John Armstrong's Harvey and Lee

[Charles Drago]

My informed guess is that children of similar age and somatotype were selected and monitored/directed. Those who developed striking facial and physique similarities that lasted into their teens and early adult years were utilized accordingly.

Hmm. Charles, you make a good point here. What I am saying might be something like the question which the weak anthropic principle tries to address: why is the universe the way it is? Of course, because that's the universe we're observing. What you suggest is that if the "match" hadn't panned out, they would have abandoned this particular doubling. In other words, there's a teleological fallacy inherent in my question.

Certainly there are a lot of problems raised by John which are difficult to answer except by positing two distinct individuals sharing or partially sharing an identity. I'm still not entirely sold, but I think I need to reframe my question.

All I was trying to do was inject a little common sense. But, then, what did Einstein write? "Common sense is the collection of prejudices held by age 18."

You did indeed inject common sense of the "much needed" variety in your original post, and again I praise you for it.

What I'm attempting to suggest is that deep political intel ops have at least two objectives and, by extension, in many cases are sufficiently malleable to adapt to two or more possible, initially unpredictable end points.

If the physical (facial) "match" had not panned out, a different application of the doppelganger gambit very well might have been launched.