Oswald: No power lunch

[Alan Ford]

Not according to Ford, Oswald went outside and stood with his work mates and watched the P. Parade and allowed himself to be possibly photographed and even filmed! Doh!

JohnM

Indeed-------------Mr Cakebread and I see this very differently (he being still mesmerized, like you, by the lunchroom encounter fiction)

[John Mytton]

Indeed-------------Mr Cakebread and I see this very differently (he being still mesmerized, like you, by the lunchroom encounter fiction)

C'mon Alan, when even Walt can see huge holes in your narrative maybe it's time to reassess your conclusions.

JohnM

[Alan Ford]

Now!

The 'corrected' Adams testimony transcript--------i.e. with handwritten corrections--------bears two stamps:



If I understand this correctly, the 1967 stamp cancels the 'TOP SECRET' classification, whereas the 2011 stamp declassifies the document fully.

Mr Barry Ernest notes wryly-----------------

"this differing transcription shows an additional declassification stamp, bearing a more recent date of February 9, 2011. Coincidentally, that is two months after existence of the Martha Joe Stroud letter was disclosed for the first time in the self-published edition of The Girl on the Stairs."

Let us note that Ms Adams told Mr Ernest that she did indeed receive a transcript of her testimony sent to her office, to which she wrote in some corrections. However, she was adamant that she did NOT testify to, or read/correct any testimony transcript including mention of, Messrs Lovelady and Shelley on the first floor after she and Ms Styles ran down the back stairs.

Ms Styles (now Butler) has backed up Ms Adams on this issue: no Mr Lovelady, no Mr Shelley

There is a solution to this, my friends------------------it's not pretty but it is perfectly feasible. And it does not make a liar of Ms Adams.........

Well!

It is a fact that not one of the corrections mentioned in the Stroud letter is actually reflected in the published testimony of Ms Adams.

One explanation would be bureaucratic inattention. Another, however, would be that the point of getting Ms Adams to make handwritten corrections was NOT to get her testimony correct but---------------to get from her authentic handwritten corrections that could used as a reference.

On this latter scenario:

1. Ms Adams is given an Honest Transcript of her testimony to read & correct: she does so, writing in corrections where she sees fit
2. An Enhanced Transcript---------containing interpolated references to Messrs Shelley & Lovelady----------has meanwhile been quietly prepared
3. Someone other than Ms Adams reproduces (both as to substance and handwriting) her corrections (from the Honest Transcript) on the Enhanced Transcript.

Not at all difficult to do convincingly.

But why go to all this trouble? Insurance, in case this most troublesome and dangerous of witnesses is so shocked when she reads her published testimony that she goes public with a claim that she never said or subsequently OK'd any of the Lovelady-Shelley stuff. The Enhanced Transcript (with 'her' handwritten corrections) can be released to discredit her.

Thankfully, it doesn't come to that----------------though a version of this does come to pass when, decades later, Mr Ernest goes public with the Stroud letter. Two months later, in 2011, the Enhanced Transcript is fully declassified. Some coincidence!

Interestingly, the original steno tapes from the day on which Ms Adams gave her testimony are inexplicably NOT in the archive.......................

[Alan Ford]

C'mon Alan, when even Walt can see huge holes in your narrative maybe it's time to reassess your conclusions.

JohnM

I like Mr Cakebread, but he refuses to let new evidence challenge narratives he developed years ago. Who does that remind me of, Mr Mytton? 

[Dan O'meara]

C'mon Alan, when even Walt can see huge holes in your narrative maybe it's time to reassess your conclusions.

JohnM

Just in case you missed it:

"...any "lies" from these men were simply attempts at self preservation..."

Self preservation??
These are supposedly just guys being asked to recount what they saw and did around the time of the assassination. Where does "self preservation" come into it?

"That's a pretty broad brush and I'd like to know which "lies" and from whom you consider leads to someone besides Oswald being involved and why?"

To get into the full scale of the lies these men tell would require a thread of its own but let's start with Bonnie Ray.
On the day of the assassination he is asked to recount what happened. This is a black man being questioned by the Dallas police in the early sixties. And he decides to tell an outright lie - that he went down after work, picked up his lunch and went back up to the 5th floor with Norman and Jarman.
This is an outright lie.
Not an oversight or a "misrememberance".
He is questioned the next day by the FBI (The FBI!!). He now remembers he went up to the 6th floor by himself but tells his next outright lie - that he was up there for about 3 minutes!
We now know that he was up there for at least 25 minutes.
His WC testimony reveals that the more BRW is questioned on this issue the longer he's up there:

"...when you talked to Carter and Griffin, they reported that you told them you went down to the fifth floor around 12:05 p.m"

"I had left the sixth floor, after I had eaten the chicken sandwich. I finished the chicken sandwich maybe 10 or 15 minutes after 12"

"Mr. BALL. Approximately what time was it?
Mr. WILLIAMS. Approximately 12:20, maybe."

3 minutes, 5, 10 15, 20, and still he never gets to the actual time.
After being questioned by the DPD, the FBI and the Warren Commission he still won't tell the whole truth.

He also lies about where he has his lunch. At least 5 five witnesses state there was a half eaten piece of chicken in or on top of the SN but in his WC testimony BRW has himself sat between the third and fourth set of windows, some 30 ft away.

He even lies about having eaten all the chicken!!

Bonnie Ray lies constantly about being up on the 6th floor, how long he was up there and where he was sitting.
He is a young black man, in Dallas, in the early '60's, constantly lying to the DPD, the FBI and the Warren Commission.

We both agree that the reason for all this lying is because BRW encountered the assassin on the 6th floor.
The question is - if Oswald is the lone assassin and is dead before the weekend is out, why does Bonnie Ray carry on lying?
The only reasonable conclusion I can reach is that the assassin he encountered is very much alive and is a direct threat to him.

"...expecting consistent untainted photo perfect memories is a little naive."

You're right John, anyone who is expecting a photo perfect memory from any witness is definitely being naive.
But that's not is what's happening. Williams outright lies on the day of the assassination and is then involved in a continuous series of lies thereafter.

Imagining Williams is being forgetful is truly naive.

"The question is - if Oswald is the lone assassin and is dead before the weekend is out, why does Bonnie Ray carry on lying?"

Other highlights include:

Both Shelley and Lovelady lie in their WC testimonies about how long it took for Baker to arrive at the TSBD steps - 3 minutes - even though both men are shown in Darnell at the bottom of the TSBD steps as Baker arrives.
Both men 'lie by omission' in their same day statements by leaving out their movements down towards the railroad tracks and entering the TSBD by the west door. Both deliberately give the impression they re-enter the TSBD immediately after the assassination through the front door.
Dougherty lies about being on the 5th floor at the same time as Williams, Jarman and Norman - when the assassination occurs.
He also lies with his ridiculous story about taking the elevator down to the first floor after the shooting, talking with Eddie Piper, then returning to the 6th floor.
And on and on...

These are not moments of forgetfulness. They are deliberate attempts to distort their movements around the time of the assassination.

[Alan Ford]

Both Shelley and Lovelady lie in their WC testimonies about how long it took for Baker to arrive at the TSBD steps - 3 minutes - even though both men are shown in Darnell at the bottom of the TSBD steps as Baker arrives.

Where is Mr Shelley shown at the bottom of the steps in Darnell?

Both men 'lie by omission' in their same day statements by leaving out their movements down towards the railroad tracks and entering the TSBD by the west door. Both deliberately give the impression they re-enter the TSBD immediately after the assassination through the front door.

Why assume the same-day statements are lying and the later ones are honest?

Dougherty lies about being on the 5th floor at the same time as Williams, Jarman and Norman - when the assassination occurs.

How do we know this is a lie?

He also lies with his ridiculous story about taking the elevator down to the first floor after the shooting, talking with Eddie Piper, then returning to the 6th floor.

And Mr Piper's own claimed vantage point for the motorcade--------------thick, frosted windows at the front of the first floor------------------is a crock!

[Jon Banks]

Sylvia Meagher: The Curious Testimony of Mr [Charles] Givens

November 22, 1963

Within an hour or two, Givens was escorted to the police headquarters, where he was questioned and where he executed an affidavit stating that he had left the sixth floor at about 11:30 a.m., had gone to the washroom at noon, had taken his lunch period, and had gone to a parking lot to visit with a friend employed there (CE 2003, page 27). Givens’ affidavit said nothing about a return to the sixth floor for cigarettes or an encounter there with Oswald.

Later that day Givens was interviewed by FBI agents Griffen and Odum. He gave the same story as in the affidavit but added one additional piece of information — that at 11:50 a.m. he had seen Oswald reading a paper in the “domino room” on the first floor (CD 5, page 329).

November 23, 1963

Bonnie Ray Williams, another Book Depository employee, in an interview by FBI agents Griffen and Odum, described a race between two elevators on November 22nd at about 11:30 a.m. in which he, Givens, and others participated. On the way down, they had seen Oswald on the fifth floor. Williams had returned to the sixth floor at about noon and had seen no one there (CD 5, page 330).

December 9, 1963

The FBI Summary Report (withheld from the public until mid–1966, when certain excerpts were published in the book Inquest, raising a furore of doubt about the Warren Report) to President Johnson stated that Oswald had been observed on the fifth floor between 11:30 a.m. and noon and that during that period of time he had asked Givens, who was in an elevator, to close the gates when he got off so that the elevator could be summoned (CD 1, page 6). The FBI Summary Report omits Givens’ statement to the two FBI agents on the day of the assassination that he had seen Oswald reading a paper in the domino room at 11:50.

February 25, 1964

Warren Commission lawyers Joseph Ball and David Belin complete a first joint report, summarizing the evidence known by that date, and note discrepancies as to the time of Givens’ departure (and elevator race) from the sixth floor — 11:35 as against 11:40 or 11:45 a.m. Ball and Belin also note that Givens saw Oswald at 11:50 a.m. in the domino room and that three other witnesses also place Oswald on the first floor — William Shelley, at about 11:50 a.m.; Eddie Piper, at noon; and Mrs. Carolyn Arnold, who believed she had seen Oswald near the front door of the Book Depository at about 12:15 p.m. (Ball/Belin memorandum of Feb. 25, 1964, pages 101, 105–107, 110).

March 18, 1964

Givens, in an affidavit furnished by him to FBI agents Trettis and Robertson, states that when President Kennedy was shot, he was standing at the corner of Record and Elm Streets. “I returned to the Depository Building, and was told by a Dallas policeman that I could not enter the building. About an hour later I went to the Dallas Police Department and was questioned by the police for about 45 minutes.” (CE 1381, page 36.) Wearisome though it is, it must again be pointed out that there was no mention during the 45–minute interrogation of the cigarettes left and retrieved or of seeing Oswald on the sixth floor, nor were these alleged circumstances hinted at in the March, 1964, affidavit to the FBI, four months after the assassination.

April 8, 1964

Charles Givens gives sworn testimony to the Warren Commission in a deposition taken by lawyer David Belin, with no one else present except the court reporter. Now, for the first time, Givens tells the story (later embodied in the Warren Report) about the cigarettes forgotten on the sixth floor and the encounter with Oswald (6H 345–356, WR 143). Belin should have been fully aware that Givens had told a completely different story to the FBI and the police on the day of the assassination, and subsequently to the Secret Service and the FBI, since Belin had co–authored the report which discussed Givens’ accounts of his movements in considerable detail.

But Belin did not challenge Givens’ new story nor place on record that on several earlier occasions Givens had sworn to a completely different account of his movements and actions on the day of the assassination. Indeed, in one oblique question, he asked, “Did you ever tell anyone that you saw Lee Oswald reading a newspaper in the domino room around 11:50 … that morning?” (6H 354). Givens replied, “No, sir,” which meant either that he was giving Belin a false response or that the two FBI agents who had interviewed him on Nov. 22 had invented Givens’ reported statement that he had seen Oswald in the domino room at 11:50 a.m. Yet neither Givens nor the FBI agents were challenged or even queried in an attempt to determine which story was true and which was false.

September 20, 1964

The Warren Report was released, with its “forgotten cigarettes” version of Givens’ activities. It contained no indication, explicit or implicit, of Givens’ original story, which had placed Oswald in the domino room at 11:50, nor did it mention that another witness had also seen Oswald on the first floor at precisely that time while still other witnesses saw him still on the first floor at noon and at about 12:15 p.m.

http://22november1963.org.uk/meagher-the-curious-testimony-of-mr-givens


Why did investigators work so hard to erase or omit witness accounts that placed Oswald on the first floor or in the the lunch room around noon on November 22, 1963?

Why does it matter that he might've waited until 12:15 or 12:20 to go to the sixth floor?

[Alan Ford]

Mr. Ball. And you told him on the 19th day of December, Mr. Johnson, that you went back to work on the sixth floor, and as soon as you arrived on the sixth floor, you went down to the fifth floor to get some stock?
Mr. Dougherty. Yes, sir; that's right.
Mr. Ball. And while you were on the fifth floor, you heard a loud noise?
Mr. Dougherty. That's right

This is indeed what Mr Dougherty told Det. Johnson, and I believe it's exactly what happened------------except for one teeny tiny detail Mr Dougherty is leaving out:

The reason Mr Dougherty went down to the fifth floor as soon as he arrived on the sixth floor (!) is that upon arrival on the sixth floor he was told by some credentials-flashing person or persons the floor was off limits until the P. Parade had passed.

Taking this in good faith, Mr Dougherty went down to the fifth floor.

I believe Mr Dougherty was NOT the only employee to have this experience on the sixth floor, and this explains the curious fact that NO employee ended up watching the P. Parade from the sixth floor