JFK Assassination Forum

Mark is going to call me a dog with a bone next  , but here's the latest ...

Reviewing the 2025 thread at the Ed Forum, I see the connection Ben is making. He is assuming that Sawyer’s WC testimony, in which he simply confirmed the physical description that he relayed, was referring to the citizen described in the 1/9/64 Airtel as having seen someone running from the TSBD with a rifle. (I was wrong in one statement above: The transmission to all units by Sgt. Henslee did refer to the suspect as “believed to be armed with a .30 caliber rifle.”) But as I have stated, the Airtel is not Sawyer speaking – it is a multiple-hearsay description of what Shanklin is telling Hoover that Malley told him that Batchelor told Drain as to what Sawyer had supposedly said (and we don’t know where Batchelor heard it). There is no compelling reason to make the connection Ben is making – i.e., that Sawyer at the WC was confirming the part about someone running from the TSBD with a rifle.

The provenance of the Airtel is odd. It stands alone, among many other documents, in FBI Oswald Headquarters File (105-82555), Section 64, page 117: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=57753#relPageId=117.

At the 2025 thread, Steve Thomas provided further information (as previously gathered by Bill Simpich):

On January 19, 1964, Hoover responded to Rankin concerning the description of Oswald that was broadcast. This is in the same HQ File, page 109: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=57753#relPageId=109. Hoover wrote that the DPD said that the description was “by an unidentified citizen who had observed an individual approximating Oswald’s description running from the Texas School Book Depository Building immediately after the assassination. Although this citizen was requested by Dallas authorities to proceed to the Sheriff’s Office for further questioning, he apparently never appeared as the Dallas Sheriff’s Office can locate no record on this citizen.” (How weird would that have been?)

Unless Hoover is just making stuff up to make the issue go away – entirely possible – it sounds as though he had at least a bit more information than was contained in the Airtel. Petrhaps there was a follow-up call that made clear there was nothing on whoever supposedly saw the man running from the TSBD.

On November 12, 1964 – after the WR had been issued – Hoover reiterated to Rankin that the information for the transmitted description came from an unidentified citizen and stated that he didn’t think further follow-up would be productive: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60311#relPageId=72. A follow-up letter from Rankin to Hoover refers to Hoover’s letter of November 12 and the desirability of nailing down the source of the description: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60312#relPageId=33. Simpich says there didn’t seem to be anything further.

At the WC, all that Sawyer could remember was that the information for the description came “mainly from one witness,” a “white man” who “wasn’t young” but “wasn’t old” and who “claimed to have seen the rifle barrel in the fifth or sixth floor of the building, and claimed to have been able to see the man up there.”

That’s Brennan.

My guess: The whole “man running from the rear of the TSBD with a rifle” is a red herring, all flowing from the multiple-hearsay 1/9/64 Airtel. It is inconceivable that if someone had actually said he had seen a man running from the rear of the TSBD with a rifle, Sawyer would have failed to immediately relay this critical information to anyone and would have simply said, “Go on down to the Sheriff’s Office and tell them your story, willya?” At the Ed Forum, however, the whole thing spiraled off into the conspiracy ozone.

All available evidence points to the KGB realizing Oswald was of little to no value to them and happily letting him leave the country for good in 1962. What evidence do you have that supports in any way the notion that they got involved with him again as it pertains to the assassination?

    You claim the DPD did "release" the car. Please provide your Proof that the DPD did "release" the car. Do you know of a single image showing that car NOT being parked in front of the TSBD following the Kill Shot that afternoon?  You are making all kinds of claims that are totally unfounded. I am waiting on You to provide the Evidence to support your Baseless claims.

You are unable to support your claim that the car was ever taken into evidence. You continue to assume things you cannot prove. SOP for you.

Thank-you for demonstrating my point that “LNs have convinced themselves that JBC is reacting to his torso wound by z230 without looking at the evidence first - just by watching the zfilm.”

The Z-film is the best piece of evidence we have of what happened. We also have JBC's account of how he reacted after being shot in the back and we see him doing what he described in the Z-film. Your willful blindness and refusal to acknowledge what is obvious to most people doesn't change the fact he was shot before Z230.

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.