This at least gives me pause about the LN narrative

[Lance Payette]

Oswald wasn't seen with a Coke until after the Baker encounter. Baker said he did not have a Coke when he confronted Oswald. Baker did not write his official statement. It was written up for him and he was asked to sign it. He read the prepared statement and refused to sign it because it said Oswald had a Coke in his hand and he knew that he hadn't said that. They asked him to cross out the reference to the Coke and initial his correction, which he did and then signed the statement

My guess is the person who prepared the statement for Baker did so from notes taken when he was interviewed. It's possible that same person had also prepared Reid's statement and conflated what Reid said with what Baker said. Whatever the reason for the mistake was, Baker made a point to say he did not see Oswald with a Coke in his hand.

Oswald would not have had time to buy a Coke because he had just entered the lunchroom seconds before Baker reached the landing. Baker spotted him through the window of the outer door. There was an inner door which didn't have a glass window and that door had an automatic closer. The only reason Baker was able to see Oswald was because Oswald had just gone through that inner door and it had not closed behind him. Had Oswald ben in the lunchroom for more than a few seconds, that inner door would have been closed and Baker wouldn't have even known he was there.

Yes, I know all that. I have no convincing explanation for why the person who prepared Baker's original affidavit would have gratuitously inserted "holding a Coke" - yet another quirk of the wildly quirky JFKA that only adds to the mystery. With one's CT beanie on, one can see how eliminating the Coke from Baker's story is critical, because if Oswald had a Coke at the time then he had been there longer than a few seconds and buying a Coke before the Baker encounter would be exceedingly odd behavior for an escaping Presidential assassin. On the other hand, even buying a Coke after the assassination would be somewhat odd. Would he really have the presence of mind at that point to think "It will look better if I walk out of here with a Coke in my hand?" The zombie-like encounter with Mrs. Reid, assuming it occurred as she described, is likewise odd. The escaping assassin who had the presence of mind to buy a Coke didn't have the presence of mind to say, "No, really? I'm going to go out and see what I can find out."

It seems that staunch defenders of the LN narrative want to go to immediately to "He had a motive!" and "Here are all the reasons he's guilty!" For purposes of this discussion, I accept all that. I simply ask how we account for behavior that seems (to me, anyway) seriously inconsistent with that?

Things like his behavior in Irving and the Baker encounter have always stuck in my craw. I have explained his post-assassination lack of cooperation and lies on the basis that he was saving everything for a long, theater-like trial in which Abt would guide him through an exploration of his political philosophy and he would at least go down in history as a deep-thinking, ideologically motivated assassin - but even this is pretty iffy. But the more I think about it, his behavior with Marina and his beloved children in Irving, and his lack of any Oswald-like manifesto prepared at Beckley the night before, are really puzzling. To say he had a motive and there is lots of evidence of his guilt avoids these puzzles but doesn't solve them.

My LN-oriented explanation has been that he wasn't fully committed to the JFKA until the very, very last minute, after Marina had rebuffed his attempts at reconciliation. But even this is kind of bizarre: "Maybe I'll buy Marina a washing machine and set up her and the kids in an apartment in Dallas or maybe I'll assassinate the President. Well, that it didn't go so well in Irving - I guess I'll go ahead and assassinate the President and leave Marina and the kids to deal with the aftermath and fend for themselves." What?

[John Mytton]

BLAH BLAH BLAH
Baker stated he saw Oswald drinking a coke. It was written down.

Do you have the statement from Baker that it was a mistake ?
that was not part of the tired garbage you posted.

Mr. DULLES. What was he doing?
Mr. TRULY. He was just standing there.
Mr. DULLES. Did he have a coke?
Mr. TRULY. No, sir.
Mr. DULLES. No drink?
Mr. TRULY. No drink at all. Just standing there.

JohnM

[Michael Capasse]

Mr. DULLES. What was he doing?
Mr. TRULY. He was just standing there.
Mr. DULLES. Did he have a coke?
Mr. TRULY. No, sir.
Mr. DULLES. No drink?
Mr. TRULY. No drink at all. Just standing there.

JohnM

 ...Failed again. You're looking for an explanation from Baker.
Wonder why Belin would not ask him. - He could resolve it on the stand instead of the usual side-step

[John Corbett]

"He read the prepared statement and refused to sign it because it said Oswald had a Coke in his hand and he knew that he hadn't said that."
Cite the documented evidence of this garbage and the other 2/3's about where and when he actually said those things.

Otherwise it is just made up

Baker's statement is CE3076:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/c649blf3s1cnge3/CE%203076.jpg?dl=0

I just noticed that below the line identifying this document as CE3076, there is a handwritten notation saying it is CE1576. Either way it shows Baker made two corrections to the prepared statement.

Note in the next to the last paragraph, Baker made two corrections and initialed both of them. I can't make out what he crossed out in the first correction but the second correction you can see he crossed out "drinking a Coke".

You seem to be ignorant of this fact. Either that or you are aware of it and are being deliberately deceptive. The claim that Oswald was drinking a Coke when Baker confronted him is lie some CT cooked up many years ago based on the erroneous statement that was written FOR BAKER. It was not written by him. Baker refused to sign the statement without the corrections. The reason for cooking up this lie about Oswald having a Coke in his hands is quite simple. That lie gives the impression that Oswald had been in the lunchroom for some time and would give him an alibi that would have precluded him having fired the shots from the sixth floor. Of course, the alibi is a lie because Oswald had just entered the lunchroom seconds before Baker reached the landing which is why Baker was able to see Oswald walking away from the door. Through several recreations of both Oswald's movement from the sixth floor sniper's nest to the second floor lunchroom as well as Baker's movement from his motorcycle to the second floor lunchroom. These recreations, while not proving ow long either man took to reach the lunchroom, showed that it was possible for Oswald to get to the lunchroom ahead of Baker. The claim that Oswald was holding a Coke would indicate Oswald had reached the lunchroom well ahead of Baker because he would have taken some time to purchase the Coke. Of course if that had happened, the door would have closed behind him and Baker couldn't have seen him inside the lunchroom.

I was making this same argument to the CTs 35 years ago when I was a participant on the old Prodigy forum yet here we are in 2026 and there are CTs still clinging to this myth. I guess when you don't have any real evidence to support your belief in a conspiracy, myths are all you have.

[Lance Payette]

...Failed again. You're looking for an explanation from Baker.
Wonder why Belin would not ask him. - He could resolve it on the stand instead of the usual side-step

One would have supposed that someone would have cleared this up long before Baker's WC testimony by clarifying with the individual who prepared the Baker and Truly affidavits. It's an oddly specific thing to gratuitously include, unlike "near the Coke machine" or something like that. Perhaps this person could have also have clarified what Baker said when he made the correction. If he immediately said, "No, you got that wrong - he wasn't holding anything," this would obviously be significant.

[Michael Capasse]

Baker's statement is CE3076:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/c649blf3s1cnge3/CE%203076.jpg?dl=0

I just noticed that below the line identifying this document as CE3076, there is a handwritten notation saying it is CE1576. Either way it shows Baker made two corrections to the prepared statement.

Note in the next to the last paragraph, Baker made two corrections and initialed both of them. I can't make out what he crossed out in the first correction but the second correction you can see he crossed out "drinking a Coke".

You seem to be ignorant of this fact. Either that or you are aware of it and are being deliberately deceptive. The claim that Oswald was drinking a Coke when Baker confronted him is lie some CT cooked up many years ago based on the erroneous statement that was written FOR BAKER. It was not written by him. Baker refused to sign the statement without the corrections. The reason for cooking up this lie about Oswald having a Coke in his hands is quite simple. That lie gives the impression that Oswald had been in the lunchroom for some time and would give him an alibi that would have precluded him having fired the shots from the sixth floor. Of course, the alibi is a lie because Oswald had just entered the lunchroom seconds before Baker reached the landing which is why Baker was able to see Oswald walking away from the door. Through several recreations of both Oswald's movement from the sixth floor sniper's nest to the second floor lunchroom as well as Baker's movement from his motorcycle to the second floor lunchroom. These recreations, while not proving ow long either man took to reach the lunchroom, showed that it was possible for Oswald to get to the lunchroom ahead of Baker. The claim that Oswald was holding a Coke would indicate Oswald had reached the lunchroom well ahead of Baker because he would have taken some time to purchase the Coke. Of course if that had happened, the door would have closed behind him and Baker couldn't have seen him inside the lunchroom.

I was making this same argument to the CTs 35 years ago when I was a participant on the old Prodigy forum yet here we are in 2026 and there are CTs still clinging to this myth. I guess when you don't have any real evidence to support your belief in a conspiracy, myths are all you have.

lame excuses with no explanation why
  next will come, "You don't need to..."

[John Corbett]

Yes, I know all that. I have no convincing explanation for why the person who prepared Baker's original affidavit would have gratuitously inserted "holding a Coke" - yet another quirk of the wildly quirky JFKA that only adds to the mystery.

The explanation is that the statement was written up by a human being and human beings make mistakes. That's not unusually when transferring something from one document to another. I can only guess as to why the mistake was made. The notes from the interviews of Baker,, Reid, and possibly others were handed to someone to write statements for Baker and Reid to sign. The person who transcribed those notes into formal statements could have simply conflated Reid's statement with what Baker said. It might be no more mundane than that or it could be something equally mundane.

Hanlon’s Razor — Never Attribute to Malice What Can Be Explained by Incompetence