John Armstrong's Harvey and Lee

[Peter Lemkin]

I'm assuming that any Eastern European refugee families allowed to come to the US after WWII would have been checked out by the intelligence agencies, files put together on all family members (including the children), with periodic monitoring of their activities in the US. On the flip side, the real American Oswald family from New Orleans is involved with the US military, so that brings them into the same orbit.

True, you don't know how the children are going to turn out, but they only have to be roughly similar in appearance. By early adolescence (the New York period for Oswald), you can get a rough idea of how they will look as adults.

There could well have been several [to many] such pairings...and one only uses those that 'work out' as being still fairly close look alikes at a later date. Everyone is making the assumption that if this was done, it was ONLY done this once. I think if it was done, it was done with many pairs and we are seeing [for obvious reasons] a 'successful' pair that was then used operationally. The others were only used for creating paper doubles or were NOT used and let 'go'.....

Well stated, Peter.

I would add that some "Eastern refugee families allowed to come to the US after WWII" likely had been sent to and expected by certain allied parties in the West....

What's doubly interesting (no pun intended) here is HARVEY's Russian-language ability. This was the height of the Cold War, and you'd have to wonder if Russian language knowledge wouldn't have been desirable in a lot of these cases, assuming there was more than one. For our boy, DeMohrenschldt said LHO preferred to read classic novels in Russian rather than English. That sounds like pretty good Russian comprehension. And yet JA went to great lengths in his research to discover whether Harvey spoke Russian in Minsk.


From the lengthy writeup starting on page 285 of his book, John describes traveling to Beunos Aires with a friend/interpreter to meet Ana Ziger. Ana's father, Alejandro Ziger, worked at the Minsk Radio Factory and became Oswald's boss when Harvey started working there in early 1960. Alejandro was one of the few people at the factory who could speak English (in addition to Spanish and Russian.)


In March, Oswald was given an upscale one-room apartment with a bathroom, kitchen, and outdoor balcony and he thus became a neighbor of the Ziger family, as well as a Alejandro's co-worker at the radio factory. During the Buenos Aires meeting, Ana told John that Oswald soon became a regular guest in their apartment, and accompanied her family to picnics and other social gatherings. And although the Zigers saw Oswald socially several times a week for more than two years, Ana said her family was never able to learn much about him because he refused to speak or even try to learn Russian.


No one in Minsk knew Oswald better than the Zigers, but Ana told John and his friend in no uncertain terms that Oswald "didn't speak any Russian." And it makes sense, doesn't it? If you're spying in a foreign land, and you secretly understand the local language, does that not give you a potential advantage? If the speculation here is true, I have to wonder how many other Russian-speaking youths might have been sought out for intelligence work.

Jim

Ernst Titovits PhD knew the Oswald in Minsk much better than the Zigers [they would perhaps be second in that 'line'. He is fighting to get a visa to come to speak at COPA this year, but the US Embassy in Minsk has, for reasons unknown, so far NOT issued Dr. Titovits his visa. I have long been in contact with Ernst and he thought [and he is NO fool] that the Oswald he knew was NOT very proficient in Russian....I don't know what to make of it all...but it would be great to have Ana and Ernst [and MARINA] at one place at one time. They all knew the same person in the same city and even knew each other, a little.

FROM JOHN JUDGE:

Friends,

One of our scheduled and confirmed keynote speakers for this year's COPA conference in Dallas, Ernst Titovets, was Oswald's best friend in Minsk and has written a fascinating book about that period, Oswald: Russian Episode. He got a surprisingly hostile reception at his interview at the American Conuslate in Minks, Beylarus for his travel visa to the US for our conference. He has asked that polite letters be sent to the Consulate and Embassy on his behalf by people attending COPA who want to hear his talk. It has been a month since the interview with no response. I wrote and got an unsigned letter saying it was under consideration, a form letter. I asked two former Congress Members to write, and several prominent people. Please do not be hostile or critical in the letters, just send your support for him getting the visa. Thanks - John Judge

United States Embassy in Belarus

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Minsk 220002, Belarus

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Consular Section
Chargé d'Affaires ad interim (Chief of Mission) Ethan A. Goldrich

Address: 46 Starovilenskaya St.

Minsk 220002, Belarus

Telephone: +375 17 210-12-83 or +375 17 334-77-61

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