JFK Assassination Forum
JFK Assassination Discussion & Debate => JFK Assassination Discussion & Debate => Topic started by: Jerry Freeman on June 24, 2020, 04:12:27 AM
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I have posted a few times asking...Where did the lunchroom story come from?
Everyone knows the tale...Patrolman Marrion Baker sees Oswald in the 2nd floor lunchroom buying a Coke just a couple of minutes after the shots were fired.
He has his gun drawn and pointed at Oswald's belly.
Roy Truly vouches for Lee telling the cop that he is one of his boys and the patrolman continues his search upwards.
Hence a separate thread begging to have an explanation.
Below is one post on this point which was ignored probably because of tit for tat nitpicking on unrelated to the subject as usual scuttlebutt.
I searched for actual testimony that supports the account as it is usually regarded and found contradictions---------
[Could it then] be that the Lunchroom Encounter story actually never really happened? At least not the way it was ultimately portrayed.
Review Bakers statement on Nov 22... As we reached the third or fourth floor I saw a man walking away from the stairway. I called to the man and he turned around and came back toward me. The manager said, "I know that man, he works here." I then turned the man loose and went up to the top floor. The man I saw was a white man approximately 30 years old, 5'9", 165 pounds, dark hair and wearing a light brown jacket.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/baker_m3.htm
No mention of a lunchroom.
Not a white T-shirt but a light brown jacket.
No mention of a soda or soda purchase.
By testimony time though, Officer Baker seemed certain that the incident happened on the second floor...
Mr. BAKER - As I came out to the second floor there, Mr. Truly was ahead of me, and as I come out I was kind of scanning, you know, the rooms, and I caught a glimpse of this man walking away from this--I happened to see him through this window in this door. I don't know how come I saw him, but I had a glimpse of him coming down there.
Mr. DULLES - Where was he coming from, do you know?
Mr. BAKER - No, sir. All I seen of him was a glimpse of him go away from me.
Mr. BELIN - What did you do then?
Mr. BAKER - I ran on over there...
Baker brings up the confrontation being in the lunchroom.
However, there was still no mention of a soda or soda purchase in Baker's testimony.
So where did the soda story come from?
As far as I can tell...the story came from Oswald himself....
Oswald told police he had eaten his lunch on the first floor and gone up to the second to purchase a coke when he encountered an officer (R182).
It would seem that if an Oswald sighting were on a higher floor, it would appear more damaging to Oswald.
The Warren Commission people never seemed to be too concerned with statements on affidavits taken immediately after the assassination.
More about the lunchroom yarn...Review pages 29,30, & 31 from this publication by Jerome Kroth----
https://books.google.com/books?id=VStz_I0QcB0C&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
See the far reaching claim [by this Jim Moore person] that Oswald would not have purchased a Coke because he only liked Dr Pepper....thus demonstrating his [Freudian?] suppressed nervousness :-\
In Roy Truly's testimony, he mentions nothing about a soda or soda purchase so where DID this --
--Oswald was buying a Coke when the policeman confronted him lore come from?
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Here is what was decided to tell in the Report---
Page 648
Speculation.--After firing the shots, Oswald could not have disposed of the rifle and descended the stairs to the lunchroom in time to get a drink from a soft drink machine and be there when Patrolman Baker came in.
Commission finding.---A series of time tests made by investigators and by Roy S. Truly and Patrolman M. L. Baker at the request of the Commission, show that it was possible for Oswald to have placed the rifle behind a box and descended to the lunchroom on the second floor before Patrolman Baker and Truly got up there. Oswald did not have a soft drink bottle in his hand at the time he was confronted by Baker and he was not standing by the soft, drink machine. He was just entering the lunchroom; Baker caught a glimpse of him through the glass panel in the door leading to the lunchroom vestibule.
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It's abundantly clear as to what you're implying, pal: I'd be careful about the way you characterize the forum's donation initiative.
Clueless Chapman doesn’t realize that this is another Duncan auto-substitution.
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THE NOBODY WHO SHOT THE SOMEBODY HAD HELP
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NOBODY CARES
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The same can be said for Bill Chapman.
And yet here you are
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Clueless Chapman doesn’t realize that this is another Duncan auto-substitution.
NOBODY CARES
First time I've seen Duncan auto-substitute his donation initiative, but realized that when I saw it again, this time in a Pat Speer post about 20 minutes ago.
You care enough to yell at me. A little frustrated, John?
Glad to see I'm raising your BP
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One thing we can count on.... Chapman to come in and completely FUBAR the entire topic.
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A possible scenario.
As Oswald states, he finished his lunch, treated himself to a Coke and decided to make his way outside. As he reached the vestibule of the front entrance he is confronted by Baker, presumably because he is the only person making his way outside (there are multiple sources indicating the confrontation took place here). Truly gives him the all-clear and he makes his way outside. The problem with this is obvious - if Oswald is the shooter how did he make it down from the sixth floor to the front entrance in approximately 30 seconds.
The encounter in the second floor lunchroom is an attempt to put him in a position that is possible for the shooter to reach in the allotted time.
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For sure Chapman's is worse than Alzheimer's.
I remember that you're an OAKer
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What gets me about the Oswald did it people...when it suits their purpose Oswald told the truth----
Oswald admitted to Fritz that he was stopped by a Police Officer in the Lunchroom.
John Mytton
Mr. BALL. At that time didn't you know that one of your officers, Baker, had seen Oswald on the second floor?
Mr. FRITZ. They told me about that down at the bookstore; I believe Mr. Truly or someone told me about it, told me they had met him--I think he told me, person who told me about, I believe told me that they met him on the stairway, but our investigation shows that he actually saw him in a lunchroom, a little lunchroom where they were eating, and he held his gun on this man and Mr. Truly told him that he worked there, and the officer let him go. [did Fritz ever stumble on that stuff]
Mr. BALL. Did you question Oswald about that?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I asked him about that and he knew that the officer stopped him all right.
Mr. BALL. Did you ask him what he was doing in the lunchroom?
Mr. FRITZ. He said he was having his lunch. He had a cheese sandwich and a Coca-Cola.
Mr. BALL. Did he tell you he was up there to get a Coca-Cola?
Mr. FRITZ. He said he had a Coca-Cola.
https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,2253.msg64913.html#msg64913
So, Will Fritz actually only testified to what he said Oswald told him.
The testimony from a variety of sources all corroborate the 2nd floor lunchroom encounter, as they say in the classics "All roads lead to Rome".
And as for Baker being confused about the floor he was on is perfectly understandable because he first walks up steps to get into the Depository and then enters a closed stairwell which has a set of stairs leading to a platform and then he leaves the platform and walks up another set of stairs to the next floor.
JohnM
Testimony from a variety of sources [Oswald] :D All roads lead to Rome :D The only one that was confused was Marrion Baker :D Which was perfectly understandable :D
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Bear in mind that Will Fritz' notes weren't contrived until probably after Oswald was dead.
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For the sources on the confrontation in the vestibule go to https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/anatomy-of-the-second-floor-lunchroom-encounter-excerpts
A good example is this:
In the Washington Post of November 23, Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry is quoted:
“As an officer rushed into the building Oswald rushed out. The policeman permitted him to pass after the building manager told the policeman that Oswald was an employee.”
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I have written two articles on the Baker-Oswald encounter:
The Baker-Oswald Encounter: Proof that Oswald Did Not Shoot JFK?
https://miketgriffith.com/files/bakerlho.htm
Where Was Oswald During the Shooting?
https://miketgriffith.com/files/wherewasoswald.htm
There is no way Oswald could have gone from the sixth floor to the second floor (1) in time to be seen by Baker, (2) without being seen by Truly, and (3) without being seen or heard by the witnesses who were on or near the stairs.
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Review the testimony of postal inspector Harry Holmes....
Mr. BELIN. Now, Mr. Holmes, I wonder if you could try and think if there is anything else that you remember Oswald saying about where he was during the period prior or shortly prior to, and then at the time of the assassination?
Mr. HOLMES. Nothing more than I have already said. If you want me to repeat that?
Mr. BELIN. Go ahead and repeat it.
Mr. HOLMES. See if I say it the same way?
Mr. BELIN. Yes.
Mr. HOLMES. He said when lunchtime came he was working in one of the upper floors with a Negro.
The Negro said, "Come on and let's eat lunch together."
Apparently both of them having a sack lunch. And he said, "You go ahead, send the elevator back up to me and I will come down just as soon as I am finished."
And he didn't say what he was doing. There was a commotion outside, which he later rushed downstairs to go out to see what was going on. He didn't say whether he took the stairs down. He didn't say whether he took the elevator down.
But he went downstairs, and as he went out the front, it seems as though he did have a coke with him, or he stopped at the coke machine, or somebody else was trying to get a coke, but there was a coke involved.
He mentioned something about a coke. But a police officer asked him who he was, and just as he started to identify himself, his superintendent came up and said, "He is one of our men." And the policeman said, "Well, you step aside for a little bit."
Then another man rushed in past him as he started out the door, in this vestibule part of it, and flashed some kind of credential and he said, "Where is your telephone, where is your telephone, and said I am so and so, where is your telephone."
And he said, "I didn't look at the credential. I don't know who he said he was, and I just pointed to the phone and said, 'there it is,' and went on out the door."
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My bad on the use of the word 'vestibule' when I meant the lobby at the front entrance (rookie mistake) but there does seem to be quite a few references to an encounter as Oswald was on his way out of the front entrance which I can't discount at the moment until I've got a better grasp of things. I'm not familiar with the Prayer Man stuff but if it means identifying the shadowy figure in the corner as Oswald I would need to see something really convincing to get me there. As I said somewhere else, to me it looks like that person is lighting a cigarette (or holding some kind of light source up to their face which I'm interpreting as a match). The problem I'm having at the moment is that there are so many contradictory pieces of testimony/statements/reports etc. that it seems possible to support almost any scenario.
The big problem I'm having at the moment is that if Oswald really is a patsy who is being set up it doesn't seem like anyone is monitoring him or controlling his movements. It's like he's free to go anywhere he wants which means he could be outside be photographed or talking with a group of people at the time of the assassination. Not a great plan. Also, if it is this massive operation it all seems to hinge on whether Bonnie Ray Williams finishes his chicken lunch in time.