

Bill Hyde was also a strong anti-communist. Dr. Richard Jenkins of the Psychiatric Evaluation Board in Washington DC went to Stanford with the Hydes, and said that "Bill Hyde had been active in the cooperative movement and therefore was aware of the attempts of the Communists to infililtrate the cooperative movement.

Like Hyde, the Hoke family was also involved in looking for communists. There is a 1955 memo to the CIA's Office of Security, discussing how William Avery Hyde was back in his hometown of Palo Alto visiting the Hokes. Brought into the circle was Dr. Jenkins and also Taylor Bielefeldt.

Bill is right. The whole milieu. The Hydes, the Paines, the Hokes, the Ekdahls, the Korths, Norman Thomas and the Socialist Party. 

Several people close to Oswald were also active in the Joint Publications Research Service. These people include Legend Maker #3 Priscilla Johnson, the NANA reporter in Moscow who befriended the Oswald family; Legend Maker #4 Richard Snyder, the American consul in Moscow; and the allegedly unwitting Spas Raikin, who greeted the Oswald family when they arrived in New York City from the USSR in 1962.

The 1955 memo mentions that Hoke, Bielefeldt and the aforementioned Dr. Richard Jenkins were all Stanford graduates. Hoke has been described as "a very brilliant person who is not very stable but who is very creative."

The focus of the 1955 meeting was about Paul and Violet Orr. Both were Communist Party members in the San Francisco Bay Area. Paul had just been harshly interrogated by HUAC earlier that year. Violet had worked in the 1930s in the CP-friendly American League Against War and Fascism, just as Harvey's informant Elizabeth Bentley had done. In more recent years, Violet had been part of the visible Communist Party leadership.

This is all new to me, is of much interest and warrants further research.

end part 2

Leonard Hutchison, the Irving grocer

The Irving grocer, Leonard Hutchison, remembered refusing "Harvey Oswald's" request trying to cash a $189 two-party check. It was not a payroll check. Oswald got paid $1.25 an hour at the book depository. That kind of money was beyond his means.

Let's tackle the "Harvey" nonsense first. That is what is stated in an FBI report. Nowhere in his WC testimony does he claim his customer had a check payable to "Harvey Oswald". In fact Jenner refers to his customer several times as "Lee Harvey Oswald" and was not corrected by Hutchison.

As I've said before -- "Lee" was/is a common middle name, especially in the south - as in "Jerry Lee Lewis" and "Tommy Lee Jones" etc. It would be a while longer before the name "Lee" Oswald would sink into public consciousness. Until then, Hutchison and others in those early days and months got the "Lee" and "Harvey" names muddled in their head because their brains automatically reversed them. 

Let's try this in regard to the check.

July 14, 1963 [url=https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1134&relPageId=139&search=marina_and tax and ruth]Ruth writes to Marina with a proposition[/url]. The essence of the letter was that Mike could claim Marina and June (and Rachel when born) as tax deductions for a total of $600 each, deducted from gross income to be assessed for tax. Assume Mike was paying around 30% tax on an income of say $10000 pa (the average engineer was on 7 to 9k pa). That increases his refund by $360 for Marina and June (and up to $540 after Rachel is added). What was offered in return was $10 pw for Marina ($520 pa). Note that today, the average live-in housekeeper gets on average of around 25K pa - the equivalent in 1963 was just under 3K pa or $57 pw. In effect, Mike was going to pay Marina the equivalent of what he would get from the IRS for them being "dependent". IOW, a free housekeeper. Such is the state of the Paine's charity... 

Officially they did not go ahead with this scheme. But I think they may have for the tax part. And at least belatedly regarding payment for Marina under insistence from Oswald.

As indicated here, Ruth was helping in the search for an apartment for the Oswalds on the weekend commencing Nov 15. I think the intention was to move out the following weekend... before Halloween. 

If we add up all of the time Marina stayed at the Paines during April/May and then Sept through to November, it's about 80 days if you assume they were moving out over the 23rd or 24th. so, what if Lee demanded that they pay Marina half of what they were going to receive for her and Junie so that they could get their own place? Half of $360 is $180. Was this the source of the check? When Hutchinson refused to cash it, Oswald probably went back to Ruth and insisted on cash... which she did not come good with until the following week. $180. Ruth testified that Lee gave Marina $10 to buy new shoes (for some reason, Marina claimed the shoes were for June). $180 dollars minus $10 for shoes is $170 -- the amount found on the dresser. 

Mrs. PAINE - He did give her, I think, $10, just prior, or some time close to the time of the assassination, because she planned to buy some shoes.
Mr. JENNER - Shoes for herself, or her children?
Mrs. PAINE - For herself, flat s. But when he gave that to her I am not certain. I do know that we definitely planned to go out on Friday afternoon, the 22nd of November, to buy those shoes. We did not go.

Hutchison also said that Oswald always bought a gallon of milk and cinnamon rolls, and only on weekdays in the early morning. Not only did no one remember seeing Oswald bring home those items, but Oswald was only in Irving on the weekends.

Both Ruth and Marina testified to staying in bed until after Lee had left on Nov 22. There is no reason to believe they did anything differently on any other day. Oswald was living in Irving with them. This is supported by Hutchison, Shasteen and the HSCA interviews of some of Lee's co-workers as well as the sheer lack of evidence for his having lived at 1026 N Beckley where their SHOULD be evidence. This also means there was NOTHING strange about him arriving on Thursday. It was the NORM.  It was only made out to be strange so they could claim he was only there to get the rifle. 

Hutchison identified Oswald as weighing 155-160 pounds, and indicated that he had plenty of hair. He was intrigued by how Oswald never said a word to him - not even hello or goodbye - except for the time he tried to cash that big check.

That is in the FBI report along with "dressed very poorly" and hair shabby" and "unkempt".

But that was not what he told the WC:

Mr. HUTCHISON. He was shabbily dressed--cheap slacks, and like I said, the jacket was cheap, and his shirts were always open, he never had a tie, he wasn't what you would call neatly dressed. He always looked well, like just a common worker.
Mr. JENNER. I gather from all this that it was your impression that he was a person of little means?
Mr. HUTCHISON. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. What about his neatness? Was he always shaven?
Mr. HUTCHISON. Yes, sir; he was always shaven.
Mr. JENNER. His hair neatly combed?
Mr. HUTCHISON. Hair cut and neatly combed; yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. And you didn't notice anything about, did you, that he always needed a haircut or----
Mr. HUTCHISON. No; I would say that he was pretty well----
Mr. JENNER. In that respect, you would call him normal?
Mr. HUTCHISON. Normal; yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Mr. HUTCHISON. Because, you know, I'd notice if a person doesn't have a hair-cut. Naturally, I would on account of my help and everything like that. I have to observe those things.

Hair cut and neatly combed. Maybe he had just been to Shasteen's?

Given all the anomalies, including those that don't match Oswald's appearance as a 130-pound balding man, one has to wonder just who Hutchison saw. No matter who it was, "Harvey Oswald" wanted to be a memorable figure in Hutchison's eyes. Whether or not it was an impersonation, it was clearly a provocation.

There are no anomalies except a bad guess at his weight. Any other "anomalies" are the result of the fraudulent timeline concocted to frame Oswald.

As for a provocation - it is only paranoids who see everything that way. Bill is not paranoid but seems infected by the paranoiac ideas of those surrounding him.

What sort of a provocation attempting to show Oswald in some sort of bad light, uses his middle name instead of his first, and presents (by Bill's interpretation) as 20 pounds too heavy, with a check for an amount normally out of his reach (unless he is  very cheap assassin for hire) and on days when he is supposedly not in Irving? Like every other alleged doppelganging "provocation", it makes zero sense for the purpose alleged.

Can you imagine the planning meeting for such a provocation?

Okay. We are going to get an Oswald lookalike (except he has lots more hair and carries 20 extra pounds and is 6 years older) and we are going to give him a check to cash at a small grocery store in Irving. Our doppelganger will be instructed not to make a fuss when the cashier refuses to cash the check and simply walk out. Thereafter, he is to appear at the same store soon after 7am a few times during work days to buy milk and cinnamon rolls. I mean how provocative can you get? Dude supposed to be living in Oak Cliff but we'll have him seen in Irving because no one will notice he is not where he is supposed to be, or even that he is not using his right name! All they will notice is that he is acting NORMAL in Irving! In IRVING!!! NO ONE IS NORMAL IN IRVING! IT WILL FLAG HIM AS AN ASSASSIN STRAIGHT AWAY!

end part 3

The barber Cliff Shasteen was also an important witness. Like many barbers, he knew many of the people in the neighborhood and was a good observer. Shasteen had been an FBI informant in the past. Shasteen went on to be a member of the Irving city council. Shasteen reported that he regularly gave haircuts to both Bob Odum and Oswald, although there's no proof they ever crossed paths. Shasteen saw the Oswald figure go into Hutchison's grocery on at least one occasion - corroborating Hutchison's story about Oswald. It would appear that Shasteen and Hutchison saw the same Oswald.

Yes, they did. The one and only historical Lee Oswald.

What is being referenced about Shasteen being a former informant is this. Shasteen was likely part of the FBI defense plant informant program during the Korean War that Truly and Shelley had been part of during WWII.

Shasteen reported that Oswald drove Ruth Paine's car to the barber shop. He correctly identified Ruth Paine's car to the Warren Commission. "I'm sure it's a 1955 Chevrolet station wagon...either blue and white or green and white.

At first, I thought it was impossible that Shasteen had seen an Oswald impersonator. After all, Shasteen had seen Oswald close up. Shasteen said his brother-in-law lived right across the street from Ruth Paine.

But problems quickly pop up. Ruth Paine knew nothing about Oswald getting any haircuts, and denied ever lending Oswald her car. Whether or not Oswald had obtained a driver's license --and there is dispute on that subject -- it would be unlike Ruth to loan her car to a rookie driver - and she denied it when she was asked.

Bill keeps getting things backward. The official story is not evidence that people like Shasteen and Hutchison were wrong about seeing the real Lee Oswald. Their witnessing forms part of the evidence that the official story is a lie. I fear Bill suffers the same baffling ailment that besets the likes of Doudna and others: RPB - Ruth Paine Blindness. 

Here is why she claims she didn't want him driving her car.

Mrs. PAINE - I knew that he had not even a learner's permit to drive. I wasn't interested in his driving on the street with my car until he had such. But on Sunday the parking lot of a neighboring shopping center was empty, and I am quite certain that is where the driving lesson took place.

So the sole reason wan NO LEARNER'S PERMIT.

But Buell Frazier said that there was no such thing as a "Learner's permit" in Texas.

Representative FORD - Do you have to get a learner's permit in Texas before you can get a driver's permit?
Mr. FRAZIER - No, sir; I say, you don't. Just two steps to it. I say, first no matter what age you are; say, when you have to be at least 14 is about the youngest you can get it in Texas and then you have to take a DE, Driver's Education, if you are going to school but otherwise, the age is 16 and you just go around to the driving license bureau there, they have an office in most any town of any size in Texas, and you just go in and see the driving license man and just tell him that you plan to take your driving test and you would like to have the auto manual, and the manual covers any laws and so forth in the State of Texas, and you can either study for your operator's or your commercial and you pick out which one you want, and you study up for it and then he is there, he tells you what days he is in his office, and so he goes there a certain time and he gives you several sheets of paper, a quiz and you answer them questions, and if you--you have to make a grade of 70 on it to pass and if you make a grade of 70 or above, well, I say, in another week or two you go down there and you say like for instance if you are going to want a driver's license for a car--

You just sat an exam and got your license.  Ruth Paine had to know this. She was the one who gave the Texas auto manual to Lee to study. 

But perhaps Buell was wrong?

Well, no... here is the application that Lee filled out. It beggars belief that Lee didn't show this to Marina and Ruth. The word "learner's" is nowhere to be found on it.



Since there was no learner's license, one would assume you drive without one if you were in fact learning. 

Here is more of Ruth's testimony on it.

Mrs. PAINE - He got in and started the car so that I know he was able to do that and wanted to drive on the street to the parking lot.
Mr. JENNER - He wanted to?
Mrs. PAINE - He wanted to. I said, "My father is an insurance man and he would never forgive me."
Mr. JENNER - Your father?
Mrs. PAINE - My father. And insisted that he get a learner's permit before he would drive on the street.

Ruth denied jackshit: she uses her patented non-denial denials. In this case, what she said was to the FBI and I quote that report: "She never allowed Oswald to take her car anywhere by himself." Key phrase "by himself". He was not by himself. He had Hootkins with him. 

She also claims she insisted he get a learner's permit that didn't exist before letting him drive her car on the street. Bullshit. 

The coveralls Shasteen said they were military but could not tell if they were army or marines. Here's a clue though from his testimony:

Mr. SHASTEEN. Well, I think most usually, like I said, the only time I ever saw him with anything but those coveralls on was that night he came in the shop--he had those on--those old coveralls on when he was over there and another thing, they were big for him. I always noticed they were big enough for him and somebody else.

Mike Paine tinkered in that garage. He testified for example that he had to keep moving Oswald's blanket and whatever was inside, out of his and he was afraid he would get it covered in sawdust. Mike was at least 6 feet tall and had been in the army. It makes perfect sense that Mike left those coveralls in the garage to use when he was tinkering and Oswald used them when he got his haircut at Shasteens. Being Mike's, as Shasteen said, "they were big for him."


Yellow house shoes  I have not found where anyone was asked about these. Shasteen said Oswald picked them up cheap in "Old Mexico". Everyone has assume this was a reference to Mexico City, but I doubt Oswald would call Mexico City "Old Mexico". There are numerous references to "Old Mexico" in the MFF database. Most often it is referring to parts of the US annexed from Mexico, or to places in the north of Mexico... one place in the north of Mexico is Tijuana and Oswald had indeed been to Tijuana while stationed at Santa Ana. I believe that is where he bought them and they had probably been in storage with Robert Oswald until he picked them up on return from the Soviet Union. Who knows what became of them? souvenired by Gus Rose? Thrown out because they were cheap and falling apart? 

Shasteen was very certain that he and his fellow barbers saw Oswald for at least five haircuts, every two weeks, and thought that the visits might go back into the summer. That would be an impossible fit, given the undisputed facts. Oswald had been in New Orleans all summer, didn't return to New Orleans until the first week of October, and his last supposed haircut was on about November 8.

This egg can be unscrambled. The Summer comes into it by virtue of Shasteen misremembering how many times Oswald had been in. He said 5 or 6 in testimony. But prior to that, he told the FBI on Dec 3, 1963, that Oswald had 7 or 8 cuts there. Yet in the same interview, Shasteen said his first memory of Oswald coming in was "2 or 3 months ago at 6:30 am..." and that the intervals were two weeks apart. Jenner uses the math to bamboozle Shasteen into agreeing that the visits may have gone back into the Summer. But even then, Shasteen isn't totally on board:

Mr. SHASTEEN. Yes; it was. In other words, 2 or 8 or 4 months that we had been seeing him, but I don't know just exactly to the date or nothing.

Instead of arguing that Shasteen is wrong because Oswald was in NO during the Summer, what about arguing that he simply misremembered the number of times he cut his hair? It was really just 3 times. Which works out perfectly if we take his "2 or 3 months" as reasonably accurate from the date of the FBI interview (12/3/63). This places the first visit as probably being on Saturday October 5 after Oswald had arrived at the Paines. Two weeks- another cut on Friday October 18 and the next and last on Friday November 8 - the date given for the last visit. 

This next part of the story is eerie - and it knits together the stories of Oswald and Ruth Paine once again. Is it real - or faux?

Shasteen was clear that a 14 year old boy came to his shop on at least three occasions: twice with Oswald, and once by himself. The solo visit was three or four days before November 22. When with Oswald, the boy talked about how this country needed to give black people the same rights as whites, and how the country needed a communist-type system.

When the lad came in for his last haircut, he was attacking the country, its greed, and even how Shasteen didn't share the profits at his barber shop. Shasteen said he wanted to take the razor strap to him.

Another barber, Bert Glover, supported Shasteen's story. Glover also saw this boy in action with Oswald. Glover was also very offended by the way this boy talked. I don't think Shasteen and Glover made these stories up.

Shasteen looked all over Irving for this boy and couldn't find him - he thought the boy was "warped in his thinking" and needed help. This 14 year old boy was described as having dark blond (Shasteen said "a lot would call it brown") hair, tight fitting jeans, husky, broad shoulders, and a wide face. A good looking teenager.

Bill is mistaken. The boy never anything until the last time he was there - on his own. That and the fact that even then, Hootkins was into acting, are key considerations tp what was going on. Bill seems to have been confused by Glover compressing statements and events he did not personally recall but was merely repeating what Shasteen had told him. "Mr Glover stated that he could not recall seeing this young boy." Again - neither Glover nor Law were good witnesses for either side. Only the desperate would use them.

And I find myself having to ask again, is Bill putting forward more dopplegangery? Not just Oswald now, but also Hootkins AND Ruth's car??? How far can this be pushed in order to avoid what should be obvious. Ruth Paine deceived everyone.

Greg Parker, the author of the Lee Harvey Oswald's Cold War book series, believes that Shasteen provided an airtight description of Ruth's only Russian student, Bill Hootkins. Hootkins went on to become an actor. He can be seen in movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars.

Was the young boy the real Hootkins - or imitating him? Was the Oswald who drove the Chevrolet station wagon to the barber shop the real Oswald? Ruth Paine is adamant. "He wasn't driving my car."

Well, that answers that. Yes, Bill is considering the multiple doppelganger angle. 

As for the quote "He wasn't driving my car"... I have searched for that exact phrase in MFF and the only hit is on Bill's work. This leads me to believe it is not a real quote, despite the quote marks.

Again, here is what the FBI said in a report  "She never allowed Oswald to take her car anywhere by himself." And that was true, She never let him use the car unless he had at least one other person with him. Hootkins for a start. And Hootkins probably knew how to drive going from Buell's statements about 14 year olds and licenses. (refer back to Beull's testimony)

I will end with another classic RP non-denial denial - this time about the identity of the boy. 

"Mrs Paine 2515 West 5th Street, Irving, Texas advised that she has no child even as old as school age and knows of no boy of about 14 with whom Oswald was ever associated in the neighborhood."

Key phrase "in the neighborhood". Hootkins lived in Dallas, not Irving. Which is why Shasteen did not recognize him. If she had said she knew of no 14 year old with whom Oswald ever associated... it would have been a lie. "In the neighborhood" made it technically true. And that was the only reason that bit was added.

The FBI by the way, knew Ruth was tutoring Hootkins. They knew he was 14. They knew what he looked like because they interviewed his mother in his presence regarding the Russian lessons. They had Shasteen's description which was Hootkins to the nth degree. Yet with all of that, they never connected the dots? More bullshit. The FBI knew.

Cliff Shasteen documents.
Thx to Malcolm Blunt.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gyE2iMuHf5e6A1Mj-67jSL5nyuEWwc3g/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W47pPmf8Ju5UKDMftNVaKMVX3Ai6cXX4/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1psvDNYTidDiISFoIJqgGA-0Us2Gsc6LM/view?usp=drivesdk

Slawson on Shasteen
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LZNBFCy3fN2QL791hj5z2VMYLO1-LWTF/view?usp=drivesdk

You are doing a wonderful job, Greg. So many of these alleged doppelganger sightings have reasonable explanations. People like Armstrong have poisoned this case.

barto wrote:Cliff Shasteen documents.
Thx to Malcolm Blunt.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gyE2iMuHf5e6A1Mj-67jSL5nyuEWwc3g/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W47pPmf8Ju5UKDMftNVaKMVX3Ai6cXX4/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1psvDNYTidDiISFoIJqgGA-0Us2Gsc6LM/view?usp=drivesdk

Slawson on Shasteen
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LZNBFCy3fN2QL791hj5z2VMYLO1-LWTF/view?usp=drivesdk

Thanks Barto for putting those docs here, easily accessible for anyone to read.

Vinny wrote:You are doing a wonderful job, Greg. So many of these alleged doppelganger sightings have reasonable explanations. People like Armstrong have poisoned this case.

Thanks Vinny.

To be fair, Bill is not  a believer in H & L. But he is among a well-known group who, though disavowing the Armstrong theory, nevertheless remain convinced that Oswald was being impersonated all over the place.

The reality is, they ALL have innocent explanations - except Mexico City. And that was not intended to set him up for the assassination. It had a completely different context. But it can be and is, interpreted as connected to the assassination by many through the wonders of hindsight.

Believing all of those sightings as being genuine is just H & L theory without all the bells and whistles. 

Also to be fair... Bill did have a source regarding Oswald driving her car - a newspaper article in which she supposedly said [url=she certainly wouldn't have loaned her car to Oswald]she certainly wouldn't have loaned her car to Oswald[/url]. You will note however that the story does not use quotation marks and therefore must be paraphrasing what she said. Without knowing the exact quote, this story is poor evidence for the case he tries to make - especially when there is no other known and DEFINITIVE, UNAMBIGUOUS,  NON-MISLEADING statement from her confirming it. 

.

Speaking of Billy Hootkins, his father Seymour was an oilman in Dallas. I'm having a hard time uploading the image, but he drilled a well named after someone very familiar in the JFK world. The well was called "Mary J. Walton Moore."  I don't know about the "Mary" part but I've done a deep dive and couldn't find any other "J. Walton Moores" in Texas that year.

Thanks Mark.

J Walton Moore had a friend in common with George DeM - Lawrence Orlov, also in the oil business. 

But all of this is moot. Thanks to the 13" Head Forum we now know that Bill Hootkins had a CIA doppelganger named Buell Wesley Frazier, and it was this doppelganger who was at Shasteen's.

Ruth Paine, Eugenics, Desegregation and the nature of reality

Before I turn to the most significant aspect of Rankin's request for an FBI "second look" at the problematic evidence, I resist the notion that Oswald was impersonated on a regular basis. When in doubt about a particular situation, I lean to the side of "no impersonation". Even though the intelligence agencies specialize in that sort of thing, care has to be taken or the operation will be blown.

Could not agree more.  But being careful includes making sure you get the impostor to use the correct name and wear nondescript clothing similar in style to what the person being impersonated usual wears. It means not sending the person to any place where it can easily be checked that the person being impersonated cannot be. You also need some purpose for the imposture. What can buying milk and cinnamon rolls achieve by way of painting the target as a potential assassin? There is not one so-called case of impersonation that passes the smell test as anything other than mistaken identity - or the real Oswald acting like the real Oswald. The exception is Mexico City - which had nothing to do with the assassination, but was made to look that way after the event.

With that said, let me make it clear that the weight of the evidence leads me to conclude that Oswald was impersonated on several occasions during November of 1963. Otherwise, I would have to conclude that the Paines were not unwitting assets - but rather fully empowered agents of Allen Dulles that would lie on command - and I am not convinced of that.

Bill is not convinced of it because he has a bias toward the Paines. And I am going to take a wild ass guess at why he has this bias. That guess is that he has worked with Quakers in his civil rights work and they have left a positive impression upon him.  So when it comes to the Paines, he is willing to believe anything he has to believe in order to avoid pinning anything on them other than innocent involvement.

Some readers might protest that the question is not simply one of Oswald impersonation vs. Ruth's credibility. 

It is Bill himself who has thus far presented this choice in this very work.

There is a third possibility - which is that the perpetrators of the story are mistaken or making it up. 

It was a long time coming but glad he got there.

We will be covering the drifter Jack Lawrence, his creative relationship with the truth, and a host of his bad connections. But when you hear the reports of Albert Bogard and the other principals about the remarkable visit by a man named Lee Oswald, it is clear that something important happened at the Downtown Lincoln-Mercury Dealership in the days before Kennedy's assassination.

Absolute delusional garbage that should be beneath the mind of a learned practitioner of the law.

Rather than address the evidence that they were cruelly used by outside forces

The premise that they were used unwittingly and to their detriment is more absolute garbage.

The best that can be surmised is that they did not know why they were doing what they did.  But even that is debatable.

the Paines have spent their lives trying to convince themselves and everyone else that they are the truth-tellers in this tragedy. You can get in trouble when you think you are the smartest person in the room. People like Allen Dulles could play the Paines like a violin.

What an extraordinary thing to say... almost Freudian to suggest that they have spent their lives trying to convince THEMSELVES that they are truth-tellers...

That is precisely the issue that certain types of liars have. The type that answer questions not asked to avoid outright lies. Sooner or later that is going to cause some internal ructions about the nature or reality and truth.

From watching her presentation in Irving in 2019, you can see Ruth withholding big parts of the whole truth - such as her November interactions with Jim Hosty of the FBI. She also fails to mention her decision to read - then copy - then keep - a copy of Oswald's draft letter to the Soviet embassy that he left on her secretary. The center of the action in the last two weeks before 11/22 is no longer Michael. It's Ruth.

She has always withheld big parts of the whole truth, including

1 That Lee was living there the whole time
2. That she helped Lee look for an apartment the previous weekend and had phoned about renting a washing machine for Marina.
3. That the 14 year old kid with Oswald at the barber shop was her very own and very special Russian language student Bill Hootkins
4. That her divorce lawyer had her office in the same building s the 112th MIG and that her lawyer's husband was a member of the ACLU
5. That she was very anti-communist, pro-eugenics.

On that last point, historically many Quakers have held the contradictory positions of being anti-slavery and segregation, but pro improving the human gene pool through limiting breeding among certain groups. 

Ruth Paine herself was known to encourage abortions among poor blacks while later working at helping desegregation in 1965.

Funny thing is that no local black leaders wanted anything to do with her. "Keep her away" is a bit strong if this was just due to her "innocently" knowing Oswald. It sounds very personal. 



Maybe she was also "selling" some of her less appealing views on how to "fix" the human condition.  Maybe she was pushing some of those eugenics idea onto them.

Some light reading on Quakers and Eugenics
https://ethicsbeyondcompliance.com/quaker-eugenics-antinomies-and-paradoxes/

http://www.whatliesbeneathrattlechainlagoon.org.uk/?p=9173

https://www.facinghistory.org/sites/default/files/publications/Race_Membership.pdf

Ruth's predisposition against Oswald and favoritism towards the FBI is well-documented, as seen in the discussion below regarding Oswald's Soviet letter. She is a complex personality. When pressed, her tendency is to shade the truth rather than to tell whoppers, which would go against her Unitarian and Quaker instincts.

See above for at least some examples of the "truth" she shaded. Her so-called complexity is easily deconstructed via her social and religious background. She is EXACTLY what you would expect given that background.  

Damn, Greg. Now I want to know who Shasteen really was. 

Maybe his barber pole was one of Jack Whites listening devices.

MarkValenti wrote:Damn, Greg. Now I want to know who Shasteen really was. 

Maybe his barber pole was one of Jack Whites listening devices.

I heard it was a CIA doppelganger test tube. You can pay in cash or leave a deposit in the pole on the way out.  Could explain the ill-fitting coveralls. Easier access.

I see what you did there.

5. That she was very anti-communist, pro-eugenics.

On that last point, historically many Quakers have held the contradictory positions of being anti-slavery and segregation, but pro improving the human gene pool through limiting breeding among certain groups. 

What is your evidence for the charge that Ruth Paine was pro-eugenics?

On Quakers and eugenics, I read the articles you linked. Galton, the big name in eugenics, I am unable to find verification that he was a Quaker despite the articles saying that he was. (Defining Quaker as one who participates or has membership in a Quaker meeting and is recognized by other Quakers as Quaker, i.e. simply being born to Quaker ancestors as Galton was does not make him a Quaker.) Other scientists cited in eugenics history were Quakers. Neither of the articles cited any Quaker "testimony" (organized Friends written statements on issues generated from Friends meetings by "sense of the meeting" [consensus], of which there are many) that were pro-eugenics, which would be the real evidence that Quakers were pro-eugenics if that were so. The first article you linked argued, I think probably accurately, that the eugenics scientists in Quaker history were free-lancing their eugenics in their scientific work which conflicted with actual expressed and recognized values core to Friends such as the abolitionist movement against slavery. I am not trying to whitewash anything, just appealing for accuracy. 

But back to Ruth Paine. What is the evidence? Ruth Paine was in the mainstream of Friends values in the 1950s and 1960s so far as I can see from her writings and history, which was pro-civil rights and not eugenics.

Greg Doudna wrote:What is your evidence for the charge that Ruth Paine was pro-eugenics? ...Ruth Paine was in the mainstream of Friends values in the 1950s and 1960s so far as I can see from her writings and history

Your second sentence answers your preceding question.

Friends Journal, April 1, 1963, p155

Voluntary Sterilization
By MEDORA STEEDMAN BASS

ONCE again Friends have been partly responsible for a much needed but controversial service. Voluntary sterilization, or surgical birth control, used to be the privilege of the well-to-do. Now, due indirectly to the
pioneering leadership of three Quaker physicians, voluntary sterilization is being included in a public health program for indigent patients in Virginia. Of the 201 patients offered a comprehensive maternal care service, including birth control advice, 63 requested and were granted sterilization. The Human Betterment Association for Voluntary Sterilization has been largely responsible for this program. The first three presidents were Quakers: Dr. S. Emlen Stokes, Dr. Lovett Dewees, and Dr. H. Curtis Wood, Jr. 
https://www.friendsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/emember/downloads/1963/HC12-50307.pdf

"the Human Betterment association for Voluntary Sterilization" is just a euphemism for eugenics and it was voluntary only because Dr Stokes had failed to get a bill through in 1937 making it compulsory when ordered by a relevant authority. And "voluntary" is hardly correct. These people were bombarded with propaganda, pressure and inducements to be sterilized for "the human betterment". 
https://www.mhsnj.org/resources/Documents/Member%20Publications%20Online/Katz%20-%20Marian%20Stephenson%20Olden%20and%20the%20Sterilization%20Movement%20with%20Special%20Reference%20to%20New%20Jersey.pdf

So I agree, she was in the mainstream.

But let's put it in historical context. The people thought they were doing good. The work "eugenics" is a portmanteau of the Greek word eu, meaning good, with the suffix -genes, meaning born. Galton  defined eugenics as "the study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations."

The fact that they were completely wrong, morally and scientifically, is beside the point. Unless you were one of those voluntarily (or not) used to "help" the cause.   

Ruth I believe, tried to "sell" these "helpful" measures to poor Black women. 

I believe that is why she was shunned by the African-American community in Irving in 1966. She was just plain creepy when in her "charitable" mode. 

Racial hygienists/Eugenicists/Human Betterment Proponents targeted via legislation, the following groups for the "good" of all.  "The feeble-minded, the insane, the criminalistic, the epileptic, the inebriate, the diseased, the blind, the deaf, the deformed, the crippled, and the dependent (including "orphans, ne'er-do-wells, the homeless, tramps and paupers")


The above was part of a story based on interviews with Ruth by a Quaker journalist. No way did that maid broach the subject of birth control with Ruth. Much more likely is that Ruth broached it with her and got her to agree to be taken to the clinic. She didn't need a maid, but she couldn't stay away from the media attention. Ruth has never been subjected to anything other softball interviews.

greg_parker wrote:

Greg Doudna wrote:What is your evidence for the charge that Ruth Paine was pro-eugenics? ...Ruth Paine was in the mainstream of Friends values in the 1950s and 1960s so far as I can see from her writings and history

Your second sentence answers your preceding question.

Friends Journal, April 1, 1963, p155

Voluntary Sterilization
By MEDORA STEEDMAN BASS

ONCE again Friends have been partly responsible for a much needed but controversial service. Voluntary sterilization, or surgical birth control, used to be the privilege of the well-to-do. Now, due indirectly to the
pioneering leadership of three Quaker physicians, voluntary sterilization is being included in a public health program for indigent patients in Virginia. Of the 201 patients offered a comprehensive maternal care service, including birth control advice, 63 requested and were granted sterilization. The Human Betterment Association for Voluntary Sterilization has been largely responsible for this program. The first three presidents were Quakers: Dr. S. Emlen Stokes, Dr. Lovett Dewees, and Dr. H. Curtis Wood, Jr. 


"the Human Betterment association for Voluntary Sterilization" is just a euphemism for eugenics and it was voluntary only because Dr Stokes had failed to get a bill through in 1937 making it compulsory when ordered by a relevant authority. And "voluntary" is hardly correct. These people were bombarded with propaganda, pressure and inducements to be sterilized for "the human betterment". 


So I agree, she was in the mainstream.

But let's put it in historical context. The people thought they were doing good. The work "eugenics" is a portmanteau of the Greek word eu, meaning good, with the suffix -genes, meaning born. Galton  defined eugenics as "the study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations."

The fact that they were completely wrong, morally and scientifically, is beside the point. Unless you were one of those voluntarily (or not) used to "help" the cause.   

Ruth I believe, tried to "sell" these "helpful" measures to poor Black women. 

I believe that is why she was shunned by the African-American community in Irving in 1966. She was just plain creepy when in her "charitable" mode. 

Racial hygienists/Eugenicists/Human Betterment Proponents targeted via legislation, the following groups for the "good" of all.  "The feeble-minded, the insane, the criminalistic, the epileptic, the inebriate, the diseased, the blind, the deaf, the deformed, the crippled, and the dependent (including "orphans, ne'er-do-wells, the homeless, tramps and paupers")


The above was part of a story based on interviews with Ruth by a Quaker journalist. No way did that maid broach the subject of birth control with Ruth. Much more likely is that Ruth broached it with her and got her to agree to be taken to the clinic. She didn't need a maid, but she couldn't stay away from the media attention. Ruth has never been subjected to anything other softball interviews.

I agree you have established non-trivial Quaker involvement in the horrible "voluntary" sterilizations of poor people in America, which if encouraged and targeted toward a particular ethnicity today would qualify under the definition of genocide in international law. I wonder if other Quakers at the time spoke out against this at the time, internal to Friends Meetings and publicly. I do not know. There must have been, but I do not know that history. In the absence of further information I would not assume pro-eugenics was a majority opinion among Friends, though I do not know. I would again point to the documents of written "testimonies" as actual accurate reflection of what majority opinion was in Friends on any given issue. In any case the history of eugenics, scientific racism, in America and elsewhere was horrible. As you point out much evil in the world comes about from people who mean well, that is so true. A criticism of earlier Friends history held by Friends now with which I am more familiar is Quaker prominence in running the 19th century US Government Bureau of Indian Affairs (Native Americans), with colonialism issues. 

Therefore I accept you have established that it would be plausible that Ruth could well have shared views held by other socially-prominent Quakers at the time, as reported. But plausibility is not good enough to accuse someone of something, the question is: did she? Where is your evidence? Serious charges against persons should be supported with specific evidence, otherwise it is smearing and character assassination. 

You cite her being shunned by an African-American minister who wanted her to stay away from the African-American community in Dallas. I have seen that document. It does not tell the reason, which could be anything. It does not say the reason was related to birth control or family planning among African-Americans. The overt issue of Ruth's (rebuffed) initiative in that document says it was Ruth wanting to proactively integrate all-white housing areas of Irving. She had the idea of assisting middle-class African-American families in Dallas in buying homes in all-white neighborhoods in Irving through (I think) white "front buyers"--such as maybe Ruth or sympathetic whites Ruth would coordinate--to break the color barrier in which blacks were unable to buy homes in white neighborhoods because white realtors and homeowners would refuse to sell to them on the basis of the color of their skin. Ruth reached out to African-American community leaders in Dallas, evidently including the minister who reacted negatively, but her initiative ran into resistance, at least from that minister. I don't see the slightest evidence eugenics was involved there, as you assume.

On taking the African-American woman doing the housekeeping work to a clinic, the article says it was the woman who expressed interest in birth control. You just assert without any evidence whatsoever that that was not correct, that that could not have happened, and that Ruth basically was pushing birth control on this woman for basically eugenics reasons. Ruth had a history of taking Marina to clinics, to dentists, to the hospital when Marina gave birth. That is the kind of person Ruth was. Here she gave a ride and helped this woman go a clinic with information and access on birth control--and perhaps did discuss birth control with the woman herself (would that obviously be morally objectionable, as a woman to woman conversation?)--as said in the article, because that was what the woman had expressed interest in. I think that when you arbitrarily, without evidence, assert that Ruth "broached it with her and got her to agree to be taken to the clinic" as if Ruth was on a mission to get all the blacks in America to have less children, without evidence, is just an unwarranted smear. You do not know that. You are smearing a person here based on suspicion converted into conclusion.

What I know, Greg, is this:

1. It was a softball interview from a fellow Quaker intent on painting her as some kind of Florence Nightingale or Saint Teresa. 

2. In Dallas, 1963, no black employee of a white woman is going to suddenly put down her feather duster and start talking about her "need" for birth control. Realistically, Ruth would have raised it with her and the woman would have agreed to just about anything in fear of upsetting the white woman and losing her job. To read "the Colored woman expressed interest" as meaning it was the colored woman who raised the issue is naive at best. The statement really equates to "the Colored woman expressed agreement" to commence birth control and Mother Ruth Nightingale couldn't get her to the clinic fast enough. "Let the housework go hang" is unintentionally hilarious. 

3. The document regarding integration does not indicate just being shunned by one, but by everyone she approached and all unanimously agreed they wanted her kept away from them. Why would they shun her assistance in a cause that was high on their own agenda? It sounds deeply personal and there is not much that is more personal than lecturing about reproduction. 

4. The Friends Journal starts out saying "ONCE again Friends have been partly responsible for a much needed but controversial service. Voluntary sterilization, or surgical birth control..." The "controversy" is not coming from within. 

5. You said Ruth was in the mainstream of Friends in the 1950s and 1960s. Now suddenly you want to back away from that. This is not the so-called "Education" Forum. Facts actually matter here.