Latest / The Lone Gunman Podcast : JFK Assassination / JFK Book Reviews - Harvey & Lee
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: What's up, everybody, And welcome to JFK Book Reviews, a
- 0:04Speaker 1: division of the Lonecoming Podcast. I am Rob Clark along
- 0:07Speaker 1: with me Joe Burrelly where Joseph Barelli as he's more
- 0:10Speaker 1: commonly known formerly. Today we're gonna be reviewing the book
- 0:16Speaker 1: Harvey and Lee by John Armstrong. And this is a
- 0:22Speaker 1: big bad Mamma Jama.
- 0:28Speaker 2: Checked this out.
- 0:29Speaker 1: It's sheathed, Joe. I'm gonna unsheathe it for everyone.
- 0:34Speaker 2: Wow.
- 0:35Speaker 3: See, I think it is the longest book we have
- 0:39Speaker 3: reviewed so far.
- 0:40Speaker 1: Yeah, Harvey and Lee, it's a thick mother jammer. And
- 0:45Speaker 1: check this out. So on the inside cover it's got
- 0:48Speaker 1: a little pouchs there for the CD ROM that comes
- 0:50Speaker 1: with it. And yeah, this is a big dude man,
- 0:58Speaker 1: no joke, no joke. But tell us a little bit
- 1:02Speaker 1: more about this, Joe, if you could, please sure.
- 1:07Speaker 3: So it was published in It was self published in
- 1:12Speaker 3: two thousand and three by John Armstrong by Quasar Limited, Arlington, Texas.
- 1:19Speaker 2: I think that's his own thing.
- 1:22Speaker 3: And it spans over eleven hundred pages and as you showed,
- 1:28Speaker 3: with an accompanying cd ROM which has a wealth of documents,
- 1:35Speaker 3: photographs and essentially the book talks about and presents a
- 1:43Speaker 3: very exhaustive case for the theory that Lee Harvey Oswalt
- 1:50Speaker 3: was not only a single individual, but a composite identity
- 1:58Speaker 3: created by you less intelligent agencies, primarily the CIA, of course,
- 2:05Speaker 3: as part of a long term covert operation. The book
- 2:09Speaker 3: argues that two boys, one the American Lee and one
- 2:16Speaker 3: possibility of possibly of Hungarian or Russian descent, which would
- 2:23Speaker 3: be Harvey, had their lives intertwined kind of from around
- 2:29Speaker 3: the age twelve to establish a legend, right which is
- 2:34Speaker 3: spy terms for a backstory for spy purposes during the
- 2:40Speaker 3: Cold War, and eventually Harvey it gets framed as being
- 2:49Speaker 3: the patsy for the assassination of JFK on November twenty second,
- 2:54Speaker 3: sixty three while Lee faded into obscurity.
- 2:59Speaker 2: And you know, this.
- 3:02Speaker 3: Was only one of two books John Armstrong wrote rob
- 3:06Speaker 3: The other one was with Craig Roberts, another author we
- 3:12Speaker 3: have previously reviewed. Yes, we collab They collabed on that
- 3:18Speaker 3: the JFK Dead Witnesses in ninety five and man, if
- 3:23Speaker 3: you want what you have in your hands, it's going
- 3:27Speaker 3: to cost you a pretty penny.
- 3:30Speaker 2: Listen to this on Amazon.
- 3:33Speaker 3: There is one copy available for nineteen hundred and ninety
- 3:37Speaker 3: nine dollars on eBay, there are two copies available seventeen
- 3:43Speaker 3: fifty and two thousand dollars. On a books there are
- 3:48Speaker 3: two copies, the cheapest one being seven sixty five.
- 3:53Speaker 2: So make rob an offer.
- 3:57Speaker 1: And also at the Lonegoment podcast it's email dot com.
- 4:01Speaker 1: Feel free to send your offers. I will sell this
- 4:05Speaker 1: bitch for two grand, no problem, no problem.
- 4:11Speaker 2: I would not blame you.
- 4:12Speaker 1: I'm a graphic for free.
- 4:15Speaker 3: Yeah there is. You can go to archive dot org
- 4:22Speaker 3: and get the PDF version for free, and I think
- 4:25Speaker 3: we will link that in the description. But like I mentioned,
- 4:30Speaker 3: it is twenty seven chapters long. I think I counted right,
- 4:37Speaker 3: and it starts with the introduction, starts chronologically, which of
- 4:41Speaker 3: course we like to do on our shows as we
- 4:44Speaker 3: structure them. It starts nineteen fifty two through New York
- 4:51Speaker 3: fifty three, four, five, six, seven, eight nine, Defection to
- 4:56Speaker 3: Russia nineteen sixty, sixty one, fifty two, and and then
- 5:00Speaker 3: a bunch of chapters of course in nineteen sixty three.
- 5:05Speaker 3: I think over ten of them just in nineteen sixty three.
- 5:09Speaker 3: The index pages are about twenty seven pages long, with
- 5:14Speaker 3: the name's referenced in this book, so definitely is extremely
- 5:18Speaker 3: thorough and I would say, Rob, this book one hundred
- 5:26Speaker 3: percent without a doubt, has a conspiracy.
- 5:32Speaker 1: No shit. So you know, as they often say, in
- 5:40Speaker 1: this research field, you know, everybody stands on the shoulders
- 5:46Speaker 1: of giants, right, people that came before them. And with
- 5:53Speaker 1: the preface of Harvey and Lee and Armstrong will tell
- 5:58Speaker 1: you himself that this book was not have been possible
- 6:02Speaker 1: without the work of Jack White. Jack White was a
- 6:07Speaker 1: believe second generation researcher, and a lot of people think
- 6:14Speaker 1: that Jack White was a little kooky.
- 6:16Speaker 3: You know.
- 6:16Speaker 1: He mainly tried to focus on the photographic evidence in
- 6:21Speaker 1: the case, right, And in fact, here's a picture of
- 6:27Speaker 1: Jack White, and he is pointing to the many different
- 6:32Speaker 1: faces of Lee Harvey Oswald, something that he kind of
- 6:36Speaker 1: came up with based on the fact that, you know,
- 6:42Speaker 1: we have a lot of pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald,
- 6:49Speaker 1: but some of them he doesn't look like the same person,
- 6:52Speaker 1: which is odd. I'll give you that, Okay, Now, is
- 6:57Speaker 1: this just photographic anomalies, I don't know. Is it two
- 7:02Speaker 1: different people impostures? I don't know. But here's again some
- 7:08Speaker 1: of the things that he kind of came up with,
- 7:10Speaker 1: Joe looking at Lee Harvey Oswald. Now there's one of
- 7:16Speaker 1: these pictures in particular that seemed to really really peak
- 7:23Speaker 1: John Armstrong's interest, and that is the third one over
- 7:28Speaker 1: from the on the top row. And this is what
- 7:31Speaker 1: we call the Moscow hang On defection photo. Okay, okay,
- 7:40Speaker 1: Now there's many different versions of this photo. You have
- 7:46Speaker 1: the Warren Report version you have, and that's the first
- 7:50Speaker 1: one that you see with the bright background. The second
- 7:53Speaker 1: one is from the files of Marguerite Oswald. I guess
- 7:57Speaker 1: somehow she got a picture of Lee. The third one
- 8:02Speaker 1: is from the Dallas Police. I don't know where they
- 8:04Speaker 1: got it. The fourth one is from the HSCA report,
- 8:09Speaker 1: and it kind of looks like he's looking in a
- 8:11Speaker 1: different direction in that photo. It's very weird. The fifth
- 8:18Speaker 1: one at the bottom left is from the christ Church
- 8:20Speaker 1: Star newspaper. The sixth one beside it is from Newsday.
- 8:27Speaker 1: Obviously a photo shopped image if you will, you know,
- 8:34Speaker 1: not necessarily photoshop, but cleaned up. And the seventh one,
- 8:39Speaker 1: the very last one, is from the fort Worth Press.
- 8:42Speaker 1: All legs to be the same man, but in reality
- 8:44Speaker 1: a split face composite of Lee and Harvey. Now how
- 8:49Speaker 1: do we get here? You might ask, Well, I'll tell you. Okay,
- 8:55Speaker 1: So if you take Harvey which is the right side
- 9:02Speaker 1: of the head, and Lee which is the left side
- 9:04Speaker 1: of the head, and kind of do a composite photo
- 9:08Speaker 1: of them, it gives you somebody resembling Lee Harvey Oswald.
- 9:16Speaker 1: Now if you really look at the picture on the
- 9:18Speaker 1: left Joe and you kind of focused like on his nose,
- 9:27Speaker 1: it almost becomes a parent. Now you gotta stare at
- 9:29Speaker 1: it for a second, but you gotta. It almost becomes
- 9:31Speaker 1: apparent how this is a two sided composite photograph. It's
- 9:38Speaker 1: very weird, Like you can almost really see like the line,
- 9:42Speaker 1: I mean, even though there's no line there, but you
- 9:44Speaker 1: can kind of you can kind of tell. Now, I'll
- 9:51Speaker 1: give you this Joe with Harvey and Lee. And I've
- 9:58Speaker 1: often said on the show that I don't know necessarily
- 10:00Speaker 1: agree with Armstrong's conclusions, but he does put forth a
- 10:07Speaker 1: very good case and some things you just can't ignore.
- 10:15Speaker 1: And like you mentioned, there's twenty seven chapters in this
- 10:18Speaker 1: book and they're broken down into different time periods. And
- 10:27Speaker 1: what he's done with this book is he's gone through
- 10:30Speaker 1: each time period and kind of tried to figure out
- 10:35Speaker 1: who was Harvey, what was he doing, and who was
- 10:39Speaker 1: Lee and what was he doing, where was he living,
- 10:42Speaker 1: where was he going to school, who was he living with?
- 10:46Speaker 1: Because there's kind of two different descriptions of Marguerite, his mother.
- 10:50Speaker 1: There's a tall, slender, decent looking Marguerite and then there's
- 10:53Speaker 1: the short, fat, hideous Marguerite. Right, so he tries to
- 10:59Speaker 1: figure out where she was working at different times and
- 11:02Speaker 1: where they were living at different times, and a lot
- 11:05Speaker 1: of these things overlap when they shouldn't.
- 11:09Speaker 2: Okay, there's a lot of anomalies.
- 11:12Speaker 1: Yes, there is a lot of anomalies. Yes, But like
- 11:16Speaker 1: Joe mentioned, I think the one problem that Armstrong faces
- 11:25Speaker 1: is he relies a lot on an eyewitness testimony. Now,
- 11:32Speaker 1: there is a lot of documents in this book, don't
- 11:34Speaker 1: get me wrong, so many that he had to include
- 11:38Speaker 1: a CD ROM with them on there, which is crazy.
- 11:44Speaker 1: But he managed to make his way around the country
- 11:51Speaker 1: and interview some of Oswald's old friends, old teachers, people
- 11:57Speaker 1: that knew them in Russia and in the United States friends,
- 12:03Speaker 1: and you know, he kind of compiled this amalgamation of
- 12:09Speaker 1: these two figures you have Harvey and you have Lee.
- 12:13Speaker 1: And like Joe said, you know the subtitle to this book,
- 12:16Speaker 1: you know, the title is Harvey and Lee, but the
- 12:17Speaker 1: subtitle is how the CIA framed Oswald? Okay, which again
- 12:28Speaker 1: becomes a little harry when you want to say that,
- 12:31Speaker 1: because allegedly Lee Harvey Oswold was born in nineteen thirty
- 12:37Speaker 1: eight or thirty nine. The CIA wasn't even formed until
- 12:41Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven. So how did the CIA plan all this?
- 12:47Speaker 1: Or did they just happen to find a young Hungarian
- 12:51Speaker 1: or Russian boy that looked exactly like this young American
- 12:58Speaker 1: boy whose family seemingly had no ties to intelligence whatsoever,
- 13:05Speaker 1: which begs the question how did they figure this out?
- 13:09Speaker 1: Was he a twin where they separated? Birth doesn't seem
- 13:14Speaker 1: to be. You know, we have his birth certificate. His
- 13:18Speaker 1: birth record is an ideal. I mean, his dad died
- 13:24Speaker 1: before he was born or before they were born. Maybe
- 13:28Speaker 1: they gave up one. Maybe they told them one died
- 13:31Speaker 1: and secreted one away, and you know, had had him
- 13:37Speaker 1: learn Russian, you know, for the hopes of someday they'll
- 13:40Speaker 1: infiltrate Russia and learn all the secrets, and you know,
- 13:42Speaker 1: maybe become a Manchurian candidate and ended up assassinating a
- 13:46Speaker 1: president who knows. But again, these are far fetched ideas
- 13:52Speaker 1: that require an immense amount of proof, not just supposition proof.
- 14:02Speaker 1: And again there are a lot of anomalies when it
- 14:05Speaker 1: comes to Oswald's school records. Can you attribute that to
- 14:10Speaker 1: the times though, Joe? You know where they just you know,
- 14:16Speaker 1: were they just not very good at it back then?
- 14:18Speaker 1: Is it something that they really didn't follow through on?
- 14:21Speaker 1: I mean, this poor kid, I think he you know,
- 14:24Speaker 1: they moved around. I think they moved like fifteen or
- 14:29Speaker 1: twenty times. Yeah, yeah, you know, at least ten or
- 14:34Speaker 1: fifteen new schools for this kid. So how good of
- 14:38Speaker 1: records were really kept? When you know, Lee Harvey Oswald
- 14:42Speaker 1: might have been in school for four months out of
- 14:43Speaker 1: the year at this place. We don't know. And again
- 14:49Speaker 1: he does talk to old teachers who remember him, old
- 14:52Speaker 1: friends who knew him, But how good are their memories?
- 14:58Speaker 1: We know that, we know, we all know the problems
- 15:00Speaker 1: with the eyewitness testimony, Joe. Can it be trusted.
- 15:06Speaker 2: Decades after?
- 15:08Speaker 1: Yeah? And you know, like Joe said, you know, the
- 15:12Speaker 1: premise is that Lee Harvey Oswald set up Harvey right
- 15:18Speaker 1: Oswald to take the fall for the assassination of the
- 15:24Speaker 1: president and the murder of JD. Tippett, which begs the question, Okay, well,
- 15:32Speaker 1: if he did that, we all know what happened to
- 15:35Speaker 1: Harvey Jack Reerby shot him in the stomach and he
- 15:39Speaker 1: ended up dying. What happened to Lee Harvey Oswald? You know,
- 15:45Speaker 1: a guy with one of the most recognizable faces on
- 15:48Speaker 1: the planet. He can't hide anywhere. So unless he's getting
- 15:53Speaker 1: some massive, really good plastic surgery in the early sixties,
- 15:59Speaker 1: and I don't know how good it was back then.
- 16:02Speaker 1: Something tells me probably not that great. Yeah, probably very risky.
- 16:08Speaker 1: But again I don't know one hundred percent for sure.
- 16:13Speaker 1: And of course there are allegations about, you know, somebody
- 16:16Speaker 1: whosing named Donald Norton, and possibly Lee moved into being
- 16:23Speaker 1: this guy and actually caught up with I believe it
- 16:28Speaker 1: was Mary Farrell.
- 16:29Speaker 2: Wasn't it might have been.
- 16:32Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not one hundred percent sure on that either.
- 16:35Speaker 1: But you know, it's just a lot, a lot, a
- 16:39Speaker 1: lot of supposition. But I will tell you this, folks,
- 16:46Speaker 1: for the money, this book ain't worth two thousand dollars.
- 16:50Speaker 1: I don't know why it is asking two thousand dollars.
- 16:55Speaker 1: It's a good book to have. Like I said, the
- 16:59Speaker 1: rece horses and the documents alone make this really easy
- 17:05Speaker 1: to go back and look at. And I've had people
- 17:10Speaker 1: on the show, Joe, like George Schwimmer who've written a
- 17:13Speaker 1: couple of books about Doppelganger and this whole Harvey and
- 17:17Speaker 1: Lee thing that they've tried to advance the research on
- 17:23Speaker 1: to you know, even more prove the point. You know,
- 17:32Speaker 1: is it worth two thousand dollars?
- 17:34Speaker 2: Hell?
- 17:34Speaker 1: No, no books is worth two thousand dollars unless you
- 17:38Speaker 1: just want to be a dick and and just just
- 17:41Speaker 1: to have it. You know, I have it, you know.
- 17:47Speaker 1: But again I don't know. I don't know. Let me
- 17:55Speaker 1: know what you thought of it.
- 17:56Speaker 3: Joe, Okay, yeah, yeah, I mean this is probably one
- 18:05Speaker 3: of the hardest ratings I've had to do so far
- 18:08Speaker 3: in our book review series, because while it has immense
- 18:13Speaker 3: research value, and I know we've used it as a
- 18:18Speaker 3: resource and quoted it many times on our show, right,
- 18:24Speaker 3: it does, as you mentioned, heavily rely on eyewitness testimony
- 18:29Speaker 3: decades later. There are some problems for me. I obviously
- 18:40Speaker 3: don't agree with the whole to Oswalt scenario, but I
- 18:46Speaker 3: definitely agree with Oswalt was framed and Oswalt was impersonated
- 18:51Speaker 3: right to Marguerite's I think that's going a little far.
- 18:58Speaker 3: But of course there are anomalies there too which you
- 19:00Speaker 3: can point to, and and the book has like a
- 19:03Speaker 3: cult following. I know a good percentage of our listeners
- 19:10Speaker 3: are big Harvey and Lee fans.
- 19:12Speaker 2: But I wonder.
- 19:16Speaker 3: How much of the research value that it provided.
- 19:22Speaker 2: I weigh it verse did it how much.
- 19:27Speaker 3: Did it muddy the waters right in the whole assassination
- 19:32Speaker 3: of JFK?
- 19:34Speaker 1: Versus how much your microphone is scratching on your jacket?
- 19:39Speaker 3: Yes, you know what I mean, Like, like, did it
- 19:44Speaker 3: did it muddy the waters more than the benefit of
- 19:50Speaker 3: the thorough, really good research.
- 19:54Speaker 2: I don't know.
- 19:55Speaker 3: So this I do think it's a great resource.
- 19:59Speaker 2: I think think if you can get the.
- 20:04Speaker 3: Archive dot org version pdf for free, it's you know, definitely,
- 20:11Speaker 3: you know, definitely not a book for people starting.
- 20:13Speaker 2: Off in the JFK assassination. Right, It's probably like one.
- 20:17Speaker 3: Of the last books you'd read, like maybe like in
- 20:20Speaker 3: the dozens, right.
- 20:21Speaker 1: It's ninja level, you know, yeah, beginner.
- 20:25Speaker 3: Yeah, and uh, you know, there aren't a ton of
- 20:29Speaker 3: anomalies that go on with Lee, Harvey Oswald in his
- 20:32Speaker 3: file and and and everything. So in conclusion, I think
- 20:44Speaker 3: I'm going to give this book, uh solid but maybe
- 20:50Speaker 3: controversial six guns up just because of its research value,
- 20:58Speaker 3: but also I think it muddied the waters a little
- 21:02Speaker 3: bit as well and got some people, you know, not
- 21:09Speaker 3: focused on some of the right areas of the assassination.
- 21:13Speaker 1: How about you, sir, Well, I'm kind of there with you.
- 21:19Speaker 1: And like I said before, I'm not always on board
- 21:22Speaker 1: with the Harvey and Lee. The idea of a Harvey
- 21:25Speaker 1: in a Lee was he being impersonated in places?
- 21:28Speaker 2: Yes?
- 21:31Speaker 1: Are there anomalies, yes, But I don't think the only
- 21:35Speaker 1: answer is that there was a Harvey in a Lee.
- 21:41Speaker 1: I think once you get into a mindset of a theory,
- 21:51Speaker 1: then as you're accumulating evidence that points to your theory
- 21:56Speaker 1: that creates an anomaly, you tend to use it. But
- 22:02Speaker 1: there's such a thing as exculpatory evidence, folks, things that
- 22:07Speaker 1: poke holes in your theory, and a lot of those
- 22:12Speaker 1: documents are not included on the CD wrong. And I
- 22:19Speaker 1: get it. You know, this guy really dove into this.
- 22:23Speaker 1: He's spent probably.
- 22:26Speaker 3: Ten years, ten years, over ten years.
- 22:28Speaker 1: Over ten years, probably close to one hundred thousand dollars
- 22:31Speaker 1: traveling and all that. I mean, I know, the dude's
- 22:36Speaker 1: got money, he's loaded, he lives in a y I
- 22:38Speaker 1: get it, and kudos to him for being able to
- 22:42Speaker 1: do it, you know. But again, you know, you got
- 22:51Speaker 1: to respect the effort, which I do. I don't think
- 22:54Speaker 1: this comes from a place of blatant dishonesty. I think
- 22:58Speaker 1: this comes from a good place, a place of well
- 23:03Speaker 1: meaning intent. I don't think this book is put out
- 23:06Speaker 1: there to deceive anyone. I think this guy hasn't had
- 23:11Speaker 1: an idea and he saw it through to its conclusion
- 23:18Speaker 1: on his own dime. So you got to respect that
- 23:20Speaker 1: about the guy.
- 23:23Speaker 2: You know.
- 23:24Speaker 1: I know this book was released what two years ago,
- 23:28Speaker 1: twenty three years ago, and he's still active today. He's
- 23:34Speaker 1: still publishing things on Harvey and leedd dot net, which
- 23:38Speaker 1: has a lot of very good articles and expound where
- 23:42Speaker 1: he expounds a lot on the theories that he came
- 23:46Speaker 1: up with in the book. And I highly recommend everyone
- 23:50Speaker 1: check that out Harvey and Lee dot net. And uh
- 23:55Speaker 1: again it's a fascinating read. But folks, do your own
- 23:59Speaker 1: rese search there for most of his theories. There are
- 24:05Speaker 1: other answers out there, you just have to find them.
- 24:13Speaker 1: You know, when he calls something an anomaly, it's just
- 24:16Speaker 1: a broken record for broken records, and a little more
- 24:23Speaker 1: digging could possibly be the key to figuring some of
- 24:30Speaker 1: this stuff out. And I highly encourage everybody out there
- 24:32Speaker 1: to do it. That being said, folks, Big Bad Bob,
- 24:37Speaker 1: that's me is going to give this heavy tone, going
- 24:45Speaker 1: to give this heavy tone a solid.
- 24:51Speaker 2: Because I respect the.
- 24:52Speaker 1: Effort and I respect anybody that can put something out
- 24:57Speaker 1: that's commanding two grand on Amazon on right now. A
- 25:02Speaker 1: solid seven guns up, Joe. And with that being said, folks,
- 25:13Speaker 1: if you enjoyed this book review, we do a show
- 25:17Speaker 1: all about the Kennedy assassination every Friday night, seven pm
- 25:22Speaker 1: Eastern here, live streamed on the youtubees. You also live
- 25:29Speaker 1: stream a show for our channel members every Wednesday night
- 25:34Speaker 1: at seven pm that's exclusive just for them, and we
- 25:39Speaker 1: don't skimp on that one either. So if you enjoyed this,
- 25:42Speaker 1: you're gonna love that. Feel free to head over to
- 25:45Speaker 1: our channel. Check out our playlist. You'll find more book reviews.
- 25:50Speaker 1: You'll find our live shows you'll find our videos and
- 25:55Speaker 1: give us a follow like, share all that good stuff
- 25:59Speaker 1: and we'll catch you on the next JF Cable reviews
- 26:03Speaker 1: for Joe Borelli. I'm Rob Clark, Triple B, Big Bad Bob,
- 26:07Speaker 1: and we are out.
- 26:11Speaker 2: Thank you, every one. H