A WC Apologist's Stunning Blunder on the Backyard Rifle Photos and the HSCA PEP

[Michael T. Griffith]

We continue to see lone-gunman theorists cite the writing on the back of the DeMohrenschildt copy of the backyard rifle photos as evidence against Oswald, while saying nothing about the problematic and suspicious nature of this photo and its backside writing, even though these issues have been raised by skeptics for decades. Here is some of what investigative journalist Anthony Summers wrote about the DeM photo over two decades ago in his best-selling book Not in Your Lifetime:

In 1967, more than three years after the Kennedy assassination, George de Mohrenschildt would say he had come upon fresh and “very interesting information.” While sorting luggage retrieved from storage, he said, he had come across another copy of the by then famous photograph of Oswald holding his guns and leftist magazines. On the back of this copy of the photograph there were two inscriptions.

One, which Assassinations Committee examiners found to be in Oswald’s handwriting, read, “To my friend George from Lee Oswald,” along with a date—“5/IV/63.” Given the time frame involved, this must refer to 5 April 1963, though it is written not in the order Americans write the date—month/day/year—but day first, European-style. Nor would Americans use the Roman numeral IV for the numeral 4. A check of the dozens of letters and documents written by Oswald produces not one example of a date written like the one on the back of the photograph.

The second inscription, which is written in Russian Cyrillic script, translates as “Hunter of fascists ha-ha-ha!!!” (see Photo 17). Expert testimony to the Assassinations Committee was that the ironic slogan—clearly directed at Oswald—had been written and then rewritten in pencil—but not, document examiners said, by either Oswald, Marina, or George de Mohrenschildt. Nor, by implication, by Jeanne—whose parents had been Russian—since the experts said it was written by someone unfamiliar with Cyrillic script. (pp. 192-193)

So the damning statement "Hunter of fascists ha-ha-ha!" was not written by George or Jeanne DeMohrenschildt, nor by Marina, nor by Oswald himself, and was written by someone who was unfamiliar with Russian Cyrillic script! Well, now, how about that?! Who, then, could have written that statement, which has been endlessly cited by WC apologists as evidence against Oswald in the Walker shooting?

When the HSCA asked Marina if she recognized the handwriting of the statement, she said it looked like it was written by a foreigner who was trying to copy Russian:

No, I don't. That is what I was discussing with my lawyer. We tried to find out if that was written by me. I mean as I told him, that my handwriting does change a few times a day. I do not write same way, you know, in the morning and maybe at night, so it is hard for me to claim even my own handwriting, but you have certain way of writing, habit of writing certain letters, so I know for sure that I could not, I do not write certain letter that way. So at first I thought it was maybe my handwriting, but after I examine it, I know it is not. . . .

This letter "ha," in the first word after "o," this is something like maybe foreigner would try to write it, you know, to copy Russian language.(2 HSCA 242-243)

Here's a real kicker: Marina said the inscription sounded like something she would write. In fact, she used the phrase "ha-ha" in the Russian handwritten narrative of her life story. But, even a layman looking at the handwriting of the two uses of the phrase can see that the handwriting of the "ha-ha-ha!" on the DeM photo is different from Marina's handwriting.

Now, gee, who would have known that Marina used that phrase, and who would have written that phrase on the back of a strangely high-quality copy of 133-A and then put it in the DeMohrenschildts' belongings?

Obviously, the small amount of handwriting identified as Oswald's on the back of the photo could have been easily forged, which would, among other things, explain (1) the use of a date format that Oswald never used, and (2) the fact that the damning "hunter of fascists" statement was not written by Oswald or Marina, nor by either of the DeMohrenschildts.

This is a good example of the fact that when you look below the surface of the case against Oswald, time and time again you find that the "evidence" is riddled with problems and inconsistencies.

Finally, at the risk of seeming to kick an already deceased horse, in this case the absurd claim that the backyard photos contain "massive parallax," allow me to briefly note some of the microscopic differences in the distances between background objects as determined by the PEP's measurements to determine horizontal parallax.

The “a” distance was the distance from the left edge of the foreground post to the left edge of the picket to the left of it in 133-A and 133-B, and it was measured at three levels.

LOWER LEVEL
133-A:   6.8 mm
133-B:   6.0 mm (6 HSCA 178)

That's a difference of just 0.8 mm, or 0.03 inches, or 3/100ths of an inch.

MIDDLE LEVEL
133-A:   6.5 mm
133-B:   6.4 mm (6 HSCA 178)

That's a difference of just 0.1 mm, 0.003 inches, or 3/1000ths of an inch.

UPPER LEVEL
133-A:   7.0 mm
133-B:   5.9 mm (6 HSCA 178)

That's a difference of just 1.1 mm/0.04 inches or 1/25th of an inch. This was the largest of the differences in the horizontal parallax measurements. The naked eye cannot a detect a difference of 1.1 mm/0.04 inches in the distances between background objects. To detect a difference of just 1/25th of an inch in the distances between the same objects in two photos, a person would need the aid of high magnification or a microscope.

Let's continue by looking at the measurements of the "b" distance in 133-A and 133-B, and this distance, too, was measured at three levels. The "b" distance was the distance from the right edge of the foreground post to the right edge of the picket to the right of it.

LOWER LEVEL
133-A:   9.0 mm
133-B:   9.5 mm (6 HSCA 178)

That's a difference of just 0.5 mm, 0.019 inches, or 19/1000ths of an inch.
 
MIDDLE LEVEL
133-A:   9.3 mm
133-B:   10.0 mm (6 HSCA 178)

That's a difference of just 0.7 mm, 0.027 inches, or 27/1000ths of an inch.

It is no wonder that the PEP said they found that the camera moved only "slightly" to the left between exposures. And, mind you, we're talking about photos that were supposedly taken with a cheap top-view, side-lever-activated camera that was allegedly handed back and forth twice between exposures.

The odds are astronomically remote, in reality zero, that the camera's horizontal position would have changed only slightly after being handed back and forth twice, especially since Oswald would have had to put down the rifle, put down the newspapers, take the camera, forward the film, hand the camera back to Marina, pick up the rifle and the newspapers, and then resume posing--again, twice. 

And this is not to mention that the PEP remained revealingly silent about the camera's angular movement between exposures, i.e., pitch, yaw, and roll. We are left to infer the wildly implausible proposition that the camera did not tilt in the slightest degree between exposures.