Oswald and Albert Schweitzer College by Greg Parker (with permission and thanks)
On March 4, 1959, 5 days prior to be being promoted to Private 1st Class for the second time, Lee Harvey Oswald completed an application to attend the Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland. The application was lodged on 19 of March, with a $25.00 registration fee being made on June 19. August 17 found him applying for a dependency discharge from the Marines which was duly granted on the 28th of that month. Exactly one week later, Lee applied for a passport, listing his occupation as "shipping export agent", and the purpose of his travel as attendance at the Albert Schweitzer College, Churwalden, Switzerland, and at the University of Turku in Finland. He also stated his intention to visit Cuba, the Dominican Republic, England, France, Germany and Russia as a tourist.
His application to the college gave the names of two fellow Marines as people who could provide references; James Botelho and Robert Calore. Neither were called to give testimony before the Warren Commission, though Botelho did provide an affidavit on June 3, 1964. Unfortunately, this statement provided no information concerning any discussions Oswald may have had with him on this matter, nor any indication that he was contacted by the college.
Such was not the case however, in the affidavit supplied by Dennis Call who had been stationed at Santa Ana with Oswald. Call related in his statement how, "On one occasion, Oswald remarked to me that he had been awarded a scholarship to Albert Schweitzer University and that he planned to attend, remarking that they taught English [Call likely meant 'German'] at Schweitzer." Was this perhaps, Lee's way of saying he had assistance of a type which couldn't be openly stated?
Another of his Santa Ana Marine acquaintances, Henry Rousell Jr, recalled that prior to studying Russian, Oswald had studied German. Although Germany was on his itinerary, the main language of Switzerland is also German. Proof Rousell's memory was accurate is found among Oswald's notes which show a clear, though perhaps rudimentary, effort to teach himself this language. All of this suggests that Oswald did, at least initially, believe he would be attending the college. A further entry, "[illegible] F.R.G. Tempelhofer Damm." suggests a possible rendezvous point in West Berlin was also on his original itinerary.
The relevance
As history indicates, Oswald did not attend the Albert Schweitzer College, but instead, made his way to the Soviet Uniona where he was to stay for about two and half years. What then, was the purpose of this college application?
From Chapter VII of the Warren Commission report:
At his own request, Oswald was transferred from active duty to the Marine Corps Reserve under honorable conditions in September of 1959, 3 months prior to his regularly scheduled separation date, ostensibly to care for his mother who had been injured in an accident at her work.
As an inactive Reservist, Oswald could be called up in a mobilisation any time during the balance of his enlistment (3 months) and therefore could not leave US shores without a legitimate reason. One reason recognized as legitimate by the authorities was "education".
How Oswald found out about this obscure little college has long been regarded as something of a mystery. Not even the Swiss authorities could locate it easily in 1960 after being contacted by the FBI. This contact was the result of Marguerite, Lee's pertinacious mother, contacting the State Department, concerned when mail for Lee had been returned undelivered.
The answer to the mystery may well be found in his relationship with Kerry Thornley. Thornley - a noted right-winger - was, at the time he and Oswald served together, attending the very left-wing church of Unitarian led by Stephen Frichman (1).
The IARF
The Albert Schweitzer College was owned and operated by the International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF). According to its website, The IARF began in 1900 as the International Council of Unitarian and Other Liberal Religious Thinkers and Workers on May 25th in Boston with the stated aim of "opening communication with those in all lands who are striving to unite Pure Religion and Perfect Liberty, and to increase fellowship and cooperation among them." Religions within the association include Unitarian-Universalists, Buddhists, Humanists, Muslims, Shintoists, Sikhs, Quakers, Greek Orthodox, and Old Romans. It is the oldest interfaith organization in the world, and has attained NGO status with the UN.
According to Richard Boeke of the IARF, the college had between 25 and 30 students at the time he visited in 1964. He also relates how US students brought in marijuana, and that "the college was in a bit of trouble with the Swiss." Two or three years later, he continues, the college was moved to a location near Geneva and a director was imported "who liked to live well". On a second visit, Boeke found no students there whatsoever.
Information about the college therefore, could have come through Thornley via Frichman's church. But there was also a significant US government connection to the college.
Percival Flack Brundage.
Brundage was a Unitarian, and from 1953 to 1958, he was president of the US fund-raising body for the college, which was known as Friends of Albert Schweitzer College. Moreover, between 1952 and 1955, he was president of the IARF.
In 1956, Brundage was made Director of the Bureau of the Budget. He retired in 1958, but continued with the Bureau in an "advisory" position for a further two years. As Budget Director, he was involved in Project Vanguard (2) which was the result of NSC 5520 and "was intended to establish 'Freedom of Space'--the right to overfly foreign territory for future intelligence satellites. The initial estimate of its cost was $15-20 million, but by mid-1956 the program was already over budget and estimates of its total costs continued to grow."$2.5 million of the budget for this project came from the CIA (3).
The "coincidence" of Brundage holding the purse strings for a program dealing with the hot issue of overflights and being heavily involved with the Albert Schweitzer College should be way too big for any reasonable person to swallow. Brundage's real character, publicly so virtuous, was summed up by reporter, Eileen Shanahan in a 1992 oral history interview for the Washington Press Club Foundation:"But I remember running into some real bigoted people with a background in business. I remember in particular Eisenhower's last budget director, a guy named Percival Brundage, who was an accountant. And I had a lot of sources in what was then the Bureau of the Budget. And I got stories they wished I hadn't gotten. And I found out from one of my sources, that Brundage had actually-this was plainly illegal-a Secret Service man investigating me to see who I was sleeping with to get my stories."
The IARF was was not the only religious organization springing from the US to have set up a college in Switzerland in 1955. The other one was called L'Abri. Unlike the Albert Schweitzer College, L'Abri seems to have grown, and now has colleges across Europe, Asia and the US. The founder of this "fellowship" was Dr Francis Schaeffer. Schaeffer's history is most revealing. Prior to starting his Swiss college, he had been very closely associated with the virulent anti-Communist, anti-Semitic Carl McIntire and his American Council of Christian Churches (ACCC). McIntire had studied at Princeton under J. Gresham Machen, in whose conservatism and orthodoxy, McIntire found much that he admired.
An article by Linda Minor provides another possible point of interest: according to the article, Schaeffer had been sent to Europe during WWII by the Presbyterian Church Foreign Missions Group,"mostly to different cantons in Switzerland--at the same time Allan Dulles was there." Switzerland had been awash with intrigue during both WWII and the Cold War. As pointed out by researcher, Herbert Blenner, suspected Soviet spy, Noel Field, a former State Dept employee and friend of Alger Hiss, was also in Switzerland during this time period, doing relief work with refugees on behalf of the Unitarian Church.
Over time, Schaeffer through his book, A Christian Manifesto, has become the Poster Boy of the Christian Right. To him, the notion of separation of Church and State was preposterous; to him, and to those who have followed, there can be no separation of powers, because such separation only aids the enemy... and the enemy... is liberalism.
Coincidentally (given the reports on marijuana in the Albert Schweitzer College), Schaeffer claimed to have taken in youths who took drugs and occasionally wreaked havoc in his alpine retreat. His reason for putting up with this behavior? The students needed saving from the emptiness offered by the philosophers and writers they were all so familiar with... including one whose name appears in Oswald's note-book...that of the influential 19th century German philosopher, Hegel. If and/or how Oswald applied Hegelian philosophy may in fact be crucial in understanding some of the more puzzling aspects of his actions, especially in relation to any assistance provided. Consider the following quote from Encarta which attempts to explain Hegel's thoughts on politics and ethics:
"At the level of morality, right and wrong is a matter of individual conscience. One must, however, move beyond this to the level of social ethics, for duty, according to Hegel, is not essentially the product of individual judgment. Individuals are complete only in the midst of social relationships; thus, the only context in which duty can truly exist is a social one. Hegel considered membership in the state one of the individual's highest duties. Ideally, the state is the manifestation of the general will, which is the highest expression of the ethical spirit. Obedience to this general will is the act of a free and rational individual. Hegel emerges as a conservative, but he should not be interpreted as sanctioning totalitarianism, for he also argued that the abridgment of freedom by any actual state is morally unacceptable."
The college application
In the section headed, Active Part Taken in Organizations, Oswald wrote: "Student body movement in school for controll (sic) of Juvenile Delinquency.Member Y.M.C.A. and A.Y.A. associations." The truth is though, that Oswald himself had been classified as a juvenile delinquent while living in New York City during 1953/54, resulting in his being sent to Youth House for psychiatric assessment.
On April 27, 1953, the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency was established. Hearings were held by the subcommittee in NYC on April 21, 22, and on June 4, 1954. These hearing centered on the impact of comic book violence on youth. Prior to the hearings, evidence was gathered from numerous sources such as courts, youth workers, police, social workers, and probation officers, as well as from the comic book industry itself (4).
This is part of the familiar pattern of coincidences which surrounded the life of Lee Harvey Oswald, because the reason for Lee's NYC problems was his truancy. As noted by John Carro, his Probation Officer, Lee advised him "...that he generally gets up at 9 A.M. and watches TV and reads magazines until 3-4 P.M., in the afternoon." The magazines of course, were actually comic books, and the subcommittee would soon be looking into the effects of TV violence in the same manner. As there is no evidence whatsoever, to suggest Lee was ever involved in any such "student body movement", could this instead, be a veiled reference to some involvement with, or approach made by, the subcommittee? It has to be said that if either of the senate subcommittees mentioned in this article, had been handed Lee's file from the court or Youth House, it would have been noted he was intelligent, socially isolated, able to keep secrets, and in need of "direction"--In short, it would have been easily discerned he may be useful for some purpose at some time.
One of the subcommittee members was James Eastland. Eastland became chairman of the more infamous Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in 1955, and held that position until 1977. Throughout his work on these committees, he maintained close ties with like-minded individuals such as Mr HUAC himself, Joe McCarthy, and with Robert Morris, who had been heavily involved in the SISS and HUAC hearings.
Prior to this work, Morris was on a New York State Assembly committee investigating schools and colleges for Communist activities, and some of those investigations carried over to his Federal subcommittee work. The possible significance of this is that Lee was reported to Carro by PS 44 for refusal "...to salute the flag during early morning exercises." Yet despite the Communist hysteria which surely pervaded the school system because of these various committees, the many reports made on Lee during this period show nothing to indicate he was ever questioned about his loyalty, or possible Communist sympathies. Talk about red flags being raised!
A few years later Oswald was interviewed by Aline Mosby in Russia. He related to her how his interest in Marxism dated back to when he was living in New York. The catalyst, he told the unimpressed reporter, had been when an old lady handed him a pamphlet about the Rosenbergs, though he also confessed he did not know why he remembered the incident. John Carro contacted Lee's school on November 19 and was advised that Lee's behavior had improved dramatically, that he was now saluting the flag, and that he no longer presented as a problem. Within two months, he was back in the city of his birth. If his conversion to Marxism did happen in NYC, then it had to have been within the last couple of months before leaving, and there would also likely be some noticeable marker for it. There is none. His aforementioned sudden improvement in behavior followed a court ordered contact with the Protestant Big Brothers and other religion-based community services.
Members of the SISS tended to be of the Christian Right. Robert Morris for example, was closely aligned with Fred Schwartz's Protestant dominated group, Christian Anti-Communism Crusade. It has to be borne in mind that these NY contacts with religious groups may have been the start of a pattern which saw Lee go on to join the CAP where he met with David Ferrie -- who had failed hopes of priesthood--but who would eventually take the title anyway, after having his nomination withdrawn by Bishop George A. Hyde of the Old Catholic Church--a church closely associated with those favoured by certain White Russians under whose influence Lee and Marina would one day fall. It was also associated by virtue of common roots and IARF membership with the Quakers and the Unitarians. Hyde, as some will no doubt recognize, was Quaker Ruth Paine's maiden name.
One section of his college application is of particular interest. In the section headed: Extent and Nature of Private Reading (favorite authors or books), Oswald named, Jack London, Charles Darwin, and Norman V Peale. It is time to take a closer look at these writers and what they had in common:
Jack London
The League for Industrial Democracy (LID) was founded in 1905 by, among others, Socialists Jack London and Upton Sinclair, and the Unitarian Minister of the Community Church of New York, John Haynes Holmes. It's stated aim was to educate Americans about the need to extend democracy to every aspect of society. In 1922, Norman Thomas, the perennial presidential candidate from the Socialist Party, joined Harry Laidler as co-executive director of the LID.
As seen in this exchange during her Warren Commission testimony, Ruth Paine came from a family who supported Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas:
Mr Jenner: Would you describe what you understand the cooperative movement is?
Mrs Paine: I think consumers cooperative is somewhat different. I am not certain what [a] farmers cooperative is. I know that [my parents] were interested in and voted for Norman Thomas when they were in New York.
At the height of Cold War tensions during the 1950's, the LID took on an anti-Communist stance, and as with so many other organizations of the era, garnered some close ties to the CIA. London's books today, just as much as when first published, are considered works of inspiration by the Unitarian-Universalist Church.
Charles Darwin
Though it may come as a surprise to some, Darwin was of the Unitarian faith. His book, Origin of Species, led his cousin, Francis Galton to study heredity. From these studies, Galton coined the term "eugenics" for his emerging theories that selective breeding would improve the human race. Eugenics would eventually be incorporated into Nazi philosophy, lending a "scientific" credence for the Holocaust. Despite this background, eugenics continues to this day in the guise of "population control" and genetic research. It is the one area in which liberals, conservatives and libertarians seem to have found some common ground.
For an example of the madness generated by eugenics adherents, look no further than the March 3, 1967 issue of the Washington Post. Page A6 carried one story on the declining birth rate, while another bemoaned the cutbacks in what it termed "antipoverty" funding for family planning services. "Antipoverty", of course, in relation to family planning, is a euphemism for "encouraging" the poor to stop breeding.
Norman Vincent Peale
Norman Vincent Peale, a Minister of the Dutch Reform Church in New York, wrote The Power of Positive Thinking. Although he claimed to be non-political, behind the scenes, Peale was politically conservative and vehemently opposed to liberals such as Kennedy. In fact, he was at the very forefront of opposition to Kennedy during the 1960 election based on the Catholic factor, leading a group calling itself the National Conference of Citizens for Religious Freedom (a name suspiciously similar to the International Association for Religious Freedom), and standing side by side with the Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
On September 7, 1960, on behalf of these groups, Peale declared that a Roman Catholic President would be under "extreme pressure from the hierarchy of the church" to align the foreign policy of the United States with that of the Vatican.By September 19, however, there had been a huge backlash, and the New York Times reported on that date that Peale was trying to distance himself from these anti-Catholic groups. It also published the text of a statement Peale had made through a syndicated column in defense of his actions. It started: "Because my participation in the recent Washington meeting of Citizens for Religious Freedom has resulted in the group being called 'the Peale group', I feel it necessary to clarify my own participation in their Washington meeting of Sept 7, 1960. I did attend the study conference as it was called, as one of 150 clergymen and laymen and was asked to preside at one session. I believe that it is perfectly appropriate for a group of Protestants or any group to meet to discuss and consider the possible impact of the election of a Catholic President upon religious liberties in the United States. However, I did not call this meeting and had nothing to do with setting it up..."
The same issue also published the text of a letter Peale read to his 4,000 strong congregation. It read in part:
"...While in Europe I received an invitation to attend a Study Conference on Religion and Freedom scheduled for Washington on sept 7. Beyond the names of a few people who were to be present, I had no information on the meeting itself, but I had respect for those whose names were given to me. I arrived in New York from Europe on the afternoon of Sept 6, and therefore had no opportunity to secure further information on the meeting..."
These were mostly outrageous lies. In fact, about the only truth was that he had been in Europe--specifically, Montreaux in Switzerland. There, on August 18, he headed a group of 25, possibly including Billy Graham, in a secret meeting to discuss how they could derail Kennedy's election bid (this places Peale in Switzerland at the same time Oswald would have been there had he followed through with what appears were his original plans). The result, of course, of this secret meeting, was the formation of the Washington group and the alliance with Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
So who were some of his cohorts in these groups? There was William C. Jones, a board member of The Billy Graham Foundation; Gen. William Kelly Harrison Jr (ret); OK Armstrong, ultra-conservative Republican of Missouri; Unitarian Minister and anti-Catholic polemicist, Paul Blanshard; evangelist, Dr Harold Ockenga and; Dr L. Neslon Bell, father-in-law of Billy Graham. Two other members, Robert Grant and Donald Ellis, had murky histories of involvement in the KKK.
But 1960 was not the first time Peale had shown his real colours. In May 1952, he joined a seemingly disparate group of conservatives including Fulton Lewis Jr, Roscoe Pound, Clarence Manion, and Felix Morley, to endorse a ten-page pamphlet entitled Senator McCarthy and published by Freedom Clubs, Inc. The pamphlet conceded that McCarthy's earlier attacks on the State Department had been "rude and crude." It rationalized this crudeness as the natural reaction to the "pugnacious refusal of the Truman Administration to assist Congressional investigations of the loyalty of Federal employees. "The recent investigations conducted by the Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the pamphlet concluded, had "already substantiated a large part of the charges of Senator McCarthy, and well may lead to proof of all of these charges."
The possible significance of this cannot be ignored: Peale, named against all odds by Oswald as one of his favourite authors (given Lee was by then, a self-styled Marxist), not only was in Switzerland at the time Oswald was to be there, he had an interest in, and (as will become obvious) connections to, the very subcommittees which probably were privy to Oswald's Youth House files!
Peale's associations behind his facade of "positivism" which kept him at the top of the best-seller lists, is damning, but the desire to maintain a broad appeal to middle America necessitated such a facade. Fulton Lewis Jr was a Bircher who openly endorsed lynchings. High on his list of "lynchees" was Earl Warren.There was Roscoe Pound, Dean of Law at Harvard, and a mainstay of the Protestant Establishment. Clarence Manion was Dean of Law at Notre Dame. He was also a Bircher, and was on the JBS organised, Committee Against Summit Entanglements which conducted nationwide protests against the '59 Eissenhower-Krushchev Summit. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer was also a member of this committee. Wedemeyer had been Chief of Staff to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek during WWII. Felix Morley - yet another Bircher. All of those Bircher associations make a connection to another Bircher - the aforementioned senate subcommittee investigator - Robert Morris - exponentially likely. Moreover, Peale also had possible channels to the committees through Nixon, and Hoover with whom he shared Masonic membership. Hoover gave lectures at the Grand Lodge of New York where Peale was Grand Chaplain.
The name Robert Morris is a very familiar one among the assassination research community. He was a friend and supporter of Gen. Edwin Walker, was on the board of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), and gave encouragement and assistance to Larrie Schmidt and Bernard Weissman of Conservatism USA (CUSA)--the two main principals behind the infamous black border ad published in the Dallas Morning News on the day of the assassination. Schmidt arrived in Dallas from West Germany shortly after Oswald arrived in Fort Worth from Russia.
Scratch the surface, and Peale was a bigot and a liar. A glimpse of what else he may have been capable of is shown in an article posted to usernet by former member of the ACLU Church-State Advisory Committee, Michael Kent. In this article, Kent relates how he worked one summer for the Protestant Council of the City of New York, updating their directory of churches. Wrote Kent:
"Traditional denominations sent in their lists of churches as requested with particulars. However, as I moved down the line I began to discover odd things -- that many listed churches actually had the phone numbers of local bars; others were rather weird organizations with mysterious identities that, I discovered, were using their directory listing as a credential. And as I became more familiar with this operation, some of the Council staff confided to me that I was really working for a scam outfit that raised money exclusively to support its leadership's salaries, that its right wing businessmen (fundamentalist) trustees did not even reside in NYC, that its executive head was a slum landlord in Albany, that several of the major Protestant organizations (Episcopalians and Presbyterians and its Brooklyn branch) were fully aware of these anomalies and had quietly disassociated themselves from this $1,000,000 a year operation which was foisting itself on the public as the Protestant 'voice' of NYC. As fronts, it had enlisted 5 popular Protestant clergy -- Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and Norman Vincent Peale among others -- whose names were prominently displayed in its promotions..."
In a shorter article on the same subject, Kent indicates that as far as he knew, neither Powell nor Peale made money from the scam--and indeed, he seems prepared to give them both the benefit of the doubt as far as even being knowingly involved goes. However, since Peale associated with, and had the same moral instincts as, the types of right-wing businessmen Kent says were behind the directory, such benefit was very likely misplaced. And these are the same religion-based charities to which Oswald had been referred to by the NYC court system!
There is one other item of interest on Lee's Schweitzer College application: the name of the admissions officer, Robert Schacht. Schacht was a Unitarian Minister from Rhode Island. Apart from being a Unitarian, was there anything about him that may prove a fruitful line of enquiry? The answer to that is still unknown. What follows is at least a start on the road to finding out...
The question to be explored is whether Robert was related by blood to Dr Hjalmar Schacht. Hjalmar was considered a financial genius, and is largely credited with financing Hitler's rearmament in preparation for war. His parents, who had lived in the US were great supporters of New York Tribune editor and social reformer, Horace Greeley. Greeley, as it turns out, was a member of the Universalist Church which was closely aligned to the Unitarians long before they joined to become one church. If Greeley was a member of this church, it seems logical that Hjalmar's family were also members. Hjalmar's full name was Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, with the "Horace Greeley" part given him to honor his father's hero. Unfortunately, Hjalmar did no honor to that name. Prior to Hitler's rise, he had cozied up to the Socialists, and it was not until after he secured the deals with US and British bankers which would result in Hitler's ability to wage sustained war with the Allied Forces that he turned his total allegiance publicly to the Nazi regime. To put that another way, he was still publicly aligning himself with the Socialists even after the Fascists took the election. In a report on one fund-raising trip to the US, the NYT of October 3, 1930 quoted him as saying, "You seem to take Hitler seriously. Why should not the German's do so? I myself do not take him too seriously..."
So what does all this add up to? Dr Schacht's parents had lived in the US. They were very likely Universalists as Greeley had been. Hjalmar originally aligned himself with the Left, just as Greeley and many other Universalists and Unitarians have been, including Robert Schacht. But it doesn't end there. Greeley had a cousin who was also a Unitarian Minister, and a contemporary of Robert Schacht. His name was Dana McLean Greeley whose papers held at Harvard include correspondence with both Robert Schacht and Percival Brundage. What we are left with is a set of tantalizing coincidences involving the two Schacht clans. If, however, a relationship can be proven, such a relationship would be the nexus in the life and times of Lee Harvey Oswald, with one thread running from Robert through the church and its connection to every organisation and political aim (both Left and Right) plugged into Oswald, and the other running through Hjalmar and his connections to Permindex as well as to various luminaries such as John Foster Dulles, John McCloy and Thomas Dodd. Permindex was established in Basel, Switzerland in the late 1950's and as already noted, Allan Dulles (brother to John Foster) was stationed there in Bern during WWII, helping, towards the end of the war, to recruit Nazis for work in the coming Cold War against what would be the new enemy - Communism. Must have been something in that Alpine air...
(1) Frichman's name was found in the note book of Richard Case Nagell.
(2) Also involved in Project Vanguard was the civilian Director of Army Research and Development, Richard Stetson Morse. Morse had previously been the president of the National Research Corporation (NRC) - a company he himself had founded. The NRC was involved in researching WMD for government agencies. John C Jackson, who worked for the NRC, lived with Jack Ruby in the 1950's. He told the FBI Ruby helped him find finance for his experiments. This fits with the NRC's use of venture capital as a means of adding another layer of plausible deniability for those on whose behalf the work was being done.
(3) The CIA also entered into the Brundage story later during Operation Mongoose. It was Brundage who set up all the proprieties for JMWAVE.
(4) Oswald was seen by the court clinic psychiatrist, Dr Kurian. Kurian's report on Oswald though, has never surfaced. Kurian's boss was Dr Harris Peck. As Peck gave evidence before the subcommittee, it is entirely plausible that the report was handed over to the subcommittee by Peck. Another who gave evidence was publisher, William Gaines. Gaines became the sole casualty of this particular witch-hunt after reading a statement to the subcommittee written by business partner Lyle Stuart, under the influence of drugs supplied by Stuart. Stuart would later go on to work in the upper hierarchy of the FPCC and publish the Corliss Lamont tracts distributed by Oswald in New Orleans
