Norwood's review of the Gregory book

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/untold-account-marina-lee

The intro to the review states

In this review of a new book called The Oswalds, James Norwood makes it clear that in spite of a direct and personal connection to his subject, author Paul Gregory relies heavily on discredited evidence to make the case that Oswald really was the lone assassin of JFK.

But speaking of using discredited eveidence... that is precvisely what Norwood does 

From the review

And yet when it comes to the matter of Oswald’s Russian language skills, Gregory cites my article “Oswald’s Proficiency in the Russian Language,”[iii] wherein I explore the evidence indicating that Oswald was already fluent in Russian prior to his departure for the Soviet Union in 1959. My contention was that Oswald was an asset of the United States government sent to the Soviet Union due to his ability to understand Russian, which he carefully concealed during his nearly three-year sojourn in Minsk. Gregory acknowledges that Russian is a difficult language to learn, yet he appears to dismiss my findings as conspiratorial thinking: “Some conspiracy theorists contend that Oswald’s Russian fluency constitutes proof of a conspiracy. They claim that he could not have picked up the language so quickly.”[iv] But Gregory does not explore how, when, and where Oswald did pick up the language so quickly. He only indicates that Oswald’s Russian language skills were “self-taught.”[v] But where did the self-instruction occur? It certainly was not at Arlington Heights High School in Fort Worth in which Oswald dropped out after completing the ninth grade. It was not at the Monterey Institute of Languages, as Oswald never resided in Northern California. There is a suggestion he was there, but no real proof. It did not occur during his stint in the Marines, where Oswald was observed by multiple eyewitnesses as already fully capable of reading Russian-language materials in print.

Norwood bends the records to warp them in favor of his Two Oswald beliefs. Herre, that means warping the records to try and demonstrate that Oswald had no training and did not need any because he was a native speaker.

Utter codswallop.

That last quoted sentence is particularly agregious. What Norwod deliberately omits is that Oswald was observed reading Russian papers only after his return from Japan. 

Because it was in Japan where Oswald had formal, deep instruction followed by self-learning which continued on after he returned State-side.

The full details along with a shitload of citations to back it up, can be found here.

Norwood continually appeals to his own authority to shill for one of the stupidest theories out there.

Quite sad that Jim Di allows such nonsense on his site.

greg_parker wrote:Norwood continually appeals to his own authority to shill for one of the stupidest theories out there.

For some reason, he doesn't seem keen to continue his debate on this forum. I'm not sure why.

Norwood writes:

... in the Marines, where Oswald was observed by multiple eyewitnesses as already fully capable of reading Russian-language materials in print.

Oswald's Marine buddies didn't claim that he was "already fully capable of reading Russian-language materials in print" (my emphasis). They claimed that he was learning the language by using "Russian-language materials in print" along with a Russian-English dictionary.

Here's what some of them said (all from Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits, volume 8:
(https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=36):

- James Anthony Botelho (p.315): "It was common knowledge that Oswald had taught himself to speak Russian."

- David Christie Murray (p.319): "When I knew him, he was studying Russian."

- Henry J. Roussel (pp.320-1): "I remember that Oswald could speak a little Russian ... I knew of Oswald's study of the Russian language ... I am under the impression that prior to studying Russian ..."

- Mack Osborne (pp.321-2): "Oswald was at that time studying Russian. He spent a great deal of his free time reading papers printed in Russian ... with the aid of a Russian-English dictionary. ... Because of the fact that he was studying Russian, fellow Marines sometimes jokingly accused him of being a Russian spy." 

- Richard Dennis Call (p.322): "During this time, Oswald was studying Russian. For this reason many members of the unit kidded him about being a Russian spy."

Note in particular Mack Osborne's comment: "with the aid of a Russian-English dictionary".

Oswald wasn't using those magazines and newspapers to find out what was going on in the world. He was using them "with the aid of a Russian-English dictionary" to improve his knowledge of the language. It's a standard language-learning technique. I find it difficult to believe that Norwood doesn't understand this point.

Vinny wrote:Quite sad that Jim Di allows such nonsense on his site.

True!