Erasing the Past to Protect a Fairytale

409 Unitarian Church – Albert Schweitzer College correspondence files



See also:
48   The handwritten draft of the 'Comrade Kostin' letter to the Soviet Embassy
363 Oswald - Thornley correspondence

'It should be noted that the files contain some odd gaps during the critical time period'

One of the many strange incidents occurring in the life of Lee Harvey Oswald was his brief, aborted venture into academia. On his 1959 passport, Oswald stated he would be touring several countries and would also "attend the Albert Schweitzer College" located in Churwalden, Switzerland. Despite his academic yearnings, Oswald bypassed Switzerland, traveled through Europe to Finland and from there crossed over to the Soviet Union. He apparently never set foot on the campus of Albert Schweitzer College (ASC). What the Warren Commission Concluded About Albert Schweitzer College. Oswald's involvement with ASC was investigated by the Warren Commission (WC) and is described within various documents of the 26 volumes of WC exhibits. According to the WC materials, Oswald first applied to ASC in the spring of 1959 to attend the school's spring semester of 1960.


Marguerite Oswald testified that she first learned of her son's college plans in a letter he sent her in May or June. In September, 1959, Lee departed for Europe, eventually defecting to the Soviet Union in October. In March of 1960, Marguerite received and opened a letter sent from ASC to Lee. Hoping to learn where Lee might be, she then wrote to ASC herself. The ASC officials told her that

Lee never arrived at the college and they did not know where he was. Oswald's passport, his application to ASC, and much of the correspondence between ASC and the Oswalds is included among the WC exhibits.

Lee Harvey Oswald's brief flirtation with ASC leftsome puzzling questions unanswered. Why did Oswald apply to this college in the first place? Why would he apply for the spring semester then travel to Europe in September? Why did he not attend after being accepted? And why would this institution accept a high school dropout with few academic credentials? Even more puzzling is how Oswald even knew of the existence of this institution. ASC was found to be a tiny, unaccredited school in a remote village in Switzerland. (...)

 
Postcard of the ASC

[N]ewly released documents contained some very surprising information. In particular, an Oct. 12 memorandum from the American Embassy in Paris to the FBI was found to contain three statements that were completely contrary to everything previously believed about Oswald's involvement with ASC (see back cover illustration, this issue, for redacted and unredacted versions of this memo). Contained within this memo was the following information:

- Oswald had originally registered for the Fall semester of 1959,

- Oswald had originally written to ASC from Moscow, and

- Marguerite had written directly to Oswald at the ASC address.

This was followed by a Nov. 3 memo to Director, which told a completely different story. This memo said that Oswald had applied to ASC from Santa Ana, for the spring trimester, and that Marguerite had written, not to Lee, but to college personnel, to inquire of the whereabouts of her son. The Nov. 3 memo did not explain the deviations from the Oct. 12 memo, saying only that it was "supplementing previously supplied information."

Having received copies of the five FBI documents, I decided to make some inquiries to see if I could ascertain the accuracy of the surprising Oct. 12 memo. My search eventually led me to contact the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) in Boston. The UUA, also known as the Unitarian Church, had been the primary sponsor of ASC. The UUA representatives that I talked to had no personal knowledge of ASC, but they allowed me to review ASC records retained in their historical files. Many of these records came from an organization called the Friends of Albert Schweitzer College (FASO, whose purpose was to assist ASC in recruiting and fund- raising in the United States.


Former headquarters of UUA on Beacon street

The UUA files give some indication of how ASC recruited its students. Because of its small size and limited funds, the college seemed to do little or no advertising in the United States. ASC recruited American students primarily through personal contacts of the Friends of Albert Schweitzer.

Interestingly, a frequent source of ASC students was Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Researchers had previously found links between Antioch and Lee Oswald, such as an Oswald "sighting" at a demonstration in Yellow Springs in the early 60's, and the fact that Ruth Paine had attended Antioch from 1949 to 1955.

I found few references to Lee Oswald in the files, and all but one of them were written after the assassination. Since these files are relatively small, at best a few thousand pages, it is not too surprising that there is little pertaining to Oswald. However, it should be noted that the files contain some odd gaps during the critical time period. For example, a correspondence file dated 1956 through 1964 is completely devoid of correspondence during the years 1958 through 1962, when the contacts with Lee Oswald took place.

(Dennis Bartholomew, LHO on Campus, Fourth Decade, vol. 4, nr. 3, 1997)

411 The original negative of Altgens photo


Compare:
14 The negatives of Backyard Photos 133A and 133C
73 Several Jim McCammon photographs and negatives
89 Negative of Betzner #3 sold to LIFE
117 Pics and negatives by Dallas Morning News photographer Walter Cisco

"Unable to fill request. Dark Room will not comply."


After taking the above photograph, Altgens turned the film in his camera, adjusted the focus to 15 feet and was raising his camera to eye level when he heard another report which he recognized as a gunshot. A bullet struck the President in the head as he passed just a few feet away. This was at 12:30.

By 12:57 the photograph was moving on the news wires, 3 minutes before the President was pronounced dead at Parkland hospital and just 11 minutes after the first news bulletin was issued. (HSCA Record Number 1 80-1 001 4-10152)

The photograph got to Africa and London, all over the world, at the same time that people got it in the U. S. and the photo was on page one of many of the world's newspapers within hours. (Pictures of the Pain, pp. 317, 318) This was a truly remarkable feat of journalism. (…)


The man in the doorway seen in the Altgens photo. Some claim it was Oswald and not
his colleague Billy Lovelady.

This author has tried to persuade owners of good quality copies of the Hughes, Bell and Bronson films to submit a frame showing the man-in-the-doorway for computer enhancement. No one seems interested because they regard the matter as having been long ago resolved. In their opinion, this effort would be like flogging a dead horse. A request to Wide World Photos, owners of the

Altgens photo, to have the original negative subjected to analysis met a reply which stated in the same letter (a) "We are unable to locate the negative." and (b) "Unable to fill request. Dark Room will not comply." (letter to author, May 25, 1994)

(John J. Johnson, Man-in-the-doorway: an unbelievable coincidence, Fourth Decade, May, 1998)

413 KOPY manager Sonny Stewart's notes


Compare:
155  Albert Guy Bogard's business card
156  Oran Brown's note with the name of Oswald

Among the myriad of Oswald sighting reports which do not fit in with the official timeline handed down by the Warren Commission is one which actually hit the Associated Press wire on November 28, 1963. Just days after being interviewed by the FBI, a radio station manager in Alice, Texas, told the AP that Oswald on the afternoon of Friday, October 4, had driven up to the station in a battered 1953 model car to inquire about a job. It also turns out that our job seeker had appeared at the station the previous evening, on Thursday, October 3, at about 6 p.m., and was told he needed to return the next day to speak to the manager. Upon returning on Friday, Oswald was said to have left a woman and a two-year old girl in the car and refused an offer to bring them inside the station with the explanation that, "She doesn't speak any English."


Main Street, Alice, Texas

What KOPY station manager Sonny Stewart and traffic manager Robert Janca told the FBI during their interview on November 25 was that the job seeker, whom they described as identical to Oswald, said that he had just come from Mexico and had spotted the station while traveling north on Highway 281. Stewart also wrote down the man's name as "Lee Oswald" and apparently was able to produce his notes after the assassination. Stewart and Janca described Oswald as unshaven and wearing blue jeans. They had reported this episode to the FBI after recognizing photographs of Oswald over the assassination weekend. After being informed that KOPY did not have any openings, our "Oswald" then asked about other radio stations in the area. Stewart and Janca told him he might want to check stations located in Pleasanton and Sinton. He seemed especially interested in the station in Pleasanton and was last spotted by the KOPY employees driving north on Highway 281 toward Pleasanton. Additional published reports have the men placing the time of the interview in the early afternoon -- at about 1:30 pm.

Stewart was so sure after the assassination that he had been talking to the real Oswald, he contacted the FBI on Saturday the 23rd. He later told the AP, "The first time I saw Oswald's picture on TV, I recognized him. It was like a song you can't remember the name. When it finally hit me who it was, I almost fell on the floor."

(Chris W. Courtwright, Oswald in Aliceland?, 1997)

415 Film of Cuban exile training camp


See also:
374 DeMohrenschildt's 8mm home movie of Bay of Pigs preparation

Jim DiEugenio: Another thing you've discussed and it's featured in your book, is this incredible movie of the Cuban exile training camp.

Bob Tanenbaum: To the best of my recollection, we found that movie somewhere in the Georgetown library archives. The movie was shocking to me because it demonstrated the notion that the CIA was training, in America, a separate army. It was shocking to me because I'm a true believer in the system and yet there are notorious characters in the system, who are being funded by the system, who are absolutely un-American! And who knows what they would do, eventually. What if we send people to Washington who they can't deal with? Out comes their secret army? So, I find that to be as contrary to the constitution as you can get.

JD: Was it really as you described in the book, with all the people in that film? Bishop was in the film?

BT: Oh, yeah. Absolutely! They're all in the film. They're all there. But, the fact of the matter is the Committee began to balk at a series of events. The most significant one was when [David Atlee] Phillips came up before the Committee and then had to be recalled because it was clear that he hadn't told the truth. That had to do with the phony commentary he made about Oswald going to Mexico City on or about October 1st, 1963.

(The Probe Interview: Bob Tanenbaum, 1996)



Anti-Communist guerrillas

DR. HALL: I have a two-part question for you. Part one is, I think in your answer to Judge Tunheim about what other materials might be there, you didn't speak to the question of the film that you mentioned both in your probe interview as well I believe in Corruption of Blood that deals with anti-Castro Cubans and the group that was there. So I wonder if you could speak to that particular matter. And then let me if I could give you the other half of this and wrap it up into one big ball. Do you have any materials from your days with the HSCA?

MR. TANENBAUM: Let me take the last question first. I have no documents at all. Anybody can go into my office and they won't find any land deals there either or anything else. And that's even in my private office. But certainly when I was in the government the same was true. I have nothing and walked in as -- walked out I should say as I walked in.

As far as where the film is, again, I can only tell you that all of the material I assume was in the same place, and that is where all the documents were kept in the document area as well as -- and when I say "documents" I include in that statement witnesses and memos that were drafted, films, medical evidence and other pieces of evidentiary value. So I can't tell you exactly what room it was in, but we had it in our possession.

DR. HALL: And that film had been obtained from the Georgetown University library?

MR. TANENBAUM: That's my best recollection is that our investigators, researchers found it in the Georgetown library archives as I recall.

DR. HALL: And just for the record, the significance of this film if it were now recovered, would be?

MR. TANENBAUM: If it showed -- again, it could be Sherlock Holmes again. It could be everything it could be nothing. On one hand it shows a lot of anti-Castro Cuban players with CIA contract people in a military training setting. It was some speculation, somewhat unclear, as to the direct identities of some of these people, and as I stand here now I'm not going to tell you exactly who they were. But, it was some of the major players in this whole case.

Now, does that mean, for example, and in direct answer to your question, Mr. Hall, that if we continued our probe into the anti-Castro Cuban connection with the CIA that that would show that the CIA in some fashion was responsible for the assassination, I can't say that and will not say that. And it doesn't mean also that Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone, I can't say that. But there's certain medical evidence and other evidence that suggests that perhaps he did not act alone. That's a whole different area of inquiry. So with respect to the film, it was just another piece of this great mosaic of trying to understand and recapture what occurred at a time. And that's one of the reasons why it was a fascinating view.

DR. HALL: But the critical piece here, this is a piece of material that you had previously seen in the course of your role as an investigator that is at the moment not available --

MR. TANENBAUM: Again, I don't know where it is -- but, yes, I did see that as my role on the Committee.

(Testimony of Robert Tanenbaum, ARRB, 1996)