This at least gives me pause about the LN narrative

[Lance Payette]

Is there a CT'er who has a better answer than “He was completely innocent and really had no idea what was going on?”--Lp

Yes, LHO was part of a quickly formed, low-budget conspiracy, around the (bad) luck that the JFK motorcade (revealed publicly on Nov. 19) would make a hairpin turn right in front the TSBD, with its largely empty upper floors, and clear view to a kill.

A perfect set-up. The best place in Dallas to perp the JFKA, and LHO already "had an in."

LHO had a proclivity for shooting at major public figures---see the Walker shooting. He needed convincing?

In fact, LHO had worked out a reasonable escape plan from the immediate TSBD premises, and did escape from there. So good enough on that score.

As for longer-term LHO plans, everything is speculation. In my layman's view, LHO was mentally ill.

Perhaps G-2 had promised LHO passage to Cuba, but actually planned to wax LHO.

LHO was "left holding the bag." Maybe. LHO planned to write his manifesto in Cuba?

A post JFKA-ride was promised to LHO, but fell through---possibly.

The 1,800-mile border to Mexico was wide-open back then, and boats left for Cuba from Mexico daily.

Who knows?

You are pointedly ignoring the subject of this thread. I'm not looking for conspiracy theories. I can weave those all day long. I'm looking for how Oswald's seemingly out-of-character preternatural composure before and after the JFKA is explained in the context of a conspiracy theory (or the LN narrative, for that matter).

[Tom Graves]

Is there a CT'er who has a better answer than “He was completely innocent and really had no idea what was going on?”--Lp

Yes, LHO was part of a quickly formed, low-budget conspiracy, around the (bad) luck that the JFK motorcade (revealed publicly on Nov. 19) would make a hairpin turn right in front the TSBD, with its largely empty upper floors, and clear view to a kill.

A perfect set-up. The best place in Dallas to perp the JFKA, and LHO already "had an in."

LHO had a proclivity for shooting at major public figures---see the Walker shooting. He needed convincing?

In fact, LHO had worked out a reasonable escape plan from the immediate TSBD premises, and did escape from there. So good enough on that score.

As for longer-term LHO plans, everything is speculation. In my layman's view, LHO was mentally ill.

Perhaps G-2 had promised LHO passage to Cuba, but actually planned to wax LHO.

LHO was "left holding the bag." Maybe. LHO planned to write his manifesto in Cuba?

A post JFKA-ride was promised to LHO, but fell through---possibly.

The 1,800-mile border to Mexico was wide-open back then, and boats left for Cuba from Mexico daily.

Who knows?

All he had to do was wipe his Carcano down with his already-off shirt, hide it (the Carcano), put his shirt back on while going down the stairs, and get to the second-floor lunch room before anyone saw him -- maybe even with a pre-purchased bottle of Coke-Cola (Larry Hancock's expression) to use as a prop.

Regarding Fancy Pants Rants assertion that he couldn't have PERPED ("BC's" expression) the JFKA because he gave his taxicab to a woman, should he have kept it for himself and appeared to be in a big rush?

[Lance Payette]

If one is foolish enough to consult AI - which I am not, but my bmboficated research assistant Cuddles LaFong is  - it appears that my guess of a disociative state may be in the ballpark. AI says "Yes, violent criminals are sometimes extremely calm after committing their acts. While public perception often assumes a perpetrator would be frantic, panicked, or guilt-ridden, forensic psychologists, criminologists, and law enforcement officers frequently document intense post-crime composure." AI says lots more, but I will spare you. I suppose that after deciding the JFKA was what he was going to do and that he would probably die in the aftermath, Oswald could have been in something like a disociative state even during his visit to Irving.

[David Von Pein]

Via a "Lone Assassin" scenario, every single thing Lee Harvey Oswald did after President Kennedy was shot makes perfect sense. Such as the following laundry list of things telling us the President's murder was the act of one lone killer, firing from his sixth-floor perch:

1.) Lee Oswald couldn't drive (not very well at any rate; he had a few lessons from Ruth Paine, and was not impressive behind the wheel according to Mrs. Paine). Therefore, he's left to his own resources after shooting the President, and forced to rely on other modes of transportation for his getaway.

2.) Even if he COULD drive, Oswald had no vehicle to take him from Point A (Dealey Plaza) to Point B (anyplace else) after the shooting. And in a "Lone Nut" scenario, it's highly doubtful that he's going to go up to Wesley Frazier (who gave him a lift that morning) and ask: "Hey Wes, can you give me a ride home Friday? I'm gonna plug the Chief Executive around lunchtime and need a getaway driver. OK with you?"

3.) LHO is not the least bit surprised when having Marrion Baker's gun pointed at him just minutes after the assassination. Lee is quite calm and cool. This calm reaction is an odd one if he were completely innocent of the shooting and had no idea of what just happened out on Elm Street.

IMO, Lee Oswald wasn't surprised by Baker's confronting him for one simple reason -- he expected the police to be entering the building quickly; and he had no reason to say to the officer, "What the heck is going on here?! Why am I being stopped?!" -- because he KNEW what was going on, because HE himself caused it. Any innocent bystander in that same situation is going to get scared, and at the very least ask "What's going on? What did I do?"; but not Oswald; he never uttered a word.

4.) LHO departs work quickly (within 3 minutes of the shooting), not caring in the least about all the turmoil and police activity going on outside the building.

5.) Oswald takes the only transportation available to him, in his flight from the scene -- a public bus. When the bus gets clogged in traffic, he changes to a taxi cab (highly unusual for the penny-pinching Mr. Oswald; in fact, a researcher might be searching forever if he were to try and verify a single other occasion when Lee Oswald spent money on a cab ride within the United States).

6.) Lee has the taxi driver take him NOT to the front door of 1026 N. Beckley (his residence) -- but instead to a point three blocks BEYOND his home. He actually passes his house first in the cab, which, IMO, is an obvious attempt to see if any cops are waiting for him there yet, and so that the cab driver (William Whaley) won't know exactly where his passenger lives.

7.) Oswald then grabs a handgun at his home, puts on a jacket (to conceal the weapon more easily), and hustles out of the roominghouse, not saying a word to housekeeper Earlene Roberts (who noted his hurried behavior).

8.) Upon encountering Officer J.D. Tippit on 10th Street within 15 minutes of leaving his roominghouse, Oswald shoots and kills the officer almost immediately (after very little conversation).

And to the many CTers who think it was impossible for LHO to have made it to 10th & Patton in time to kill Tippit, I'm wondering how those CTers explain the fact that Oswald DID make it to that same area of 10th & Patton in time to be seen (and positively identified) by witnesses like Ted Callaway, Sam Guinyard, Barbara Davis, and Virginia Davis (among others)? I guess most conspiracists want to believe that all of those witnesses were dead wrong and they really saw only an "Oswald Imposter" leaving the murder scene just a matter of seconds after Officer Tippit was shot. (Crazy.)

9.) Oswald knows he's got really big troubles now (as if killing JFK weren't enough already). He knows multiple witnesses saw him kill Tippit, but he's only got so much ammunition with him (he cannot eliminate ALL these witnesses). So he'll save his last bullets for when it really counts -- on more cops. Which is EXACTLY what he attempted to do once he was cornered in the Texas Theater at approx. 1:50 PM on 11/22.

10.) In the theater, Oswald tries to kill police officer Nick McDonald with the same gun he used on Tippit a half-hour earlier. But, luckily, McDonald and other officers are able to wrest the gun away from their suspect before it can be successfully fired, saving Oswald from yet another possible murder charge that day.

11.) Oswald's first words when cornered are also indicative of guilt -- "It's all over now!" and/or "This is it!" are the quotes that
have been attributed to LHO within the movie theater. (Can you imagine a totally INNOCENT person uttering either of the above declarations? I can't. Both comments scream "guilty conscience".)

12.) When questioned by the police, Oswald tells one lie after another regarding crucial information -- such as lying after being asked each of the following questions: "Do you own a rifle?", "Who is A.J. Hidell?", and "Did you bring a large package to work this morning?"

If Oswald had really been the "patsy" (as he shouted out to the press in the DPD hallways), then WHY didn't he reveal some names for the police to check out? Don't tell me Oswald was involved in this massive plan to assassinate the President and yet he had not one shred of an idea as to what any of his co-conspirators looked like or what any of their names (even fake names) might have been?!

In short -- The "Patsy" theory is simply pure out-and-out hogwash!

What do all of the above points add up to (in their totality)? -- In a certain sector of the "It Was A Conspiracy" world, these points (somehow) add up to a "Patsy" who not only didn't murder the President, but is also innocent of the even-more-provably-committed-by-Oswald murder of Officer Tippit.

In that same portion of the "CT" world, the above items also add up to a man (Oswald) who is apparently totally oblivious to the fact that he is being "used" by hired, professional assassins, and who hadn't the slightest idea that he would be used in this manner right up to the time of the actual shooting itself. Otherwise, Mr. Oswald would never have even shown up for work at the Depository on Friday morning (if he had possessed even the slightest notion, that is, of the covert "plot" that would be implicating HIM, and him alone, after 12:30 PM on November 22nd, 1963).

And only AFTER the assassination itself does Oswald "get smart" (evidently) and put the pieces together, and realize he's just
been "used" as the "Patsy" in this thing.

His "Patsy" remark has launched a mile-high pile of additional conspiracy theories -- and I do think it was smart of Oswald to announce to the TV cameras "I'm just a patsy!" for the world to hear. A very smart move indeed. Because it accomplished exactly what he had probably intended for it to accomplish -- i.e., it diverted some attention away from Oswald himself.

That ONE single word out of Oswald's mouth ("Patsy!") has sent conspiracists scrambling in all directions looking for "connections" to a plot -- any plot. None of which has been verified to this day to have the slightest bit of truth in them (among the theories placed on the table to date).

Zero pieces of credible, verifiable, provable information have been unearthed to date that tie Lee Harvey Oswald to any of the various proposed conspiracy theories.

The above "points", every single one, IMO, add up to the actions of one lone killer of President Kennedy and Officer Tippit. A man, on foot, who tries desperately to flee the scenes of his two crimes and avoid capture, even attempting to kill yet another person along the way (but failing in that attempt before being handcuffed).

No conspiracy theorist can possibly deny the fact that each of the points I've stressed above could certainly (at the very least) be easily reconciled within an "Oswald Did It And Did It By Himself" point-of-view.

If conspiracy promoters do choose to deny the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald's post-12:30 actions on November the 22nd could possibly be looked upon as the actions of ONE LONE KILLER, then I feel they are not being honest about what Oswald's actions truly reveal.

Also....

Here's a question that doesn't seem to come up in conversation very often:

If Lee Oswald was being "set up" to take the fall for the President's murder (as so many conspiracy theorists believe was the case), I'm wondering how in the world the plotters conveniently arranged Oswald's unusual Thursday night trip to Irving, Texas, to visit his wife at Ruth Paine's house on 11/21/63?

Did the conspirators somehow put Oswald under some kind of a spell, and then they told him to go to Irving on Thursday and tell a lie about wanting to retrieve curtain rods?

And there surely isn't a conspiracist on the planet who will try and say that Lee Oswald really DIDN'T go to Irving with Buell Wesley Frazier on November 21st, is there?

So, we know for a fact that Oswald did make an unusual trip to Ruth Paine's home on November 21st. And we also know that that location—Ruth Paine's house—is the place where Oswald's rifle was being stored in the garage.

And unless you are a person who is buried a mile deep in conspiracy nonsense, then another fact becomes crystal clear -- Lee Harvey Oswald LIED to Buell Frazier about the "curtain rods".

Now, via the scenario of Oswald being a totally innocent "patsy" regarding everything that happened in Dallas the following day (November 22, 1963), I'm just wondering how the conspiracy theorists can provide a series of reasonable and logical (and believable) answers to these questions:

1.) How did those amazing plotters get Oswald to go to Irving on 11/21/63?

2.) And how did those very efficient plotters get Oswald to tell the lie about the curtain rods? (Because all reasonable people know that LHO's "curtain rod" tale was, indeed, a lie....mainly due to the fact that no curtain rods were ever found in the Book Depository; plus the fact that if there had been any curtain rods at all, Oswald would have said so to the police; but, instead, he denied he ever mentioned anything about curtain rods to Buell Frazier.)

3.) And then how did those conspirators who were framing their patsy get Mr. Oswald to take a bulky brown package into the Depository on November 22nd? (Which is a package, as I just mentioned, that we know for a fact did NOT contain curtain rods.)

Those three questions are very important questions to answer in a reasonable manner if you're a conspiracist who truly thinks Oswald was just an unwitting patsy in the assassination of the President.

Because unless Oswald was trying to set himself up as a patsy, it's rather difficult to find any logical or reasonable answers to those three questions I just posed that would lead to a conclusion that Lee Oswald was completely innocent in the events that took place in Dallas on November 22nd. Particularly when those three questions are evaluated and assessed in conjunction with all of the OTHER things that incriminate Oswald in JFK's murder, e.g., the Carcano rifle, the shells, the paper bag on the sixth floor, LHO's prints being all over the place where Kennedy's killer was located, etc.

In short -- Oswald's OWN ACTIONS on November 21, 1963, provide some extremely powerful circumstantial evidence to indicate that Lee Harvey Oswald was anything but an innocent patsy when it comes to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

DVP

[John Corbett]

All he had to do was wipe his Carcano down with his already-off shirt, hide it (the Carcano), put his shirt back on while going down the stairs, and get to the second-floor lunch room before anyone saw him -- maybe even with a pre-purchased bottle of Coke-Cola (Larry Hancock's expression) to use as a prop.

Regarding Fancy Pants Rants assertion that he couldn't have PERPED ("BC's" expression) the JFKA because he gave his taxicab to a woman, should he have kept it for himself and appeared to be in a big rush?

Why would he need to pre-purchase a Coke. He didn't have one when Baker encountered him. He bought the Coke after Baker left and was seen with it by Mrs. Reid as he headed toward the front of the building.

[Charles Collins]

Factors that seem to me to be relevant to this discussion:

The time that LHO spent in the brig while in the USMC would have been very difficult for anyone to bear. Especially someone with LHO’s inflated ego. I believe that experience probably hardened LHO and turned him against the USA even more than he already was. It also probably taught him how to behave while under custody in order to minimize any harsh treatment from his captors. All of that combined to help him appear as a “cool customer” while under custody in Dallas, TX.

The JFK motorcade came to LHO’s place of work, LHO did not need to go elsewhere in order to make an assassination attempt. I believe that when LHO, after reading the news papers and seeing photos of the motorcade, realized what a golden opportunity had been laid in his lap, it was simply too tempting of an opportunity to resist. After quickly planning a military-style ambush from behind and above, he formulated a “reason” (curtain rods) to go to retrieve his rifle and ammo. Perhaps LHO realized that if it turned out that conditions didn’t permit him to get a clear shot, he could have simply not pulled the trigger and might have even been able to sneak the “curtain rods” out of the TSBD with no one even suspecting anything.

The points that Lance brings up are interesting. But if one reads the book that Robert Oswald wrote, he will see that Robert indicates that LHO enjoyed trying to mystify and trick the authorities, etc (or something to that affect). That’s part of how Robert explains much of LHO’s bizarre behavior. Remember that Marina said that LHO laughed and got a kick out of the police assuming the Walker shooter got away via an automobile (while LHO “tricked them” by getting away via public transportation).

[John Corbett]

Via a "Lone Assassin" scenario, every single thing Lee Harvey Oswald did after President Kennedy was shot makes perfect sense. Such as the following laundry list of things telling us the President's murder was the act of one lone killer, firing from his sixth-floor perch:

3.) LHO is not the least bit surprised when having Marrion Baker's gun pointed at him just minutes after the assassination. Lee is quite calm and cool. This calm reaction is an odd one if he were completely innocent of the shooting and had no idea of what just happened out on Elm Street.

IMO, Lee Oswald wasn't surprised by Baker's confronting him for one simple reason -- he expected the police to be entering the building quickly; and he had no reason to say to the officer, "What the heck is going on here?! Why am I being stopped?!" -- because he KNEW what was going on, because HE himself caused it. Any innocent bystander in that same situation is going to get scared, and at the very least ask "What's going on? What did I do?"; but not Oswald; he never uttered a word.

This is an excellent point and one I hadn't thought of before. If LHO was innocently hanging out in the lunchroom, unaware of what had just happened, his reaction to having a cop point a gun at him would unlikely to be cool and calm. I imagine if I were in such a spot, I would throw up my hands and ask what the hell was going on. To me this seems to be Oswald pretending to be innocent by acting calm despite a cop pointing a gun at him.