Getting back to how bad the Second Floor Lunchroom Encounter Hoax is. So far we have the following cast of characters involved in the hoax:
Will Fritz - Captain, Dallas Police Dept.
Karen Westbrook - Employee, South-Western Publishing Co.
James W. Bookhout - Special Agent, FBI
Roy Truly - Superintendent, TSBD
Marvin Johnson - Detective, Dallas Police Dept.
Jeraldean Reid - Clerical Supervisor, TSBD
Marrion L Baker - Officer, Dallas Police Dept.
So, who is organising this disparate crew? Who is directing the hoax?
Not the FBI, it would appear. The 11/24/63 report on Oswald's interrogation by Special Agent Bookhout contains the following:
"Oswald stated that on November 22, 1963, at the time of the search of the Texas School Book
Depository building by Dallas police officers, he was on the second floor of said building,
having just purchased a Coca-Cola from the soft-drink machine, at which time a police officer
came into the room with pistol drawn and asked him if he worked there. Mr. Truly was present
and verified that he was an employee and the police officer thereafter left the room and
continued through the building. Oswald stated that he took this Coke down to the first floor
and stood around and had lunch in the employees’ lunch room."
The report states that Oswald was drinking a Coke when Baker confronted him. Remember, if this is a hoax then Bookhout has simply made this detail up. However, it completely contradicts the WC testimony of Baker and Truly who are both unequivocal that Oswald had nothing in his hands at the time of the encounter. Why aren't Baker and Truly going along with the FBI line?
If the FBI aren't co-ordinating the hoax then it must be the Dallas Police Department.
Apparently not. The interrogation report of Captain Will Fritz contains the following:
“I asked him what part of the building he was in at the time the President was shot, and he
said that he was having his lunch about that time on the first floor. Mr. Truly had told me that
one of the police officers had stopped this man immediately after the shooting somewhere
near the back stairway, so I asked Oswald where he was when the police officer stopped him.
He said he was on the second floor drinking a coca cola when the officer came in.”
Again, if this is something being made up as part of a hoax why does it contradict the WC testimonies of Baker and Truly. Whoever's organising the hoax isn't doing a very good job. The problem is the speed at which Baker and Truly testify to getting up to the lunchroom. Rather than allow Oswald time to comfortably get down from the 6th floor and help himself a Coke Baker and Truly, according to the hoax, race up there as quickly as possible barely allowing time for Oswald to get down from the 6th let alone buy himself a Coke. Why didn't they just add about 30 seconds to the time taken to get up to Oswald? What kind of hoax is this?
Jeraldean Reid's handwritten statement taken the day after the assassination has the phrase "he had a Coke in his hand" written separately from her main statement, to be inserted when typed up. This appears to be the earliest mention of the Coke but why has it been added?
Baker's FBI handwritten statement of 09/23/64 contains the following paragraph:
"On the second [floor], where the lunch room is located, I saw a man standing in the lunch room, drinking a coke. He was alone in the lunch room at this time.
The phrase "drinking a coke" has been crossed out! The coke is inserted in Reid's statement and crossed out in Baker's. It seems clear that someone is lying somewhere but if this is a hoax why is it so complicated? Why are so many people involved? In a previous post I demonstrated how easy it is to construct a simple lie that would establish Oswald's guilt convincingly. This hoax does the opposite.
