JFK Assassination Forum

Martin Weidmann, it is not correct that the reason I reject the crime scene Oswald wallet first known in Hosty’s book in the late 1990’s is because that is what I want to believe. No, it is because witness claims always must be assessed case by case and that is how it looks to me evidentially as a judgment, on evidence grounds alone. If anything, I have a bias to want to read the evidence in a way that Oswald is innocent, which I have to attempt consciously not to interfere with objectivity (if that is possible). But what about yourself. You will agree, I believe, that upon first encounter of the Barrett story from 1990’s with its sensational claim, that cannot automatically, right off the bat, be known true or false. No witness saying something out of the blue 30 years later makes it true just because he said it. Agreed?

Then the next question is what did tip you to belief that 30-years later witness claim was true? Was a factor in there that you want it to be true (your own question to you)?

A first question in assessing a witness making a new sensational claim 30 years later for the first time (publicly) is always asked by investigative journalists. Did this witness tell others privately of this earlier or from the original time? Answer in Barrett’s case: no. Second question investigative journalists ask: is there positive corroboration from other evidence or witnesses to the late sensational claim? Answer: none known at that time. There was a wallet, that is not in dispute, but there is no positive evidence it was considered crime scene evidence by police, and there is a plausible explanation for it (as I hsve outlined related to the Tippit revolver incident recovery). Therefore the Barrett story is not needed to explain what otherwise has no conceivable reasonable other explanation.

Is it the personal character and credibility of the witness, Barrett? An argument can be made that he tried to incriminate Oswald at earlier times through a false claim, of which the later 30-year claim is similar in genre (intended to incriminate Oswald on Tippit). But never mind that—30 years is time for honest witnesses to confuse details in memory. Anyone who has a grandfather who likes to tell stories of the past knows that. It isn’t dishonesty, it’s fallibility in human recall and narrative construction with the passage of time.

What to you tipped the 1990s Barrett claim from a status of initial uncertainty and justified skepticism (because: sensational; new 30 years later) to conviction or confidence that his claim was true, in terms of positive evidence (not “it could be true” argument, but what you saw as positive evidence that it was true)? What says to you: other 30 years-later stories solely dependent on witness claims with no physical evidence [referring in this case to Oswald ID at the crime scene, not existence of a wallet] are urban legends. What tilted you to conclude this case was different; this witness was not only honest but also accurately honest, in this claim first made public or known made privately either, 30 years after the fact? A question of self-examination of epistemology—why do we come to think we know what we think we know?

It all comes down to opportunity and motive. Could Oswald have arrived at 10th street in time to kill Tippit?

What was he even doing there?

And if he shot Tippit to evade arrest why not leave after Tippit was down? Why go back and shoot him in the head to ensure he was dead? It doesn't make sense to me. The coup the grace shot is a complete mystery to me.

It all comes down to opportunity and motive. Could Oswald have arrived at 10th street in time to kill Tippit? What was he even doing there? And if he shot Tippit to evade arrest why not leave after Tippit was down? Why go back and shoot him in the head to ensure he was dead? It doesn't make sense to me. The coup the grace shot is a complete mystery to me.

I did not realize you were proposing a crime scene wallet might be the one turned in later as the Oswald wallet in evidence, and not the one said to have been taken from Oswald in the car.

In my previous posts I made it clear enough that this was a possibility.

Let's examine what we actually know;

Hill and Bentley were sitting on either side of Oswald on the back seat of the car, when Hill asked Bentley to look for identification. Bentley found a wallet and, according to Hill, mentioned Lee Oswald. Not a word about Hidell by any of the officers in the car until Hill, during his WC testimony on April 8, 1964, vaguely remembers another name, which could have been Hidell, was also mentioned in the car. There is not a single report (including the one filed by Bentley on 11/22/63) that actually mentions an Hidell ID being found in that wallet.

On the other hand we have FBI agent Barrett who not only clearly states that Westbrook was holding a wallet and asked him about Hidell and Oswald at the Tippit crime scene but also called the suggestion that the wallet with the Hidell ID in it was taken from Oswald in the car, "hogwash".

This is were it gets complicated. When the car arrived at City Hall, Bentley went to the homicide bureau to write a report (the one in which he does not mention Hidell!) before being taken to the hospital. What happened to the wallet that Bentley has is anybody's guess. Bentley writes in his report that he gave the identification to Lt. Baker, after he had initialed the revolver together with Hill. The problem is that, according to Hill, that happened at around 4:00 PM. And then we have officer Walker who had been at the Tippit crime scene, who claims in his WC testimony that when Oswald was brought into the homicide bureau (at around 1:15 PM , IIRC) he (Walker) had the revolver and the Hidell identification.

So, now we turn to Guy Rose, who had been called in and arrived just as Oswald was being brought in. He was the first officer to talk to Oswald and just before that happened an unidentified patrol officer gave him a wallet and told him it belonged to the suspect. That's the wallet in which Rose found the Hidell ID.

So, here is the discrepancy; if Bentley gave the wallet to Lt Baker at around 4:00 PM, how could Rose have had it at just past 1:00 PM when he talked to Oswald and how could the wallet containing the Hidell ID be submitted to the evidence room at 3:35 PM.

Do you understand the problem now?

But may I ask, are you meaning this as evidence Oswald was present at the crime scene with Hidell ID?

No. It's only potential evidence that a wallet containing the Oswald and Hidell ID was at the Tippit crime scene. How it got there is anybody's guess.

Do you think Oswald shot Tippit?

What I think is not really important, but since you asked; I think it's a mistake to jump to conclusions.

It all comes down to opportunity and motive. Could Oswald have arrived at 10th street in time to kill Tippit? What was he even doing there? And if he shot Tippit to evade arrest why not leave after Tippit was down? Why go back and shoot him in the head to ensure he was dead? It doesn't make sense to me. The coup the grace shot is a complete mystery to me.

Do you think he accidentally dropped his wallet at the scene, or handed his wallet to Tippit?

I have no idea. Once again, you assume that it was Oswald himself who carried that wallet but we don't know that.

30 years later for a first mention of something that would be expected memorable from the beginning is the key fact making this urban legend genre.

I've already said this once before. What if Barrett, for 30 years, had no knowledge there was even a problem with the wallet until he talked to Hosty? Vicki Adams wasn't heard from for decades because she wasn't aware what the WC had said about her reliablity or lack thereof. As the case was closed in 1964, Barrett, like most people, would have gotten on with his life and most likely never had a reason to second guess the WC report.

This Oswald wallet at the crime scene very parallel to the Mike Howard claim. They’re both equally unbelievable and for exactly parallel reasons.

No. The wallet story has footage showing it being held at the Tippit scene. There's also circumstantial evidence to support the possibility of wallets being switched.

The only reason for you to call them both unbelievable is that you don't want to believe them. It is as simple as that.

-- Mafia operative Jack Ruby, whose foreknowledge of the assassination was revealed in FBI documents released in 2017. The documents reveal that a federal informant reported to his federal contact in 1977 that Ruby knew about the assassination in advance. The informant logically thought that this vital information would be of interest to the newly formed HSCA, and he assumed the FBI would make the HSCA aware of this information. The Dallas FBI office forwarded the documents about the informant's disclosure to FBI HQ, but FBI HQ did not give them to the HSCA and did not even tell the HSCA about them.

Let’s examine this “Ruby foreknowledge” CT bombshell:

1. Our hero was Robert Murray Vanderslice, born in 1926 and died (in Dallas) in 1979.

2. He was an IRS tax informant, focusing on bookies, from 7/23/76 to 2/18/77 (six months). He was paid $135 for his services and $2.89 for expenses.

3. His last contact with the IRS was on 1/24/77. The IRS special agent to whom he was assigned, Lawrence Sandri, said he had never mentioned Ruby or anything about the JFKA.

4. At a restaurant lunch with the IRS local Intelligence Division Manager, Arlen Fuhlendorf, early in 1977 (some 14 years after the JFKA), he started talking about stripper Candy Barr (who did have a non-romantic, non-employment relationship with Jack Ruby a decade before the JFKA).

5. This somehow led to a discussion of Ruby. Vanderslice told Fuhlendorf that on the morning of the JFKA, Ruby had contacted him to watch the motorcade and had asked if he’d like to “watch the fireworks.” In CT world, this remark can have no meaning other than Ruby’s foreknowledge of the JFKA.

6. They watched the motorcade together from a corner near the Postal Annex. Following the JFKA, Ruby left, without comment, for the Dallas Morning News.

7. At the same lunch, Vanderslice divulged that he had been arrested and incarcerated at the Dallas County Jail at the same time Ruby was there. As a jail trustee, he said, he got to know Ruby better – but he said nothing further about the supposed foreknowledge or motorcade incident.

8.  Fuhlendorf told the FBI that “as far as he knew” Vanderslice had been a reliable tax informant, but he did not know if he was truthful about Ruby. He initially reported the lunch conversation in a memorandum to the IRS national office for transmission to the HSCA, but the IRS returned the memo and told him to contact the Dallas office of the FBI. (The memorandum never surfaced.)

9. Vanderslice went to astounding lengths to avoid repeated efforts by both the FBI and IRS to contact him about his Ruby tale. Fuhlendorf thought he might have “been untruthful” or perhaps had “second thoughts” and had gotten “cold feet” after being told he might have to testify before the HSCA.

10. Because Vanderslice’s tale was inconsistent with Ruby’s WC testimony and that of a Dallas Morning News advertising department employee concerning Ruby’s activities on 11-22-63, and because Vanderslice was clearly avoiding both the FBI and IRS, the FBI abandoned further efforts to contact him.

11. On the last attempted contact, his wife said he was in Wichita Falls, “trying to make a buck here and there.”

Ho-hum, such is the stuff of which conspiratorial bombshells are made in MTG’s goofy end of the CT spectrum.

“Foreknowledge of the assassination.” BWAHAHA. 

Not exactly a major exercise in factoid-busting, I’ll concede, but an interesting 30 minutes of mental exercise for your intrepid Factoid Buster.

Minor addendum: When the Vanderslice tale surfaced with the 2017 document release, it was of course of considerable news interest. THE VAST MAJORITY of news outlets, including major MSM, described Vanderslice - in headlines, no less - as an "FBI informant." Sexier than "small-time IRS tax informant," I guess. More like "FBI non-informant," as it turned out.