After a highly publicized event, there is a tendency for people to want to become a part of the event and therefore a part of history. Wilt Chamberlain once noted “As I've traveled the world, I've probably had 10,000 people tell me that they saw my 100 point game …” although the actual number of people in attendance was 4124.
Such is apparently the case with Dr. Milton Kurian who wrote a letter to Jackie Kennedy in 1964. Kurian, a psychiatrist, told Mrs. Kennedy that he had examined Lee Harvey Oswald in March of 1964. Double Oswald theorist John Armstrong uses Dr. Kurian’s remembrances as proof of “Harvey” Oswald. This article will show that Dr. Kurian could not have seen LHO and that “Harvey” does not exist.
Dr. Kurian says he remembers the time of his experience with LHO because he was leaving his job as a psychiatrist for domestic relations court in New York and places it as March, 1953. But Kurian could not have seen Lee Harvey Oswald for several reasons. Warren Commission staff member John Ely explained the first problem with Kurian’s account in a staff memo:
He [Kurian] states that the interview occurred toward the end of March, 1953; however, in view of the fact that he refers to a report from Youth House which had been prepared prior to his meeting the boy, it must have been later in that year.
Ely is being charitable toward Kurian here, but the latter is adamant about the date he saw LHO who never entered Youth House until April 16, 1953 and there is no doubt that Kurian did not see LHO under the scenario he described. In the same memo, Ely touched on the second reason to disbelieve Kurian:
The Kurian letter was of course prepared after the assassination and I suspect its contents were influenced by the events of November 22, 1963. If, however, Dr. Kurian’s records contain the father figure analysis, they would be of great interest indeed.
The problem is, Kurian has no documentation proving that he interviewed LHO. Ely knew that without a report, Kurian’s assertions were essentially worthless. The Warren Commission would have wanted to use Kurian's diagnosis that LHO was mentally unstable but could not without confirming documentation. Other details from Kurian’s combined account (which includes the original letter to Mrs. Kennedy, a letter to Armstrong and a taped interview) reinforce the fact that the boy he saw was not LHO. Kurian said that Marguerite was married five times and spoke of LHO’s “stepfathers.” But Marguerite was married three times and LHO had only one stepfather. Kurian also thought that LHO’s brothers went to school in his place during his truancy but even Armstrong admits this never happened since John and Robert were much too old to pose as children and would have no reason to do so.
Instead of accepting the obvious, that Kurian was a well-meaning individual who was simply wrong, Armstrong uses the incident as proof of “Harvey” who he believes was around 4’8” tall while “Lee” was 5’4”. But as I show in the following article, the Bronx Zoo photo that ostensibly shows the small, emaciated “Harvey”, is actually the one and only Lee Harvey Oswald who was indeed around 5’4” tall at the time.
http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-bronx-zoo-photo.html
In conclusion, Dr. Kurian was a well-meaning man who was probably a fine physician. He was simply mistaken in his observations and perhaps motivated by a desire for 15 minutes of fame. To see the documents referenced in this article, go to:
http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/po-arm/id/6527/rec/10
I love how your debunking relies solely on suggesting that all the witnesses were either liars or mistaken. Hilarious, and we're the conspiracy theorists !
ReplyDeleteOh and also misrepresentation of the truth for people who haven't read the book. .... Your misrepresentation of Armstrongs conclusions here is criminal. For people who haven't read the book.... Armstrong points to the comment about his brother attending school for him as a Fraudian slip and the suggestion that the boy was aware of another 'LHO'. Or in simpler terms he uses it as evidence to support his theory not admit that his theory is wrong. The 'debunking' is such complete lies , I really hope people actually read the book instead of listen to your skin deep , ill thought out drivel.
The point, which is omitted here , is that Kurian saw a boy who was very different to the boy who was later described in School reports in terms of his height and personality. So much so that he felt the need to say something. It is one of hundreds of discrepancies which, unfortunately for this blog, form a consistent theme. That there was a smaller, quieter boy than the ' Lee' that fellow soldiers would fight with and drink beer with years later, who describes his mother in a different way. The discrepancies are not random they are very consistent with each other.