15

ARRB, by telephone, on February 18, 1997, and he could not recall
receiving any clearance whatsoever while stationed at El Toro, and
furthermore, said he had no recollection of ever handling classified
material in the course of any of his duties while stationed at H & HS. In
fact, he independently expressed his own opinion that it seemed odd for
someone to receive a security clearance one-and-a-half months prior to
being discharged from the Marine Corps. He could provide no explanation
for the entry in his service record which records his receipt of a Secret
clearance on September 11, 1959. (See attachment 18.) Consequently, this
synchronicity (1)etween Oswald's discharge date and the date First
Lieutenant Ayers was granted a Secret clearance, i.e., September 11, 1959)
will most likely remain an unexplained coincidence, in the absence of any
new evidence.

Lead # 10/Allegation: That Oswald's DD 1173 I.D. card was lost, and
subsequently returned in the mail, and that the circular date stamp is a
U.S. Post Office cancellation stamp used by the post office when the card
was (presumably) mailed back to the Department of Defense by the person
who found it.

Findings: Incorrect. The author was able to conclusively determine that
the stamp on Oswald's DD 1173 is not a postal cancellation cache. By
comparing a JUL 19, 1960 cache with an AUG 8, 1996 cache (see attachment
15), it was determined that the format of the cancellation stamp used by
the U.S. Postal Service in 1960 was identical with that used in 1996. It
seemed reasonable to conclude, therefore, that the format of cancellation
stamps used in 1962 or 1963 (the period in which the DD 1173 was
presumably lost and postmarked upon its return to the Department of
Defense) would have been identical. Using attachment 15 as a "control," it
is therefore demonstrable that the circular stamp found on the DD 1173
(see attachment 2) is not a postal cancellation stamp: a city name does
not appear (as it should) in the outer circumference of the DD 1173
mystery stamp; and the month, day and year appear on the DD 1173 stamp in
the outer ring of the circle, instead of in the center of the circle
(where they would appear on a true postal cancellation). The author's
findings confirm researcher Paul Hoch's earlier suspicion, outlined in his
"Echoes of Conspiracy" newsletter of 3/8/93, that the circular stamp on
Oswald's DD 1173 may not have been a postal cancellation at all, but
instead was probably affixed by Oswald himself with his own stamp kit. In
addition, the author has observed that this date stamp on the front side
of the DD 1173 (see attachment 2) just happens to coincide with the opaque
white "mask" on the lower right hand corner of the "Oswald in Minsk" photo
on the front of the card; perhaps the purpose of the stamp was to either
disguise the abnormality in the Minsk photo, or to make it appear as if
his expired I.D. card (which expired December 7, 1962) had been extended
(until JUL or OCT 23, 1963), or both. Furthermore, as Paul Hoch pointed
out, the mysterious date

                     


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