John Armstrong's Harvey and Lee

[Albert Rossi]

[quote=Ray Mitcham][quote=Marlene Zenker]

So, these differences cannot be accounted for by the rotational angle of the head to the shutter plane, focal length, etc., or the time difference between the two photos?

The rotational angle of the head could make a difference, Albert, but if the head rotated forward or backward,it would alter the line of the nose. Looking at the two photos, and the comparisons between the nose and the lips, the focal length looks the same. (Note I said "looks" the same) Don't see how the time difference would make any difference to the positioning of the ears.

No, time difference was simply in terms of hairline and general shape of face.

Well, if I may just politely reserve judgment on your explanation, Ray, as I am not a photographer. But it seems to me that the lower hairline, higher ear line, could be an effect of height and distance of the lens and how tilted the head was. I personally could not make any definite conclusions about what the nose and lips tell; the shape of the lips is the same, the thickness of the lips looks different. Can't say why. But that's my point. Until you and I can share a mathematical description for all of this, they are just our personal impressions.

[Tracy Riddle]

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.

[Jim Hargrove]

It's so interesting to see the discussion going on here about the Oswald mug shots and hairlines, etc. The widow's peak issue LEE Oswald seemed to have going has always struck me. Here is a photo from the top of the H&L home page:

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Look at LEE Oswald (top row) and how that widow's peak just seems to grow and grow from 1956 to 1958. Then, of course, officially it just disappears.

Jim

[Jan Klimkowski]

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.

Tracy - many of the East Europeans who ended up in America had Nazi collaborationist backgrounds.

Remember that in Europe, Nazi spymaster Gehlen was recruited by Dulles and moulded the old anti-communist networks into Gehlen Org, stuffed full of Ukrainian SS, White Russian fascists, Latvians, Croatian Ustase, Romanians and Hungarians.

Both the Catholic and Orthodox churches were used as cover.

Peter Levenda has done some fantastic research on the wandering bishops of a particular branch, known as the American Orthodox Church. Jack Martin is connected to this, ahem, religious group.

See here.

[Jim Hargrove]

Jim, I think that woman is the same Marguerite as in the other photos. She appears to be wearing high heels (based on the way her ankles look), and people can lose an inch or two in height as they head into old age.

Hi, Tracy. She may be wearing heels, but it looks to me like she'd have to be on stilts to be the same height as the woman who testified to the WC.

For comparison, here again is Marguerite next to 6-foot-plus Edwin Ekdahl. Next to that is two shots of the WC Marguerite, one looking up to tiny Marina (5'2"?), and the other at about the same time right after the assassination. The height difference just doesn't seem possible to me. I don't see how the WC Marguerite can be any taller than 5 feet, if that.

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Jim

[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'.....

[Charles Drago]

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.

As I wrote in the Introduction to George Michael Evica's last book:

"Haunting the pages of A Certain Arrogance ... is a revelation so menancing in its assaults on convention and authority as to provoke a reflexive shielding of our eyes from its searing illumination. Yet Professor Evica could not spare us the psychic pain that is the unavoidable side effect of his scholarship, insofar as such suffering remains the sine qua non for the eradication of our common malady.

"Within the nucleus [of the JFK conspiracy], Professor Evica discovered 'a treasonous cabal of hard-line American and Soviet intelligence agents whose masters were above Cold War differences.' [emphasis added for this post]

"In light of this truth, we are left with no choice but to embrace a new paradigm of world power.

"Professor Evica revealed the universally accepted vertical, East v. West Cold War confrontation to be a sophistic construct, illusory in terms of its advertised raison d'etre but all too real in the bloody consequences of its staging, created by the powerful yet outnumbered manipulators of perception to protect what they recognized to be an all-too-fragile reality. The true division of power, he discovered, then as now is drawn on a horizontal axis.

"Envision the earth so bifurcated, with the line drawn not at the equator, but rather at the Arctic Circle. Above the line are the powerful few -- the 'Haves.' Below the line, in vastly superior numbers, are the powerless many -- the 'Have-Nots.'

[Jim Hargrove]

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

[David Josephs]

Mr. BENAVIDES - Well, he was kind of, well, just about your size.
Mr. BELIN - About my size? I am standing up.
Mr. BENAVIDES - You are about 5' 10"?
Mr. BELIN - I am between 5' 10" and 5' 11". Closer to 5' 11", I believe

At the end of his testimony Benavidas he is asked "is there anything else" to which he offers a very descriptive account of an identifying feature of the man... his hair

This is the clean cut Domingo
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Mr. BELIN - Did he look like me?
Mr. BENAVIDES - No; your face, not your face, but just your size.
Mr. BELIN - Okay, well, I thank you. I was flying from St. Louis to Des Moines, Iowa. at about this time. Is there anything else?
Mr. BENAVIDES - I remember the back of his head seemed like his hairline was sort of--looked like his hairline sort of went square instead of tapered off. and he looked like he needed a haircut for about 2 weeks, but his hair didn't taper off, it kind of went down and squared off and made his head look fiat in back.
Mr. BELIN - When you put these two shells that you found in this cigarette package, what did you do with them?
Mr. BENAVIDES - I gave them to an officer.
Mr. BELIN - That came out to the scene shortly after?
Mr. BENAVIDES - Yes, sir


I have not been able to find a photo of the back of LEE's head..... but Harvey here was not the man Domingo saw.
and sounds a bit more like the man Helen described to Mark Lane...

food for thought....

There were 4 men in an assault team in Chacgo just weeks before... wonder where THEY went next...

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[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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Consular Section
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