Double Vision

I’ve written often on the theory that Lee Oswald was impersonated. At first, I thought this was a fringe element of JFK assassination research. Really wacky. However, some many phases and events in Oswald’s life are so perplexing and in some circumstances, downright weird, that two Oswalds can be the only explanation to suss out the high strangeness of Oswald’s life.

It’s quite evident that there is a coverup in the JFK assassination from documents that remain sealed to the odd disappearances and deaths of witnesses. As at least one researcher has told me, the doppelgängers present a good reason for a coverup. The government had little problem telling the public that Abraham Lincoln was killed as a direct result of a conspiracy. Why this president?

There is no way to maintain order in a civil society if a government admits that a national leader has been slain and the accused assassin has a double on the loose. On the other hand, what a great way to run such an operation. Have one man develop a legend–making appearances in public places to create a personality type, especially an unlikable, undesirable one. In the meantime, set up his double to take the fall. And the arrested Oswald said such a thing before he was silenced–"I’m just the patsy.”

It all looks like fringe research till you read the June, 1960 memo that FBI Director Hoover sent the Department of State asking for more information regarding Lee Oswald possibly being impersonated. You can rest assured that Hoover sensed something wasn’t right with a former Marine defecting to the Soviet Union and he was developing leads on him early on. Ultimately, he knew the most about Oswald outside of the traditional rings of power and the intelligence agencies. (That memo also shows that Hoover lied immediately following the assassination of JFK when he said for the public record that Lee Oswald was somebody the FBI knew little about. And the FBI agents were showing up everywhere Oswald had worked or went to school in less than 24 hours collecting documents on him. Didn’t take them long did it? And many of those records quickly disappeared.)

There are many instances of Lee Oswald possibly being impersonated but what follows is a few of the many examples of a likely doppelgänger in play.

Arrival in New Orleans, 1963

Lee Oswald arrives in New Orleans supposedly in search of work but as will develop over that summer, he will pursue marxist political operations which will land him in jail resulting in a TV interview and a radio debate which will further build the public legend of a leftwing agitator, one of the forerunners of many more to follow in the decade of the 1960’s.

When Oswald turns up on April 24, he stays with his aunt and uncle, Lillian and Charles Murret. Lillian is his mother’s younger sister. 

Lee starts doing something peculiar. He starts researching Oswalds in the phone directory seeking to get in touch with his father’s brothers. He’s particularly interested in Harvey, the source of his middle name. He eventually makes contact with Hazel Oswald, the widow of William, one of his father’s other brothers. She informs him that all of his uncles are deceased. He then travels to meet her and she gives him a large, framed picture of his father, Robert Sr.

There are several odd things about this story. First, why doesn’t Lee know his uncles are all gone? All he has to do is ask his aunt Lillian. She’s a life-long resident of New Orleans and would probably know if any of the Oswalds were alive since her sister married into the Oswald family. It’s a common thing most people know, regarding families, both blood and by marriage. If anything, he could have called his mother to find out. Even his brothers, Robert and John Pic, might have known.

Apparently, Lee didn’t want anybody in his family to know that he was looking up Oswald family members that by all counts, he should have known were dead.

Maybe because this is the wrongLee, an impostor arriving in New Orleans with a sketchy history of the Oswald family. If he asked anybody in the know, for example his mother or his aunt, he may have been met with, “You don’t know that your uncles are all gone?” Although one would assume that in an operation utilizing doubles, they would both be well briefed in family matters such as this. It’s reminiscent of Marguerite Oswald giving a host of wrong answers when questioned by probation officer John Caro in 1953 regarding Lee being truant from school in New York.

Eventually, he meets up with Hazel Oswald who gives him a large, framed picture of their father, Robert Sr. It should be noted that this picture is not found in Oswald’s possessions after the assassination. Robert Oswald ends up with it. Interesting, because Robert maintains that he never had any contact with Lee after the 1962 Thanksgiving gathering (see below) until the day of the assassination. So how did he get it?

Here’s a bit of trivia. William Oswald had a son, also named William. Researcher John Armstrong discovered that William was working as a salesman at the Reilly Coffee company at the very same time Lee was working there (p. 554). It’s unknown what interaction Lee had with this cousin or if William helped Lee get the job there. He is supposed to have seen an ad for a job, applied, interviewed, hired, and went to work the following day. This would be his only job in New Orleans. At least for this version of Lee Oswald.

Thanksgiving Day, 1962

This was the last time all three brothers were together.  They met at Robert and Vada’s home and all of the   brothers had their wives and children present.  Home movies were made which can be easily found online.  Oddly, their mother Marguerite was not invited.  Robert later said in his Warren Commission testimony that her name never came up during the course of the gathering, although John Pic said she was mentioned by Lee.  Some family huh?

Of all the brother’s there, John Pic, the son from Marguerite’s first marriage, noticed the most changes in Lee.  John found Lee to look different than the 10 year old boy he had last seen (actually, in his WC testimony he got Lee’s age off by 2 years).  Seeing a difference would be understandable given that length of time, but there were other more adult features John did not see.  For example, their cousin Marilyn Murret had told him that Lee had developed a bull neck since joining the Marines.  The bull neck Lee can be seen from his Marine pictures.  John did not notice Lee’s neck being any bigger.  When questioned by Commission attorney Jenner, John testified Lee's eyes looked different, sunken in.  When shown the picture of Lee at the Bronx zoo in 1953, John said that it wasn’t Lee in the picture.  And lastly, he was upset that Lee referred to him as a “half-brother,” which of course he was, but Lee had never alluded to him in such a manner in the past or ever introduced him to anybody as a half-brother.

One thing researcher John Armstrong once told me that he had interviewed Rachael Oswald.  He asked her about what interaction she had over the years with her uncle Robert.  None, she said.  Perhaps Oswald’s daughters are fathered by an impostor?  In his actions and statements Robert seems to know more than he ever let on.  He is not approachable by researchers so we can never know for certain what he really knows. 

The Mexico City Trip

I don’t intend to take a trip down that confusing rabbit trail.  But it’s a path littered with references to Oswald being impersonated, and that’s long before he actually gets to Mexico City and is impersonated on the phone calls to the Russian Embassy and the Cuban Consulate  office there.

One instance is when Oswald arrives back in Dallas after his Magical Mystery Tour to Mexico, which was on October 3, 1963.  Simultaneously, four library books he allegedly checked out on September 19, in New Orleans, are returned to the library that day of October 3rd.  Those books were, Goldfinger and Moonraker, by Ian Fleming; Age and Essence and New World by Aldous Huxley.  It’s likely that he did not take the books with him on the Mexico City trip as Oswald would have to make a side trip to New Orleans after his return from Mexico, to deliver the borrowed books.  The apartment on 4905 Magazine Street, as stated by the manager, was cleared out leaving nothing behind.  Did Oswald know somebody in New Orleans to deliver the books to the Library?  And why on October 3rd, the very day that he arrives in Dallas?  Basically, Oswald couldn’t have done it.  Somebody else did.  And who? (p. 597)

There is the famous Sylvia Odio incident where she claims two Hispanic men and one gringo showed up at her sister’s apartment in Dallas either on September 26 or 27 seeking financial help from her father, imprisoned in Cuba, for running operations against Castro (i.e., assassination of the Cuban leader).  The gringo identified himself as Leon Oswald.  But on the day of the assassination, after Oswald’s arrest, Odio identified Lee Oswald as the “Leon Oswald” at her door.  (Her sister also identified Lee Oswald as well, although she was never interviewed by the FBI.) However, Oswald was on the bus in Mexico at this time.  Her testimony was discounted by the Warren Commission, using two ne'er-do-wells who later recanted their statements that they were ever at the apartment.

Then there is Antonio Veciana of Alpha 66, the anti-Castro group financed by the CIA.  Veciana’s story is famous in JFK lore as it accounts for a witness sighting of Lee Oswald with a major intel operative.  Veciana was in Dallas for the purpose of meeting with his CIA case officer Maurice Bishop (i.e., David Atlee Phillips as ID’d by E. Howard Hunt) in Dallas.  Before he gets there, he see’s Bishop/Phillips chatting with a young man of whom he is not introduced to.  Later, he’ll see this young man on the news charged with the death of a president and a police officer.  This sighting occurred in late summer/early fall, at a time when Oswald was supposed to be nowhere near Dallas.  In fact, not in Dallas anytime in the entire month of September.  But there are many witnesses who can account for Oswald in Dallas/Irving throughout the summer of 1963 such as Cliff Shasteen, the barber that saw Lee Oswald come to shop in Irving numerous times that summer. 

Other Sightings

Oswald, or Oswald #2, or even a #3 was leaving tracks all over the place.  In John Armstrong’s Harvey and Lee, he makes mention of an undercover agent, Roy Frankhauser.  Frankhauser claims to have met Michael and Ruth Paine in 1960 as all three were allegedly infiltrating The Socialist Workers Party.  He claims to have met Lee Oswald in New York city during the week of September 16th, as he and Ruth escorted Lee to an exposition hosted by David Rockefeller (p. 597).  He also claimed that Ruth Paine was Oswald’s “babysitter.”

Also on September 16, somebody in Hubertus, Wisconsin, left a Lee Harvey Oswald signature in a restaurant registry.  Then on the 24th somebody left an Oswald signature at a nightclub 30 miles outside of Milwaukee.  That day, President Kennedy spoke in Ashland, Wisconsin.  Was this to promote a legend of Oswald stalking Kennedy?  If so, this fiction was not used later (p. 595).

Even earlier that summer, on July 26, a Lee Oswald signed the guest ledger at the Atomic Energy Museum at Oak Ridge, Tennessee (p. 551).  This Oswald left dual addresses of Dallas and USSR.  How’s that for a cheap plant?

As you can see, the operators run threads all over the place from New York, Wisconsin, Tennessee, and back to Texas again.  They run a line of alternate scenarios that might be used later, or not, as the situation develops.  Most likely these are not actual physical impersonators at work, but instead, operatives trained in how to replicate Oswald’s signature.  Then send them out marking up guest books, building the legend.  The only real fault with this method is that it leaves a trail; Oswald signatures in diverse places where they should not be, at the wrong dates, making little sense, adding a flare of mystery to the whole shebang.  Meanwhile, Lee Oswald is being monitored and used in ways he probably had no knowledge of.

The poor rube.

Sources

All page numbers relate to John Armstrong’s Harvey and Lee.

Oswald and Paine Weekend Timeline, October-November, 1963

You can learn a lot from studying timelines in a case, any case. It allows for a linear approach to events that’s similar to standing on the highest mountain and looking down. Everything regarding unfolding events is made clearer.

So what follows is the timeline of Lee Oswald’s weekends at Ruth Paine’s home from October to the last weekend before the assassination. It was chosen as there were so many sightings of Oswald at various locations, mainly the shooting range, on the weekends when Ruth Paine is maintaining that Lee was at her house on those days except for the last weekend before the assassination when he stayed at the rooming house. Perhaps she was not lying at all, if there is an impersonator in play. Warren Commission lawyers knew there were problems in Ruth’s testimony as so many people were seeing Lee at the SportsDrome Rifle Range when he wasn’t supposed to have been there. Eventually, they just had to let it all be.

Please note that on those days or weekends that Ruth Paine maintains that Lee was at her house, he is not supposed to be seen anywhere else, especially at night. Yet witnesses reported seeing Oswald at various locations from Dallas to New Orleans.

October 6 - Sunday (p. 713)

At Ruth Paine’s home all day Sunday. Spent the nights of the 4th, 5th and 6th at the Paine home. (According to her Testimony.)

Activities for Saturday unknown but he did write a letter to The Worker stating he had attended an ACLU meeting the evening of the 5th. 

Mrs. Lovell Penn reports seeing men shoot in her pasture. She is worried about her cows getting shot. She warns them and gets a nasty reply from one of the men. She threatens to call the police if they do not stop shooting. Later, Mrs. Penn ID’s Lee Oswald as the man that was rude to her in her pasture.

October 12-13 - Saturday and Sunday (p. 722-723)

At Ruth Paine’s home.

Oswald spent the weekend at Paine’s home. Not seen elsewhere.

October 18-19-20 - Friday, Saturday and Sunday (p. 730)

At Ruth Paine’s home. (According to her Testimony.)

October 18. According to Wesley Frasier, drove Lee Oswald to Paine's home for his birthday that evening.

October 19. Doorman for The Count of Two Sisters Restaurant in New Orleans, Leander D’Avy, reports seeing Lee Oswald, David Ferrie, his boss Gene Davis, and four other unidentified men in the storeroom, converted to an apartment. NOTE: Gene Davis is an FBI informant starting in October of 1961.

October 20. At the Paine home. Not seen elsewhere. Daughter Rachael was born at 10:41 PM that night. He was not present at the hospital for the birth.

October 26-27 - Saturday and Sunday (p. 736)

At Ruth Paine’s home both days. (According to her Testimony.)

First known trip by Lee Oswald to the SportsDrome Rifle Range. Arrives at dusk and seen by employe Malcom Price. Seen driving himself to the range. Also noticed by the owner, Floyd Davis.

October 27. Seen at the Paine home in the yard by a neighbor.

November 2-3 - Saturday and Sunday (p. 744)

At Ruth Paine’s home. (According to her Testimony.)

Lee Oswald is seen test driving a red Mercury at the Downtown Lincoln-Mercury Dealership. Later that day seen at Morgan’s Gun Shop in Fort Worth.

Spent Sunday, November 3, at the Paine Home. Not seen elsewhere.

November 9-10 - Saturday and Sunday (p. 758-763)

At Ruth Paine’s home, both days. (According to her Testimony.)

Saturday seen shooting a rifle at the SportsDrome Rifle Range.

Sunday, test fired rifle at the SportsDrome Rifle Range and seen by Malcom Price and Garland Slack. Later, witnessed by Harvey Wade at the Carousel Club at 11 PM that night. Oswald was seen with two unidentified men.

November 16-17 - Saturday and Sunday (p. 770-773)

Lee Oswald spent the last weekend before the assassination at the rooming house on Beckley street in Dallas. Oswald was not seen anywhere on Saturday.

November 17, Sunday. Seen at the SportsDrome Rifle Range, noticed by Dr. Homer Wood and teenage son, Sterling. Later, Garland Slack complains to the owner that Oswald shot at his target. Afterward, seen at Jack’s Bar in Dallas by witness Vern Davis.

Returns to the Paine home on Thursday, the 21st, for the final night. 

Sources

Harvey and Lee by John Armstrong. All page numbers referenced are from his book.

Ruth Paine Warren Commission testimony HERE.

Book Review: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

Popular author Stephen King wades into the JFK Assassination.  

Paperback: 880 pages

Publisher: Gallery Books; digital edition (July 24, 2012)

ISBN-10: 1451627297

ISBN-13: 978-1451627299

It took me a few years to get around to Stephen King’s 11/22/63 novel on the Kennedy assassination because he had said one of his sources was Gerald Posner’s dreadful book, Case Closed.  This book is so bad that conspiratorialist mugger Vincent Bugliosi took Posner to task for errors in Bugliosi’s equally dreadful book, Reclaiming History.  I had heard early on that King was going to portray Oswald as the Lone Gunman.  I was disappointed in this but judging from King’s reading on the subject (he lists what books he read in the novel’s Afterword), he clearly did not read very many conspiracy oriented books.  No Six Seconds in Dallas, Rush to Judgement, Accessories to the Fact, or the excellent books published in the last fifteen years; no delving into the released files from the ARRB or for that matter, the Warren Commission’s 26 volumes.  No mention of the Warren Report either.  A pity.  

King of course is a master of popular horror fiction though he has had success in other genres such as fantasy and non-supernatural novels and short stories.  Despite being famous for unsatisfying endings, King no doubt writes compelling tales with believable characters.  It matters little if some of his stories are far out, his major talent is for making them believable, such as Tolkien or Rowling do in their fantasy stories.

The lead character, Jake Epping, is shown a time travel portal from a dying hamburger joint owner who dreams of preventing the assassination of JFK, but fears not living long enough to survive the stay, since the portal always lands the visitor in 1958 and to prevent the assassination of JFK, one has to live in this bygone world till November 22, 1963 in order to get the job done.

King does a great job presenting this time period.  Quite a contrast compared to our world with our relatively advanced technology that makes some things easier, but in some instances can make life more complicated.  Over fifty years ago, everything was cheaper.  It’s easy to buy a gun–no background checks.  People seem more friendly and trusting.  Cars are made heavy-duty and have great, get-up-and-go, power under the hood with those magnificent V-8’s.  Things taste better such as when Jake stops at a little shop for a root beer and King describes in glorious detail how full of flavor and satisfying a root beer used to taste before it was polluted with artificial flavoring.  Oh, you poor people of the future!  You lost some good stuff along the way.

The quest to disrupt the assassination is a long and convoluted one so it will not be covered here as it involves changing the lives of other characters.  The way King describes certain figures and ignores others is of more interest.  Obviously, as all fiction writer’s have to do, he has to simplify things and cut corners or else a story would grind to a halt.  Think about it–in the Shire who were Frodo’s siblings?  We are never told and it doesn’t matter anyway.  If Tolkien got involved with those people Frodo wouldn't have made it to Mount Doom.  A conspiracy would complicate the narrative as much as multiple Oswald impersonators would have.  So would having Guy Banister, David Ferrie, Ruth Paine and Clay Shaw show up for their cameos.  George De Mohrenschildt makes an appearance as if he is Oswald’s only outside acquaintance.  FBI agent James Hosty appears towards the end and that’s it with notable historical figures.  Instead, King leaves the reader with Lee Oswald, his mother, his brother Robert, Marina and daughter June.  It’s an odd cast lineup if one is familiar with the particulars of the assassination and its lore.  On the other hand, I can see King not wanting to get bogged down as the JFK saga has an endless cast of regulars.

King wants the reader to hate Lee Oswald as much as he does.  This Oswald is the Bugliosi caricature of the sniveling, wife beating, gutter rat that deserves his gut-shot from Jack Ruby’s .38.  This is the loathsome little man that haunts the pages of Reclaiming History or Norman Mailer’s Oswald’s Tale, and the minds of most lone nut believers.  King has one scene where Lee physically abuses Marina in public, out on the street, an event that never occurred that I know of.  You want to despise a man who does such a thing.  There are allegations of abuse but there are no other witnesses other than Marina.  It could have happened, or could be part of the legend building that an unlucky deadman cannot refute.

A pity that King did not choose to explore conspiracy in his story.  He could have had Jake Epping get involved in a plot so he could screw it up in some way to prevent the assassination.  Instead, his hero races up the stairs to the sixth floor to confront Oswald, a surprised lone gunman with a junky rifle in hand.  But what if there is a conspiracy and hence other shooters?  Stopping Oswald settles nothing and Kennedy’s handsome head remains in danger.  But of course, there are no other shooters in this alternate reality version of the story, which in a way, does not make any sense.  There is always a path clear for another shooter from wherever, take your pick.  Grassy knoll or the Dal-Tex building.  Maybe Roscoe White with his long barreled pistol in the parking lot.  Or find a new spot.

Ultimately, King decides changing the past has repercussions for the future and not good ones at that.  So ultimately, preventing JFK’s death is not a good thing at all, casting a darker future for everybody.  Not exactly a new idea but that is the way King chose to play it.  Let Johnny take his bullets so a confluence of events does not overwhelm us, bringing on the apocalypse. Under that view, time and its marked events are like pearls on a string, take one out and you muck up the rest down the line.  Nobody can ever know for sure what changing past events can portend for the future, not at least, until somebody does it.  We do get a glimpse of it in quantum mechanics where the observer can change the outcome of an experiment simply by observing.  If only one could do that on a grander scale.

Too bad Stephen King could not have made a better go of the Kennedy assassination on 11/22/63. Away from that, an enjoyable read especially the parts involving the 1950’s when our big talk, our big cars, our big guns, and our big balls set the world’s agenda.  Now we are just Romans in sad decline dreaming of greater days, awash in failed leadership and greedy partakers that have taken the largest pieces of the pie for themselves.  

I really long for a mug of that 1958 root beer though.

New article on Jack Ruby

Researcher John Armstrong has a written a major piece on the life and background of Jack Ruby, the assassin of Lee Harvey Oswald.  It's long but worth the read.

LINK:  http://harveyandlee.net/Ruby/Ruby.html

Ruth Paine Speaks....

Ruth Paine has given a long interview with the Press Democrat entitled, Santa Rosa woman recalls John F. Kennedy's killer.  

Linked here:

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20130910/articles/130919956#page=1

A more detailed review of her statements in this article will be posted soon.

Bill Simpich, Chapter 5: The Mexico City Solution

Chapter Five of Bill Simpich's work on the assassination and events leading up to it, features chapter five and many of the events that took play in Mexico City.  Highly recommended.

http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/State_Secret_Chapter5

Previous chapters linked here:

http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Featured_State_Secret_Chapter5

Lies, Omissions, and PBS NOVA: Cold Case JFK

(Originally posted in 11/14/13)

With the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s death looming, I’ve tried not to watch most of the documentaries and TV specials involving the event.  The few I’ve seen just repeat the same old party line or else go off on to some odd tangent this is incorrect.  With the media as it is in this country, I expect no new revelations and a rehashing of the same old story from the Warren Report.  But just on a lark, I decided to watch PBS Nova’s Cold Case JFK which purports to be a forensic investigation into the case.  Yes, it confirmed my suspicions of how the media plays the JFK assassination–the Warren Commission got it right!

The first lie starts on the PBS website:  “NOVA launches a fresh investigation into the physical evidence, using state-of-the-art forensics, including laser scanning, new ballistics tests, and a 3D digital reconstruction of the president's skull, all to try to solve the murder of the century.”

Gosh...all of this fancy technology just to come to the same conclusion the Warren Commission did 50 years ago.  Amazing!  They solved the case too!  Actually, this show is no different than Brad Meltzer’s goofy History Decoded show on the History Channel.  Television presentations such as this are created to fool people that only have a basic understanding of the case.  They toss in scientific scrutiny with a touch of drama but there is much omitted for narrative flow.  They have to or else the story gets muddied up.  Such was done in Cold Case JFK.  They weren't out to solve anything.  They knew where they were headed from the get-go. 

A host of luminaries are provided such as Jeff Morley and Josiah Thompson, but the notorious cave troll, Marquette professor John McAdams gets most of the air time.  McAdams, a lone gunman zealot, is known as a rude and obnoxious defender of the Warren Report.  In the annals of JFK research he is a notorious and outrageous personality.  His assertions on the case are often misleading.  Among many loathsome acts, he once lied about his name and profession to a news reporter at a research conference. In another instance, he insinuated that researcher Dr. Gary Aguilar was a drug addict.  For that, McAdams received a reprimand from Marquette University for such conduct.  

And this is the man PBS brings to the fore to be an expert?

Ballistics 

Of course, the Single Bullet Theory is the most controversial part of the case and admitted to as such in the show.  Even McAdams waggles his jowls in agreement.  All was well originally, with three shots resulting in three wounds, till James Tague came forward with his wounded cheek.  So one bullet had to pull double-duty or else you’ve got a conspiracy on your hands.  (And in fact, FBI crime lab tests found no trace of copper on the curb near Tague’s wounding.  Oswald was only supposed to be shooting copper jacketed bullets.  The FBI only found traces of lead.  Somebody else was shooting.)

So Nova engages ballistics expert Luke Haag (who with his son Michael, will appear on a host of programs) to supposedly conduct an objective test using Mannlicher-Carcano shooting test targets.  Out comes the ballistic gelatin to simulate human muscle tissue.  Haven’t I seen this somewhere before? Like The Discovery Channel?  Anyway, the test shots show that the bullet does yaw at the end of its flight.  High speed video shows the flight of the bullet which always looks cool.  But this has been done before.

In one hilarious bit, after the rifleman took a shot and attempted to recycle the weapon, the spent shell hung up in the breach.  Ha!  And somebody is going to shoot the President of the United States with this piece of junk?  Oh, yeah...don’t let your lying eyes deceive you.  Anything is possible in Warren Commission Land.

The shortcoming with this type of test is that Haag never shoots anything as dense as bone, yet seems to have no disagreement with CE 399 coming out looking so good.  Well, somebody did test bone and the results were hidden away for years.  Dr. Joseph Dolce was the Army’s chief ballistic wounds expert and chairman of the Army’s Ballistic Wounds Committee.  He was tasked by the Warren Commission, along with another expert, Dr. Fredrick Light Jr., to test the single bullet theory using Oswald’s rifle to replicate CE 399, the so-called “pristine” bullet.  After shooting ten cadaver radial bones (the same bone struck and broken in Gov. Connelly’s wrist), the experiment did not replicate any bullet resembling CE 399 at all.  As Dr. Dolce stated in an interview in 1986, each of the ten test fired bullets were in his words, “markably deformed.”  Dr. Dolce, much to his surprise, was not called to give testimony to the Warren Commission and his findings were buried in a report, published by the U. S. Army Edgewood Arsenal in March of 1965, which was classified “confidential” for 8 years before being placed in the NARA.  Obviously, this was never mentioned in the show.  A serious omission of fact.  But the appearance of this information would only be the arrival of a bastard at the family reunion.  

(It should also be noted that in Haag's test the pass-thru bullet produced a larger exit hole than entry; it was well documented by Parkland doctors that Kennedy's throat wound was very small and was first noted as an entry wound, not exit.  Haag actually disproves the single bullet theory!)

Other issues, such as firing at moving targets, the effects of bullet drop, Oswald attempting a head shot through a live oak tree, windage, bullet drop due to the effects of gravity, a scope not properly sighted, are all ignored. So much for this being a high-tech forensic examination.  This is History Channel type faux research via PBS. Everybody is in on it now.

In the end, Luke Haag decides he has no problems with Single Bullet Theory.  He will state this on numerous other anniversary shows as well.  Of course not, since his experimentation never went far enough.  He did not allow for tests on bone.  And as stated above, Drs Dolce and Light could not replicate CE 399 in any meaningful way when firing at bone, so their report was buried. So PBS NOVA has to ignore it as well.  It should be made clear, this lone bullet nonsense comes from a gaggle of lawyers who are not ballistics experts.  Arlen Specter and boys were out to do what lawyers do, protect their client–in this case the Federal government.  The truth becomes a tin can kicked down the road.   

Conclusion

Other issues are explored such as Kennedy’s head wound, the Zapruder film showing Kennedy shot from the front (your lying eyes again), 3D laser mapping of Dealing Plaza, and the HSCA audio analysis of shots from a police motorcycle, and all come to the same conclusion.  This is why I am avoiding most of these 50th Anniversary shows.  The Warren Commission was right.  Always right. There is no conspiracy.  Just because it looks like one doesn’t make it real.  Now move on with your bad self.

Sources

And other good one by David W. Mantik, MD, PhD at CTKA:
http://www.ctka.net/2013/nova.html

The Dulce/Light report

Gerald McKnight, Breach of Trust, Chapter 8, p.187. Chapter notes page 417 (note 18) and page 418 (note 25).

The Far East

“It would have been a blessing for us if he had used it, say, in the sense that the assassination might not have taken place, if he had taken the passport and gone to the China as he may have contemplated.”

Allen Dulles, Volume 5, page 318.

(10/30/13)

Researcher Jones Harris pointed out to me the above quote by Allen Dulles.  Needless to say, Dulles’ statement to Secret Service agent Chayes at the Warren Commission hearings in regards to Lee Oswald’s passport and Oswald thinking of traveling to China is so far out of left field, one has a hard time sussing it out.  What was he referring to exactly?  Nowhere in any testimony or files released at the time, or since, has it been logged that Oswald had a mission to get to China.  He had no background in China studies or the languages. Of course he started his Marine career in Asia, first in Japan and for a while in Taiwan.  In 1963, during his mysterious and ill-fated trip to Mexico City, his stated purpose was in returning to the Soviet Union, not China.  Dulles may have been thinking out loud regarding operations that were of a concern to him as Director of the CIA and simply interjected Oswald into them. Who knows?  

History records that the Kennedy admin had its hands full with the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Vietnam, China was lurking behind the scenes.  The main concern was the Chinese nuclear plants.  Neither the U.S. nor the Soviets wanted China to have nuclear weapons.  The idea was floated of a Russian/American alliance to take them out but nothing ever came of that, since the Russians did not like the idea of harming a fellow communist state.  The Soviets however, would not supply China with the technology to produce nukes.  China was on its own but did succeed in setting off its first nuclear detention in October of 1964.

While the U2 spy flights over the Soviet Union are well known, with one pilot, Francis Gary Powers being shot down, captured and put on public trial, there were many flights also conducted over the Chinese mainland throughout the 1950's and 1960's by CIA trained Chinese pilots.  Most were flown out of Taiwan.  We know of at least 5 U2's shot down over China.  There may have been more. 

  

Here is the list:

September 9, 1962.  Pilot, Chen Huai-sheng.  Killed.

November 1, 1963.  Pilot, Yeh Chang-di. Captured.

July 7, 1964.  Pilot, Lee Nan-ping.  Killed.

January 10, 1965.  Pilot, Chang Li-yi.  Captured.

September 8, 1967.  Pilot, Huang Jung-Bei. Killed.

In a fascinating article translated from a Chinese news website (link below), a detailed and largely hidden history emerges from this era of U2 flights over China.  The U2 squadron for China surveillance was based in Taiwan and was called the Black Cats.  At first, the Chinese found it impossible to target and shoot down U2s.  But in time they learned there was an 18 second delay after the target was "painted."  They learned to fire their missiles under the 18 second window.  

Reconnaissance flights continued until 1972 when president Richard Nixon visited China and halted the flights.  The Black Cats flew a total of 102 missions when they were officially disbanded in the spring of 1974.

China and its attempts to enter the nuclear club was of concern at the highest levels of government and military.  When president Kennedy was shown the plan for an all out nuclear strike, China was targeted as well.  Kennedy wanted to know why since at the time they had no active nuclear weapons and was told it was part of the overall strategic plan.  The generals knew that China was developing weapons.  

So what did Lee Oswald have with any of this?  The idea that Oswald was contemplating going to China is so far out there as to hamper proper analysis;  unless he was an operative with lots of missions on the schedule and Dulles got them mixed up.  He did start out his service in the Marines stationed in Japan and later they were moved to Taiwan.  Oswald did work for a time at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, a company that processed U2 photographs which also included the China surveillance.  

Is there something greater going on here?  There is always something greater going on here!  Needless to say, it’s a mystery and one collecting dust in the Warren Commission‘s 26 volumes.  

Sources

The Lost Black Cats (non secure site)

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20051102_1.htm

Speculation regarding Lee Oswald and the Far East

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2022/104-10066-10006.pdf

Books

Profile of Power: Presdient Kennedy by Richard Reeves

The Missing Chapter by Jack R. Swike

Oswald's Early Years

Researcher John Armstrong, author of Harvey and Lee, the definitive book on Lee H. Oswald possibly being impersonated, has an updated section regarding the early years of Lee and Harvey.  A fascinating and thought provoking read.  Highly recommended.

http://harveyandlee.net/Early/Early.html

Allen Dulles And The Doppelgängers

Allen Dulles, former Director of the CIA

As told me by longtime JFK researcher Jones Harris, it was known around Washington that CIA Director Allen Dulles had an interest in utilizing doubles for intelligence work.  The first opportunity, the story went, came when Dulles was at a party and met a young man at a party that was fresh out of college and spoke fluently in both Russian and Chinese.  Dulles reportedly learned that this young man also had a twin brother who was also fluent in both languages.  Dulles is  said to have remarked, “I must have this pair.”  

If true, this is an interesting confirmation to bolster the doppelgänger theory which has been explored on this blog and by others, such as John Armstrong in his book, Harvey and Lee.  It shows that Dulles knew more about the assassination than anybody else on the Commission and probably, as Jones Harris told me, knew the most about what really happened regarding the assassination of John Kennedy.

It is not unheard of for intelligence agencies to employ identical twins in operations.  Fidel Castro did when he utilized the DeLaGuardia twins.  The famous spy Mata Hari had a double that danced for her while she was doing espionage work for the Germans during World War I.  Hence, is it not unknown for intelligence agencies to use doubles.  One man can be out on operations and if plans go unfavorably, then there is an alibi; just make sure the double is seen in a public place such as work, restaurant, a party, and so on.  When it comes to “plausible deniability,” the CIA are experts at it.

Another indication occurred during the Warren Commission hearings when Lee’s older brother, Robert Oswald was giving testimony and when it came to the summer of 1947, Dulles abruptly broke in and called for a break.  When the testimony continued, they picked up from the summer of 1948, which surprisingly, Robert Oswald went along with.  Was he coached to go along with this ignoring of the timeline?  Some researchers think so.  Regardless, his older brother John Pic, in earlier testimony, stated the Oswald family was living in Fort Worth, Texas, when other evidence points to an Oswald residence in the town of Benbrook, which was 18 miles west of Fort Worth.  Was Allen Dulles concerned about Robert mentioning the Fort Worth address as well?  Is Dulles familiar with two Oswald’s being involved in intelligence operations?  

This is murky area of the Kennedy assassination and deserves further research.

Sources

Books:

Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee;  Douglass, James, JFK and the Unspeakable

5 decades later, some JFK probe files still sealed...

Excellent update to the ongoing hunt by journalist Jefferson Morley for information on CIA officer George Joannides and his connections to the DRE.

Mercury News, David Porter, AP:

"Five decades after President John F. Kennedy was fatally shot and long after official inquiries ended, thousands of pages of investigative documents remain withheld from public view. The contents of these files are partially known — and intriguing — and conspiracy buffs are not the only ones seeking to open them for a closer look."

LINK

John Armstrong Site Refresh

John Armstrong, author of Harvey and Lee: How The CIA Framed Oswald,  has done a make-over of his web site with new information.  The book Harvey and Lee is also available through this site.

LINK

Barry Ernest Interview on Black Op Radio

Barry Ernest, author of Girl On The Stairs has been interviewed by Len Osanic on Black Op Radio.  This the story of Ernest’s 35 year search for Victoria Adams, a key witness in the timeline of Oswald’s departure after the assassination of JFK.  It’s a fascinating read and a good addition to assassination research literature.  

Listen HERE

Show #635
Original airdate: June 20, 2013

Amazon, Girl On The Stairs

Book Review: Destiny Betrayed - JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case

Vincent Bugliosi in his End Notes for his book, Reclaiming History, calls Jim DiEugenio “a sincere conspiracy theorist.”  When reading DiEugenio’s second edition of his book, Destiny Betrayed, one is struck with just how little theory is involved.  It’s all a solid mix of history, fact, and proper historical context for the events that are to follow.  Jim DiEugenio said in a recent interview on Black Op Radio that he didn’t want to caught up in the minutia of details regarding the assassination in this new volume, but instead wanted to pursue an examination of how and why it happened and how it got covered up.  And that is what readers  will experience as they read this book.  

Destiny Betrayed begins in the Cold War shadow wars, a mix of skullduggery and dirty deeds where even the President is kept in the dark in regards to what is going on.  As DiEugenio shows, CIA Director Allen Dulles was attempting to dupe Kennedy into foreign policy and military actions he was not wanting to be a part of.  Dulles took the Central Intelligence Agency far from its original intent of intelligence gathering to a machiavellian, duplicitous outfit overthrowing democratically elected governments under the guise of combating communism, replacing them with controllable right-wing dictatorships, and for the most part, setting the stage for the profiteering of American corporations.  So manipulating Presidents for CIA objectives has become the modus operandi of the Agency that lasts to this day.  Meanwhile, the American public sleeps through these affairs being distracted with the communistic threat, the baby boom, pop culture, sports and so on.  The National Security State descends and much of American history becomes a secret locked away in warehouses.

As DiEugenio’s documents in the first part of his book, the leaders of the National Security State knew early on they had a problem with John Kennedy.  He wasn’t for war mongering, turning down attempts to pump troops into Vietnam and launch preemptive nuclear strikes.  Kennedy was not a believer in the Domino Theory.  The Bay of Pigs fiasco, well detailed in Destiny Betrayed, is a CIA run military op destined to fail so American troops could be called in it finish the job. Kennedy found out none of this till he ordered an inquiry into what happened and  the ever duplicitous Allen Dulles and other top CIA officials lost their jobs. 

The Pioneers Get All The Arrows

The star of the book is Jim Garrison.  His coming around from true believer in the Warren Report to a believer in conspiracy and pursuing a trial against an alleged conspirator is an compelling story.  He was flawed man, but a brave man who paid a terrible price for seeking the truth with his future career in politics destroyed.  The full weight of the federal government fell on his head like a ton of bricks.  His reputation was pillared by a hostile press, some of whom were government informants, who were to attack and expose his every move in the national media.  Kennedy bagman Walt Sheridan (former ONI, FBI, and NSA) was sent down to harass witnesses and later put together a slanderous, over the top attack on Garrison on NBC (which was so bad they had to let Garrison have an on-air rebuttal). And the attacks on his character raged from 1967 to this very day. (For example, Gerald Posner in his 1993 book named Garrison a child molester and Vince Bugliosi in his 2007 book labeled him, “symptomatically psychotic.”)  After the trial of Clay Shaw was over, and lost, Garrison was indicted twice and acquitted.  As you can see, charging headlong into the Status Quo is not for the faint of heart.

As Jim DiEugenio points out, in actuality, Jim Garrison’s attempt to prove conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination was flawed before it started.  Even his staff advised against it after lead witness David Ferrie died.  But Big Jim decided to press on. It didn’t help his cause much by trusting people that he should have left alone.  Men such as Bernardo Detorres, William Gurvich, and Gordon Novel. These men were not rubes–they were all experienced operatives and functioned as spies embedded within his investigative operatus, funneling information to Garrison’s chief tormentor, Walter Sheridan, and journalist/government shills such as Hugh Aynesworth and James Phelan.  DiEugenio documents in great detail how the FBI and CIA were formally engaged to see this Louisiana state trial of Clay Shaw fail.  

And this of course raises the biggest question of them all–if the Warren Report is correct and Lee Oswald is the only assassin, and there is no conspiracy, then why does the government, along with allies in the press, have to take these extreme measures to make sure a conspiracy verdict is not reached in a state trial?  The Justice Department sent down their lawyers to coach witnesses in how to answer questions at taxpayer expense, bug the District Attorney’s phones and transcribe everything said, plague his operation with informants, and have the DOJ successfully killed off subpoenas to top officials. It was a Federal government takedown from top to bottom.  If Garrison is wrong then why not let him fall on his own sword if their account of the President’s death is true?  What would they have to fear?

Plenty apparently.  It appears they overplayed their hand.

The Shaw Trial

Destiny Betrayed does a good job in describing the intricacies of the trial, the legal wrangling, and what Garrison could of done in hindsight.  Important witnesses either died or faded away; other witnesses were assaulted or intimidated into changing their stories by the Sheridan Machine.  Lots of witnesses were never called such as the 16 people Garrison had in regards to Clay Shaw’s Bertrand alias (something that he was never allowed to prove in court). 

While too intricate to go into here, there were some highlights.  One important incident was when autopsy physician Dr. Pierre Fink admitted that he, and the other two other physicians present at the Kennedy’s autopsy, were under control of another military authority, whose name he couldn’t remember.  Another was a screening of the Zapruder film that Garrison had to wrestle from Time-Life.  A film up to that point few had seen, and it was a shock for all witnesses present in the courtroom.  Too bad it took till 1975 before the general public got to see it on Geraldo Rivera’s TV show.  

The End

Jim DiEugenio paints a vibrant world of 1960's New Orleans, a place of clandestine activity, informants, intelligence operatives, down and outers, sexual adventurers, conspirators, Cubans, hookers, misfits, and suspicious entanglements.  It's quite a contrast to the worlds envisioned by the Warren Report defenders where everything suspicious is an illusion, where every contrary witness is wrong, and everything is conveniently explained.  Their selective harvesting of the details strips the soul out of how fascinating all of this is and how a conspiracy to murder a President could really take shape.  

Destiny Betrayed is fascinating work, well paced, expertly organized, and properly sourced.  New document releases from the ARRB and other sources bolster the narrative and explain who is telling the truth and who is not.  It’s the definitive book on Jim Garrison and how tantalizingly close he came to blowing the case wide open.

Available now in bookstores and online at Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and in ebook format for the Kindle and iPad. 

Details

ISBN-13: 9781620870563

Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing

Publication date: 11/15/2012

Edition description: Second Edition

Edition number: 2

Pages: 496

WFAA-TV reports: Parkland's JFK treatment room locked away as a state secret

It seems that 10 years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the government came in and bought Trauma Room No. 1 at Parkland Hospital, dismantled it and took it away.

“On October 1, 1973, the government issued U.S. Treasury Check 67191886 for $1,000 to purchase everything in the room.

"They came in with pick axes and hammers," Pyeatt said. "They chopped the room up into little pieces and put them in these barrels, packed all the equipment up and left with them."

Weeks earlier, as Dallas County Sheriff's deputies stood guard outside, the room had secretly been dismantled.

"Trauma Room No. 1 was demolished [...] August 17-18, 1973," according to a letter discovered in the National Archives. "The door, switches, outlets, lights, cabinets and ceramic wall tile were removed intact and moved to the Fort Worth Federal Archives and Records Center. All other building materials in the room were demolished and hauled away [...] where they could not be recovered."

For fifteen years, the items sat at the National Archives facility in Fort Worth near I-35W and I-20.”

For the complete article go HERE.

Oswald Pictures

Marguerite Oswald's passport.

Here is a link to a series of family photos purportedly belonging to Robert Oswald, Lee's older brother.  Not known if this is true but an interesting collection for researchers and anyone interested in the case.  Links on the page feature other family members including Robert Oswald Sr.

http://oswald-photos.blogspot.com/2012/09/marguerite-claverie-oswald-1907-1981.html

Author/Researcher John Armstrong interviewed on Black Op Radio

Len Osanic interviews noted JFK researcher John Armstrong, author of Harvey and Lee: How the CIA Framed Oswald.  Armstrong  is the leading proponent of Lee Oswald being impersonated.  Over an hour long and available for free MP3 download.

A complete seven hour interview is available for $10, via MP3 download from the web site. 

Link -- Show #604

http://www.blackopradio.com/archives2012.html

The Oswald Psy-Op

Lee H. Oswald is an endlessly interesting person to study.  I've never seen anyone with such a maze of conflicts in his life story.  These discrepancies involve people who knew him, his personality, his movements, his interests, his looks and even the reams of documents that form a bewildering array of conflicts.

He is an example of a man that is built as a Legend.  Once he joined the Marines in 1956 he became a government possession and I don't think they ever let go of him until he got mixed up in the dirty deed and then started the long running, never ending, distancing.  He said he was the patsy and at least circumstantially was groomed to be one.  He just never knew when or how though he probably had an inkling towards the end.  Perhaps he envisioned for himself a method of escape.  If he did, it obviously didn't work.

I think if you dug into my past or even yours, they would find people who could give a consistent view of who you were when they knew you years ago.  With Oswald, we have conflicting witness testimony of what his character and interests were and even what he looked like.  One group knew a tall Oswald, the one with the bull neck that was the all American Boy of the 1950's.  Another group knew the misfit Oswald, the short surly kid that kept to himself and read books and studied Communism. We are told he possibly had dyslexia and learning disabilities yet he learned to speak Russian–no easy feat.  People with reading comprehension problems don't enjoy reading.  Oswald was an avid reader who maintained a library card.  It's like we are dealing with two separate people.  From here, comes forth the doppelgänger theories that populate their own weird vista.

At some hazy point the timelines start to intersect.  For example, in the fall of 1953 there are two sets of educational records for Lee Oswald.  One set has him attending school at PS44 in New York.  The other set has him attending school at Beauregard Junior High in New Orleans.  At the same time?  Either he is being impersonated at the age of 13 or else one set of the records is fabricated.  If the government's case is true, and Oswald is the loner in the killing of JFK, then why phony up documents and create this confusion?  Or maybe he was being impersonated as part of a long range project. 

What does The Establishment do if a president is elected that doesn't play ball with them?  He'll have to be guided along by stealth or put in his place.  Did they have a plan?  I think so as JFK proved to have a backbone.

Fast-forward to 1958 to Taiwan.  From his unit dairy they are on operations in Taiwan having left Atsugi, Japan.  Oswald's medical records indicate seven minor medical issues were treated in September through early October of that year (Armstrong, pp. 200-201).  They were, however, all treated at the Atsugi base.  Some have suggested that he was flown there for treatment but that seems impractical since there were medical facilities and staff on Taiwan to treat his ailments.  Would it be sensible to fly somebody back and forth just to treat hemorrhoids?  Once again, he is either being impersonated or else phony documents are being forged.  Robert Blakey, chief counsel to the HSCA was made aware of this during their investigation and chose not to dig too deeply into this morass.  I can see why.  It's another muddy rabbit trail to get bogged down in. 

Things Amp Up In New Orleans

Oswald is in various locations in the New Orleans area handing out the pro-Castro Fair Play For Cuba Committee (FPCC) pamphlets.  The most famous incident of this involves the pamphlets marked with the 544 Camp Street address.  That is the location of the Guy Banister's office.  Banister was the former head of the FBI's field office in Chicago, close friend of J. Edgar Hoover, staunch anti-communist, behind the scenes player and overall general tough guy known to pistol whip people.  Anybody sympathetic to Castro showing up at his office would probably leave with a bloody nose. 

So it's a very odd thing for Oswald, who under the official story is not supposed to be a known associate of Banister to be directing people there.  And if he doesn't know Banister then why do that?  Considering Banister's reputation that would be inviting trouble.  It appears that he and Banister were in cahoots with one another.  As researcher Bill Simpich has said, "I suggest that Banister was like a Triple A baseball manager training his player for the big leagues."  Spot on!  That analogy helps explain Oswald's oddball actions during this time.  Plus, he needed a coach and   Banister makes the perfect guide.  Unfortunately, the Big Leagues evolved into a sinister Cold War game, the secrets of which are yet to unravel.

However, some of these pamphlets didn't have a return address or a phone number printed on them.  (At the time of Oswald's arrest some of the handbills on his person featured two false sets of post office box numbers.)  So nobody was going to be able to get in contact with Oswald, the lone member of the FPCC branch in New Orleans and hook up.  It makes no sense and the only sense that can be derived from it is that Oswald is playing the role of a dongle.  That's a guy that is sent out to do some things to see how the other side is going to react or get under their skin.  It's a basic form of intelligence gathering.  Passing out literature where the USS Wasp was docked is gauging how many communist sympathizers might be onboard.

While Oswald is involved with these activities he is being closely monitored by the FBI.

It all culminates with Oswald's scrum with Cuban DRE member Carlos Bringuier and two other Cubans.  This all originates from Oswald's visit to the DRE to offer his military training services and a financial donation to this anti-Castro group.  Both offers are rebuffed.  As usual, Oswald is not invoking trust in these overtures like he failed to do while sojourning in Russia.  Later, when Carlos and his boys (Celso Hernandez and Miguel Marino Cruz) see Oswald handing out the pro-Castro literature they are incensed–what was this pro-Castro, pro-communist guy trying to do offering them help?  They exchange words and all are arrested for the scuffle that occurs.  (Some have suggested that it was a staged event, evidenced by Oswald mailing a letter to FPCC HQ in New York describing the incident, which is postmarked five days before the affair takes place.)

From this incident Oswald will be branded publicly as a communist.  This will play big after the assassination as the government builds the case against him.  What few people know at the time is that these episodes are loaded with players.  The DRE is supported by the CIA.  The Cubans Bringuier and Cruz arrested in the scuffle are FBI informants, with Hernandez affiliated with the CIA. After Oswald gets out of jail he will appear on the Carte Blanche radio program to debate issues with Bringuier and Ed Butler.  Besides Bringuier being an FBI informant, Ed Butler was the Director of Information Council of the Americas (INCA), a CIA funded propaganda organization.  Not to be undone, even the program's host, Bill Stuckey, was an FBI informant.  Players surround the whole thing.  And the public is totally oblivious to it.  Welcome to Psyop City.

The US Customs Office Comes In Play  

So who is Oswald with? Orestes Pena testified to the Church Committee that Lee Oswald was employed by Customs.  Indeed, his 1959 passport has his occupation listed as "shipping export agent" though that was the year he ended his duty in the Marines and would not long after, defect to the Soviet Union.  Hardly enough time for a 20 year old to be employed by Customs.  FBI informant Joseph Oster said that Customs Agent David Smith was Oswald's handler.  Was Oswald conducting fishing expeditions for Customs during the New Orleans Period?  It's hard to know what is true here as Oswald had a lot of cover stories and left false information in his wake.   

If he was a lone operator then he is really the odd man out.  But all of his eccentric actions to this point lead to only one thing–intelligence gathering.  He approaches the DRE to see if there are any Castro or communist sympathizers there.  Just as he did at the dock handing out pamphlets to passing sailors.  We know from released FBI docs that informants saw him regularly at many Cuban anti-Castro gatherings.  What was a communist doing at these meetings?  Sifting as always.  Being a Marxist is the cover.  He only plays one on TV after the assassination.  The Legend falls into place, piece by piece, just before the final act, the Big Event. 

The Psyop Oswald?

What we know about Lee Oswald is a mishmash of differing threads, some verifiable and some not.  A never ending but fascinating study.  There is the teenage Oswald peddling is junky bike in the trailer park in North Dakota;  the gung-ho Marine Oswald; the crazy Oswald that slashes his wrist in order to stay in the Soviet Union; the kind and thoughtful Oswald from the account of the Judyth Vary Baker; and finally, the cold calculated killer of a young and charismatic President. There are a lot of Oswald's here.  Enough to have a whole roomful of personalities. 

There are plenty of books about Lee Oswald probing the mystery of who he was.  There are the conventional lone gunman views of Vincent Bugliosi and Norman Mailer.  Both have to ignore inconvenient facts to arrive at their conclusions.  To be fair, there is a lot here to wade through and determine what is true and what is not.  On the other side, John Armstrong has Oswald the secret agent man involved in a complicated doppelgänger scheme, while alleged ex-lover Judyth Baker has her man involved with shadow warfare mixed with patriotic intent. 

In truth we really don't know him and he's buried in all of the layers of mythology created for him.  The mythology was created no doubt, by skilled hands.  But nobody can explain the motive to murder a man that the killer had nothing against.


Sources
Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Baker, Judyth, Me and Lee; Mailer, Norman, Oswald's Tale; Bugliosi, Vincent, Reclaiming History

Lee Oswald and Customs
https://www.opednews.com/articles/2/THE-JFK-CASE--THE-TWELVE-by-Bill-Simpich-120825-173.html