Judyth Vary Baker: Living in Exile

[James H. Fetzer]

JUDYTH REPLIES ABOUT "HARVEY" AND "LEE" AND THEIR RESPECTIVE HEIGHTS

NOTE: Here is another example where Judyth's argument about heights deserves to be
taken into account. Yet in none of the illustrations I have offered in my last post has
anyone acknowledged that Judyth was making good points or that she was correct!

JUDYTH COMMENTS:

We have a witness who states that Lee Oswald was much shorter, wanted to be called
"Harvey" and lived on Exchange Alley over a ballroom.

We can calculate the approximate height of Lee Oswald, using geometry, when he was
attending Beauregard at the same time that a teacher, Myra DaRouse, said Lee was in her
8th grade homeroom (the only homeroom she held). She has some strong memories of Lee.

But there are problems with her account:

Discrepancies

1) The name "Harvey":

DaRouse said that Lee wanted to be called "Harvey" -- a name Lee told JVB he actually
disliked. But Ed Voebel, whom she mentions as an 'only' friend, (though at least one
other friend is in the records) -- Voebel did not call his friend "Harvey." Voebel called
him "Lee. "

2) "...so I asked him where he lived, and he said on Exchange Alley, down near the river.
So I drove him down, and it was kind of a disgusting place. And I was very glad I didn't
live there. And he lived upstairs over a ballroom (69)."

But Lee (Jack's "Harvey") told me he lived above a pool hall.

And Voebel, I just found out, said the same:

Mr. VOEBEL: He lived over the top of the pool hall.

Mr. JENNER. ... Exchange Alley?

Mr. VOEBEL. Yes; or Exchange Place, whatever you call it.

Notice that Voeble corrects (WC) Jenner and says "Exchange Place..."

In 1963, at least, residents of "Exchange Alley" usually called it "Exchange Place." For
example, Mildred Sawyer:

WC testimony: Mrs . MILDRED SAWYER, 126 Exchange Place, New Orleans,. Louisiana
furnished the following information: ... November 27, 1963....

Would Lee have been more likely to ask the teacher to take him to "Exchange Place"
rather than to "Exchange Alley"?

The Warren Commission liked "Exchange Alley" as it denigrated the address, and it is best
known by that name to researchers today. Did the old lady hear the name "Exchange
Alley" before she was filmed? How much was said between the lady and the researcher
before she was interviewed? Contamination of witnesses is common by researchers who try
to obtain information that they want...sometimes they may ask leading questions or supply
names to 'refresh the memory.'

4) DaRouse also said she held a homeroom in the basement -- the only homeroom she ever
held -- for the 8th graders, but a record exists showing Lee Oswald was on a 3rd floor 8th
grade homeroom roster. I have seen an argument that this is a (naturally) hand-written
record, but who would change Lee Oswald's 8th grade homeroom record, as to which floor
he was on, and why?

"...John Armstrong had recently found a report card or a school record of some kind --
actually a registration card -- for Oswald in the eighth grade that listed his homeroom
as room 303, a room on the third floor. I asked her if that could be consistent with her
homeroom rollcall in the basement; could she have been assigned room 303 despite
actually using the stage in the basement? "No, 303, that's the ninth grade," she said.
"You mean the whole third floor was for the ninth grade?" "Right." Yet this registration
form at the National Archives said Oswald was in room 303 in the eighth grade."

The former teacher said the "whole third floor" was "for the ninth grade"
but the registration card showed Lee Oswald in room 303 for the 8th grade.

Oddity: This teacher said she only had ONE home room throughout her teaching at that
school...She only teaches girls in PE, but 'somehow' made friends with Lee Oswald, who
wanted to be called "Harvey." Yet she does not quite describe his residence correctly.
A record shows the 8th grade was on the third floor, not in the basement, and she
describes the boy about 8 inches shorter than he was described in New York.

She is elderly, however. Did a researcher 'refresh' her memory for her? God forbid.
Still, we have evidence that her memory of Lee H. Oswald's height is faulty:

But before we continue, a word about contaminating witnesses, whether accidentally or
purposefully:

An Example about Ferrie witnesses: I protested the contamination of Ferrie witnesses by
Stephen Roy (David Blackburst) who stated he gathered them together to talk (allowing
dissonances to be resolved-- and to be recorded ---but gahering witnesses together should
never be done by an honest researcher --...differences in tesimony vanish when they are
brought together, 'refreshing' each others' memories. When I told Mr. Roy that he had
done wrong, and that the method was reprehensible, he wroe tha he would do it again, that
it wasn;t wrong. Hence, none of the statements collected on tape or in interviews of
"Ferrie witnesses" after 1998 should be considered as pristine and untainted. Needless to
say, Mr. Roy does not like me very much. Wish I had never spoken to him about it...but it
was important to tell him that his methodology was poor.

5) The most important problem with Myra DaRouse is her statement that:

"Well, I'm about 5'3" now, but I was about 5'4" back then, and I would say he came up to
about here [indicating]. I would say he was about 4'8", 4'6", or about 4'8"."

"That small -- 4'6" or 4'8"?"

"Yeah, he was little, scrawny" (70).

"Myra DaRouse saw Harvey every day at Beauregard in 1955. Myra's description of a 4'6" or
4'8" Lee Harvey Oswald in the spring of 1954 differs considerably with his New York court
and school records -- if this is the same Lee Harvey Oswald. In his 1952-53 school records,
in the two columns marked for the seventh and eighth grades, Oswald's height is listed as 64
inches, or 5'4". He has shrunk eight inches or more since leaving New York (71)."

We should not couch comments in this kind of language. It helps prejudice the reader.
The comment should be something like: "We need to find more records about Oswald in this
time zone to see if this description is accurate."

And if we look for more records, here's what we find:

Lee and his friend Ed Voebel were in the Civil Air Patrol in 1955. We have a photo taken
during a CAP summer campout where Dave Ferrie and Lee are shown in the same photo:



Applying geometry and the rules of perspective, and taking into account that both Ferrie
and Oswald have their heads lowered -- and Ferrie is wearing a helmet that adds ~3" to his
height -- that both are standing with feet separated, which also reduces height somewhat
for each, we can calculate well enough -- because we know the size of the helmets -- and
Ferrie's height --to obtain an adequate estimate of Lee Oswald's height. Ferrie measured
at 5' 9". With the above compensations accounted for, we obtain an approximate height for
Lee Oswald between 5' 3" and 5' 4" in the CAP photo. It is doubtful that Lee Oswald grew
some eight inches in a few months.

Conclusion: The photograph has to be considered more accurate than Myra DaRouse.

[quote name='Jack White' post='188830' date='Apr 5 2010, 12:25 AM']Jim writes (which I could not locate):

...to distract attention from the blockbuster post I have just made
about the "missing tooth"

Just what is this blockbuster post about a missing tooth? It is
covered in great detail in Harvey & Lee...pages 91-92. Jim and
Judyth may be surprised to learn that it was LEE who had the
missing tooth...NOT HARVEY. (It was Harvey that JVB knew.)

So what is the JVB blockbuster? Armstrong DOCUMENTS IT
BY INTERVIEWING A CLASSMATE, Ed Voebel, who was present
during the fight between LEE and Robin Riley, who punched
Lee in the mouth. If the JVB version of the blockbuster differs
from this, it is FALSE.

Voebel told John that Riley knocked out an LHO tooth. It was on
the schoolyard of Beauregard Junior High School. That's it.

Jack[/quote]