JFK Assassination Forum

RS: The Elm Ext is absolutely jammed with people.

Again, In the Darnell film you can see a white car parked on the north side of the Elm Street Extension. That wouldn't happen if the street were "jammed with people" Also, you can see people standing on the sidewalk running along the front of the TSBD. That also wouldn't be possible if the street was full of a crowd.  Speaking of which:

RS: You can even see people stretching across it in front of the Huge Gates.

These are the aforementioned people standing on the sidewalk between the TSDB and the north side of Elm. They aren't in the street, ipso facto.

When Martin is filming Harkness driving by with Euins, he's to the east of the area in Darnell where the crowd appears. Because he's filming in an eastward direction, you won't see the Darnell crowd that is standing between the dirt road, the first RR yard spur, and the pergola.

RS: And remember that the Nat Geo piece you are claiming was long after the kill shot, also shows Officer Harkness #99 3 wheel motorcycle sitting alongside Inspector Sawyer's car.

As I've already pointed out, this is much later than the Darnell and Martin film segments in question here. No question after 12:45, and probably more like 1PM, when the DPD shoos the crowd away from in front of the TSBD and actually ropes off the area around the building. That is more than enough time for Harkness to put Euins in Sawyers car, drive to the north side of the TSBD, and return to the front after he was "relieved" by arriving officers.


RS: the Officer Harkness check point.

In the Darnell film, you first see Harkness looking west, then walking back towards his three-wheeler parked near the end of the  cyclone fence. Not coincidentally, that's the area where Euins said that he ran into Harkness. Harkness explicitly testified that the area where he met Euins wasn't behind the depository. If that area wasn't behind the TSDB, then his earlier position to the west of his 3-wheeler was also not behind the depository.  The Darnell snippet is just before Euins tells Harkness about the rifleman in the window, and Harkness will soon after radio this information to the dispatcher at 12:36

    So you are claiming the Darnell film snippet showing Haygood, Harkness, and Walthers together is happening BEFORE Euins was loaded into Inspector Sawyer's car? Harkness made a 12:36 radio call that he was bringing Euins  to the TSBD. And Harkness gave WC testimony that he helped load Euins into Sawyer's car. What are you claiming Harkness did with Euins, if you are claiming Euins was NOT Loaded into Sawyer's car until, "12:45, more like 1:00"?
    You can Not get around the documented radio transmissions.  Haygood - 12:35 from the Elm St curb.     Harkness - 12:36.  That alleged motorcycle cop in the Darnell Film is NOT HAYGOOD. It is physically impossible for Haygood to be in 2 places at once.

Nixon was completely paranoid and formed an illegal group called The Plumbers to go after political enemies.

History 101:

The reason Nixon formed The Plumbers was because a Kremlin-loyal KGB officer at the FBI's NYC field office, Major Aleksey Kulak -- J. Edgar Hoover's shielded-from-CIA FEDORA -- told him that the Kremlin had a complete copy of The Pentagon Papers (it didn't).

ME: Did the Kremlin acquire a complete copy of The Pentagon Papers before Nixon formed The Plumbers?

GROK: No, there is no credible evidence that the Kremlin (or Soviet Embassy) acquired a complete copy of the full classified Pentagon Papers before—or even around the time—Nixon formed the White House Plumbers (officially the White House Special Investigations Unit).

Key timelines

Pentagon Papers leak and publication: Daniel Ellsberg provided portions of the ~7,000-page classified study (officially "United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967") to The New York Times, which began publishing excerpts on June 13, 1971. The Washington Post followed on June 18. A temporary restraining order against the Times was issued around June 15.

Plumbers' formation: The unit was created in direct response to the leak, established within a week of the June 13 publication (so by roughly June 20, 1971, per historical accounts). Some sources place related staffing or operations in July (e.g., Egil Krogh’s involvement around July 20), but the unit’s purpose—to plug leaks and investigate the Pentagon Papers disclosure—began immediately after the public revelations.

The Soviet claim

The only reference to a Soviet “complete set” comes from a 1973 Washington Post report (cited in contemporary coverage). It alleged that, in June 1971 (after the Times restraining order), an unidentified man using an alias handed the Soviet Embassy in Washington a full set of the top-secret documents.

The Soviet Embassy immediately and explicitly denied this on June 5, 1973, calling it “a fabrication” unrelated to improving U.S.–Soviet relations.

The story appears to have stemmed from FBI information tied to a supposed source in the KGB. However, the FBI later determined this source [Kulak / FEDORA] was fake or unreliable (detailed in a 1981 Washington Post article).

No declassified U.S., Soviet, or independent archival evidence has ever confirmed that the full classified study reached Moscow via this (or any other) channel in June 1971. The published newspaper excerpts were publicly available worldwide after June 13, but the complete 47-volume classified version is a different matter.

Context and why the claim doesn’t hold

The Nixon administration’s extreme reaction to the leak (including forming the Plumbers, the Ellsberg psychiatrist break in, and eventual Watergate ties) was driven by paranoia about further leaks and domestic political damage—not by any verified foreign acquisition. Nixon and aides viewed the leak as potentially aiding adversaries like the Soviets or Chinese, but their internal discussions and later investigations never treated a pre-Plumbers Soviet copy as a confirmed fact.

In short, the June 1971 Soviet Embassy story was a single, unverified (and denied) press report based on flawed intelligence. It does not establish that the Kremlin obtained the complete papers before the Plumbers existed. The full Pentagon Papers were not officially declassified until 2011.

ME: Did KGB Major Aleksey Kulak at the FBI's NYC field office mislead Hoover and Nixon into believing that it had?

GROK: Yes, according to declassified accounts and the FBI’s own later assessment, KGB officer Aleksey (Aleksei) Isidorovich Kulak—codename “Fedora” (sometimes referred to as a major or colonel)—was the source of the specific claim that a complete set of the classified Pentagon Papers had been delivered to the Soviet Embassy in Washington in June 1971.

Kulak had first volunteered to the FBI’s New York field office in March 1962 while serving under UN diplomatic cover as a KGB scientific/technical officer. The FBI ran him for over a decade (with a second New York tour beginning in 1971) as one of its most valued Bureau sources on Soviet operations. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and the Nixon White House treated his reporting as highly credible.

The 1971 Pentagon Papers claim

During the height of the public furor over the New York Times and Washington Post publications (mid-June 1971 onward), Kulak/Fedora informed his FBI handlers that an unidentified man had handed the full 47-volume classified study to the Soviet Embassy. The FBI passed this to the White House. Nixon administration officials (including those overseeing the legal effort to block further publication) and the FBI accepted it as factual, heightening official paranoia about foreign exploitation of the leak. This occurred in the same weeks the White House Plumbers unit was being stood up to investigate and plug leaks.

CIA Director Richard Helms, however, privately discounted the report when briefing a Plumbers official. He told David R. Young (one of the unit’s chiefs) that the CIA knew the source and had “doubts about them.”

FBI’s later conclusion: disinformation.

By the mid-1970s the FBI had grown suspicious that Kulak was a KGB-controlled double agent feeding false information. A full re-evaluation after his 1976 return to Moscow (where he declined a CIA exfiltration offer) led the Bureau to conclude by 1981 [sic; in 1976 according to former CIA officer Tennent H. Bagley; this determination was overturned by counterintelligence-hating James Geer in the FBI around 1983 with help from CIA "analysts" provided to him by probable "mole" Leonard V. McCoy, Deputy Chief of CIA Counterintelligence] that Fedora had been “always on the Soviets’ side.” The Pentagon Papers story was cited as a prime example of the disinformation he supplied. No independent U.S., Soviet, or archival evidence has ever corroborated that the Kremlin actually received the full classified set via the Embassy at that time.

In short: Kulak did mislead Hoover’s FBI and the Nixon White House into believing the Kremlin had obtained the complete papers. The information was treated as genuine at the highest levels in mid-1971 precisely because it came from a long-trusted FBI asset—who was later judged to have been a Soviet plant all along. This episode contributed to the atmosphere of suspicion that surrounded the leak response, even though the core claim proved unfounded.

By coincidence I was discussing this very point with Fred Litwin on his podcast which we recorded today but has not yet posted. I've made the same point many times over the years that anytime we are talking about what was going through Oswald's head at any given time, we are guessing. We spoke briefly about Oswald's motive and I gave my speculation about that without knowing whether my guess was correct or not.

We also talked about Oswald's mindset after leaving the TSBD. I happen to believe he was surprised he got out of the TSBD and had no plan. Fred pointed out that Oswald left most of his cash behind with Marina which seems an odd thing to do for a man who planned to go on the lam. I speculated he may have been attempting suicide by cop which could easily have been the result when he pulled his gun on the arresting officers. They would have been perfectly justified in killing Oswald on the spot but they acted with restraint and took him alive.

It would be fascinating to know what Oswald was thinking both before and after the assassination but he took those secrets to his grave and left the rest of us guessing.

I don't think Oswald had a "Mexico plan" beforehand.  Once he got out of the building, what does he do?  Does he head toward Oak Cliff right away?  Nope.  He heads east on Elm, deeper into the downtown area (and completely away from Oak Cliff).  This one fact alone tells me that he had no escape plan; only to indeed escape.

I believe that once Oswald made it to Whaley's cab, the idea of going to retrieve his revolver appealed to him.  Once he had his revolver, does he head to the theater and/or south into Oak Cliff?  Nope.  He stands at a bus stop outside the rooming house, very near the corner of Beckley and Zangs.  This particular bus stop would allow him to catch a bus going north, back toward the downtown area, NOT south into Oak Cliff or Mexico.  I believe he wanted to board the first bus to get him the hell out of the area.

Then, after standing near that very busy intersection (Beckley & Zang is an incredibly busy intersection), he thought better of it.  He was on full display standing out there at that particular bus stop.  He left his rifle behind.  He was missing from the building in which he was supposed to be working.  Has his face been on the news already?  He's been on foot, bus and taxi for a half hour.  He doesn't know what has (or has not) transpired during those thirty minutes.  Obviously we know his face wasn't on the news but he doesn't know that.  In my opinion, he shows the same paranoia when he doesn't pay for a ticket at the theater.  He doesn't want Julia Postal to see his face.  Has his face been on the news?  What if she immediately recognizes him?  Or, perhaps she'll see his face on the news while he's hiding out inside the theater and recognize that face as belonging to a guy she sold a ticket to earlier.  By the way, it is this same paranoia (has my face been on the news already?) which I believe causes him to switch directions as he's walking along Tenth Street.  He doesn't want the approaching officer (Tippit) to see his face.  In my opinion, he also avoids walking past a law enforcement vehicle (Deputy Sheriff Unit #109) moments before the Tippit encounter as he's walking toward the library and/or bus stop outside the library.

My opinion is that the Jefferson Branch Library and/or the bus stop right outside that library was his goal once he decided to bail on the idea of standing at the very busy intersection of Beckley & Zangs.  If one is standing outside the rooming house at 1026 N. Beckley and the goal is now the library and/or the bus stop outside that library, walking east on Tenth at Lansing Street (exactly where Tenth Street makes it's drastic curve) is the most direct route, along with another route which would have him walking down Marsalis for most of the way.  But he doesn't want to walk down Marsalis, a very busy street.

I guess my point in all of this is that, again, in my opinion, maybe making a run for Mexico is only something which occurred to him once he decided to bail on the bus stop outside the rooming house.  Obviously there is no way to know for sure.  Only Oswald himself knows the answer.  When it comes to trying to determine Oswald's thoughts and movements after the assassination, all any of us can do is speculate.  However, some of us speculate based on what we know while others (like the "Oswald never got on the bus" crowd) discard the known facts and speculate with no basis or foundation.

As for the sixth floor...

As I've always seen it play out in my head, Oswald has the brown shirt tied around his waist, as people typically do when they're originally wearing two shirts but it becomes too warm for both.  I believe Oswald is still contemplating which end of the sixth floor to shoot from and is over at the southwest end of the sixth floor when Bonnie Ray Williams unexpectedly arrives up on the floor, surprising him.  Oswald is standing near the southwest corner as Williams is eating his chicken on the bone sandwich (what's up with that, by the way?) over near the southeast corner.  The south face of the Depository is captured in aftermath photos and the far west sixth floor set of windows are open.  Arnold Rowland sees a guy with a rifle standing back from that west end window and says the guy is wearing a light-colored shirt opened at the neck.  Perhaps Oswald still has the brown shirt (CE-150) tied around his waist.

Williams finally leaves for the fifth floor and Oswald decides that the southeast corner window is the easier shot (which it certainly was, study sniper fire and lead).  Whether he still has the brown shirt tied around his waist or it's simply lying on the floor in the sniper's nest or atop one of the boxes doesn't matter.  After firing the shots, he grabs the brown shirt and uses it to wipe the rifle as he makes his way across the floor.  This is why a tuft of fibers matching that shirt were found in the crevice of the rifle between the metal butt plate and the wooden stock.  He reaches the stairs, stashes/hides the rifle haphazardly and proceeds to put on the brown shirt as he's going down the stairs.  He probably has the shirt on by the time he reaches the fifth floor.

IOW, you have no response. You have no means to prove that Frazier's recollections about the length of the bag and how Oswald carried it are precise.

Why don't you just admit that and we can move on.

  I believe what he said. - He knows what he saw.
Here is a picture of him demonstrating exactly what he saw.



You weren't there. He was.