Just because Charles Givens didn't mention seeing Oswald in his earlier statements, you think that means he "fabricated" his later statements and during his testimony in front of the Warren Commission?
Silly.
Givens merely didn't mention his brief encounter with Oswald when Givens wrote his affidavit. Such an omission certainly doesn't mean that Givens' sixth-floor encounter with Lee Oswald never happened. Only a conspiracy theorist would possibly believe such a thing.
As I've already posted, once it was established that the 6th floor was the crime scene, one of Fritz's first actions was to round up everyone who worked on the 6th floor that day to account for their whereabouts and reveal anything useful regarding the murder of the President.
An APB was put out for Givens - not only did he work on the 6th floor but he had disappeared. Givens eventually made his way to the DPD where he was grilled for 45 minutes
by Captain Fritz!Fritz had a prime suspect in custody for the murder of JFK and officer Tippit - an employee of the TSBD who had worked on the 6th floor that day.
For you to suggest that Givens' neglected to mention witnessing the prime suspect in the location of the crime scene during the 45 minute grilling by Fritz isn't "silly"...it's utterly ridiculous and you should feel a little silly for even trying that on.
And, as you go on to point out, this was not the only instance Givens failed to mention this absolutely crucial piece of information. Givens was interviewed the same day by the FBI. They noted that after coming down from the 6th floor at lunchtime, Givens "then walked around the first floor until 12 o' clock noon." So, Givens had actually told them what he did after he came down from the 6th floor, he specifically told them he stayed on the first floor before he went outside. He specifically failed to mention going back up to the 6th floor where he observed the prime suspect near the location form where the shots were taken.
It is completely baffling that someone such as yourself, who likes to consider themselves driven by the evidence and Reason, would try to bluff your way through this issue.
And for clarity, I'm not saying this was something Givens unexpectedly decided to bring to the party - I'm saying it was fabricated by elements of the Warren Commission with the sole purpose of demonstrating Oswald was the lone assassin, a conclusion that Hoover had already laid out before the investigation had begun.
Plus, we know that there's no good reason for the authorities to start putting words into Givens' mouth about seeing Oswald on the sixth floor, because even WITHOUT Givens' account of seeing LHO on the sixth floor at approximately 11:55 AM, there is still ample witness testimony from other Depository employees who said they saw (and heard) Oswald on an UPPER FLOOR (either the fifth or sixth floor) shortly before noon. Those other employees are Billy Lovelady, Bonnie Ray Williams, and Danny Arce. And even Givens HIMSELF, in this FBI report, talks about hearing Oswald shout down the elevator shaft.
There is some confusion surrounding some of Charles Givens' statements with respect to Oswald asking to have the elevator sent back upstairs to him, which I talk about in this article.
But even if conspiracists wish to toss Charlie Givens under the bus and deem him a totally worthless liar (which many CTers have done), what do they do with Lovelady and Williams and Arce with respect to their individual observations about seeing (and hearing) Lee Oswald on an upper floor of the TSBD shortly before 12:00 noon on 11/22/63?
With those three witnesses saying what they each said, why would the FBI or the Warren Commission (or anyone else) have felt the need to coerce Charlie Givens to tell some wild tale about seeing Oswald in just about the VERY SAME PLACE at just about the VERY SAME TIME that those three other men saw him?
Many CTers think the FBI (and later the Warren Commission) desperately needed a witness on the inside of the TSBD building to place Oswald on the sixth floor to firm up the FBI's and WC's framing of poor innocent Lee Harvey Oswald. Therefore, per CTers, they got the easily-coerced Givens to add a lie to his story about going back up to the sixth floor to get his cigarettes and then seeing Oswald up there.
But if the goal of the FBI and Warren Commission was to shore up their "case" against Oswald, why wouldn't they have made Givens' lies even BETTER? They could have gotten Givens to say he saw Oswald moving boxes in the southeast corner of the sixth floor. Or they could have gotten Givens to say he actually saw Oswald with a long brown package too.
But instead, Givens' "cigarettes and jacket" story pretty much amounts to nothing more than the testimony given by Lovelady, Arce, and Williams -- i.e., Givens sees Oswald on an upper floor without a package, and without a gun. The biggest difference would be that Givens did place a definitive floor number on Oswald's whereabouts--the sixth floor (the Floor Of Death), whereas some of the other witnesses I mentioned were not quite sure whether Oswald was shouting down his request for an elevator from the FIFTH floor or the SIXTH Floor.
But if Givens' "going to get cigarettes" story was nothing but a fabrication invented by the authorities, it amounted to very little more than what other witnesses were also providing (or would very soon be providing to the Warren Commission).
In addition, I'll also add that Charles Givens' 11/22/63 affidavit is one that is very brief. It's a very short statement made voluntarily by Givens within hours of the assassination. Givens uses short, to-the-point sentences, not elaborating on anything at all--not even the shooting. He merely says "I think I heard three shots".
So it's fairly obvious to me when looking at Givens' 11/22 affidavit that it wasn't Givens' purpose at that time to go into very much detail about anything that happened on November 22. He was obviously making it as short as he could. And just because he did not mention his encounter with Oswald on the sixth floor in that very brief statement, that certainly does not mean such an encounter never took place.
Givens' statement given to the FBI on November 22nd is another matter for discussion. It's true that Givens didn't say anything about going back up to the sixth floor to get his jacket and cigarettes in that November 22nd interview with two FBI agents. But Givens did mention hearing Oswald shout down to have the elevator sent back up "so that he (LEE) could have the elevator returned to the SIXTH FLOOR" (DVP's emphasis).
So it's fairly clear from that FBI statement that Givens was saying he thought Oswald was on the SIXTH FLOOR and wanted an elevator to be sent back up to the SIXTH floor.
With such detail coming from Charles Givens himself about Oswald being on the SIXTH FLOOR shortly before noon on the day of the assassination, why on Earth would the FBI (or anyone else) feel the need to then coerce Givens to add an additional layer of lies to his story, which would be a fabricated layer of lies that essentially ADDS NOTHING NEW to the story Charlie Givens had already told the two FBI agents who interviewed him on November 22, 1963?
Also....
The conspiracy theorists who think Charles Givens just MADE UP his sixth-floor encounter with Lee Oswald due to the fact that Givens said nothing about such an encounter in his original November 22nd affidavit are going to have to accuse Billy Lovelady of pretty much the very same thing (i.e., leaving out important "I heard Oswald shout down the elevator shaft from an upper floor around noontime" information in his affidavit), because in Lovelady's 11/22/63 affidavit, he never says a thing about such an occurrence.
More here:
https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/search?q=Charles+Givens
"... we know that there's no good reason for the authorities to start putting words into Givens' mouth about seeing Oswald on the sixth floor,""We" don't know any such thing.
The idea Givens failed to mention this crucial piece of evidence, placing the prime suspect at the scene of the crime, when he was being grilled specifically about that kind of information by Fritz and the FBI, is not even worth considering. You're constant downplaying of his affidavit fails to appreciate an obvious interpretation - that this was all the information he had about the incident and this was everything that came to light during his lengthy interrogation by Fritz.
And as for the well documented story about the elevator race...aren't you aware that the Warren Commission completely omitted this multi-witness incident from their report? Aren't you aware that the WC Sham completely changed the reality of what actually happened?
The combined statements of Lovelady, Williams, Arce and Givens reveal that at lunchtime they had a race down to the first floor in the two elevators. As they were passing the 5th floor Oswald called out to Givens to let him on the elevator. Givens refused, presumably because the race was on, so Oswald called down for them to leave the gate up so he could call the elevator back up.
It is clear from this story that Oswald wanted to come down to the first floor with them.
Instead of including this well-documented story in their report, the WC went with Givens fake story that Oswald was on 6th floor, near the southeast corner AND THAT, WHEN ASKED, OSWASLD REFUSED TO GO DOWN TO THE FIRST FLOOR WHEN HE HAD THE CHANCE.
In the true version of events Oswald wants to go down to the first floor, in the fake version of events he did not.
Not only did the WC Sham ignore the testimonies of Lovelady, Williams and Arce in their report, they also had to ignore the testimony of the man who was actually the last TSBD employee to see Oswald before the assassination - Eddie Piper.
Not only did Oswald want to return to the first floor, we know from Piper's testimony that's exactly what he did.
At 12 noon Piper spoke to Oswald on the first floor. The WC report stated that no-one could be found who saw Oswald after Givens' fake nonsense at 11:55am. This was an out-and-out lie. A deliberate falsehood.
Not only did the Warren Commission use the fabricated Givens story (which was accepted without question when it was known this had never been mentioned in any of his previous statements), they also omitted the testimonies of Lovelady, Williams, Arce and Piper in order to create a false narrative.
Oswald was not last seen on the 6th floor around 11:55am - he was on the first floor at 12 noon.
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