Lee Oswald Was One Weird Dude, Part 3

As discussed in Parts 1 and 2, Lee Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy has a strange and contradictory life history. Some researchers insist this conflicting evidence is proof of a body double, or doppelganger, a clandestine intelligence project. Two stumbling blocks are one, where does the double go after the assassination and two, if the impersonation begins as a youth then Oswald’s mother has to be a double as well. Many records are lost or still classified though enough has been leaked to form a much different picture than what the Warren Report first told the American public. If it is true that Oswald was operating as doppelganger for some secret project, then we can see why the government remains fanatical in its attempts to obscure the truth.

Oswald Defects to The USSR
The news that a U.S. Marine defected to a major enemy at the height of the cold war reverberated through every government agency. Memos were sent to every branch of the government and military. As they should have since Oswald had a “crypto” clearance, one higher up than Top Secret. Later, military codes would have to changed since Oswald told American embassy officials he was going to tell the Russians everything he knew—which is an act of treason but he will not be prosecuted for though it was a breach of national security and he could have been arrested right there in the Embassy. He could also have been arrested upon his return to the U.S. but was not. This is possibly more evidence of Oswald’s covert activities at this time and he is being protected. Just as he was protected at so many other junctures before he arrived in Moscow and will be after he moves on.

So Lee Oswald’s sojourn to the Communist worker’s paradise is another mysterious and strange episode in his life. One of many that would be recycled until his death. It is as fraught with anomalies as his trip to Mexico is. To summarize, he gets an early discharge from the Marines to take care of his mother, books a trip on a steamer and makes his way to Russia. He contacts the American Embassy in Moscow and announces his defecting, says he is planning on sharing military secrets with the Russians, and in a hand written letter renounces his citizenship. Later he gets assigned a job at a radio factory in Minsk, meets his future wife and marries her in six weeks and they have a baby. He becomes disillusioned, gets a loan from the State Department and he and family return to the United States in the summer of 1962.

My summary is perhaps too lean but of interest here is the peculiar issues that arise. Such as Oswald drafting a letter renouncing his citizenship. Due to a 1907 law one must fill out a “Certificate of Loss of Nationality” to relinquish citizenship. He did not. One would think the lawyers at the Embassy would have informed him of this fact. What his letter does is provide him an out should he need to return since it is not legally valid. He can tell the world he is no longer an American but the legal framework is not there. So if you want to know how he got back to the U.S. so easily this why. He was blowing smoke.

Though a good Russian speaker he rarely speaks Russian to anyone except Marina, who though he was a local when they first met. She said he spoke with a Baltic accent. Oswald’s learning Russian is shrouded in mystery with the Warren Report guessing a Marine officer teaching him. Most of the men closest to him report never seeing him doing anything in this regard. Never the less if Oswald is part of a false defector program (the ONI ran one out of Nags Head, NC) then speaking Russian too much is a dead give away to being a spy. Post cold war KGB records indicate his apartment was bugged. The Ziger family who befriended him said he never spoke Russian to them and their father who spoke English had to translate for him. Interestingly, Marina spoke English and Lee wrote her letters in English but she rarely spoke it when she came to America with him. (For more on this please see my article, From Marina Prusakova, With Love)

Oswald’s reasons for returning to America are also shrouded in mystery. He made a high salary but had no place to spend it as consumer goods were hard to find outside of the basics. If Oswald was a cold war spy the Russians had him boxed in the factory in Minsk. Not much in the way of spy activity could be done there. Other defectors like him, such as Robert Webster (who bore a striking resemblance to Oswald and met Marina—who spoke to him in English) defected and came back home after a few years disillusioned with the communist system. If Webster was an agent then he was boxed in too. The Russians had a healthy mistrust of America defectors showing up at their door. As Oswald said to his mother when she inquired about this, “Mother, not even Marina knows why I came back.” He wouldn’t even tell his wife. A Cold War spy probably would not.

The Opening of the SIG 201 File
There is good reason to believe that Oswald was a Cold War spy. Why? Because a former agent said so under oath to the HSCA in 1978. Ann Egerter worked under counter espionage chief James Angleton. In retirement at the time of her testimony, her words were so revealing it is amazing that it did not make a bigger impact in the public consciousness in regards to Oswald and the assassination.

Essentially, a SIG 201 file is opened on a CIA agent or asset in regards to a counter espionage investigation. Ann Egerter referred to SIG (Special Investigations Group) as, “the office that spied on spies.” A SIG 201 file was evidence and result of an internal investigation into one of the CIA’s own people. Egerter also asserted many different times that there was no other purpose for a SIG 201 file to be opened on an individual. That person would have to be a CIA employee in some capacity. As usual with these things, two plus two equals four. Lee Oswald is in effect a CIA spy.

Oswald’s SIG 201 file was started the year following his alleged defection, in December 1960. Oddly, the name on the file is Lee Henry Oswald. However, Ann Egerter said in her HSCA testimony that it was Lee Harvey Oswald’s 201 file. And odd occurrence but perhaps a way to throw off investigators should the truth was revealed? Plausible denial? Also, all information on Oswald should have been filed under the Soviet Affairs division but was not. It was under direct control of James Angleton who was rabid in his pursuit of moles within the Agency. Researcher John Newman (Oswald and the CIA) believes Oswald was a special project under control of Angleton and may have been.

Remarkably, Warren Commission defenders such as Bugliosi, Mailer, McAdams, and Posner continue to deny there was any evidence of Oswald being associated with the CIA. Vince Bugliosi in Reclaiming History totally ignores Ann Egerter’s testimony to the HSCA not only in his 1600 plus pages of his book but also in over 900 pages of End Notes. Buglosi implies that people other than CIA personnel can be appear in a 201 file, saying that a 201 is, “A file kept on an individual, including CIA employees…” Not so according to Ann Egerter.

Even stranger is the HSCA’s final report, states there was “no evidence” linking Oswald to the CIA, obviously ignoring Ann Egerter’s testimony as well. Another example of why Congress should never be allowed to investigate tragic events such as this.

Oswald Seen Outside of Russia
Once again, Oswalds appear in places they shouldn’t be. Most telling is one of the few surviving documents from an employment application filed with the Texas Employment Commission in Ft. Worth in April of 1962. It is well documented that Oswald, wife and daughter were in Minsk at that time. In volume 19, page 491 of the Warren Commission evidence volumes, is listed a few surviving applications with the TEC. Such as form E-40a, Aptitude Profile Test (APT) B-1002 and the Occupational Aptitude Pattern test (OAP). Of all of these the OAP is dated for 4/62 when he is in Russia. The other forms are dated for summer of 1962 when he had returned to America.

Of note is the APT B-1002 from which is normally given to insurance claim examiners, something clearly out of Lee Oswald’s league. The FBI or WC never investigates why he would be given this test. Also, on the application listed as Cunningham Exhibit No.1-A, there is listed employment (description barely unreadable—office work?) for one year in New Orleans in 1961. Once again he is Russia at this time.

Lee Oswald, or someone impersonating him, was seen by so many people that it made it’s way all the up to Hoover at the FBI. In a 1960 memo, Hoover is warned that someone is impersonating a Lee Oswald. This memo is written in a simple, matter of fact way, as if this is prior or common knowledge. If the Lee Oswald we have been handed is a malcontent, misfit of a young man why would he be impersonated? The only answer is he was an action guy of some sort playing one role for official history and another one for the National Security State.

In another memo dated from March 31, 1961 a state department official Edward Hickey writes to a fellow official John White informing him that, “there is an imposter using Oswald’s identification data…” and recommending his passport should be forwarded to him on a personal basis—to make sure the right Lee H. Oswald got it. So it was becoming well known in closed circles that this Oswald character had a cloud swirling around him and warnings were being sent out through the proper channels.

Lee Oswald was once again spotted in various places he should not have been while in Russia. He was seen in and out of the Lake Ponchartrain CIA training camp for Cuban operations in Louisiana to as far south as Key West in Florida. Attorney Robert Tanenbaum said during his brief tenure with the HSCA said he saw a film of the Cuban exiles in training at Lake Ponchartrain. Seen in the film was CIA man David Atlee Philips, David Ferrie, and Lee Oswald. This time period could anytime around around 1960-63. Oswald is either in Russia at this time or in New Orleans. Never the less, he is seen in the presence of CIA operatives, while he is not supposed to have known any under the official story. Oh, if we could just see this film!

There are too many accounts to document here but one of interest is the HSCA testimony of Marita Lorenz. Lorenz, a former lover of Castro became involved with the CIA’s JM/WAVE project, which was the driving force behind the Bay of Pigs operation. She claimed to have met Oswald in a CIA safe house in Florida in April of 1961—when he was supposed to be in Russia. In the transcript one can sense the chagrin of the lawyer questioning her, incredulous at her words. He kept trying to shake her off her testimony but she remained steadfast. Later, she would recant her statements, most likely under the threat of perjury. Of course to change her views like that would be perjury as well but she was never indicted. What she said the first time around certainly had the ring of truth to it, especially when compared to other witness accounts and later day documents showing Oswald was being impersonated.

The Luggage
One last note here on this phase of Oswald’s life. Upon arriving with wife and baby in New York, a welfare caseworker was assigned to help them. He took note of seven bags, as he had to help move them from the ship to the hotel they were staying at. Shortly thereafter, when they were taken to the airport, only five bags were available. When asked, Oswald said that two were shipped ahead of them via train. Later when brother Robert arrived at the Ft Worth airport to pick them up there were only three bags to collect. So two bags were missing after landing in New York and two more bags were missing after they returned to Texas, a total of four. Yet neither Lee nor Marina ever complained of missing luggage—an odd occurrence to say the least. What happened here?

Although Marina maintained they were never separated on their trans-Europe train trip to Holland, their passport stamps tell a different story. At the East Berlin border crossing Marina’s passport is stamped. Lee’s is not stamped till they get to the German/Belgium border. Documentation that he crossed from east to west is not recorded. It has been speculated that he was taken aside and debriefed at this point by military intelligence, possibly ONI. It may also be that he was given four extra bags with intelligence files in them to act as a currier. (Later, CIA officer Hunter Leake would say he hired Oswald as a currier in New Orleans in 1963.) Thus, the missing luggage would be no consequence to them.

COMING IN PART 4: High strangeness leads up to the big event.

Sources: Newman, John, Oswald and the CIA; Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; McKnight, Gerald, Breach of Trust; Warren Commission Report; Mailer, Norman, Oswald’s Tale, Douglass, James, JFK and the Unspeakable; www.ctka.net (Probe Magazine article archive)

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From Marina Prusakova, With Love

Nobody in the annals of the JFK assassination is who they appear to be at first glance. Marina Oswald Porter has done a good job at portraying herself as the distraught widow of a man charged with one of the dastardliness crimes of the 20th century. An innocent Russian girl meets an American defector, falls in love and marries after meeting him 6 weeks earlier and with him and baby in tow, returns to America. Of course, she cannot maintain this image alone, and had a great deal of help from writer Priscilla Johnson McMillan, who herself got the first interview in Moscow with Lee Oswald upon his defection. We now know from document releases that she was also a CIA asset. As Donald Jameson, the CIA’s Chief of the Soviet Russia division said in a memo, "I think that Miss Johnson can be encouraged to write pretty much the articles we want." She has in fact spent a career helping the Government’s case of Oswald as the lone gunman in books and articles and wrote Marina and Lee with Marina’s input.

Marina’s Ability To Speak English
One apparent falsehood Marina maintained for years is that she did not speak English when she arrived in America with her defector husband. In her Warren Commission testimony she required the need of a translator to answer questions. Years later in Garrison grand jury testimony, when asked who she spoke to when they landed in New York, she said no one as she didn’t speak English. In fact she stated numerous times in her testimony that she didn’t speak English at all in her first years in America. She also said in grand jury testimony that back in 1963 she was taking English lessons from George Bola who just happened to be Jack Ruby’s next-door neighbor. However, her statements of not being able to speak and understand English are at odds with the facts as we now know them.

Here is a list of points that dispel this myth:

• In 1961 while still in Russia, Lee ​sent Marina a letter written in English.
• Robert Webster, another American defector, said he knew Marina and she spoke good English with a heavy accent.
• Descriptions on the back of photos taken in Russia are in Marina’s handwriting in Russian and English.
• Warren Commission, CE-100. Marina’s stenographic notebook found by the Dallas Police written in English. They also found a second notebook with Marina’s handwriting in English. There are other notebooks with her English writing in the National Archives.
• Business manager James Martin testified that she understood everything said to her in English.
• Robert Oswald in an FBI affidavit said Marina spoke to him in English, without a translator, in regards to a business contract with James Martin. A contract written only in English.
• Marguerite Oswald in Warren Commission testimony mentions numerous conversations with Marina—all in English.
• Marina gets trapped in Garrison grand jury testimony saying she called Reily Coffee Company looking for Lee. She was asked how she could do that, she replied she knew “a few words.”
• Though filled with inconsistencies in the evidence the WC fails to explore these apparent contractions. As usual, don’t tell us more than we want to know. Marina knowing English well enough to write and speak would raise questions of where she learned it; she was after all, a graduate of pharmacy school. And why would she need it anyway? She would only need if she were an operative for the State. And Oswald was not the only American defector she met in Russia. She also met and spoke with Robert Webster, though she denies this though her address book had the address of the apartment building he stayed in.

Interestingly, Lee Oswald spoke excellent Russian but not much of it in Russia. Befriended by the Ziger family, they report Oswald only spoke in English with their father translating. We know from released transcripts that his apartment was bugged by the KGB and fluent Russian speaking could have brought about an arrest for espionage. The Russians were already suspicious of him upon his arrival. It seems he only spoke Russian to Marina as she said he spoke well enough to have a Baltic accent. But why did he trust her to the exclusion of all others? It may be that she was an operative and needed him as her ticket out of Russia and into the United States. Former KGB defector, Petr Deryabin said that any Russian woman that wanted to marry a foreigner and leave had to agree to work for the KGB. Marina got her permission to slip fast—in 7 days. Marriage certificates were issued by the secret police, which were also issued promptly.

Marina And Prostitution
And she seems like such a nice girl. So sweet and innocent in her early pictures, so pained with grief at the ghastly chain of events she became involved with. To find out that she may have been involved with a prostitution ring in Leningrad is quite a shock. Certainly a great departure from what was written by Priscilla McMillan in “Marina and Lee,” the 1974 book describing Marina as a virtuous woman. A woman allegedly thanked Lee for saving herself for him on their wedding night. However, a Mr. Merezhinsky tells a different tale.

Yuri Merezhinsky, interviewed by Norman Mailer for his book Oswald’s Tale, says she was anything but virtuous, claiming she was a prostitute. He knew Marina quite well and says she was in a group of four people—two women and two men—that were plying their trade in a Hotel Leningrad that were eventually booted out of the city. It was an offence strong enough to be sent to a labor camp, which didn’t happen to Marina. What would lead her to this alleged occupation can only be speculated at but the KGB did maintain “honey traps” for intelligence gathering purposes from various officials, both local and foreign. She would have been known as a “swallow” in the honey trap. Marina was known to associate with diplomats and high government bureaucrats. Her basic clientele would have been foreigners. She would years later admit to being raped by an Afghan ambassador. How would she meet up with this sort of individual? ​ ​Nevertheless, Marina suddenly leaves Leningrad and ends up living with her aunt and uncle in Minsk, where he was a member of the secret police, the MVD. Merezhinsky, though not her lover, said she was quite promiscuous with many of his friends without regard to reputation. He said he never told Lee any of this. (Although Lee, understanding Russian would have picked up on the gossip.)

However, Yuri Merezhinsky is not the only witness to Marina’s sexual history. The aforementioned James Martin, the business manager, was also Marina’s lover and learned a lot about her past. He would relate this account to the HSCA in 1978 that he attempted to tell the Warren Commission about her background; he was suddenly interrupted by Earl Warren who ordered the stenographer to tear up the tape. This is the destruction of witness testimony in front of the witness and the Commission! Of course this makes one wonder how much other testimony was also concealed from the public in this manner. As usual, the WC had more than they wanted to know. Marina being involved with an Afghan ambassador would raise too many questions about how she got access to such high officials and what she was doing with them and for whom.

Marina obliquely commented about prostitution in an interview for Oswald’s Tale. The interviewer commented about her carrying a “great burden” upon leaving Leningrad. She danced around the issue saying she was never paid any money without defining what she was doing to be paid money for. This is all we’ll know for now. Whether or not she was a prostitute is circumstantial at best except the footprints are all over the trail.

Epilogue
As usual, the Warren Commission conceals from us who Lee Oswald was and apparently who his wife was as well. Her testimony down through the years is fraught with numerous contradictions and apparent falsehoods. She is an enigma like her husband. She says she graduated from pharmacy school though she started when she was 14 years old. As a young woman she goes on a two-month traveling vacation of which it is unknown how she paid for it or got the state permission to enter so many cities. The CIA wrote a 29-point report suspecting her of being an intelligence agent. She undertakes major life changes and choices with seemingly little emotional distress, discussion, or forethought. Marrying a misfit foreigner after only knowing him for 6 weeks, having a child with him, and then uprooting her life to move to another country where she does not speak the language (obviously false) or know anyone is achieved with as much aplomb as figuring out what to wear for the day.

Somebody made sure her testimony would be in line with the official story because just before Marina was called to give her testimony, she inked a deal with Tex-Italia Films to produce a movie on her life. She also made other financial dealings with the American and foreign press.   She was paid a total of $132,350.  It must have been off the books money, because Marina's 1964 tax return lists a total income of $40, 935.05. ​ She was unemployed that year, so where is this income derived from? Why is the $132,350​ not recorded as income? ​ ​Lots of unsolved and confusing mysteries here.

If she married a foreigner to come over to play spy all plans were shattered with the assassination of John Kennedy. The KGB wanted no part of that. For the Warren Commission she went along with the flow. Now she says her late husband was innocent of any crime. In the Orleans Parish Grand Jury Transcripts, she comes off as a dunderhead, not remembering anything or knowing much of anything. She comes off strangely detached from all of the events around her. One can read, “I don’t know…” without end.

Marina knows plenty but playing dumb works.

Sources: Newman, John, Oswald and the CIA; Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; McKnight, Gerald, Breach of Trust; Warren Commission Report; Mailer, Norman, Oswald’s Tale

Marina Oswald Porter Orleans Parish Grand Jury Transcripts:
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/garr/grandjury/Porter/html/Porter_0001a.htm

Marina’s IRS from 1964
https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/explore-the-collections/list/collections/10


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JFK Assassination Trivia

Amaze your friends! Confound the skeptics! It’s time friends, for Kennedy Assassination Trivia. Actually, more like one coincidence and mystery piled upon another.

• Texas oilman, D.H. Byrd was the owner of Texas School book depository. Interestingly enough, he was the founder of the Civil Air Patrol. Lee Oswald was a member of the CAP as a teenager. Ironically enough, he would be in the same building owned by Byrd the day of the assassination and later implicated in the crime.
• The Texas School Book Depository building was empty six months prier to the assassination in 1963. It was not associated with the Texas school district or any local or state government agency.
• The person hired to write the final draft of the Warren Commission Report was a German named, Otto Winnacker. He was brought to the US after WWII to under Operation Paperclip. He was officially one of 26 Nazi historians that worked personally for Adolph Hitler, compiling the history of the Third Rich. A former Nazi finished the final report.
• Lee Oswald, through with being a defector to Russia got a loan from the State Department for almost $500. Him, his wife Marina, and their month old Daughter June, traveled back to America on the SS Maasdam, a Holland America luxury liner. There is an SS Maasdam ship is still in service, though a completely rebuilt vessel from the one Oswald and family sailed on.
• Oswald’s Mother, Margurite Oswald's tax returns from 1956-62 are held in the National Archives and are unavailable to the public. Curiously, they are marked, “referred…postponed in full.”
• Interestingly, a John and Minnie Smith have their tax returns from 1956-62 also classified as well. They are also marked, “referred…postponed in full.” Researchers have no idea who the Smith’s were or why their tax returns are classified for a similar period.
• Marilyn Murret was Lee Oswald’s aunt and she testified before the HSCA. Oddly, they asked the CIA for permission to interview her. She is suspected of being a CIA operative. Why else would they need the CIA’s consent to interview a private citizen? Her 23 pages of testimony have never been released. Also marked, “referred…postponed in full.”
• Jim Garrison attempted to look at the Paine’s income tax records but discovered their returns from 1956-1958 were, and still are, classified.
• Lee Harvey Oswald, after defecting to the Soviet Union, received a notice that he had been given an “undesirable discharge” from the Marines. He wrote a scathing letter to the Secretary of the Navy complaining about this as a “gross injustice.” The Secretary of the Navy at that time was John Connelly, the future governor of Texas, and whose path would later cross with Oswald in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.
• Oswald’s mother Marguerite was married three times. The last husband was Edwin Ekdahl. They were divorced in June of 1948. His attorney was Fred Korth. Korth would later go on to have a successful career in Washington DC and replace John Connally as Secretary of Navy. He resigned the position five weeks before the assassination.
• One of the Warren Commission members who later became its biggest critic was Congressman Hale Boggs. In his words,"We have not been told the truth about Oswald." In 1972 his plane went missing in Alaska and he and the pilot were never heard from again. Congressman Boggs was taken to the airport for the first leg of the trip by a young, up and coming man in the democrat party named…Bill Clinton.
• Lucky Lee. While in the marines, Oswald was court martialed twice. Once, for accidentally shooting himself in the arm with a .22 and the second time for an altercation with a non-commissioned officer. His combined punished amounted to 48 days in confinement (brig), and a fine of $105. Neither of these punishments resulted in him losing his security clearance. His medical records show he was treated for a venereal decease but was not kicked out of the service because, as his record states, his infection occurred, “in the line of duty, not due to his own misconduct.” Strange, but what is not strange about this man?
• From the House Select Committee of Assassinations (HSCA) final report on the Kennedy assassination: "The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy."
• To avoid a media frenzy at the time, Oswald was buried quietly under the name "William Bobo." His final resting place is at Shannon Rose Hill Memorial Park in Fort Worth, Texas.
• Both Lee Oswald and Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth have much in common. Both men were born 100 years apart. Both wrote speeches on the main issue of their eras, but never delivered them. Both accidentally shot themselves with handguns. Both were arrested for petty crimes before the main crimes that would later make them famous. (See more in the Oswald/Booth trivia chapter.)
• Oswald’s favorite soft drink was Dr. Pepper.
• After Jack Ruby killed Oswald on live television he was placed in the same holding cell that Oswald was in just a few moments before his death.
• In Dallas on the day of the assassination was the confluence of three future presidents. Lyndon Johnson, in the motorcade; George Bush, Sr., in Dallas for a campaign stop; Richard Nixon for a business meeting. Both Bush and Nixon were in Dallas the day before and flew out the morning of the assassination.
• George de Mohrenschildt a Russian émigré and oil businessman was asked by a CIA contact to befriend the Oswald’s after they came back from Russia. His wife Jeanne was a member of a Dallas business organization. A fellow member was Abraham Zepruder the man who would film the last moment’s of John Kennedy’s life. Before that they both worked for Navdis, a Dallas fashion company.
• John Jay McCloy was a member of the Warren Commission. He was the High Commissioner of Germany after the war and decided who would be prosecuted for war crimes and who would be given a pass. One such pass was given to Walter Dornberger who worked with Wernher von Braun on the V-2 rocket program. He later went to work for Bell Labs. One of his fellow employees was Michael Paine. Paine’s wife Ruth helped Lee Oswald get his job at the schoolbook depository building.
• John Jay McCloy was the moving force behind the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. One of his cohorts in that disgraceful period was the AG of California, the esteemed Earl Warren. Later they would team up for fun and games on the Commission supposedly investigating JFK's assassination.
  
• In 1948 Marguerite Oswald bought a house. In 1950 she wrote a letter to her son John Pic telling him she was behind two months in rent. The Warren Commission never resolved the discrepancy of why she was paying rent when she owned a house or how should could have done that on her small salary.
• Lee Oswald allegedly made a paper bag from packaging paper and tape from his place of work. This bag was supposed to be used to sneak the rifle into the School Book Depository building the day of the assassination. A similar paper bag was found in the Dallas Post Office “dead letter” department after the assassination. It had the right name but the wrong address and insufficient postage. Two bags for one gun? Oswald is supposed to be making his own bags so what is this one doing in the mail?
  

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Lee Oswald Was One Weird Dude, Part 2

All of Lee Harvey Oswald’s medical records state he had a 3” scar on the left side of the neck from a childhood mastoid operation. This scar was never documented in the autopsy by the pathologist nor seen by the mortician. Nor is it visible in this photograph of Oswald after his arrest.

In Part 1, I covered the possibility that Lee Oswald strange life was result of being a doppelganger. No person that lived probably had a more conflicting and contradictory past than this man. Records of school and employment often do not concur; witnesses report knowing a Lee Oswald at several different places at the same time; descriptions of Oswald vary from a tall bull-necked young man to a short skinny waif. What is also interesting is that his mother Marguerite also had varying descriptions in appearance, contradictory work records and addresses, which conflict at a regular basis throughout the history of this chronicle.

Also of interest is how the FBI and the Warren Commission dealt with these paradoxes. Mostly, they were all ignored. In same situations it is apparent that a phony record was created to iron out the problems. As stated by Warren Commission attorney Albert Jenner on the work of another attorney working for the Commission, “…our depositions and examination of records disclose that there are details in Mr. Ely's memoranda which will require material alteration and, in some cases, omission". This was in reference to staff attorney John Hart Ely research into Marguerite and Lee’s lives. So they knew there were problems, serious problems, which had to be dealt with. It can be shown that those in charge did alter records and did commit the sin of omission—and hence crimes of fact. What is most amazing is they did this in such a casual way, as if they were discussing rearranging the furniture in the room. Most likely, this is how things are done behind our backs. And why things never change.

The Marine Phase
For a guy who is supposedly a communist, totally opposed to the United States government and way of life, to enter the Marines is quite an oxymoron. No reason is really known why he joined in the first place. His brother Robert was a marine so perhaps that was his inspiration. The common knowledge as propagated by the Warren Report was that Lee Oswald was a commie malcontent, spouting Marxist dogma and studying Russian. He would get training to be a radar operator and eventually be stationed at Atsugi airbase in 1957-58 where the U2 spy planes operated. Though a military base the operation was run by the CIA.

However, this image of Oswald the commie comes from fellow Marines that barely knew him. One who did, Richard Cyr told the FBI that Oswald was just of the guys; never talking of politics or studying foreign languages. Cyr was present when Oswald accidentally shot himself with a .22 (resulting in his first of two court marital trials). He gave the FBI the names of eight other Marines that associated with Oswald of whom none were interviewed by the FBI. This follows a typical pattern of dealing with troublesome witnesses. Sidney Robinson did the same thing as Richard Cyr, giving the FBI the names of 7 marines who bunked with Oswald. Like Cyr’s information they too were ignored. Even the men around Oswald when he accidentally shot himself were never interviewed either.

Medical Records Clash
Lee Oswald’s medical records are another odd episode in his life. As mentioned in Part 1, Oswald is listed as being treated for contracting gonorrhea. As the notation states, “In the line of duty and, not of his own fault.” A rare entry to say the least. This was an offence that gets a soldier booted out of the service. Here, for some unknown reason he is given a pass. It has been speculated that Oswald was on a mission for the ONI when he contracted the disease and that is the reason for getting off the hook. But not of his “own fault”?

Even stranger is that he is given a course of penicillin for tonsillitis. Yet his childhood medical records state he had his tonsils removed at the age of six. Evidence of an imposter? Or perhaps a simple filing error?

Of note in his medical records is the three-inch mastoid scar from the operation he had at the age of five. The mastoids are a series of bones in the skull that an ear infection can spread to. An incision behind the ear down the neck is required. Amazingly, at Oswald’s autopsy, pathologist Dr. Earl Rose did not document the mastoid scar on the neck nor the gunshot wound on the upper left arm. Likewise, mortician Paul Groody while preparing Oswald’s body did not find those scars either. He was in fact called twice by the Secret Service in regards to this issue. Certainly an indication they were unsure of whom they had. As Groody said on the Coast-to-Coast AM radio program to host George Noory, at the last moment, the FBI showed up for one final set of fingerprints. Another indication that the FBI, along with the Secret Service, was unsure of which body they had as they already had multiple sets of prints of Oswald from the Marine files, his arrest in New Orleans in the summer of 1963, and his arrest for the murder of policeman Tippet and President Kennedy. Whatever the results were from 4 sets of fingerprints is unknown. But somebody was nervous about something to take prints off a dead man.

However, the medical record inconsistencies don’t get an easier to parse. On September 16, 1958 Oswald’s unit leaves Atsugi for work in Ping Tung, Taiwan aboard the USS Skagit. A Marine Corps unit record is called a diary. The event is recorded in the unit diary and Oswald is on that ship—he is mentioned by name. Meanwhile his medical records state during this period he was receiving medical treatment at the base hospital in Atsugi from the time the Skagit leaves throughout much of September of 1958. He was ailing from urethritis to hemorrhoids. It’s hard to comprehend that there are two Oswald’s in the same unit at the same time and place.

The chief counsel for the HSCS Robert Blakey had a dilemma to resolve with this odd issue as well. He contacted Secretary of Defense Harold Brown who wrote back that Oswald didn’t leave with his unit on 9/16 but instead stayed in Atsugi as part of a MAG II rear echelon unit. A pity that his unit diary never mentions a word of this. Maybe that is true and was left out of the unit diary for reasons of security. He could also have been flown back to the hospital for treatment of the reoccurring urethritis; it would have created a lot of flying back and forth. His records state that he was treated five times in September and twice in October.

Robert Blakey easily resolved the issue. He lied. As he wrote in the final report:

“Accordingly, based upon a direct examination of Oswald’s unit diaries, as well as his own-military records, it does not appear that he spent any time in Taiwan.”

One last thing—in his personal effects discovered by the Dallas Police were numerous pictures of the military installations in Taiwan. Lee H. Oswald was there.

One Lee in Japan, One Lee in New Orleans
Even more controversial (as if this can get even more so) is the account of Palmer McBride who from 1957-58 was employed as a delivery boy for the Pfisterere Dental Lab. McBride recalls working with a Lee Harvey Oswald during this time and getting to know him quite well, paling around with him. This is during the same time that Oswald is stationed in Japan in the Marines. The Warren Report fixed this situation by moving the date up a year to 1956 and never calling McBride to testify. In giving his account to the FBI, McBride says the Oswald he knew was very much a Marxist complete with the literature and speaking the dogma. The same type of Oswald that is reported to be in the Marines acting this same way at the time, only not reported by his closest friends and bunk mates there.

Nevertheless, McBride is not the only person to have seen and known this version of Oswald. McBride was a member of the NOAAA, the New Orleans Amateur Astronomy Association. It was common practice to have meetings in a member’s home and on one occasion this happened at the residence of Walter Gehrke in early, 1958. It was a memorable meeting for those there, as the night Lee Oswald showed up with McBride at one point, he launched into his communist diatribe and touted the success of the Soviet space efforts annoying many there and especially Walter Gehrke’s father who was ready to toss Oswald out of his house. He was never invited back.

Walter Gehrke did state at the time FBI officials that he thought this meeting took place in 1956, but was unsure of the date. He offered them the minutes of the meeting but the FBI never followed up on the records. Nevertheless, Palmer McBride stands by the date of 1957-58 for the events of working with Oswald and being with him at the NOAAA meeting.

Final Word
As we can see, Lee Oswald’s records are still in divergence with his movements and the recollections of people that interacted with him. As far as his Marine Corps records go, the idea there are two men of the same name, in the same unit at the same time, is too outlandish to be believable. There is too much potential for a screw-up and too much work to keep them both separate. Of course one Lee in the Marines and another Lee in New Orleans is far-out too but never the less, is backed up by witnesses testimony.

I would think an intelligence operation would not want their double to be so high profile. I would keep my guy in the shadows and make sure he used an alias for any involvement with the public. This guy is all over the place, leaving witnesses in his wake, and most importantly, a paper trail. Of course in the end, this issue is never probed by any official investigation so it all becomes a big wash. The process is politicized and the lawyers are always there to direct everything to its predetermined conclusion anyhow. Notice how they always begin with a conclusion before they start? The Warren Commission to the 9-11 Commission operated under the same model. As an old lawyer friend once told me, always know the answer before you ask the question. Here, they drew up six major areas of inquiry and Lee Oswald was four of the six.

Lee Oswald as doppelganger may be the most volatile element of the Kennedy assassination and why the government has fought so long and hard in revealing even the most minor of facts to this day.

COMING IN PART 3: Oswald Strangeness From Russia and back again. Strange days lead up to the lead up to the big event.

Sources: Newman, John, Oswald and the CIA; Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; McKnight, Gerald, Breach of Trust; Warren Commission Report

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