This is a personal communication today from John Armstrong to me, and it concerns a man who was one of the few people who met both "Lee" and "Harvey" as a boy. His name was Ed Voebel.

John Armstrong: 

For what it's worth, Voebel first met LEE Oswald in Oct, 1954 (9th grade) after LEE got into a fight with Johnny Neumeyer. Voebel visited LEE and his mother at 126 Exchange Place in NO. 

In the mid-1990's I spoke for hours with Neumeyer, who was then living in Las Vegas. I also spoke with a fellow who saw the fight and also saw Robin Reilly punch LEE in the mouth the following day. He is a professor at Merrymount College in Los Angeles. It was Ed Voebel who took the infamous "classroom" photo that appears to show LEE Oswald with a knocked-out front tooth. 

I spoke with Voebel's sister a number of times. She said that her father always believed that Ed was "murdered" because of something to do with the JFK assassination and Oswald. What they didn't know, and I did not tell them, was that Ed knew HARVEY in the spring of 1954 (8th grade), and then knew LEE in the 9th grade (1954-55). One day, in 1971, Ed was ill and went to the Oscher Clinic. He called home that evening, said that he was feeling fine, and that he would return home tomorrow. The next day someone from the Oscher Clinic called and said that he died. Doris ("Sweetie Pie, her nickname) Voebel told me that when his obituary appeared in the newspaper, it said that he died in the Memorial Hospital. She never understood why the newspaper said "Memorial Hospital", when her brother died at the Oschner Clinic. Now, given what we know about Alton Oschner and his connections to Shaw, CIA, etc., we understand why the obituary showed his death at Memorial Hospital. 

Let's look at this false alarm concerning Billy Sol Estes because I believe it's a model for how it's supposed to work. A photo was provided which clearly is a good match to the disputed figure. And, that photo looks totally authentic; there is no reason to think that it was tampered with. 

But now let's compare it to another such case:

In this case, the explanatory photo does look tampered with. On the right, they darkened his eyes and they narrowed his face. That is the only image of Robert Adams in which he looks like that. In all his other pictures, he appears to be a fat-faced guy.

That was the real Robert Adams. They altered that one image in order to turn him into Lucien Conein. 

There is no way that image on the right is legit. They tampered with it, and the very fact that they did proves that that other guy must have been Lucien Conein. 

So, that's bad that the image they came up with was an altered image.  But, in another case, they came up with absolutely nothing. They have never provided any another possibility for this individual except Lee Harvey Oswald. 

The fact that that man was at the top of the steps of the TSBD argues mightily that he was associated with the TSBD. Therefore, if he wasn't Oswald it should be very easy to determine who he was- and they have had over 50 years to do it. So, in this case, Oswald wins by default- there are no other contenders. Therefore, I must conclude that the Three Tramps were marched through Dealey Plaza much earlier than reported- it was just a few minutes after the shooting when Oswald was just leaving for home. 

But, this shows you how it works and how it doesn't work. And the collapse of the very brief claim for Billy Sol Estes being in Dealey Plaza only highlights the other strong cases we have for which there are no easy explanations. They are, in a word, compelling. 

I mentioned that I am reading a biography of Natalie Wood, whose given name was Natasha Zacharenko, the daughter of Russian immigrants. And I just learned something about her that I did not know until now: 

Right before the filming of Rebel Without A Cause when she was 16, Natalie Wood was brutally raped by an A+ Hollywood actor. He invited her to his hotel room, ostensibly to discuss a script, and he attacked her. And it was at the extreme of violence, where she was badly torn and bleeding from the rape.

She told her family and close friends, but she never went to the police, and it was because of the power that this man wielded in Hollywood. She feared that it would ruin her career. 

The author of this biography, Natasha, is Suzanne Finstad, and I must say that it is very well written. But, in the book, Ms. Finstad does not reveal who this A+ actor is who raped Natalie Wood. And I say "is" because he is still alive. You can tell that she knows who he is, but she withholds his name. And, it must be because of fear of litigation.

But, she does say in the book, which came out in 2001, that Natalie's younger sister Lana has sworn that she is going to make public the name of this man who raped her sister as soon as he dies. 

Does it mean that the estate of a deceased person cannot sue for libel? I'm not a lawyer, and I don't claim to know. 

But, it occurred to me that the Internet is probably abuzz with ideas on who the man is who raped Natalie Wood. And so I started searching. And I was shocked at what I found. First, I was shocked because the judgment of the internet community is so unanimous. There is only one name being bantered around that I've seen.  And second, I'm shocked because of who the man is: Kirk Douglas, the father of Michael Douglas.  

Of course, I don't know if Kirk Douglas is guilty or not, but I am reminded of something from the show, Who Wants To Be A Millioinare.  On the show, the contestant has the one-time option of asking the audience to help him. So, everyone votes electronically. I have seen the show many times over many years, and every time that option has been played, the contestant has taken the majority opinion of the audience, and it proved to be right. It has NEVER failed in the times that I have watched the show. And, the opinion of the audience has never been unanimous there, as it is in this case with the rape of Natalie Wood.  

What does this have to do with the JFK assassination? Absolutely nothing, but, there are parallels.  They both involve violent crimes for which the pursuit of justice is a passion for a lot of people. And, I would very much like to see justice obtained for Natalie Wood, just as I do for John Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald. And, both cases seem to be hurling towards a very public denouement. 

   

Robin Unger has submitted this image of witness Larry Florer who was brought in, and I must concede that it appears to be him. So, touche' Robin. You win this one. And this is how it works. This is how you resolve these things. So now, if you would, please come up with someone for that Danny Arce-like figure in front of the Dal-Tex building because that one is still raging. And don't worry, Robin: it's still Oswald in the doorway. And I mean as Doorman in the Altgens photo and Wiegman film- not as Prayer Man in the Darnell film. That one is never going away.

I'd like to know something. If someone is unwilling to admit that this is Danny Arce, why won't they at least admit that it might be Danny Arce?

How much likeness do you need before you're willing to say, "it could be him"? 

And read through his testimony about where he was. It sounds straight out of Abbott and Costello:

Mr. BALL. Where were you standing when you heard the shots?
Mr. ARCE. I was standing in front of the Texas School Book Depository. I was on that grassy area part in front.
Mr. BALL. You were not on the sidewalk?
Mr. ARCE. No, I was on the sidewalk, then I walked up to the grass to get a higher view. and still couldn't see. 
 Mr. ARCE. I was down to the west side, a little more to the west. 
Mr. BALL. Were you west of the building itself?
Mr. ARCE. Yeah.
Mr. BALL. You were not in front of the building?
Mr. ARCE. I was directly in front, but then I walked a few steps down to the west side.
Mr. BALL. Where were you with reference to the west wall of the building?
Mr. ARCE. Oh, I was way far from it. I was across the street, I mean.
Mr. BALL. What do you mean "across the street"?
Mr. ARCE. Well, there's a little sidewalk right across the street and there's some grass and things up there and that's where I was at. I couldn't tell you exactly where I was, see, it's hard to explain.
Mr. BALL. Well, you say you were not in front of the building?
Mr. ARCE. Well, not directly, not in front; I was across the street.
Mr. BALL. And were you west of the west wall of the building?
Mr. ARCE. Well, I was, well the building--
Mr. BALL. I understand but you were to the south of the building. You had to be south of the building, didn't you?
Mr. ARCE. Well, I was south but I was, well, I guess you could say I was in front of the building but not directly in front, well, I don't know how to explain it.
Mr. BALL. Who was standing with you?
Mr. ARCE. Well, I walked away from the other guys because they were all in front of the building and I went across the street to get a closer view.
Mr. BALL. You walked which direction?
Mr. ARCE. I just--right across the street.
Mr. BALL. Right across Elm Street?
Mr. ARCE. Uh-huh.
Mr. BALL. The part of Elm that dead ends there?
Mr. ARCE. Yeah.
Mr. BALL. You crossed that and went on to the grassy part?
Mr. ARCE. Uh-huh. 

Hey, Danny. Who's on first? 

From Professor James Norwood: 

Ralph,

This was an excellent blog post on the impossibility of Oswald teaching himself the Russian language.  Also, I noticed at the end of the youtube video, there was an extremely curious photograph of Oswald.  In fact, that was the photo we discussed on your blog a while back.  The long, goose neck is clearly an anatomical impossibility.  The head appears to be resting on a pedestal.  It is an extremely obscure photo and entirely appropriate for a dishonest video.  This slick presentation is clearly designed as misdirection, hoping that the viewer will believe that Oswald taught himself Russian.

The most revealing testimony that I found concerning the impressions Oswald left on his fellow Marines in Santa Ana comes from James Bothello, who roomed with Oswald in hut #34.  As Bothello explained, "Oswald was not a Communist or a Marxist.  If he was I would have taken violent action against him and so would many of the other Marines in that unit."  Obviously, the Marines who knew Oswald at Santa Ana recognized that he was part of an undercover operation.  This operative was about to be sent to the Soviet Union as a spy, and his most important asset was his native fluency in Russian.


James

Listen to this moron, Mark Osbourne, who was Oswald's Marine buddy at Santa Ana. That's where Oswald went after Japan. Osbourne said that Oswald would "go into town on his own" and come back with Russian newspapers (they had a large Russian-speaking community in Santa Ana did they?) and then with a Russian dictionary, he made himself "semi-proficient" in Russian. It's very short, so listen to him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_Y7SzBqvQA


This is nonsense! Here is a Russian newspaper:

You can't learn Russian with a newspaper such as that and a Russian dictionary. Forget about it! This is fantasy. It's nonsense. 

The fact is that there is a process by which the mind can be pried open to get a new language into it, but that process is not served by just a newspaper and a dictionary. That doesn't begin to cut it. It just doesn't work. And let's remember: an English-to-Russian dictionary wouldn't help. It would have to be a Russian-to-English dictionary. In other words, you couldn't start with English words and look up their Russian equivalents because the Russian newspaper has no English words. You could only go from Russian to English. So, it would be something like this:

The feasibility of actually acquiring useful and meaningful knowledge of Russian that way is zero. You could learn a few words, but only visually. You wouldn't know how to pronounce them. You think you could figure it out with a phonetic guide? Try it and see. The whole grammatical structure of Russian is categorically different from English. Unlike Spanish, it requires a whole different linguistic thought process, and you can't wade through it on your own. I demand that people stop being childish and stupid about this. The idea that Oswald taught himself Russian with a Russian newspaper and a Russian dictionary and became "semi-proficient" that way is ridiculous. It stops now. The fact is that there is NO basis by which Oswald could have taught himself Russian.  

It was after Japan that the Russian-speaking Harvey took over the identity of the New Orleans born Lee. The 9th grade dropout Lee Harvey Oswald most certainly did not teach himself Russian.