JFK Assassination Forum
The JFK Assassination - Discussion & Debate => The JFK Assassination - Discussion & Debate => Topic started by: Lance Payette on May 18, 2026, 02:35:04 PM
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As stated, I find Oswald the man the most interesting aspect of the JFKA. I’ve read everything there is about him, and my sister-in-law and her husband worked in the Minsk factory at the same time. I think I “know” him about as well as he can be known.
I’m a provisional Lone Nutter but troubled by several aspects of the narrative, including the one I’ll describe here. The standard LN response is, “The evidence says he did it. It doesn’t matter who he was, why he did it, or what was going on inside his head.” Well ...
When he took a shot at Walker (we’ll assume he did), he left behind a detailed note, and Marina said he arrived home in a state of considerable agitation. Compare the JFKA.
1. I’m puzzled by his behavior at the Paine home the evening before the JFKA. He begs Marina to join him in Dallas, makes promises, and gives absolutely no clue he is contemplating the JFKA. He leaves no note.
2. He has long been convinced he is destined for a place in history and has written fairly extensively about his views, but he leaves no explanation or manifesto concerning the JFKA. There is nothing like this in his room on Beckley.
3. He shoots JFK, stashes the rifle, scurries down the stairs, hears Baker and Truly coming up – but then is utterly calm and collected when Baker confronts him and sticks a gun in his stomach.
4. He exits the TSBD, boards a bus, leaves the bus and hails a taxi – but then offers the taxi to an older woman who approaches.
5. He is grilled by Fritz, who is a legend for wheedling confessions out of suspects – but he is so cocky and unflappable that Fritz not only fails to break him but emerges speculating that he has been trained to avoid interrogation.
6. In custody, he tells his brother Robert, “Don’t believe the so-called evidence.”
7. In custody for more than 36 hours, and despite the seemingly compelling evidence against him, he never cracks or gives anything other than flat denials of his involvement in the JFKA and Tippit shooting.
I at least find this all bizarre enough to contemplate that “something more” than the LN narrative may have been going on. It seems to me inadequate to say, "The evidence says he did it and nothing else matters." Yes, Oswald was a massive liar even when lying served no purpose, but all of the above is extremely odd and gives me pause about Oswald as a Lone Nut who just snapped. The problem is, I have no real theory as to what the “something more” might be that would explain his behavior. "He was a wholly innocent patsy" would do it, of course, but that just doesn't fit the evidence unless one postulates a conspiracy so elaborate as to be comical.
Fascinating.
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LP--
Well, we are on different pages on this one.
LHO appeared to be a dedicated Marxist, and in something of a dead-end in his own life. LHO met with KGB'ers in MC, G2-ers in MC and possibly NO, and lived near a KGB regional HQ in Minsk.
LHO had a proclivity for shooting at major public figures, see Walker.
Whether LHO was entirely sane 11.22 is an open question. He may not have acted rationally, by any standards. What sane person goes around shooting at major public figures?
On firmer ground--
I have reasonable doubts Gov. JBC did a 180-degree turn in his seat after being shot through his chest, and that JBC held onto his Stetson hat in his right hand after being shot through his right wrist by a large slug that "tumbled" inside his wrist, causing a lot of damage. The WC LN theorists contend JBC was ~Z-223.
For his part, JBC said,
Connally: I was knocked over, just doubled over by the force of the bullet. It went in my back and came out my chest about 2 inches below and the left of my right nipple. The force of the bullet drove my body over almost double and when I looked, immediately I could see I was just drenched with blood. (1 HSCA 42)
JBC appears to be shoved forward ~Z-295. Less than one second before Z-313.
So the WC narrative does not hold water. There is more, but I will let it go at that.
LHO likely shot at JFK with his M-C short rifle, but that was a single-shot per bolt action rifle. LHO could not get off a shot at Z-295 and then Z-313.
There it stands.
The WC was on the LN track from the get-go, that is hardly disputed.
My guess is LHO and a couple G-2'ers perped the JFKA.
A low-budget op, concocted in the three days after it became public the motorcade would make a hairpin turn right in front of the TSBD. Where LHO worked. That was just (bad) luck.
But an excellent location for a sniper's nest.
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Ben, nice job of derailing!
It appears you have become rather fixated on JBC and your G2 scenario, which have nothing to do with my original post.
I don't see that Oswald being a "dedicated Marxist" or shooting at Walker really addresses my points. Indeed, those things to some extent cut the other way. A dedicated Marxist who left no manifesto? An Oswald who left a note and arrived home in a state of agitation when he shot at Walker?
Yes, I can articulate (and have) an Oswald who was at the end of his rope for a variety of reasons and made the JFKA his last act of defiance. This STILL doesn't explain what troubles me, as set forth in my OP.
"He knew something" not accounted for by the LN narrative comes closer to an explanation - but WHAT did he know? (Yes, CTers, I know: "He knew he was COMPLETELY INNOCENT!!!" Nah, doesn't work.)
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As stated, I find Oswald the man the most interesting aspect of the JFKA. I’ve read everything there is about him, and my sister-in-law and her husband worked in the Minsk factory at the same time. I think I “know” him about as well as he can be known.
I’m a provisional Lone Nutter but troubled by several aspects of the narrative, including the one I’ll describe here. The standard LN response is, “The evidence says he did it. It doesn’t matter who he was, why he did it, or what was going on inside his head.” Well ...
When he took a shot at Walker (we’ll assume he did), he left behind a detailed note, and Marina said he arrived home in a state of considerable agitation. Compare the JFKA.
1. I’m puzzled by his behavior at the Paine home the evening before the JFKA. He begs Marina to join him in Dallas, makes promises, and gives absolutely no clue he is contemplating the JFKA. He leaves no note.
2. He has long been convinced he is destined for a place in history and has written fairly extensively about his views, but he leaves no explanation or manifesto concerning the JFKA. There is nothing like this in his room on Beckley.
3. He shoots JFK, stashes the rifle, scurries down the stairs, hears Baker and Truly coming up – but then is utterly calm and collected when Baker confronts him and sticks a gun in his stomach.
4. He exits the TSBD, boards a bus, leaves the bus and hails a taxi – but then offers the taxi to an older woman who approaches.
5. He is grilled by Fritz, who is a legend for wheedling confessions out of suspects – but he is so cocky and unflappable that Fritz not only fails to break him but emerges speculating that he has been trained to avoid interrogation.
6. In custody, he tells his brother Robert, “Don’t believe the so-called evidence.”
7. In custody for more than 36 hours, and despite the seemingly compelling evidence against him, he never cracks or gives anything other than flat denials of his involvement in the JFKA and Tippit shooting.
I at least find this all bizarre enough to contemplate that “something more” than the LN narrative may have been going on. It seems to me inadequate to say, "The evidence says he did it and nothing else matters." Yes, Oswald was a massive liar even when lying served no purpose, but all of the above is extremely odd and gives me pause about Oswald as a Lone Nut who just snapped. The problem is, I have no real theory as to what the “something more” might be that would explain his behavior. "He was a wholly innocent patsy" would do it, of course, but that just doesn't fit the evidence unless one postulates a conspiracy so elaborate as to be comical.
Fascinating.
Is there a rulebook for how an assassin is supposed to act? Should Oswald have made a dramatic exit like John Wilkes Booth? Or maybe he should have shot JFK at close range and been immediately apprehended like Charles Guiteau and Leon Czolgosz. Why should expect people who commit irrational acts to act rationally. I have no idea why Oswlad shot JFK. I can play the speculation game but none of us will ever know. Oswald took that secret to his grave. It is not necessary for me to understand Oswald or know his motive to know he killed JFK. Of that I am 100% certain. I am about 99.99% certain he had no accomplices.
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My $0.02....
http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/DISCUSSING LEE HARVEY OSWALD'S MOTIVE (https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/02/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-892.html)
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My $0.02....
http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/DISCUSSING LEE HARVEY OSWALD'S MOTIVE (https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/02/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-892.html)
We should also recognize that Oswald may have had multiple motives. Maybe his failing marriage, his desire to be somebody of notoriety, and his pro-Castro sentiments may have all contributed to his mindset to take such a drastic action. An action that would likely result in this death, if not by cop then by execution. Of course, he could never have anticipated vigilante justice being administered by a guy named Jack Ruby.
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LP--
OK, operating within the confines of your original post....
LHO was not entirely sane, and his behavior erratic, spotty.
LHO may have thought he would survive the JFKA, and would write his memoirs either on the lam, or in prison.
LHO may have in fact written memoirs or manifesto, and handed same over to a G2'er, for release at the right time. The G2 never released it.
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Marina said that when Oswald made other life-altering decisions during their marriage - the return to the US from the USSR, the attempt on Walker, the attempted defection to Cuba in Mexico City - that he had carefully planned everything out. And that during that planning she saw him acting very stressed, that he would yell and hit her, and that he had strange anxiety attacks in his sleep. It's odd for me that throughout her marriage she said Oswald would have paralyzing anxiety or panic attacks in his sleep where he would he violently shake and sweat.
From "Marina and Lee" (the application mentioned below was for a new passport that he didn't tell her about):
(https://www.drivehq.com/file/DFPublishFile.aspx/FileID13495206213/Keylsdg44nquhvl/Screenshot 2026-05-18 200154.jpg)
However, before the assassination she saw none of these signs. No stressful behavior, no quick to anger, no nighttime panic attacks. That indicates to me that the decision was sudden, last second, not planned out much in advance. Although she really wasn't with him much those last 10-14 days or so to see any stressful behavior.
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LP--
OK, operating within the confines of your original post....
LHO was not entirely sane, and his behavior erratic, spotty.
LHO may have thought he would survive the JFKA, and would write his memoirs either on the lam, or in prison.
LHO may have in fact written memoirs or manifesto, and handed same over to a G2'er, for release at the right time. The G2 never released it.
Oswald was legally sane even though he had toys in his attic.
I doubt Oswald thought he would survive. It would not surprise me if he was trying to commit suicide by cop when he drew his weapon in the theater. Oswald was nuts but that doesn't mean he was stupid. I think he expected to be convicted and sentenced to death. He couldn't have anticipate the US would have a de facto moratorium on executions a few years later or the SCOTUS would strike down existing death penalty statures in 1972.
Your third point is pure fantasy.
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Marina said that when Oswald had made other life-altering decisions - the return to the US from the USSR, the attempt on Walker, the attempted defection to Cuba in Mexico City - that he had carefully planned everything out. And that during that planning she saw him being very stressed, he would yell and strike her, and that he had these strange anxiety attacks in his sleep. It's odd for me that throughout her marriage she said Oswald would have paralyzing anxiety attacks in his sleep where he would he violently shake and sweat.
(https://www.drivehq.com/file/DFPublishFile.aspx/FileID13495206213/Keylsdg44nquhvl/Screenshot 2026-05-18 200154.jpg)
But before the assassination she saw none of these signs. No stressful behavior, no quick to anger, no nighttime panic attacks. That indicates to me that the decision was sudden, last second, not planned out. Although she really wasn't with him much those last 10-14 days or so to see any stressful behavior.
Marina?
Marina Oswald?
You mean the former KGB "swallow" in Leningrad whom true defector KGB Major Pyotr Deriabin wrote a day or two after the assassination had to be at the very least a low-level KGB informant to be allowed to marry her Handsome Prince Charming and leave The Worker's Paradise with him?
That Marina?
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As stated, I find Oswald the man the most interesting aspect of the JFKA. I’ve read everything there is about him, and my sister-in-law and her husband worked in the Minsk factory at the same time. I think I “know” him about as well as he can be known.
I’m a provisional Lone Nutter but troubled by several aspects of the narrative, including the one I’ll describe here. The standard LN response is, “The evidence says he did it. It doesn’t matter who he was, why he did it, or what was going on inside his head.” Well ...
When he took a shot at Walker (we’ll assume he did), he left behind a detailed note, and Marina said he arrived home in a state of considerable agitation. Compare the JFKA.
1. I’m puzzled by his behavior at the Paine home the evening before the JFKA. He begs Marina to join him in Dallas, makes promises, and gives absolutely no clue he is contemplating the JFKA. He leaves no note.
2. He has long been convinced he is destined for a place in history and has written fairly extensively about his views, but he leaves no explanation or manifesto concerning the JFKA. There is nothing like this in his room on Beckley.
3. He shoots JFK, stashes the rifle, scurries down the stairs, hears Baker and Truly coming up – but then is utterly calm and collected when Baker confronts him and sticks a gun in his stomach.
4. He exits the TSBD, boards a bus, leaves the bus and hails a taxi – but then offers the taxi to an older woman who approaches.
5. He is grilled by Fritz, who is a legend for wheedling confessions out of suspects – but he is so cocky and unflappable that Fritz not only fails to break him but emerges speculating that he has been trained to avoid interrogation.
6. In custody, he tells his brother Robert, “Don’t believe the so-called evidence.”
7. In custody for more than 36 hours, and despite the seemingly compelling evidence against him, he never cracks or gives anything other than flat denials of his involvement in the JFKA and Tippit shooting.
I at least find this all bizarre enough to contemplate that “something more” than the LN narrative may have been going on. It seems to me inadequate to say, "The evidence says he did it and nothing else matters." Yes, Oswald was a massive liar even when lying served no purpose, but all of the above is extremely odd and gives me pause about Oswald as a Lone Nut who just snapped. The problem is, I have no real theory as to what the “something more” might be that would explain his behavior. "He was a wholly innocent patsy" would do it, of course, but that just doesn't fit the evidence unless one postulates a conspiracy so elaborate as to be comical.
Fascinating.
1. Where Marina was when Oswald shot at Walker was very different, the Walker note was a list of instructions on what to do after his arrest because she was alone but this time Marina had Ruth. I've previously thought that if Oswald did in fact leave a note, Marina wouldn't want it to be found, obviously, so like one of the backyard photos, I think she would have destroyed the note as well?
2. Oswald didn't have much time to plan, much less leave a detailed explanation, I figure that by his choice of defence, Abt, Oswald knew where this was going to go. A big court case where he was the sole focus and where he could finally be given a platform to espouse his political beliefs was finally going to happen, like his New Orleans attempt, well, till Ruby rained on his parade.
3. I never really understood this? All Oswald had to do was just stand there and say nothing, not that difficult. I may suggest that this atypical behaviour is a huge red flag, Oswald who was all about rights and if innocent would have been screaming that how dare a Police Officer shove a gun in his guts and what is this all about!
4. Whaley's 2nd day affidavit said that he told the lady that another cab was close behind and that Oswald may have repeated this.
(https://i.postimg.cc/B6sj3P7k/Whaley-affidavit-23-11-63.jpg)
5. Under normal circumstances and if Fritz had Oswald all alone he may have had a better opportunity to extract something but at the time it was a circus and there was a stack of people interfering in the interrogation room. When Oswald came back from Russia he set out in his mind how he would handle the reporters questions but no one was there to greet him but regardless, in Oswald's mind he played out many situations and how he was going to respond.
6. But we know the evidence was anything but made up or planted. Oswald owned the murder weapon, the backyard photos were authentic, Oswald owned the revolver that killed Tippit and Oswald tried to kill more Police when arrested. Under similar circumstances I can imagine anyone trying to put their brothers mind at ease.
7. This isn't that unusual, there are many murderers that go to their graves without spilling the beans, Here in Australia we had a serial killer Ivan Milat who had a stack of evidence against him and even on his deathbed never confessed, and Martin Bryant who was one of the worst mass murderers of all time, plead innocence for 7 months and finally just before his trial and a helping hand from his mother, plead guilty.
JohnM
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To be clear, I'm not talking about Oswald's motive. I can articulate a plausible motive and have done so. As John Corbett suggests, it is a mixed motive. A life and marriage that was going nowhere, an exalted view of himself, his genuine pro-Castro sympathies, and Fate seemingly handing him a golden opportunity.
I'm talking about his behavior, which is quite astonishing for a guy who has just shot the POTUS and presumably knows there is a mountain of evidence against him. His preternatural composure in the encounter with Baker and Truly ... offering Whaley's cab to a stranger … yada yada as set forth in my original post - this is someone who has just shot the President? And again, contrast his behavior here with the Walker shooting - a detailed note for Marina and still agitated when he gets home.
Steve makes an interesting point, but wait: By the time Oswald bums the ride from Frazier and visits the Paine home, he has clearly formulated the JFKA - presumably the night before. Yet he shows none of the stress Marina had previously witnessed - nada, zilch. Ditto for the ride back to the TSBD with Frazier and his morning in the TSBD. (His weird question to Jarman as though he doesn't know JFK's motorcade will be passing in front of the TSBD - what was that all about?) Ditto for his post-arrest behavior. This is all part-and-parcel of the seemingly preternatural composure I'm talking about. How does he pull this off?
I really don’t have a good answer. He seems to know something that is outside the scope of the LN narrative, but I can’t put my finger on it. It’s as though he’s somehow been “programmed” to stay calm and admit absolutely nothing - whatever "programmed" may mean in this context. This is a different Oswald than we would have expected under the circumstances – indeed, different from what almost anyone would be like under the circumstances. Is he in some disociative state, perhaps?
Is there a CTer who has a better answer than “He was completely innocent and really had no idea what was going on?”
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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?
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To argue against myself - "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," as Ralph Waldo Emerson said - the two obvious outliers are the murder of Tippit and the supposed incident in the Texas Theater. This was not the preternaturally calm and collected Oswald. I have considerable doubt that the TT incident took place as the arresting officers described - it just doesn't make sense - but the murder of Tippit is a huge outlier. This seems more like the real Oswald. Perhaps he was backed into a corner, figuratively speaking, and felt he had no choice. All very weird.
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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).
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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?
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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.
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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
(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSgiafHPwHHvODO0dcxF66Z3JdIYQR9DF0HTh1u95JZ_6Kr_RfQsVj05NttMphUnXuk3lXicGQ5aqcAKo6su96Ght57eSZLMh_OhrPR_GD6_ZFujTVShX-5Hz2QCDWh8YoTmSIxHPRbsw/s472/XX.+DVP+JFK+Archives+Logo.png) (https://JFK-Archives.blogspot.com)
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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).
Whenever we try to figure out what was going on inside Oswald's head, we are guessing but they can be educated guesses. I think Oswald enjoyed his newfound notoriety. He enjoyed being the center of attention. I think he was just toying with the cops, even though he knew they had him dead to right. He wasn't going to make it easy for them by confessing. I think he knew he would be convicted and sentenced to death, but he was going to have fun with the authorities in the meantime. I think he was looking forward to his trial and his status as an evil celebrity. Jack Ruby robbed him of that. Good for Jack.
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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.
Yes, LHO probably realized that he would need to blend-in with others in order to increase his chances of escaping the TSBD and Dealey Plaza. Acting calm was part of that idea. Remember that LHO reportedly enjoyed watching a new TV show called “The Fugitive”. LHO had just become a fugitive. In the TV show, the fugitive changed his clothes, dyed his hair, etc to try to loose his pursuers. LHO’s behavior was similar to what was portrayed in the TV show.
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Whenever we try to figure out what was going on inside Oswald's head, we are guessing but they can be educated guesses. I think Oswald enjoyed his newfound notoriety. He enjoyed being the center of attention. I think he was just toying with the cops, even though he knew they had him dead to right. He wasn't going to make it easy for them by confessing. I think he knew he would be convicted and sentenced to death, but he was going to have fun with the authorities in the meantime. I think he was looking forward to his trial and his status as an evil celebrity. Jack Ruby robbed him of that. Good for Jack.
Yep, Jack was wrong to take justice into his own hands. But I do remember watching it live on TV and my first reaction was being glad LHO got shot. Same for when the news of his death was broadcast.
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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.
Do you think he bought it because he was thirsty?
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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.
:D Once again, cherry picking BS:
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Yep, Jack was wrong to take justice into his own hands. But I do remember watching it live on TV and my first reaction was being glad LHO got shot. Same for when the news of his death was broadcast.
I wasn't lucky enough to see it live but I was delighted when they announced he had died. I still am.
Yes, Jack Ruby was wrong to do what he did but I'm still glad he did it.
I've heard it said facetiously that in Texas, "He needed killing" is a legal defense. Maybe Ruby's lawyers should have taken that route.
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Once again, to be clear: Nothing in my posts suggests Oswald was an innocent patsy. My posts are predicated on him doing what the LN scenario says he did. In that context, his behavior seems distinctly odd to me, beginning the day before the assassination. I simply noted that if he were an innocent patsy, his behavior would be (somewhat) more understandable.
Ben just posted a thread where, when things didn't go smoothly in MC, Oswald supposedly "became violent and screamed 'I'm going to kill that damn Kennedy!'' This is not the Oswald of November 21-24. There is an odd disconnect.
I see the discussion of the Baker encounter. You have just blown off the head of the President. You rush down the stairs, hoping to escape. You hear Baker and Truly coming up. You duck into the lunchroom, apparently seconds before the encounter. Baker sticks his gun in your stomach and asks Truly if you work there. And you are cool as a cumcumber, like a deer in the headlights, not even breathing hard. If you had 5 minutes to compose yourself, perhaps. Under the circumstances, I find it almost unbelievable. The encounter does not sound like it lasted long enough for Oswald to ask, "What is this all about, gentlemen?" After the encounter, I suppose he would now feel a sense of near-euphoria: "I just survived an encounter with the police! I'm actually going to walk out of this building!" He might have had the presence of mind to think "It will look even better if I'm casually carrying a Coke" - but I'm not convinced he even was carrying a Coke, and this too seems like a very odd detail under the circumstances. All just ... very odd. At least to me.
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:D Once again, cherry picking BS:
Cherry picking? I simply pointed out that Oswald did not have a Coke in his hands when confronted by Baker. The source of Oswald having a Coke in his hands was Reid, not Baker. It really doesn't matter if Reid saw Oswald with a Coke.
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Cherry picking? I simply pointed out that Oswald did not have a Coke in his hands when confronted by Baker. The source of Oswald having a Coke in his hands was Reid, not Baker. It really doesn't matter if Reid saw Oswald with a Coke.
Baker said he saw an open coke. It was written in his statement.
Thumb1: you have pointed out nothing more than a lame excuse for timing that you just made up.
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I see the discussion of the Baker encounter. You have just blown off the head of the President. You rush down the stairs, hoping to escape. You hear Baker and Truly coming up. You duck into the lunchroom, apparently seconds before the encounter. Baker sticks his gun in your stomach and asks Truly if you work there. And you are cool as a cumcumber, like a deer in the headlights, not even breathing hard. If you had 5 minutes to compose yourself, perhaps. Under the circumstances, I find it almost unbelievable. The encounter does not sound like it lasted long enough for Oswald to ask, "What is this all about, gentlemen?" After the encounter, I suppose he would now feel a sense of near-euphoria: "I just survived an encounter with the police! I'm actually going to walk out of this building!" He might have had the presence of mind to think "It will look even better if I'm casually carrying a Coke" - but I'm not convinced he even was carrying a Coke, and this too seems like a very odd detail under the circumstances. All just ... very odd. At least to me.
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.
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Baker said he saw an open coke. It was written in his statement.
Thumb1: you have pointed out nothing more than a lame excuse for timing that you just made up.
Baker didn't write the statement. It was prepared for him. Baker read it and refused to sign it because he HAD NOT said Oswald had a Coke. He was asked to cross out the reference to the Coke, initial it, and then sign the statement which he did.
Why do you guys keep clinging to these long-ago debunked myths?
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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.
"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 BS:
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Not this crapasse again.
• From the stairs you have a clear view of the Vestibule window, you know a clear glass window which is designed to be seen through.
• Baker as he raced up the stairs wasn't making a search of the entire building, he noticed something out of the ordinary and investigated. Baker's priority was to reach the top of the building and the only reason he happened to see Oswald was because the elevator was stuck on an upper floor.
• Truly who came in behind Baker said Oswald was standing just beyond the entrance of the lunchroom.
Mr. BELIN - What did you see that caused you to turn away from going up to the third floor?
Mr. BAKER - As I came out of that stairway running, Mr. Truly had already gone on around, see, and I don't know, as I come around----
Mr. DULLES - Gone on around and up?
Mr. BAKER - He had already started around the bend to come to the next elevation going up, I was coming out this one on the second floor, and I don't know, I was kind of sweeping this area as I come up, I was looking from right to left and as I got to this door here I caught a glimpse of this man, just, you know, a sudden glimpse, that is all it was now, and it looked to me like he was going away from me.
Mr. BELIN - All right. Then what did you do?
Mr. BAKER - I ran on up here and opened this door and when I got this door opened I could see him walking on down.
Mr. DULLES - Had he meanwhile gone on through the door ahead of you?
Mr. BAKER - I can't say whether he had gone on through that door or not. All I did was catch a glance at him, and evidently he was--this door might have been, you know, closing and almost shut at that time.
The view from the stairs, looking right through the vestibule door window into the hallway and the entrance to the lunchroom, which cannot be seen, is to the left
(https://i.postimg.cc/0NJ7c1hy/Photo-wcd81-1-0145-Door-of-Lunchroom-to-Door-to-First-Floor-Stairs.jpg)
• Baker saw enough of Oswald to calculate that Oswald was hurriedly moving away from Law Enforcement because Oswald moved quite far in the same time that Baker ran from the top of the stairs to the door. By the time Officer Baker reaches the vestibule door, Oswald has now decided to not "hang around" but Oswald is suspiciously hurrying out of the corridor and is now about 20 feet away from Officer Baker?
Mr. BAKER - Evidently he was hurrying because at this point here, I was running, and I ran on over here to this door.
Mr. BELIN - All right. I see a coke machine off on the left. When you saw Oswald after you got to this doorway inside the lunchroom, had he gone as far as the coke machine?
Mr. BAKER - I didn't notice the coke machine or any item in the room there All I was looking at was the man, and he seemed to be approximately 20 feet down there from me.
A plan of the 2nd floor with Baker's initial position when he saw Oswald, indicated by the "B" enclosed with the red box.
Mr. BAKER - At the upper portion of this stairway leading to the second floor, I was just stepping out on to the second floor when I caught this glimpse of this man through this doorway.
Mr. BELIN - Do you want to put a spot there, with the letter "B" at the point you believe you were when you were looking through that door? You put the letter "B" on Exhibit 497 when you first saw the movement.
Mr. BAKER - Yes, sir.
(https://i.postimg.cc/tqKkLnQr/ce-497-2nd-floor-lunchroomb.jpg)
Truly saw Oswald standing just inside the lunchroom.
Mr. BELIN. And where was Lee Harvey Oswald at the time you saw him?
Mr. TRULY. He was at the front of the lunchroom, not very far inside he was just inside the lunchroom door.
Mr. BELIN. All right.
Mr. TRULY. 2 or 3 feet, possibly.
Mr. BELIN. Could you put an "O" where you saw Lee Harvey Oswald?
All right. You have put an "O" on Exhibit 497.
(https://i.postimg.cc/RF8MV2X2/Truky-see-Oswald-at-O.jpg)
Howlett showing the vestibule door closing(viewed from a different angled) which may have alerted Baker.
(https://i.postimg.cc/LsNFCGPG/Through-lunch-door-2nd-floor-vestibule-b.gif)
And as for the coke comment, it was crossed out and initialled by Baker.
(https://i.postimg.cc/DftB0RxQ/Baker-affidavit-coke-crossed-out.jpg)
For reference, here's Roy Truly's report.
(https://i.postimg.cc/J7B5fPMF/Roy-S-Truly-FBI-Statement-September-23-1964-Page-2.png)
Whoever wrote Baker's above report also wrote Truly's.
Not only are the way the letters written identical, the spacing between words and numbers are equally identical.
(https://i.postimg.cc/zGYKYr0y/Roy-Truly-compared-to-Marrion-Baker-2.gif)
JohnM
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Not this crapasse again.
• From the stairs you have a clear view of the Vestibule window, you know a clear glass window which is designed to be seen through.
• Baker as he raced up the stairs wasn't making a search of the entire building, he noticed something out of the ordinary and investigated. Baker's priority was to reach the top of the building and the only reason he happened to see Oswald was because the elevator was stuck on an upper floor.
• Truly who came in behind Baker said Oswald was standing just beyond the entrance of the lunchroom.
Mr. BELIN - What did you see that caused you to turn away from going up to the third floor?
Mr. BAKER - As I came out of that stairway running, Mr. Truly had already gone on around, see, and I don't know, as I come around----
Mr. DULLES - Gone on around and up?
Mr. BAKER - He had already started around the bend to come to the next elevation going up, I was coming out this one on the second floor, and I don't know, I was kind of sweeping this area as I come up, I was looking from right to left and as I got to this door here I caught a glimpse of this man, just, you know, a sudden glimpse, that is all it was now, and it looked to me like he was going away from me.
Mr. BELIN - All right. Then what did you do?
Mr. BAKER - I ran on up here and opened this door and when I got this door opened I could see him walking on down.
Mr. DULLES - Had he meanwhile gone on through the door ahead of you?
Mr. BAKER - I can't say whether he had gone on through that door or not. All I did was catch a glance at him, and evidently he was--this door might have been, you know, closing and almost shut at that time.
The view from the stairs, looking right through the vestibule door window into the hallway and the entrance to the lunchroom, which cannot be seen, is to the left
• Baker saw enough of Oswald to calculate that Oswald was hurriedly moving away from Law Enforcement because Oswald moved quite far in the same time that Baker ran from the top of the stairs to the door. By the time Officer Baker reaches the vestibule door, Oswald has now decided to not "hang around" but Oswald is suspiciously hurrying out of the corridor and is now about 20 feet away from Officer Baker?
Mr. BAKER - Evidently he was hurrying because at this point here, I was running, and I ran on over here to this door.
Mr. BELIN - All right. I see a coke machine off on the left. When you saw Oswald after you got to this doorway inside the lunchroom, had he gone as far as the coke machine?
Mr. BAKER - I didn't notice the coke machine or any item in the room there All I was looking at was the man, and he seemed to be approximately 20 feet down there from me.
A plan of the 2nd floor with Baker's initial position when he saw Oswald, indicated by the "B" enclosed with the red box.
Mr. BAKER - At the upper portion of this stairway leading to the second floor, I was just stepping out on to the second floor when I caught this glimpse of this man through this doorway.
Mr. BELIN - Do you want to put a spot there, with the letter "B" at the point you believe you were when you were looking through that door? You put the letter "B" on Exhibit 497 when you first saw the movement.
Mr. BAKER - Yes, sir.
Truly saw Oswald standing just inside the lunchroom.
Mr. BELIN. And where was Lee Harvey Oswald at the time you saw him?
Mr. TRULY. He was at the front of the lunchroom, not very far inside he was just inside the lunchroom door.
Mr. BELIN. All right.
Mr. TRULY. 2 or 3 feet, possibly.
Mr. BELIN. Could you put an "O" where you saw Lee Harvey Oswald?
All right. You have put an "O" on Exhibit 497.
Howlett showing the vestibule door closing(viewed from a different angled) which may have alerted Baker.
And as for the coke comment, it was crossed out and initialled by Baker.
For reference, here's Roy Truly's report.
Whoever wrote Baker's above report also wrote Truly's.
Not only are the way the letters written identical, the spacing between words and numbers are equally identical.
JohnM
::) 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.
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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?
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::) 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
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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
:P...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
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"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 BS:
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.
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:P...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.
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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
:D next will come, "You don't need to..."
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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
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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
No one is disputing the statement was written by someone else.
Undocumented reasons why or how is the BS: you consistently make up
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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.
Baker testified on March 25, 1964. The amended affidavit (probably prepared by FBI agent Richard Burnett) that's in question was signed on September 23, 1964. So there was nothing to clarify at the time of his testimony.
My understanding was that the WC was closing up shop and rushing through affidavits to meet the schedule.
Jean Davison made this point: "Baker's affidavit of Sept 23, 1964 and a similar one from Truly were dated only one day before the Warren Report was officially released, and both their statements were, unlike all the other FBI documents I'm aware of, *handwritten*. IOW, they were prepared in a big hurry. Their statements are footnoted to a WR paragraph on the "rumor" that there was someone else in the lunchroom when Baker confronted Oswald. (Neither Baker or Truly had been specifically asked this in their testimony. Their 9/64 affidavits supplied the explicit answer: no one else was in the lunchroom.) I surmise that someone at the WC realized at the last minute that they needed a "cite" for this statement.""
David Von Pein has more details on it here: https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/07/oswald-baker-truly-and-coca-cola.html
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As stated, I find Oswald the man the most interesting aspect of the JFKA. I’ve read everything there is about him, and my sister-in-law and her husband worked in the Minsk factory at the same time. I think I “know” him about as well as he can be known.
I’m a provisional Lone Nutter but troubled by several aspects of the narrative, including the one I’ll describe here. The standard LN response is, “The evidence says he did it. It doesn’t matter who he was, why he did it, or what was going on inside his head.” Well ...
When he took a shot at Walker (we’ll assume he did), he left behind a detailed note, and Marina said he arrived home in a state of considerable agitation. Compare the JFKA.
1. I’m puzzled by his behavior at the Paine home the evening before the JFKA. He begs Marina to join him in Dallas, makes promises, and gives absolutely no clue he is contemplating the JFKA. He leaves no note.
2. He has long been convinced he is destined for a place in history and has written fairly extensively about his views, but he leaves no explanation or manifesto concerning the JFKA. There is nothing like this in his room on Beckley.
3. He shoots JFK, stashes the rifle, scurries down the stairs, hears Baker and Truly coming up – but then is utterly calm and collected when Baker confronts him and sticks a gun in his stomach.
4. He exits the TSBD, boards a bus, leaves the bus and hails a taxi – but then offers the taxi to an older woman who approaches.
5. He is grilled by Fritz, who is a legend for wheedling confessions out of suspects – but he is so cocky and unflappable that Fritz not only fails to break him but emerges speculating that he has been trained to avoid interrogation.
6. In custody, he tells his brother Robert, “Don’t believe the so-called evidence.”
7. In custody for more than 36 hours, and despite the seemingly compelling evidence against him, he never cracks or gives anything other than flat denials of his involvement in the JFKA and Tippit shooting.
I at least find this all bizarre enough to contemplate that “something more” than the LN narrative may have been going on. It seems to me inadequate to say, "The evidence says he did it and nothing else matters." Yes, Oswald was a massive liar even when lying served no purpose, but all of the above is extremely odd and gives me pause about Oswald as a Lone Nut who just snapped. The problem is, I have no real theory as to what the “something more” might be that would explain his behavior. "He was a wholly innocent patsy" would do it, of course, but that just doesn't fit the evidence unless one postulates a conspiracy so elaborate as to be comical.
Fascinating.
The evidence links Oswald to this crime beyond all doubt. Some things can only be known to Oswald about why he committed this act. Assassinating the president is not a rational act. There are often not rational explanations for the whys. Oswald was smart enough to know that committing this act would result in his arrest or death. That was baked into the decision to do it. The perpetrators themselves likely do not know the real motivations. They can espouse a lot of grievances but none of that explains mass shootings or assassinations. Some people are just wired differently. None of that, however, casts a single iota of doubt about the fact that Oswald did it. The evidence tells its story.
Oswald also had no idea his life was going to end within 48 hrs of his arrest. His confession was all that he had to bargain for his life. If he had gone to trial, it's likely he would have followed the James Earl Ray path to confess and get a life sentence. Then spend the rest of his life hinting that he was involved in some larger conspiracy to stay in the limelight and play conspiracy theorists. But he wasn't going to talk that weekend.
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Baker testified on March 25, 1964. The amended affidavit (probably prepared by FBI agent Richard Burnett) that's in question was signed on September 23, 1964. So there was nothing to clarify at the time of his testimony.
My understanding was that the WC was closing up shop and rushing through affidavits to meet the schedule.
Jean Davison made this point: "Baker's affidavit of Sept 23, 1964 and a similar one from Truly were dated only one day before the Warren Report was officially released, and both their statements were, unlike all the other FBI documents I'm aware of, *handwritten*. IOW, they were prepared in a big hurry. Their statements are footnoted to a WR paragraph on the "rumor" that there was someone else in the lunchroom when Baker confronted Oswald. (Neither Baker or Truly had been specifically asked this in their testimony. Their 9/64 affidavits supplied the explicit answer: no one else was in the lunchroom.) I surmise that someone at the WC realized at the last minute that they needed a "cite" for this statement.""
David Von Pein has more details on it here: https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/07/oswald-baker-truly-and-coca-cola.html
Thanks again, Steve. I now remember reading - possibly in one of the books by one of the WC attorneys - about the circumstances under which those affidavits were prepared. Still, only in the JFKA, where nothing goes smoothly, would the "holding a coke" statement "just happen" to find its way into a draft affidavit and create havoc.
Here is an old thread (2010) from the McAdams forum on Google in which Jean Davison participates and speculates the handwritten affidavits were prepared by an FBI agent who prepared them in advance and simply included the "established myth" about the coke. DVP suggests basically the same thing. Pretty weak, it seems to me, and in any event how this damning statement appeared in the draft affidavit should have been firmly nailed down.
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.assassination.jfk/c/_TSEJPDFU4c/m/LWDpqCFXF94J
It looks like DVP's site may preserve the same thread, but I find it impossible to wade through these endless "and then he said" discussions. I just happened to stumble immediately on Jean's contribution.
Dulles (of all people) somehow knew to ask Truly at the WC specifically whether Oswald was holding "a coke." When Truly said no, Dulles asked whether Oswald was holding any drink. I suppose Dulles could have been informed enough about Oswald's alibi to know he had claimed to have bought a coke.
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Somewhat off-topic, but Bart Kamp does a nice job of rendering highly dubious Mrs. Reid's supposed encounter with a zombie-like, coke-carrying Oswald: http://www.prayer-man.com/tsbd/mrs-robert-reid/.
Apart from this, Baker wrote in a handwritten affidavit at an early date (apparently Nov. 23) that Oswald was wearing a "lt. brown jacket" during the lunchroom encounter. He testified (at length) at the WC that Oswald was wearing a "light brown jacket." Mrs. Reid wrote on Nov. 24 that Oswald was wearing a "white t-shirt." She expanded on Nov. 26 to say that he was wearing a white t-shirt and not wearing or carrying a jacket." Ditto at the WC. Roy Truly told an interviewer immediately before his WC testimony that Oswald was wearing a white t-shirt during the lunchroom encounter and testified at the WC that Oswald had nothing in his hands. But then Mary Bledsoe sees him on the bus in a brown shirt with a hole in the elbow.
Oh, hell, I give up. Maybe I need to take another look at the whole Harvey and Lee thing.
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Somewhat off-topic, but Bart Kamp does a nice job of rendering highly dubious Mrs. Reid's supposed encounter with a zombie-like, coke-carrying Oswald: http://www.prayer-man.com/tsbd/mrs-robert-reid/.
Apart from this, Baker wrote in a handwritten affidavit at an early date (apparently Nov. 23) that Oswald was wearing a "lt. brown jacket" during the lunchroom encounter. He testified (at length) at the WC that Oswald was wearing a "light brown jacket." Mrs. Reid wrote on Nov. 24 that Oswald was wearing a "white t-shirt." She expanded on Nov. 26 to say that he was wearing a white t-shirt and not wearing or carrying a jacket." Ditto at the WC. Roy Truly told an interviewer immediately before his WC testimony that Oswald was wearing a white t-shirt during the lunchroom encounter. But then Mary Bledsoe sees him on the bus in a brown shirt with a hole in the elbow.
Oh, hell, I give up. Maybe I need to take another look at the whole Harvey and Lee thing.
Oswald would have been wearing his tan (light brown) shirt over his white t-shirt. He probably had it unbuttoned part way down so it is easy to understand why some would remember the t-shirt and Baker remembered the shirt as being a jacket. There was really no reason for Reid or Truly to pay close attention to what Oswald was wearing at the time they saw him. Truly didn't consider him a suspect and Reid had no reason to either. Why would they be expected to pay close attention to what he was wearing. Think of how many people you encounter casually during the course of a day. How accurately do you think you could remember what they were wearing? This is why I don't put a lot of faith in human recollections. We tend to remember bits and pieces of what we saw and fill in the blanks with the rest. People just aren't that observant or details. As an example, I saw the Amazon delivery guy drop a package on my porch yesterday. I sort of remember him wearing blue jeans, a blue shirt, and blue cap but I wouldn't bet my monthly Social Security deposit on any of that.
PS. I tried a Banquet pot pie. Not bad but I'm glad I only paid $1 for it.
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Oswald would have been wearing his tan (light brown) shirt over his white t-shirt. He probably had it unbuttoned part way down so it is easy to understand why some would remember the t-shirt and Baker remembered the shirt as being a jacket. There was really no reason for Reid or Truly to pay close attention to what Oswald was wearing at the time they saw him. Truly didn't consider him a suspect and Reid had no reason to either. Why would they be expected to pay close attention to what he was wearing. Think of how many people you encounter casually during the course of a day. How accurately do you think you could remember what they were wearing? This is why I don't put a lot of faith in human recollections. We tend to remember bits and pieces of what we saw and fill in the blanks with the rest. People just aren't that observant or details. As an example, I saw the Amazon delivery guy drop a package on my porch yesterday. I sort of remember him wearing blue jeans, a blue shirt, and blue cap but I wouldn't bet my monthly Social Security deposit on any of that.
PS. I tried a Banquet pot pie. Not bad but I'm glad I only paid $1 for it.
I don't think that quite works. Encountering the presidential assassin would have to have been among the more significant events in Baker's and Reid's dull lives. The difference between a light brown jacket and a white v-neck t-shirt is pretty stark. Baker said "lt. brown jacket" the day of the JFKA and didn't waver at the WC - he even suggested it was over some sort of white shirt. Reid said "white t-shirt" the day after the assassination and "not wearing or carrying a jacket" two days later. This is a far cry from the Amazon delivery guy or even me hunting for my wife in Walmart and having no answer other than "clothes" when some employee asks me what she is wearing.
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I don't think that quite works. Encountering the presidential assassin would have to have been among the more significant events in Baker's and Reid's dull lives.
The problem with that line of thinking is that neither of them knew Oswald was the assassin. Reid had no idea and Baker was suspicious at first but let Oswald go when Truly vouched for him. No reason for him to pay close attention to what Oswald was wearing.
The difference between a light brown jacket and a white v-neck t-shirt is pretty stark. Baker said "lt. brown jacket" the day of the JFKA and didn't waver at the WC -
That was his impression based on trying to remember what he saw, even though at the time he had no reason to take note of it.
he even suggested it was over some sort of white shirt. Reid said "white t-shirt" the day after the assassination and "not wearing or carrying a jacket" two days later. This is a far cry from the Amazon delivery guy or even me hunting for my wife in Walmart and having no answer other than "clothes" when some employee asks me what she is wearing.
If people don't take note of something at the time they observe it, they are not likely to have a vivid memory of it later. Do you think Oswald was wearing a light brown jacket? Do you think he was wearing a regular white shirt or do you think Oswald was wearing a t-shirt. Do you think Reid was accurate when she said Oswald was wearing just a t-shirt. Reiid and Baker's memories conflict with what Oswald was wearing when arrested. There is ample evidence that he was wearing the same tan shirt and white t-shirt when he left the TSBD that he was when arrested. The link is he was wearing that when he got on McWatters' bus. We know that because he had McWatters' transfer in his pocket when arrested. He was also observed by his former landlady on McWatters' bus. She remembered seeing a hole in the elbow and there was a hole in the elbow of the shirt he was wearing when arrested. There is one more piece of evidence that tells us Oswald was wearing his tan shirt when he shot JFK. Fivers matching that shirt were found on the butt plate of the rifle indicating he was wearing that shirt when he fired the shots that killed JFK. He was wearing that shirt when he was arrested. It requires some really bizarre thinking to believe he was not wearing the same tan shirt and white shirt at every place he was seen in between the shots and his arrest.
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The problem with that line of thinking is that neither of them knew Oswald was the assassin. Reid had no idea and Baker was suspicious at first but let Oswald go when Truly vouched for him. No reason for him to pay close attention to what Oswald was wearing.
I understand your zeal for the LN narrative, but I think you're grasping here. Reid (she says) encountered Oswald after she came back from watching the horrific JFKA. She was surprised to encounter Oswald (and only Oswald) on her floor and addressed him about the assassination. These were not ordinary circumstances. Unlike you, I have a difficult time believing she would not have recalled what Oswald was wearing by the time of her first (handwritten) statement THE NEXT DAY and her second one a couple of days later. Recalling an Oswald who was wearing a brownish jacket (or shirt) as wearing only a white t-shirt and specifically as neither wearing nor carrying a jacket would be a remarkably faulty memory.
That was his impression based on trying to remember what he saw, even though at the time he had no reason to take note of it.
"Wearing a lt. brown jacket" was one of the few details Baker noted in his handwritten affidavit that was apparently written THE DAY OF THE EVENT: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338819/m1/5/. He was not having to do much in the way of "trying to remember."
If we're honest, LNers and CTers alike "have a problem" with the reliability of eyewitness and earwitness testimony when it doesn't mesh with what they want to hear and "have no problem" when it fits what they want to hear. There is no reason to think that either Baker or Reid would be unable to remember accurately in these circumstances, yet there is a definite disconnect.
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Still, only in the JFKA, where nothing goes smoothly, would the "holding a coke" statement "just happen" to find its way into a draft affidavit and create havoc.
Excerpts from my "Oswald And The Coke" (https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/07/oswald-baker-truly-and-coca-cola.html) webpage:
DVP SAID: If some conspiracy theorists think that the FBI was covering up something relating to CE3076 (and a lot of CTers do believe that very thing, of course), then why on Earth wouldn't they have simply torn up the original statement with the crossed-out words "drinking a Coke" and the other cross-out and simply re-write the statement without any reference to the Coke at all? They can fake all kinds of evidence, per the conspiracy theorists, but they're unwilling to toss a piece of paper in the trash and re-write a two-page witness statement?
Seems kinda silly, doesn't it?
Officer Baker's 9/23/64 statement is weird, I'll grant the conspiracy theorists that much. It's obviously not Baker's handwriting. It's someone else's. But Baker DID sign it and initial the cross-outs. There's no doubt about that either. If CTers want to think Baker was coerced into crossing out the "Coke" reference, I'll ask again -- Why didn't the FBI simply re-write the whole thing--sans any "Coke" reference--and then have Baker sign the revised statement? That would have taken--what?--an extra 5 minutes?
The fact that CROSS-OUTS exist in that document at all is pretty good proof that the FBI wasn't hiding anything concerning that document.
Heck, they could also have just as easily crossed out the word "Coke" entirely. But they didn't even do that. The word "Coke" can still easily be read underneath Baker's cross-out.
Some cover-up there.
[...]
DVP SAID: The Sept. '64 affidavits were obviously prepared in a rush. And there's no typed version of either (AFAIK). Plus: They aren't notarized by an official Notary Public, which isn't normal for an affidavit either. Instead of a notary, it seems the FBI merely used a "witness" (Shelley and Hargis).
So, quite obviously, the 9/23/64 statements were not "normal" affidavits. And it's just as obvious that those statements were prepared, as Jean Davison suggested in 2010, for the exclusive purpose of confirming that there was nobody else in the lunchroom when Baker and Truly confronted Oswald. That fact becomes obvious [And I later confirmed it via this FBI document (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=59643#relPageId=2)] because I think the only place you'll find those documents used as source material in the Warren Report is with respect to the rumor of others being in the lunchroom with Oswald.
[...]
[FBI Agent] Burnett could have been using Captain Will Fritz' report as a reference for the "drinking a Coke" notation that we see in CE3076. In Fritz' notes detailing his interrogations of Lee Harvey Oswald, Fritz wrote this [which can be found in Commission Exhibit 2003, at 24 H 265, and also in the Warren Report on Page 600]:
"He [Oswald] said he was on the second floor drinking a Coca-Cola when the officer came in."
I think it's possible that the Dallas Police Department could have shared this information with the FBI regarding Fritz' notes.
[...]
IN JANUARY 2024, DVP (that'd be me 😀) ADDED:
It's interesting to note that the late Vincent T. Bugliosi, who wrote the book excerpt pictured below, evidently had no idea at all that today's 21st Century Conspiracy Theorists have invented a brand-new theory regarding the "Second-Floor Lunchroom Encounter". With that ridiculous "new" fantasy theory being, of course: The Lunchroom Encounter Never Happened At All (https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/07/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-973.html).
[And it also seems as though Mr. Bugliosi, in the book excerpt below, thought that Marrion Baker himself wrote out the Sept. 23rd affidavit. But if Vince had studied the Truly & Baker Sep. '64 statements more closely, he would have easily been able to come to the same conclusion about those documents that I (and many others) have reached---i.e., they were written by an FBI agent, probably Richard J. Burnett.] ....
(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXjMMtB9ld-PEEEiPbbwvgJkVVZy5MBkIzjuk1mJpN_DCjqf5lJ1fbGFrcWFxyuNErALlNhISXOy2v8uIPrRuppOOppo0gqxrTmDY-ZrSuw5kuyPFWzLd2O0PMfOKdyAjSQGGdaChs0y7iCTJxk_toC4LPSbDmZlDxCaPVpfLcRRKeXBffOALIT-hnZQ8/s3000/Reclaiming%20History%20Book%20Excerpt%20--%20Lee%20Oswald,%20Marrion%20Baker,%20And%20The%20Coca-Cola.png) (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXjMMtB9ld-PEEEiPbbwvgJkVVZy5MBkIzjuk1mJpN_DCjqf5lJ1fbGFrcWFxyuNErALlNhISXOy2v8uIPrRuppOOppo0gqxrTmDY-ZrSuw5kuyPFWzLd2O0PMfOKdyAjSQGGdaChs0y7iCTJxk_toC4LPSbDmZlDxCaPVpfLcRRKeXBffOALIT-hnZQ8/s8000-h/Reclaiming%20History%20Book%20Excerpt%20--%20Lee%20Oswald,%20Marrion%20Baker,%20And%20The%20Coca-Cola.png)
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DVP -
Yes, it certainly occurred to me that allowing the "holding a coke" affidavit to see the light of day, even with the crossing-out by Baker, cuts against it having any dark significance. Still, considering how critical the issue is, it would have been wonderful if someone had grilled Baker and the FBI agent who (apparently) prepared it about the circumstances of its preparation and what (if anything) was said when Baker crossed it out. My point was more in the vein of how almost spooky it is that the JFKA is plagued with this sort of weirdness at every twist and turn; pretty much nothing is ever clean and simple.
And Bugliosi is certainly correct that Baker's and Truly's emphasis on how calm and collected Oswald was cuts against them having been coached to say the "right" thing. My puzzlement is strictly with this calm and collected behavior.
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DVP -
Yes, it certainly occurred to me that allowing the "holding a coke" affidavit to see the light of day, even with the crossing-out by Baker, cuts against it having any dark significance. Still, considering how critical the issue is, it would have been wonderful if someone had grilled Baker and the FBI agent who (apparently) prepared it about the circumstances of its preparation and what (if anything) was said when Baker crossed it out. My point was more in the vein of how almost spooky it is that the JFKA is plagued with this sort of weirdness at every twist and turn; pretty much nothing is ever clean and simple.
And Bugliosi is certainly correct that Baker's and Truly's emphasis on how calm and collected Oswald was cuts against them having been coached to say the "right" thing. My puzzlement is strictly with this calm and collected behavior.
Compare Oswald's behavior to Rubys.
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I understand your zeal for the LN narrative, but I think you're grasping here. Reid (she says) encountered Oswald after she came back from watching the horrific JFKA. She was surprised to encounter Oswald (and only Oswald) on her floor and addressed him about the assassination. These were not ordinary circumstances. Unlike you, I have a difficult time believing she would not have recalled what Oswald was wearing by the time of her first (handwritten) statement THE NEXT DAY and her second one a couple of days later. Recalling an Oswald who was wearing a brownish jacket (or shirt) as wearing only a white t-shirt and specifically as neither wearing nor carrying a jacket would be a remarkably faulty memory.
"Wearing a lt. brown jacket" was one of the few details Baker noted in his handwritten affidavit that was apparently written THE DAY OF THE EVENT: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338819/m1/5/. He was not having to do much in the way of "trying to remember."
If we're honest, LNers and CTers alike "have a problem" with the reliability of eyewitness and earwitness testimony when it doesn't mesh with what they want to hear and "have no problem" when it fits what they want to hear. There is no reason to think that either Baker or Reid would be unable to remember accurately in these circumstances, yet there is a definite disconnect.
This episode illustrates why I have little faith in eyewitness accounts. Minutes apart Baker said Oswald was wearing a light brown jacket over some type of white shirt, then Reid said he was wearing a white t-shirt with no jacket or shirt over it. Both were partially right but got important details wrong because they simply didn't take note of what Oswald was wearing at the time. Why would they? This is typical of eyewitnesses. Are we supposed to believe that after his encounter with Baker, Oswald took his tan shirt off, walked past Reid with just the white t-shirt, then put it back on when he got on the bus and was spotted wearing the tan shirt by his former landlady. Or does it make more sense that Baker and Reid sort of got it right and sort of got it wrong. Putting it ALL the evidence together I conclude that Oswald was wearing both the tan shirt and white t-shirt when he shot JFK, with the tan shirt either partially or completely unbuttoned and that is what he was wearing when arrested and at all points in between. I also know that conflicts with what several witnesses along the way said and I don't care.
I will never understand why people put so much faith in eyewitnesses and accept what they tell us as established facts. When I see somebody start and argument with "So-and-so said that......", my reaction is STFU. Prove to me that what so-and-so said was accurate. Without corroboration, preferably by hard evidence and not another so-and-so, I'm just not going to buy it.
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This episode illustrates why I have little faith in eyewitness accounts. Minutes apart Baker said Oswald was wearing a light brown jacket over some type of white shirt, then Reid said he was wearing a white t-shirt with no jacket or shirt over it.
Is it astounding unreliability "minutes apart" or is it something more mysterious or even sinister? If two eyewitnesses describe an Airbus and a Huey, is witness unreliability a plausible explanation? Lest we forget, these accounts are bookended by Truly saying a white t-shirt with nothing in his hands and Bledsoe saying a brown shirt with a hole in the elbow. "Witness unreliability" is always an easy way out, but sometimes it just isn't plausible. I don't see it as plausible here. One plausible explanation is that Reid fabricated her account, but this would not eliminate Truly. Surely, we would expect Baker to remember the encounter more clearly than Truly. Just one of them genuine Harvey and Lee mysteries, it seems to me (Lee was in the white t-shirt, in case you're keeping score).
But wait, my fellow CTers: I put on my tinfoil thinking cap while outside feeding my menagerie of feral kitties and had the following epiphany. WHAT IF Reid was not off on WHAT she saw but WHEN she saw it? What if she saw Oswald, coke in hand and clad in the white t-shirt he typically wore while working, exiting the lunchroom BEFORE the JFKA! She either conflated the time or fabricated to make the encounter after the JFKA! Pure speculation, except that it might bolster Oswald's alibi and would solve the evidential mystery as to why Baker and Reid seemingly saw two differently clad Oswalds. Nice, no? You're welcome.
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Is it astounding unreliability "minutes apart" or is it something more mysterious or even sinister? If two eyewitnesses describe an Airbus and a Huey, is witness unreliability a plausible explanation? Lest we forget, these accounts are bookended by Truly saying a white t-shirt with nothing in his hands and Bledsoe saying a brown shirt with a hole in the elbow. "Witness unreliability" is always an easy way out, but sometimes it just isn't plausible. I don't see it as plausible here. One plausible explanation is that Reid fabricated her account, but this would not eliminate Truly. Surely, we would expect Baker to remember the encounter more clearly than Truly. Just one of them genuine Harvey and Lee mysteries, it seems to me (Lee was in the white t-shirt, in case you're keeping score).
But wait, my fellow CTers: I put on my tinfoil thinking cap while outside feeding my menagerie of feral kitties and had the following epiphany. WHAT IF Reid was not off on WHAT she saw but WHEN she saw it? What if she saw Oswald, coke in hand and clad in the white t-shirt he typically wore while working, exiting the lunchroom BEFORE the JFKA! She either conflated the time or fabricated to make the encounter after the JFKA! Pure speculation, except that it might bolster Oswald's alibi and would solve the evidential mystery as to why Baker and Reid seemingly saw two differently clad Oswalds. Nice, no? You're welcome.
If you think eyewitness unreliability is not a factor in these divergent accounts of what Oswald was wearing, then give us a scenario in which all the various witnesses could have correctly described what Oswald was wearing. In lieu of such a scenario, I will continue to chalk up these varying descriptions as evidence of eyewitness reliability. Don't forget to include what Whaley described (a dark shirt with white spots on it, according to my AI). Then there is Earlene Roberts who might have been the best witness because she said she didn't remember what color shirt Oswald was wearing or whether she had ever seen him wearing the jacket he left with. She also answered that she didn't remember to a number of questions. I wish more of these witnesses had simply said they didn't remember instead of confusing the issue by pretending they did.
PS. Oswald has no alibi. He was in the 6th floor sniper's nest at 12:30 firing the shots that killed JFK. That is a mortal lock.
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If you think eyewitness unreliability is not a factor in these divergent accounts of what Oswald was wearing, then give us a scenario in which all the various witnesses could have correctly described what Oswald was wearing. In lieu of such a scenario, I will continue to chalk up these varying descriptions as evidence of eyewitness reliability. Don't forget to include what Whaley described (a dark shirt with white spots on it, according to my AI). Then there is Earlene Roberts who might have been the best witness because she said she didn't remember what color shirt Oswald was wearing or whether she had ever seen him wearing the jacket he left with. She also answered that she didn't remember to a number of questions. I wish more of these witnesses had simply said they didn't remember instead of confusing the issue by pretending they did.
PS. Oswald has no alibi. He was in the 6th floor sniper's nest at 12:30 firing the shots that killed JFK. That is a mortal lock.
There is no iron clad proof Oswald was there at 12:30, even Chief Curry conceded that.
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What gives me pause is that Hosty note about Oswald going out front to watch the parade.
Prayerman looked like a discovery until he became a woman , so the Hosty.note has more or less bern dismissed by LNs to be just a story Oswald made up .
None the less, it’s worth considering the Domino room was were Oswald was at about 12:23 because he picked out Norman and Jarman out of all the set of TSBD employees he could have selected. That’s about the time Norman and Jarman came back into TSBD via the back loading dock door, and they would have passed by the Domino room on their way to get to the west freight elevator.
I’m suspicious of Will Fritz early scribbles of his interrogation of Oswald, especially due to the absence of an attorney or stenographer or a recording which Fritz could have easily made since the FBI did have tape recorders.
So the Fritz scribbled note reference to the 2 “negro” could have been Oswald saying he was in the Domino room when he saw Norman and Jarman come back into the TSBD by the back door. Then Oswald went out to the front LOBBY to watch the parade. An FBI report has Carolyn Arnold stating she looked back at the entrance of TSBD at about 12:25 and thinks she saw Oswald thru the glass wall in the lobby.
If Fritz was is under pressure by LBJ himself that “Oswald is our man” it’s not unreasonable to suspect that Fritz would have excluded details from Oswald statements that would give Oswald an alibi.
Fritz, the guy who disturbs the SN by picking up shells BEFORE they were photographed and comes back later and places MC shells (or throws them per Tom Aleya) back down on the floor.
And that’s just a couple of things. There’s about 20 others things I could list that should give pause , but LNs dismiss these things because the WC report is good enough for them apparently even with chain of custody problems and contradictory statements of where and when items were found.
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This episode illustrates why I have little faith in eyewitness accounts. Minutes apart Baker said Oswald was wearing a light brown jacket over some type of white shirt, then Reid said he was wearing a white t-shirt with no jacket or shirt over it. Both were partially right but got important details wrong because they simply didn't take note of what Oswald was wearing at the time. Why would they? This is typical of eyewitnesses. Are we supposed to believe that after his encounter with Baker, Oswald took his tan shirt off, walked past Reid with just the white t-shirt, then put it back on when he got on the bus and was spotted wearing the tan shirt by his former landlady. Or does it make more sense that Baker and Reid sort of got it right and sort of got it wrong. Putting it ALL the evidence together I conclude that Oswald was wearing both the tan shirt and white t-shirt when he shot JFK, with the tan shirt either partially or completely unbuttoned and that is what he was wearing when arrested and at all points in between. I also know that conflicts with what several witnesses along the way said and I don't care.
I will never understand why people put so much faith in eyewitnesses and accept what they tell us as established facts. When I see somebody start and argument with "So-and-so said that......", my reaction is STFU. Prove to me that what so-and-so said was accurate. Without corroboration, preferably by hard evidence and not another so-and-so, I'm just not going to buy it.
Are we supposed to believe that after his encounter with Baker, Oswald took his tan shirt off, walked past Reid with just the white t-shirt, then put it back on when he got on the bus and was spotted wearing the tan shirt by his former landlady.
Why shouldn’t we believe that? It seems to go together with LHO’s apparent behavior when seen running away from the scene near the Patton and 10th street intersection. (Ditching the white jacket so his appearance would be different due to his then wearing the brown shirt and hopefully making him harder to track.) This is also similar to what “The Fugitive” did on TV that LHO reportedly liked to watch. After shots were fired in Dealey Plaza, LHO did literally become a fugitive. That explanation makes perfect sense to me.
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There is no iron clad proof Oswald was there at 12:30, even Chief Curry conceded that.
That was early in the investigation. Discovery of further evidence and tests on what was found erased all doubt of Oswald's guilt.
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I remember some years ago (2019) when Pat Speer – whom I highly respect – surprised me at the Ed Forum with a post to the effect that he thought Oswald was in fact eating lunch in the domino room and was then outside during the JFKA. Even more surprising was that Larry Hancock agreed with him. I wrote an LN-oriented takedown which DVP thought enough of to post on the McAdams forum and has preserved at his exhaustive site: https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2019/09/. (The link includes give-and-take with Pat and others, and I didn’t read enough this time to know whether I come off as a snarky dolt, which is entirely possible.) The point being, I can certainly articulate an LN response to Oswald’s alibi if called upon to do so. However, it does give me pause that researchers of the caliber of Pat and Larry (who are much higher caliber than I) take the alibi seriously.
I don’t have the emotional attachment to the LN narrative to just keep saying, “Anything that conflicts with or casts doubt on the LN narrative is simply wrong, case closed, shut up and go away.” As I’ve stated, the JFKA is little more for me than a board (and sometime boring) game, and frankly it’s way more fun to play around with “What if?” than to just keep saying, “Oswald did it” like an LN parrot.
In rereading Ruth Paine’s and Marina Oswald's WC testimony about the visit to Irving on November 21, I was reminded of how utterly ordinary the visit was. Both Ruth and Marina believed Oswald had come to Irving to make peace with Marina after an unpleasant phone conversation a couple of days previously. When Ruth arrived home at 5:30 or so, Oswald was on the front lawn with Marina, playing with June. Dinner and the evening were entirely ordinary. When Ruth went out to the garage to paint blocks at 9, Oswald was already asleep in bed (Marina was not and stayed up with Ruth until 11:30). This was when Ruth said she found the light on – meaning that if Oswald was out in the garage it was before 9, yet no one observed him going out there (and the Paine home was tiny – two bedrooms, one bathroom, roughly 1,250 square feet with a single-car garage). Ruth even mentioned JFK’s visit, to which Oswald laconically replied “Ah, yes.”
Marina said Oswald bent over backwards to make peace. He helped her fold and put away diapers and played with the children out on the street. He said he was lonely and repeatedly asked her to join him in Dallas, promising an apartment and washing machine. He became upset but not angry at her refusal to join him right away. She asked him how she might watch JFK’s speech and he said he didn’t know. She said he had been “disturbed for weeks” before the Walker attempt, but she saw nothing like that on this visit. He usually got up before the alarm went off, but this time he slept until it did. He told her he would return on the weekend. She saw no paper bag.
Ordinary.
Yet Oswald ostensibly unpacked the rifle in the garage (Michael Paine said it was tied together inside the blanket), transferred it to the paper bag, then did something with it and exited with it in the morning. Possible, sure – but he would have taken some pretty big risks that neither Ruth nor Marina saw him taking.
Then we have the paper bag itself. Ostensibly, Oswald constructed this at the wrapping station in the TSBD – but when and why? Why take this risk? Ostensibly, he took it to Irving, presumably folded inside his shirt or jacket. But neither Frazier nor Marina heard or saw anything suggesting a crinkly paper bag. He would’ve had to do something with it before playing with June on the lawn, which was apparently minutes after his arrival – but what? We then have Frazier’s and Randle’s stubborn insistence that the bag they saw in the morning was too short (yes, I know, Randle may have originally said three feet), as well as the controversy surrounding the finding of the bag in the TSBD and its oil-free condition.
I don’t say these are deal-killers for the LN narrative, but they are certainly genuine puzzles that can’t just be waved away. Oswald simply doesn’t sound at all like someone who was contemplating a Presidential assassination in a matter of hours. This seems like a rather big deal to me. Instead of counting sheep, one of my favorite sleep-inducing exercises is to try to picture what Oswald actually did – not in broad terms but in very detailed terms – from the morning of November 21 through to the moment of the JFKA. It isn’t as easy to do as the LN narrative makes it sound.
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Are we supposed to believe that after his encounter with Baker, Oswald took his tan shirt off, walked past Reid with just the white t-shirt, then put it back on when he got on the bus and was spotted wearing the tan shirt by his former landlady.
Why shouldn’t we believe that? It seems to go together with LHO’s apparent behavior when seen running away from the scene near the Patton and 10th street intersection. (Ditching the white jacket so his appearance would be different due to his then wearing the brown shirt and hopefully making him harder to track.) This is also similar to what “The Fugitive” did on TV that LHO reportedly liked to watch. After shots were fired in Dealey Plaza, LHO did literally become a fugitive. That explanation makes perfect sense to me.
My thoughts exactly, Oswald's later behaviour with the jacket shows where his mind was, the thought of the spendthrift Oswald discarding a perfectly good jacket easily demonstrates that Oswald would do whatever it took to evade capture.
I've seen some persuasive arguments that Oswald was wearing his white T-shirt when he was shooting from the 6th floor and then Oswald put on his brown shirt when seen by Baker and then it makes sense that Oswald who would have been a bit apprehensive after being seen by the Law, simply wrapped his shirt around his waist when seen by Reid, much like the following image and to be honest, at first I didn't even notice the shirt around her waist! ;)
(https://i.postimg.cc/0y5c2Q3V/megan-fox-060612-4.jpg)
To better visualize the Reid encounter, Oswald was seen by Reid going through the door, pic 27 and they crossed paths at the hand written "XR".
(https://i.postimg.cc/7LfrVS43/ce-479-photos-a.jpg)
JohnM
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LP--
Even the best CT'ers and LNT'ers seem vulnerable to certain CT eccentricities.
Both groups remind me of lawyers, PR representatives or partisans arguing a case.
If I say I have reasonable doubts Gov. JBC held onto his Stetson hat in his right hand after being shot through the right wrist by large slug that tumbled inside his wrist (the WC LNT SBT) an LNT'er will then say my doubts are unreasonable. I say Cyril Wecht agrees with me. The LNT'ers say Wecht was a bum. And so on.
On the CT side, I say I think nothing funny happened at Bethesda, other than perhaps a less-than-stellar autopsy. I am told I work for the CIA.
So it goes.
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LP--
Even the best CT'ers and LNT'ers seem vulnerable to certain CT eccentricities.
Both groups remind me of lawyers, PR representatives or partisans arguing a case.
If I say I have reasonable doubts Gov. JBC held onto his Stetson hat in his right hand after being shot through the right wrist by large slug that tumbled inside his wrist (the WC LNT SBT) an LNT'er will then say my doubts are unreasonable. I say Cyril Wecht agrees with me. The LNT'ers say Wecht was a bum. And so on.
On the CT side, I say I think nothing funny happened at Bethesda, other than perhaps a less-than-stellar autopsy. I am told I work for the CIA.
So it goes.
Maybe Wecht wasn't a bum!
Maybe he was the only one who was right, and the eight other forensic pathologists on the HSCA panel were bums or ... gasp ... compromised by the evil, evil, evil CIA!
That must be it!
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My thoughts exactly, Oswald's later behaviour with the jacket shows where his mind was, the thought of the spendthrift Oswald discarding a perfectly good jacket easily demonstrates that Oswald would do whatever it took to evade capture.
I've seen some persuasive arguments that Oswald was wearing his white T-shirt when he was shooting from the 6th floor and then Oswald put on his brown shirt when seen by Baker and then it makes sense that Oswald who would have been a bit apprehensive after being seen by the Law, simply wrapped his shirt around his waist when seen by Reid, much like the following image and to be honest, at first I didn't even notice the shirt around her waist! ;)
(https://i.postimg.cc/0y5c2Q3V/megan-fox-060612-4.jpg)
To better visualize the Reid encounter, Oswald was seen by Reid going through the door, pic 27 and they crossed paths at the hand written "XR".
(https://i.postimg.cc/7LfrVS43/ce-479-photos-a.jpg)
JohnM
I've seen some persuasive arguments that Oswald was wearing his white T-shirt when he was shooting from the 6th floor and then Oswald put on his brown shirt when seen by Baker and then it makes sense that Oswald who would have been a bit apprehensive after being seen by the Law, simply wrapped his shirt around his waist when seen by Reid, much like the following image and to be honest, at first I didn't even notice the shirt around her waist! ;)
An idea that came to me yesterday is that perhaps LHO had folded and rolled his brown shirt into as small an object as feasible (perhaps about the size of a coke bottle). If he held it in one hand similar to the way he would hold a coke, perhaps Mrs. Reid mistook it to be a coke (after just glancing at it or seeing it “out of the corner of her eye”). There is no way to either confirm this was true or not, but I think it is a possibility that makes sense to me. Your “mileage may vary”.
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TG--
I was addressing the matter of Gov. JBC's wrist, and Wecht's view on that.
I readily concede CT'ers, and LNT'ers, grasp at straws and bash straw-men in making their arguments.
If you think JBC held onto his Stetson hat after being shot through the hat-holding wrist, that is fine.
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LP--
Even the best CT'ers and LNT'ers seem vulnerable to certain CT eccentricities.
Both groups remind me of lawyers, PR representatives or partisans arguing a case.
If I say I have reasonable doubts Gov. JBC held onto his Stetson hat in his right hand after being shot through the right wrist by large slug that tumbled inside his wrist (the WC LNT SBT) an LNT'er will then say my doubts are unreasonable. I say Cyril Wecht agrees with me. The LNT'ers say Wecht was a bum. And so on.
On the CT side, I say I think nothing funny happened at Bethesda, other than perhaps a less-than-stellar autopsy. I am told I work for the CIA.
So it goes.
Since I actually do work for the CIA and we take at least a modicum of pride in the quality of our recruits, I am aghast that anyone would think YOU were one of us. :D :D :D If anyone is interested, the monthly stipend is up to $122.75.
I have not abandoned the idea that JBC's wrist wound may have been a separate wound caused by a fragment from the head shot. Mysteries abound.
Anyone who is unable to acknowledge that Oswald's behavior was rather odd and puzzling for someone who was going to shoot the President in a matter of hours strikes me as closed-minded to an extreme. I can acknowledge the evidence clearly pointing to him while also acknowledging "This is a huge piece that just doesn't seem to fit."
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Anyone who is unable to acknowledge that Oswald's behavior was rather odd and puzzling for someone who was going to shoot the President in a matter of hours strikes me as closed-minded to an extreme. I can acknowledge the evidence clearly pointing to him while also acknowledging "This is a huge piece that just doesn't seem to fit."
Dear F.P.R.,
If long-iron-wieldin' assassins are supposed to be all nervous and fidgety and everything before The Big Event, how in the world could they hit anything while sweatin' and twitchin' so dog-gone much?
-- Tom
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I've seen some persuasive arguments that Oswald was wearing his white T-shirt when he was shooting from the 6th floor and then Oswald put on his brown shirt when seen by Baker and then it makes sense that Oswald who would have been a bit apprehensive after being seen by the Law, simply wrapped his shirt around his waist when seen by Reid, much like the following image and to be honest, at first I didn't even notice the shirt around her waist! ;)
Howard Brennan indicated Oswald was wearing a white t-shirt when he saw him fire the final shot. The problem with that is it doesn't explain the fibers on the butt plate of the rifle which matched the shirt Oswald was wearing when he was arrested. My belief based on the varying descriptions of what Oswad was wearing from the time he fired the shots to the time he was arrested, is that Oswald was wearing his tan shirt but that it was unbuttoned and completely open. That might explain why some witnesses, (Brennan, Reid) remember seeing him in a white t-shirt. I find it much easier to believe they just didn't notice the unbuttoned tan shirt than Oswald was putting that shirt on and off numerous times during his journey from the sniper's nest to the Texas Theater.
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Anyone who is unable to acknowledge that Oswald's behavior was rather odd and puzzling for someone who was going to shoot the President in a matter of hours strikes me as closed-minded to an extreme. I can acknowledge the evidence clearly pointing to him while also acknowledging "This is a huge piece that just doesn't seem to fit."
I find it odd that you pretend to know how a cold blooded killer is going to act before he commits the deed.
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I find it odd that you pretend to know how a cold blooded killer is going to act before he commits the deed.
This is not just any cold blooded killer that we know little if anything about. This is Oswald, someone that we have an understanding of, of what made him tick, of how he acted. I probably know more about his life than any other non-family member (that's pathetic admittedly).
As Marina pointed out in that passage I cited, before making any major decisions in his life he planned things out, showed nervousness during that stage, acted erratically, e.g., beating her, having anxiety/panic attacks in his sleep. There's a record of how he acted. The defection to the USSR, the return to the US, the Walker attempt, the Mexico City trip. Simply choose one: the Walker attempt vs. the JFK assassination.
In the assassination we don't see anything resembling that pattern.
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What seems to be lost in the shuffle is that how he acted is evidence. I guarantee you, the things that trouble me would have been emphasized at trial by the defense and might have gone a long way toward "reasonable doubt." This is why I always objected to those who insist on playing defense counsel for Oswald and trying to create reasonable doubt. A criminal trial - which there is obviously never going to be, and wasn't from the moment Ruby shot Oswald - is an entirely different inquiry from the verdict of history. Especially with a Texas jury, it is not at all inconceivable to me that Oswald might have had a fair shot (no pun intended) at being found not guilty. As with OJ, "not guilty" simply means the jurors didn't think the prosecution had proved guilt beyond reasonable doubt; it doesn't mean "innocent" and wouldn't preclude the verdict of history being that Oswald was a lone assassin. I agree with those who object that the WC was too much a one-sided prosecution of Oswald rather than an objective investigation into historical truth.
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This is not just any cold blooded killer that we know little if anything about. This is Oswald, someone that we have an understanding of, of what made him tick, of how he acted. I probably know more about his life than any other non-family member (that's pathetic admittedly).
I am fully aware of Oswald's life history. I have no idea what made him tick. He gave few clues. I can only guess why he killed JFK or took the shot at General Walker. I have no idea if Maria's refusal to reconcile was the last straw that made him go ahead with the assassination. He clearly intended to do that when he returned to Irving on Thursday night with a makeshift paper bag. Would he have changed his mind if she had agreed to get back together. Maybe. Who knows? I sure don't.
I have no idea if he had any plan for after he did the deed. I think he was surprised he escaped the TSBD, but that is no more than a guess. I have no idea where he was going or what he intended to do after he retrieved his handgun from his rooming house. Nobody knows what was going on inside Oswald's head because he didn't tell anyone and left behind no manifesto or any other writings that might have explained why he did what he did.
As Marina pointed out in that passage I cited, before making any major decisions in his life he planned things out, showed nervousness during that stage, acted erratically, e.g., beating her, having anxiety/panic attacks in his sleep. There's a record of how he acted. The defection to the USSR, the return to the US, the Walker attempt, the Mexico City trip. Simply choose one: the Walker attempt vs. the JFK assassination.
In the assassination we don't see anything resembling that pattern.
I think it is folly to try to make sense of a senseless act.
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What seems to be lost in the shuffle is that how he acted is evidence. I guarantee you, the things that trouble me would have been emphasized at trial by the defense and might have gone a long way toward "reasonable doubt." This is why I always objected to those who insist on playing defense counsel for Oswald and trying to create reasonable doubt. A criminal trial - which there is obviously never going to be, and wasn't from the moment Ruby shot Oswald - is an entirely different inquiry from the verdict of history. Especially with a Texas jury, it is not at all inconceivable to me that Oswald might have had a fair shot (no pun intended) at being found not guilty. As with OJ, "not guilty" simply means the jurors didn't think the prosecution had proved guilt beyond reasonable doubt; it doesn't mean "innocent" and wouldn't preclude the verdict of history being that Oswald was a lone assassin. I agree with those who object that the WC was too much a one-sided prosecution of Oswald rather than an objective investigation into historical truth.
There is a big difference between OJ and Oswald. OJ was a Hall of Fame football player, a TV commentator, an actor, and a popular celebrity. He also had a million dollar defense team working for him. Oswald would have had none of those going for him. The evidence was more than sufficient to erase reasonable doubt about his guilt. Oswald's only chance would have been if there was a right wing extremist on the jury who hated JFK and was glad he got killed. I'm sure the prosecution would try to weed those people out during voir dire, but jurors sometimes lie to hide their true feelings. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that. All the defense needed was one such person on the jury to block a guilty verdict. Of course there would be a retrial and I doubt the same scenario would play out.
Earl Warren had been a prosecutor and I read somewhere that he said it would have been a short trial and an easy conviction. I have no reason to doubt that.
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This is not just any cold blooded killer that we know little if anything about. This is Oswald, someone that we have an understanding of, of what made him tick, of how he acted. I probably know more about his life than any other non-family member (that's pathetic admittedly).
As Marina pointed out in that passage I cited, before making any major decisions in his life he planned things out, showed nervousness during that stage, acted erratically, e.g., beating her, having anxiety/panic attacks in his sleep. There's a record of how he acted. The defection to the USSR, the return to the US, the Walker attempt, the Mexico City trip. Simply choose one: the Walker attempt vs. the JFK assassination.
In the assassination we don't see anything resembling that pattern.
Dear Steve M.,
Why would anyone believe what Marina -- whom true defector KGB Major Pyotr Deriabin said had to be at the very least a low-level KGB informant to be allowed to marry her Handsome Prince Charming and leave The Worker's Paradise with him -- said about anything?
-- Tom
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LP--
You ask interesting questions.
Veteran researcher Larry Hancock wrote a book recently on LHO, with David Boylan.
They contend LHO was only a wayward, antsy earnest Marxist, and they agree with you that LHO's behavior was not that of a guilty party.
I posited to Hancock (a very civil and smart fellow) that LHO had taken a potshot at Walker, and Hancock somewhat demurred. Given the evidence, I contend LHO at least took a shot in Walker's direction, and also likely had a ride that night.
Meaning LHO had confederates.
My take is LHO's immediate post-JFK behavior is that of someone complicit or thought he had been framed, or even both (he was left holding the bag). Johnny Calvin Brewer's testimony is interesting. LHO furtive behavior in the alcove of Brewer's shoe store, and then sneaking into the Texas Theater...not that of someone uninvolved in the JFKA. This, after LHO armed himself.
But human nature is not always predictable, and LHO was likely (in my layman's opinion) suffering from some forms of mental illness. He may have been cool and calm in police custody...but LHO also panicked and shot JD Tippit dead.
Caveat emptor, and draw your own conclusions.
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LP--
You ask interesting questions.
Veteran researcher Larry Hancock wrote a book recently on LHO, with David Boylan.
They contend LHO was only a wayward, antsy earnest Marxist, and they agree with you that LHO's behavior was not that of a guilty party.
Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one.
I posited to Hancock (a very civil and smart fellow) that LHO had taken a potshot at Walker, and Hancock somewhat demurred. Given the evidence, I contend LHO at least took a shot in Walker's direction, and also likely had a ride that night.
In lieu of evidence, you are free to speculate about such things.
Meaning LHO had confederates.
If only there was evidence of such confederates.
My take is LHO's immediate post-JFK behavior is that of someone complicit or thought he had been framed, or even both (he was left holding the bag). Johnny Calvin Brewer's testimony is interesting. LHO furtive behavior in the alcove of Brewer's shoe store, and then sneaking into the Texas Theater...not that of someone uninvolved in the JFKA. This, after LHO armed himself.
Somewhere in the above there might be a hint of logical thought but I can't find it.
But human nature is not always predictable, and LHO was likely (in my layman's opinion) suffering from some forms of mental illness. He may have been cool and calm in police custody...but LHO also panicked and shot JD Tippit dead.
Caveat emptor, and draw your own conclusions.
Well, at least you finished on a high note.