THE FORGED W-2 FORMS
In about June, 1955, I went to work as a dental messenger for the Pfisterer Dental Laboratory Company in the 200 block of Dauphine Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. In about December, 1957, a young man named LEE OSWALD was employed in the same capacity. Because we both enjoyed classical music I invited him to my home at 1416 Baronne Street, New Orleans, and he did visit my home perhaps two or three times. I was living with my parents at that time, and during his visits we would listen to records in my room.
During his first visit to my home in late 1957 or early 1958 the discussion turned to politics and to the possibility of war. At this time I made a statement to the effect that President DWIGHT EISENHOWER was doing a pretty good job for a man of his age and background, but I did feel more emphasis should be placed on the space program in view of Russian successes. OSWALD was very anti-Eisenhower, and stated that President EISENHOWER was exploiting the working people. He then made a statement to the effect that he would like to kill president EISENHOWER because he was exploiting the working class. This statement was not made in jest. . . .
Excerpt from 11/23/63 statement to FBI
by Airman Palmer E. McBride
(CE 1386--WC vol. XXII)
You would think the Warren Commission would have taken formal testimony of anyone who heard Oswald say he wanted to assassinate a U.S. president, but Airman McBride never appeared before the Commission, nor did any other employees of Pfisterer Dental Lab. All of Oswald's employment records at Pfisterer were collected by the FBI and were never seen again.
Why?
Because Palmer McBride (and other Pfisterer employees interviewed by JFK researcher John Armstrong) recalled that Oswald worked for Pfisterer in late 1957 and early 1958, when the WC had Oswald serving as a radar operator for the Marines in Japan. McBride's recollection that Oswald and he discussed "Russian successes" in space surely means they surely talked at least after the launch of the first Russian space success: Sputnik on October 4, 1957.
Reports about McBride's recollection and that of another man, William Wulf, indicating Oswald was at Pfisterer's when he was supposed to be in Japan were compiled by WC staff attorney John Hart Ely. Ely's report so alarmed another staff attorney, Albert Jenner, that Jenner wrote a 4/10/64 memo to chief counsel Rankin saying, in part: "our depositions and examination of records and other data disclose there are details in Mr. Ely's memoranda which will require material alteration and, in some cases, omission."
Unknown to Jenner, though, the FBI had already galloped to the rescue.
Available right now at the Archives are three W-2 IRS tax forms supposedly from "Lee H. Oswald" of New Orleans. They are Items 168, 169, and 175 of the extensive collection of documents included in CE 2003. As we will soon see, they are all forgeries, created by the FBI in January, 1964. All were supposedly found by the Dallas Police Department among Oswald documents at the Paine residence, but none bear the initials of the three Dallas Police officers who worked for hours initialing every item of evidence they found: Gus Rose, R. S. Stovall and John P. Adamcik.
One of those forged W-2 forms at the Archives is from Lee Harvey Oswald's employment at Pfisterer Dental Labs. Contrary to Airman McBride's specific recollections, the tax form indicates that Oswald was employed by Pfisterer in 1956 (because the information is on a 1956 W-2 form).
The taxpayer identification number near the top of the form is: 72-0444599. Suspicious of that number, the current Pfisterer Dental Labs president, Linda Faircloth, wrote to the IRS about it in September 1995. Here is the letter she received in response:
So, the W-2 form currently in the National Archives purporting to indicate that Oswald worked at Pfisterer in 1956, contrary to the recollections of Palmer McBride and others, is clearly a forgery. It is beyond the scope of this post, but John Armstrong's _Probe_ article referenced above clearly proves that the original, and now vanished, Oswald-Pfisterer W-2 form was in FBI hands in January 1964. The FBI therefore forged the document.
During his famous "Havey and Lee" presentation at JFK Lancer's 1997 November in Dallas symposium, John Armstrong explained the enormity of the deception regarding regarding Harvey Oswald's employment at Pfisterer:
Linda Faircloth, current President of Pfisterer Dental Laboratory, tells us of Oswald's employment. The day after the assassination the FBI had taken all employment records, payroll records, quarterly tax forms, canceled checks, employment applications, W-2 forms, all documentary evidence pertaining to Oswald. Oswald's employment records at Pfisterers, like the Tujague employment records, have disappeared. The owners were told by the FBI not to discuss the case among themselves or with anyone. The FBI discontinued it's investigation of Oswald in New Orleans in 1957 and 1958 by stating the information provided by McBride "is unfounded and no further investigation is needed". In reality, McBride knew too much about Oswald to be interviewed. But Palmer McBride is very much alive and lives in Sun Valley California.
McBride and other people who were close to Oswald were never interviewed by the Warren Commission nor the House Select Committee. Not a single Pfisterer employee or partner testified before the Warren Commission. Thanks to the FBI, not a single Pfisterer document relating to Oswald's employment has been found. Why? Because in 1957 and 1958 Lee Oswald was in the Marines in Japan.
John Hart Ely, a staff attorney for the Warren Commission, was responsible or gathering background information on Marguerite and Lee Oswald. He forwarded the Palmer McBride and William Wulf FBI interviews to Albert Jenner and Wesley Liebeler on March 30, 1964. From the FBI interview of McBride, Liebeler knew Oswald worked at Pfisterers in 1957 and 1958. From Oswald's Marine records he knew Oswald was supposed to have been in Japan at the same time. Oswald in both New Orleans and Japan for the same one year period posed yet another problem--it was unexplainable and had to be resolved.
On April 10, 1964 Commission Attorney Albert Jenner wrote a memorandum to Mr. Rankin (General Counsel for the Warren Commission). He said "our depositions and examination of records and other data disclose there are details in Mr. Ely's memoranda which will require material alteration and, in some cases, omission". McBride's FBI statement was ignored and neither he nor the owners or employees of Pfisterers were interviewed by the Warren Commission.
To establish Oswald's employment at Pfisterers in 1956, the Warren Commission interviewed William Wulf Jr., McBride's friend and fellow Astronomy club member. In Wulf"s testimony all references to the years 1957 or 1958 were avoided. In his opening statement, Liebeler said "We want to inquire of you concerning possible knowledge that you have of Lee Harvey Oswald during the time that he lived in New Orleans during the period 1954-1955." This was a clever and misleading statement by an attorney who knew exactly what he was doing. Liebeler fixed Wulfs attention to 1954 and 55. By misdirecting Wulf's attention to 1954 and 1955, references to 1957 or 1958 were avoided. Liebeler obtained "testimony" that allowed the Warren Commission to circumvent the problem of Oswald's working at Pfisterers in 1957/1958.
In 1996 I spent the afternoon with Wulf. He reconstructed his school years from 1952 thru 1959. During the 1956-1957 school year he was sick and did not attend school. In the fall of 1957 he returned to DeLaSalle High School, where the meetings of the New Orleans Amateur Astronomy Association were held. He said he was certain he met Oswald that winter, in either January or February, 1958--exactly what McBride told the FBI in 1963.
--John Armstrong, NID97
During the same 1997 "Harvey and Lee" presentation, Mr. Armstrong similarly showed how two other Oswald W-2 forms, one from Dolly Shoe Co. Inc. and the other from Gerard Tujague, Inc., were also forged by the FBI. Let's take a look at one more example--Dolly Shoe Co., where Oswald was supposedly employed in 1955. This document was forged to avoid a serious conflict in the legend of Lee Harvey Oswald. According to the clear recollection of eyewitnesses, Harvey Oswald was employed full-time at Dolly Shoe Company at the same time Lee Oswald was attending Beauregard High School. The document was rewritten to reflect part-time wages.
Here is the W-2 form now at the National Archives:
Dolly Shoe Co. discontinued business in November 1957. The owner of the company was Maury Goodman. In 1995, Goodman wrote to the IRS inquiring about its tax number creation date. Here is the response he received:
Page 2 is the same for both IRS letters shown above:
During his famous "Havey and Lee" speech at JFK Lancer's 1997 November in Dallas symposium, John Armstrong explained the significance of the Dolly Shoe W-2 forgery:
Among Oswald's possessions was a 1955 W-2 form from the Dolly Shoe Company. In April, 1955 Harvey Oswald was fired by Louis Marzialle after lunch. Full time employment at Dolly Shoe would be reflected in wages listed on his W-2 form. Full time employment would conflict with Lee Oswald attending Beauregard. So, Harvey Oswald's original W-2 form was replaced with this W-2 form which shows wages commensurate with part time employment. Who created this form and when? The Internal Revenue Service wrote this letter to former Dolly Shoe owner Maury Goodman. They informed him that the federal tax ID number for Dolly Shoe appearing on this 1955 W-2 form was not issued until January, 1964. Dolly Shoe was founded in January, 1955 and discontinued business in October, 1957. The federal tax ID on this 1955 W-2 form was issued 7 years after the company went out of business. So, who had custody of the W-2 form in January, 1964? The FBI did.
The Horne Memorandum
In August 1998, a staff worker for the Assassination Records Review Board named Doug Horne decided on his own initiative to look into the the controversies regarding Oswald's pre-Marine employment uncovered by John Armstrong and John's friend and research associate Carol Hewett. The result of Mr. Horne's investigation was a 15-page memo with numerous attachments with the "Subject" line: "QUESTIONS RAISED BY JOHN ARMSTRONG AND CAROL HEWETT ABOUT LEE HARVEY OSWALD'S TAX AND EARNING RECORDS."
After reviewing "microfilm taken of original paper records" from the Social Security Administration and compiling material sanitized of earnings information required by current U.S. laws provided by the Internal Revenue Service, Mr. Horne concluded that U.S. government tax and income records do not support Mr. Armstrong's conclusion that Oswald's pre-Marine W-2 forms now at the National Archives are forgeries.
In an August 14, 1998 memo, IRS official Aileen Summerlin wrote: "The questions appear to stem from a theory that there may have been two Lee Harvey Oswalds and that tax records of the companies known to be his employers might shed light on the whereabouts of one Oswald at a time when he (or another Oswald) was purported to be in the Marines Corps. Two IRS letters generated from the Memphis Service Center were presented to us. The letters indicated that the ID numbers of two companies at issue in the theory were not even created until the year 1964...."
Later in the memo, Ms. Summerlin continued: "I can confirm, through the use of tax information, that those letters are in error." She goes on to write that she "located tax information using the same ID numbers for the companies dated prior to 1964," and she indicated that the error resulted because the IRS "installed improved computer equipment" in 1964.
See the full three-page memo from Aileen Summerlin.
Doug Horne also visited Social Security Administration offices and viewed microfilm records that he said supported the legitimacy of the W-2 forms covering Oswald's pre-Marine employment. Near the end of the memo, he wrote:
When I joined the Review Board staff in August, 1995 I was very intrigued by Mr. Armstrong's hypothesis, and was most interested to receive research leads from he (sic) and Ms. Hewett in 1996. I was the only member of the ARRB who seemed to believe his theory might be valid. Subsequent events have disabused me of that notion.
Mr. Horne's Methodology
When the Memphis office of the IRS was queried a few years ago regarding the creation dates of the tax numbers for Dolly Shoe and Pfisterer Dental Labs, no clue was offered that the questions were related to a coverup of Lee Harvey Oswald's personal history. Mr. Horne, by comparison, made IRS officials fully aware of the consequences of the questions being asked. For example, in her August 14, 1998 memo, Aileen Summerlin wrote: "These letters apparently fueled concern among the "Two Oswald" theorists that IRS participated in some kind of alteration or cover up of official tax records associated with Mr. Oswald's wages." What kind of investigation regarding the legitimacy of alleged IRS documents places IRS officials in this kind of defensive position?
In addition, Doug Horne made only limited efforts to examine original documents. Anything can be done with copies, and photographs, and microfilm, and computer records. Did he examine SSA microfilm for any evidence of splicing? Did he require proof that the filmed records were made from paper originals? If he did, there is no indication of that in his memo. To his credit, Doug indicated the following: "The author visited Archives II on September 18, 1998 and asked to see these four Warren Commission Documents from Record Group 272. They are all very old, faded photocopies--none are originals. Steve Tilley does not recall ever seeing original tax returns for Lee Harvey Oswald."
These problems pose serious questions about the accuracy of the conclusions in the Horne memorandum. But as good copies of the beleaguered W-2 forms were traveling to Minneapolis for the University of Minnesota's "Death of JFK" conference the weekend of May 15, 1999, John Armstrong was already preparing the knockout punch.
The W-2s take a final hit....
From Mr. Amrstrong's Univ. of Minn. address:
When Harvey Oswald was employed at Dolly Shoe, Lee Oswald was attending Beauregard, which created a conflict. When Harvey worked at Pfisterers in 1958, Lee was in Japan, which also caused a conflict. In an attempt to resolve the overlapping time problems fake W-2 forms were created.
How do we know the W-2 forms are fakes?
Look closely at these four forms. They are from three different companies and two different tax years. Yet they appear to have been typed with the same typewriter. Two entries on each of these forms are identical--the address of 126 Exchange and Oswald's social security number. I made transparencies of each W-2 form. When any of these W-2 forms are overlayed onto another, the address and social security numbers from each form match perfectly. You can overlay all four W-2 forms on top of each other and the addresses match perfectly. You can overlay all four W-2 forms on top of each other and Oswald's social security number overlays perfectly.
Copies of these forms [with Lee Harvey Oswald's name carefully blacked out] were sent to the IBM Corporation. IBM archivist Dawn Stanford noted that the characters, pitch and typewriter offsets on each of these forms are identical and, in her words "were typed with the same typewriter". If these documents were genuine and found in the Paine garage by Dallas Police, they should have the initials of the Dallas detectives who found them. They should be listed on the Dallas police inventory sheets. But none of these forms were initialed by any Dallas police officers (RIGHT-SLIDE 85) nor were they listed on Dallas police inventory sheets (RIGHT-SLIDE 86) nor photographed by the Dallas Police. The only initials on any of these W-2 forms are those of FBI lab technician Robert Frazier, and the first photographs of these fake W-2 forms were made by the FBI in Washington, DC. Clearly, the evidence shows they are forgeries.
To make the illustration below, this writer placed Mr. Armstrong's transparencies for the W-2 forms for Pfisterers, Dolly Shoe, and Tujagues and aligned them as closely as possible on the letters "126 Exchange" on a flat-bed scanner. (Look only at "126 Exchange," it is sometimes followed by "St." and sometimes by "Place.") What do you think are the odds for legitimate W-2 forms from three different employers being filled out on the same typewriter?
Why were these forgeries made? Because there were two young men named "Harvey" Oswald and "Lee" Oswald whose biographies had been merged into a single legend, and reality was colliding with fiction on IRS tax forms. LEE, the tall Southern kid, was attending Beauregard High School at the same time the shorter HARVEY was working full time at Dolly Shoe. LEE was serving with the U.S. Marines in Japan at the very time HARVEY, the alleged Communist sympathizer, was working at Pfisterer Dental Labs. Anyone familiar with John Armstrong's work will immediately recognize Palmer McBride's description of HARVEY, the anti-social leftist allegedly ready to assassinate a sitting U.S. president for his beliefs.
