JFK Assassination Forum

It does pack quite a kick. But Oswald knew that because he had fired it many times before.

cite?

Mr. Rankin: …there are a good many stories about his practicing with a gun, you know, around various rifle ranges and so forth,
we have checked those out and none of them stand up at all. (Executive Session | Jan. 27, 1964)

That is why he used the strap and put the rifle on boxes. 

How does he shoot a rifle mounted on boxes out of a window, that is about 12 inches from the floor and only open about 13 inches?

I'm not following what windmill you're tilting at. Who said it meant a damn thing? It is what it is. Whether we're talking about the existence or nonexistence of a deity, the nature of ultimate reality, the ontological truth about the UFO phenomenon or even the historical truth about the JFKA, all we each can do is diligently inform ourselves, weigh the evidence and arguments as best we can, and arrive at the best set of convictions of which we are able. My direct experience with the UFO phenomenon is obviously going to factor into my thinking more than the thinking of anyone else, but even here I have to examine the event itself and my own thought processes and biases. That's why epistemology is such a fascinating branch of philosophy, at least to me.

An interesting philosophical question, it occurs to me is why posters such as yourself, who deal almost exclusively in snide one-liners, seem so perpetually dismissive and angry about almost everything - as though every thread were some sort of emotional, hot-button issue for you? It's quite fascinating. Perhaps you could seriously address why you consider this a worthwhile use of your time?

it's quite simple really. A nutter's creed, often times abused:
Witness testimony is the most unreliable. Therefore mistaken. whenever.

An interesting alternative to the list of "JFKA Mystery Deaths" would be an alternative list of entirely respectable, upstanding, hard-working, decent Americans with loving families whose reputations were completely shredded, often while they were still alive, by dark speculation and innuendo from JFKA conspiracy cranks. The Bruce Solie memorial site, for crying out loud, has been befouled by 33rd Degree Conspiracy Loon "Linda" (I forget her last name), who sounds like she belongs in a mental institution: https://www.findagrave.com/user/profile/48291572. There ought to be a law, as the saying goes.

TG--

For that matter, liddle-widdle LHO, self-defined "Marxist," and self-imagined great thinker, may have chosen to go to Russia all on his own liddle-widdle initiative, and Bruce Solie may have been an ordinary CIA'er, nothing more than a less-than-stellar desk jockey. 

If you think LHO could conceive and execute the JFKA on his own...surely LHO could venture to Russia on his own, a much less intrepid exercise.

My guess is LHO had sponsors or confederates for both actions.

Dear "BC,"

You're absolutely right.

"Dour, plodding, risk-averse" Bruce Leonard Solie (look him up) might have been doing legitimate CIA business when he . . .

1) . . . ,not on official CIA business, flew to Beirut (home of Kim Philby) in February 1957, shortly after Nosenko's boss, General Kovshuk (head of the KGB's efforts against the American Embassy), had gone to Washington as an ostensible diplomat at the Soviet Embassy on a two-year gig but returned to his kept-open-for-him job at KGB headquarters after only ten months and was seen in the company of two KGB types near D.C. movie houses that the FBI began referring to them as "The Three Musketeers"

2) . . . flew to Paris twice within thirty days for very short visits -- the first time a couple of weeks before Nosenko "walked in" to the CIA in Geneva in June 1962, and the second time after he'd asked Nosenko some questions (see below) right before Nosenko flew back to Moscow

3) . . . showed up unannounced at CIA safehouse in Geneva on 15 June 1962 to ask Major I mean Lt. Col. I mean Captain Yuri Nosenko about a list of possible moles that Golitsyn had told Angleton about and which naive Angleton had told Solie about (Tennent H. Bagley, who was there, said Nosenko "drew a blank")

4) . . . was the exclusive recipient of all of the incoming non-CIA cables on Oswald's defection which, if someone in Solie's office hadn't arranged in advance with the Office of Mail Logistics and the Records Integration Division, would have been routed to the Soviet Russia Division

5)  . . . pleaded with W. David Slawson in April 1964 for Nosenko to be allowed to testify to the Warren Commission, even though the Soviet Russia Division and CIA Counterintelligence had serious doubts about his bona fides

6) . . . "cleared" Nosenko in October 1968 via a bogus polygraph exam and a specious report

7) . . . hid Office of Security files on Oswald from the Church Committee and the HSCA

But then again, maybe not.

-- "TG"

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

-----------------

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.