John T Martin's film: What are the odds?

[Jon Banks]

Sixth Floor Museum: John T. Martin film

Martin traveled to Dallas in August 1963 and visited Major General Edwin Walker. Walker had recently survived an assassination attempt after a shot was fired through his window in April 1963. Walker was not injured and the assailant was never caught. Eight months later, the widow of accused Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald told investigators her late husband admitted firing that shot.

The first part of Martin’s film shows scenes of the outside of Walker’s house, including the broken window through which the bullet had been fired. After visiting Dallas, Martin traveled to New Orleans and filmed some local landmarks. On August 9, while walking on Canal Street, he witnessed an altercation among several men, one of whom was handing out pro-Castro "Hands Off Cuba" leaflets. Martin filmed a few seconds of police officers taking the men to squad cars, followed by footage of torn leaflets on the sidewalk.

Not long after the Kennedy assassination when news accounts of Oswald’s background became known, Martin realized one of the men he filmed might have been Lee Harvey Oswald. Martin called the FBI office in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he lived, and agents borrowed his original film in late December 1963. The FBI returned the film to Martin on January 28, 1964.

In a report not published by the Warren Commission, the New Orleans FBI office concluded, “The film obtained by Minneapolis from John Martin was viewed at the New Orleans Office and was found to contain nothing of value to this case. ”Subsequently, more details about the arrest in New Orleans were obtained by FBI and Warren Commission investigators.

Oswald, handing out pro-Castro literature, was confronted by three anti-Castro Cuban exiles led by Carlos Bringuier. They objected to Oswald’s actions and tore up his leaflets. When a fight ensued, all four men were arrested and charged with disturbing the peace. Oswald spent the night in jail and bonded out the next day. He later pleaded guilty and was fined $10. The charges against the Cubans were dismissed.Martin’s film shows Oswald at the left and some of the other three men being led to a police car.

Further inspection reveals that the film is not the original, but a copy of a copy, which may account for the poor quality of its images. Martin says the film now in the Museum’s collection is the film the FBI returned to him in 1964, but inspection shows the film’s date code shows 1977. The film was borrowed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s and its records are stored at the National Archives (NARA) in College Park, MD. According to NARA, the Martin film is not among those records.

Link - https://www.jfk.org/collections-archive/john-t-martin-film/


To summarize, a few days after visiting Gen. Edwin Walker and filming his home in Dallas, Martin traveled to New Orleans and happened to be in the right place at the right time to film a few seconds of Lee Harvey Oswald's arrest in August of 1963.

Was this an innocent coincidence? Or is it reasonable to speculate that Martin had advance knowledge of the incident involving LHO in New Orleans (and knowledge that LHO was a suspect in the Walker incident)?

[Lance Payette]

There are at least two threads about this at the Ed Forum, and Steve Roe has a good piece on it.

Notwithstanding the "odds," it's a coincidence.

Martin was a 17-year-old kid whose father was a minister of some sort. He was a teenage right-winger who emerged from his time in the service as a pacifist.

I fail to see how your suspicions make any sense. If he had the knowledge you suggest, why on earth would he have turned over the film to the FBI? Think.

I'm a bit troubled by him saying the film is the one returned to him by the FBI in 1964 when it dates from 1977. It's such a weird pastiche of images that I can't imagine what the teenage Martin was doing. The Walker-Oswald images are completely inconsequential - what purpose would they have served in whatever plot you are suggesting? Think.

I have written about synchronicity (seemingly meaningful coincidence) because I've experienced so many complex, jaw-dropping instances myself. Some I would describe as "impossible" - but they happened.

Assign this to the same category as Umbrella Man - weird sh*t, but irrelevant to the JFKA.

[Jon Banks]

I fail to see how your suspicions make any sense. If he had the knowledge you suggest, why on earth would he have turned over the film to the FBI? Think.

I don't know what to make of it honestly.

I'm not implying that he was wittingly part of a plot to frame Oswald fwiw. But he may have been an unwitting participant.

Or it could've been a weird coincidence. Dallas and New Orleans are very small towns right?