JFK Assassination Forum

Quoting Lance Payette from 10 years ago [at The Education Forum]....

[Quote On:]

I have today [March 4, 2016] sent the following inquiry to the Postal Museum Library at the Smithsonian Institution:

I am an Arizona lawyer. A "controversy" has arisen within the community of researchers studying the assassination of President Kennedy. It concerns the punch-card Postal Money Order that Lee Harvey Oswald ostensibly used to purchase his rifle in March of 1963. The Postal Money Order is stamped on the back with the rifle seller's deposit stamp for its account at the First National Bank of Chicago. The First National Bank of Chicago, a Federal Reserve member bank, then submitted the Postal Money Order to its regional Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago for processing and payment as the agent for the Postal Service. The Postal Money Order was subsequently imprinted with a File Locator Number by the Treasury Department and placed into storage at the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, Virginia. After the assassination, the Postal Money Order was retrieved from the Federal Records Center at the request of Postal officials and the Secret Service. A fringe group within the research community maintains that the Postal Money Order is demonstrably "fake" because it does not bear "bank stamps" from the First National Bank of Chicago and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. I realize this is a highly technical and esoteric question, but I personally have exhausted all online resources in researching it. I am hopeful that the Library of the Postal Museum may have someone within its circle of contacts who is highly knowledgeable about the processing of Postal Money Orders in the era of 1963 and who perhaps can shed some light on this issue. Thanks very much indeed for any assistance you can provide.

I have already received a response from a real live human being, saying he will be "back in touch."

SIX MONTHS LATER, LANCE SAID:

Since I promised to close the loop on my contact with the Postal History Museum at the Smithsonian Institution about the need for bank endorsements on postal money orders, I should note that I never heard from them again after the first flurry of emails (all in one day). I didn't follow up since I know perfectly well what happened: The guy with whom I was communicating went to his supervisor, who said "You're not diving into the JFK assassination on our time, bub." My mistake was attempting to put my questions in context by telling him we were talking about the Klein's money order.

-- Lance Payette; March 4—September 1, 2016

https://educationforum.com/Original 2016 Forum Thread

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Too bad that Lance never received a final response from the Postal Museum. They probably could have added significantly to the discussion.

I actually did follow-up about five years ago and had more "substantive" but still non-helpful discussions. I am convinced PMOs are sort of like postage stamps. They serve a very useful purpose in the real world, and there is an active collector market for old and interesting ones, but pretty much no one outside the JFKA really cares "exactly how they were processed" or "what one should look like after it's been processed." Probably someone from the Postal Service who worked on the forensic side of identifying forged and fraudulent PMOs during that era would be the actual voice of authority. Either that or some $1.25 an hour bank clerk named Shirley at a bank in Boise who was really diligent about her job and actually gave a sh*t as to how this stuff worked. I doubt there is anyone alive who could add to what I have said above regarding bank stamps.

I realize my original post is too long to be read by anyone this side of a complete PMO crank. Ditto for the discussion DVP linked, which will leave you crosseyed and even more confused. I just wanted to preserve my 100 hours of work for posterity. The Extreme ADD version would be something like this:

1. PMOs are divided into distinct historical eras. Applying rules and regulations from one era to another is the route to total confusion.

2. 1864-1898: PMOs had to be cashed at the issuing Post Office. The original payee could endorse a PMO over to one endorsee, but no more.

3. 1899-1951: PMOs could be cashed at banks, and the vast majority were. When the bank - any bank - collected from the Post Office, it had to stamp the PMO with its endorsement, but the bank stamp was not deemed an endorsement - so a bank could cash a PMO with two endorsements without worrying that its stamp would be deemed a prohibited third endorsement.

4. 1951: PMOs go to punch-card format. The Federal Reserve takes over the processing and payment of PMOs as agent for the Post Office. The Post Office's only role is to audit paid PMOs for irregularities before they are placed in storage. Federal Reserve banks are agents for the Post Office. Once a PMO enters the Federal Reserve System, there is no need for bank stamps. If a PMO is paid by a Federal Reserve bank, as the Klein's PMO was, there will be no bank stamps - only the depositor's endorsement. If the PMO is paid by a bank that is not a Federal Reserve member, as thousands of state-chartered banks aren't, that bank will have to stamp (endorse) the PMO before transmitting it to a clearinghouse bank for entry into the Federal Reserve System.

5. 1957-63: In 1957, the Federal Records Center starts assigning a File Locator Number to every paid Treasury check so it can easily be located if needed. From 1962 to early 1963, PMOs are incorporated into the system and start receiving File Locator Numbers as shown at the top of the Klein's PMO. This means the PMO went through the entire banking and auditing system and was placed into storage.

6. 1973: PMOs go to paper format with preprinted ABA routing numbers. I know little to nothing about the processing except that it is now almost entirely electronic and has nothing to do with how the Klein's PMO would have been processed.

There ya go, my ADD-challenged readers.

Thanks David, I was pretty sure before but with that higher quality clip, the car's bumper definitely strikes Ruby as he slightly buckles, also it's easier to see the bottom of the jacket partially obscure the headlight.



JohnM

Thanks John and David, it has been quite a few years ago that I was saying that it looked to me like the car struck Ruby. And there was a lot of people who disagreed. We didn’t have these high quality GIFs to go by. It is great to know I wasn’t “seeing things that I wanted to see”. This sometimes happens to me, and others I believe.

What some of us might have interpreted as Ruby lunging toward (or even kicking) LHO seems to me to be Ruby instinctively moving rapidly (as he sensed the car graze his leg) to get out of the car’s way and to keep his feet under him. At the same time the officers were grabbing at him and trying to get the gun and subdue Ruby. It’s a very interesting clip of some fast acting men.

Quoting Lance Payette from 10 years ago [at The Education Forum]....

[Quote On:]

I have today [March 4, 2016] sent the following inquiry to the Postal Museum Library at the Smithsonian Institution:

I am an Arizona lawyer. A "controversy" has arisen within the community of researchers studying the assassination of President Kennedy. It concerns the punch-card Postal Money Order that Lee Harvey Oswald ostensibly used to purchase his rifle in March of 1963. The Postal Money Order is stamped on the back with the rifle seller's deposit stamp for its account at the First National Bank of Chicago. The First National Bank of Chicago, a Federal Reserve member bank, then submitted the Postal Money Order to its regional Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago for processing and payment as the agent for the Postal Service. The Postal Money Order was subsequently imprinted with a File Locator Number by the Treasury Department and placed into storage at the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, Virginia. After the assassination, the Postal Money Order was retrieved from the Federal Records Center at the request of Postal officials and the Secret Service. A fringe group within the research community maintains that the Postal Money Order is demonstrably "fake" because it does not bear "bank stamps" from the First National Bank of Chicago and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. I realize this is a highly technical and esoteric question, but I personally have exhausted all online resources in researching it. I am hopeful that the Library of the Postal Museum may have someone within its circle of contacts who is highly knowledgeable about the processing of Postal Money Orders in the era of 1963 and who perhaps can shed some light on this issue. Thanks very much indeed for any assistance you can provide.

I have already received a response from a real live human being, saying he will be "back in touch."

SIX MONTHS LATER, LANCE SAID:

Since I promised to close the loop on my contact with the Postal History Museum at the Smithsonian Institution about the need for bank endorsements on postal money orders, I should note that I never heard from them again after the first flurry of emails (all in one day). I didn't follow up since I know perfectly well what happened: The guy with whom I was communicating went to his supervisor, who said "You're not diving into the JFK assassination on our time, bub." My mistake was attempting to put my questions in context by telling him we were talking about the Klein's money order.

-- Lance Payette; March 4—September 1, 2016

https://educationforum.com/Original 2016 Forum Thread

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Too bad that Lance never received a final response from the Postal Museum. They probably could have added significantly to the discussion.

Tom Graves and John Newman contend CIA officer and KGB mole Bruce Solie was manipulating or running LHO somehow.

Dear "BC,"

Just because James Angleton's confidant, mentor, and mole-hunting superior, probable KGB mole Bruce Solie, may have sent Oswald to Moscow in October 1959 as an ostensible "dangle" in a (unbeknownst to Angleton and Oswald) planned-to-fail hunt for "Popov's U-2 Mole (Solie) in the wrong part of the CIA, it doesn't necessarily mean that Solie or the KGB encouraged and/or programmed self-described Marxist Oswald to kill JFK.

In other words, widdle self-described Marxist Oswald may have decided to kill JFK all by him widdle self-described Marxist self.

-- "TG"

I think he was jealous of Clint Hill's fame/notoriety and decided to make his role on that fateful day larger than it really was.

Both lied to cover their ass. Hung over from the night before.