Prayer Woman

[Alan Ford]

Now!

Establishing the point-for-point derivation of Captain Fritz's notes from Agent Bookhout's reports is all too easy for every page except the one he marks '1':



The bits marked in green here-------



---------are easily accounted for: Fritz is listening to Agent Bookhout's first solo report, which was dictated (i.e. recorded on dictaphone for typing up by stenographer?) on 11/25.

The rest of Fritz's sheet, however, has no such clear, unitary source! 

[Alan Ford]

The rest of Fritz's sheet, however, has no such clear, unitary source! 

But! It does have a clear, unitary destination!

From Captain Fritz's own official interrogation report:

"Mr. Hosty asked Oswald if he had been in Russia. He told him, "yes, he had been in Russia three years." He asked him if he had written to the Russian Embassy, and he said he had. This man became very upset and arrogant with Agent Hosty when he questioned him and accused him of accosting his wife two different times. When Agent Hosty attempted to talk to this man, he would hit his fist on the desk. I asked Oswald what he meant by accosting his wife when he was talking to Mr. Hosty. He said Mr. Hosty mistreated his wife two different times when he talked with her, practically accosted her. Mr. Hosty also asked Oswald if he had been to Mexico City, which he denied. During this interview he told me that he had gone to school in New York and in Fort Worth, Texas, that after going into the Marines, finished his high school education. I asked him if he won any medals for rifle shooting in the Marines. He said he won the usual medals.

"I asked him what his political beliefs were, and he said he had none but that he belonged to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and told me that they had headquarters in New York and that he had been Secretary for this organization in New Orleans when he lived there. He also said that he supports the Castro Revolution. One of the officers had told me that he had rented the room on Beckley under the name of O. F. Lee. I asked him why he did this. He said the landlady did it. She didn't understand his name correctly."

Compare the yellowed bits!



Nice, neat point-for-point correspondence! 

Now!

We can be pretty sure Captain Fritz did not write his official report and then make notes from it.
 
No! The notes were part of his preparation for writing the report!

But... when did he write up this report and dictate it?

The answer can be found at the bottom of page 12 of the report:



10 January 1964
----------no fewer than 47 days after Mr Oswald's death!

 

[Alan Ford]

10 January 1964
----------no fewer than 47 days after Mr Oswald's death!

 

Now!

We know, from the above, that Captain Fritz prepared his full interrogation report for dictation at some point before 10 January 1964.

But when?

Clue!

On 23 December 1963, Captain Fritz wrote a report for the benefit of Chief Curry. It includes this:



 

Yes, friends, Captain Fritz, as of Christmas Eve-Eve, actually believes that Mr Oswald had been stopped "on the third or fourth floor on the stairway".

Sounds familiar? Yep. You got it------Officer Baker's disastrous 11/22 affidavit!



 

How and ever! By the time the befuddled Captain Fritz finds himself in front of the Warren Commission, on 22 April 1964, he will have a different story to tell:

Mr. FRITZ. They told me about that down at the bookstore; I believe Mr. Truly or someone told me about it, told me they had met him--I think he told me, person who told me about, I believe told me that they met him on the stairway, but our investigation shows that he actually saw him in a lunchroom, a little lunchroom where they were eating, and he held his gun on this man and Mr. Truly told him that he worked there, and the officer let him go.
Mr. BALL. Did you question Oswald about that?

"that they met him on the stairway"-----------notice the vagueness as to location (no 3rd/4th fl)!
"but our investigation shows that he actually saw him in a lunchroom"------------which investigation, precisely?

Why, Captain Fritz's investigation of-----i.e. his attentive listening to-----the first solo interrogation report of Agent Bookhout, the one where the 2nd fl lunchroom is made the site of Mr Oswald's claimed cop encounter!

This 'investigation' must have happened between Christmas Eve-Eve 1963 and 22 April 1964.

But the status of the scribbled 'Fritz notes' as preparation for the writing of the full report dictated 10 January 1964 allows us to be much more precise:

Captain Fritz listened to the Bookhout interrogation reports at some point between 23 December 1963 and 10 January 1964.

In other words... Captain Fritz wrote this-------



--------between 31 and 47 days after Mr Oswald's death
--------between 33 and 49 days after the first interrogation of Mr Oswald!

They are 33-49 days too late for 'contemporaneity'!

 

[Alan Ford]

"The first officer to reach the six-story building, Lieutenant Curry said, found Oswald among other persons in a lunchroom."

New York Times, Nov 24th, Dallas.

The day before he said this, Chief Curry had been saying that Mr Oswald had been 'stopped' at the front entrance!

Where has Curry gotten this new idea of 'among other persons in a lunchroom' from? The lunchroom bit we understand, but not the 'among other persons' bit...

The 'among other persons' idea was to haunt the investigation for months! In September 1964, Mr Truly and Officer Baker were even asked to give statements whose sole purpose was to nix this rumor.

Curious!

 

[Alan Ford]

"The first officer to reach the six-story building, Lieutenant Curry said, found Oswald among other persons in a lunchroom."

New York Times, Nov 24th, Dallas.

The day before he said this, Chief Curry had been saying that Mr Oswald had been 'stopped' at the front entrance!

Where has Curry gotten this new idea of 'among other persons in a lunchroom' from? The lunchroom bit we understand, but not the 'among other persons' bit...

The 'among other persons' idea was to haunt the investigation for months! In September 1964, Mr Truly and Officer Baker were even asked to give statements whose sole purpose was to nix this rumor.

Curious!

 

Mr. BELIN. All right. When you left the lunchroom, did you leave with the other girls?
Mrs. REID. No; I didn't. The younger girls had gone and I left alone.
Mr. BELIN. Were you the last person in the lunchroom?
Mrs. REID. No; I could not say that because I don't remember that part of it because I was going out of the building by myself, I wasn't even, you know, connected with anyone at all.
Mr. BELIN. Were there any men in the lunchroom when you left there?
Mrs. REID. I can't, I don't, remember that.
Mr. BELIN. All right.
Mrs. REID. I can't remember the time they left.

Hmmm... 

[Alan Ford]

Mr. BELIN. All right. When you left the lunchroom, did you leave with the other girls?
Mrs. REID. No; I didn't. The younger girls had gone and I left alone.
Mr. BELIN. Were you the last person in the lunchroom?
Mrs. REID. No; I could not say that because I don't remember that part of it because I was going out of the building by myself, I wasn't even, you know, connected with anyone at all.
Mr. BELIN. Were there any men in the lunchroom when you left there?
Mrs. REID. I can't, I don't, remember that.
Mr. BELIN. All right.
Mrs. REID. I can't remember the time they left.

Hmmm... 

From Agent Bookhout's first solo interrogation report:

Oswald stated that on November 22, 1963, at the time of the search of the Texas School Book Depository building by Dallas police officers, he was on the second floor of said building, having just purchased a Coca-cola form the soft-drink machine, at which time a police officer came into the room with pistol drawn and asked him if he worked there. Mr. Truly was present and verified that he was an employee and the police officer thereafter left the room and continued through the building. Oswald stated that he took this Coke down to the first floor and stood around and had lunch in the employees lunch room. He thereafter went outside and stood around for five or ten minutes with foreman Bill Shelly

Again the curious impression that Mr Truly had not arrived with the police officer, and that the police officer departed on his own.

Again the curiously similar curious impression that Mrs Sanders reportedly got from talking to Mrs Reid (the woman who said she couldn't remember when 'they'----men who shall remain nameless-----left the lunchroom):



All I'm willing to say at this point is...

Curious! 

[Walt Cakebread]

From Agent Bookhout's first solo interrogation report:

Oswald stated that on November 22, 1963, at the time of the search of the Texas School Book Depository building by Dallas police officers, he was on the second floor of said building, having just purchased a Coca-cola form the soft-drink machine, at which time a police officer came into the room with pistol drawn and asked him if he worked there. Mr. Truly was present and verified that he was an employee and the police officer thereafter left the room and continued through the building. Oswald stated that he took this Coke down to the first floor and stood around and had lunch in the employees lunch room. He thereafter went outside and stood around for five or ten minutes with foreman Bill Shelly

Again the curious impression that Mr Truly had not arrived with the police officer, and that the police officer departed on his own.

Again the curiously similar curious impression that Mrs Sanders reportedly got from talking to Mrs Reid (the woman who said she couldn't remember when 'they'----men who shall remain nameless-----left the lunchroom):



All I'm willing to say at this point is...

Curious! 

Mr. Truly was present and verified that he was an employee and the police officer thereafter left the room

This could be read as though Truly was there when Baker arrived.....But we know from films and photos that Truly followed Baker into the building....