BWF and LMR may not have been the only ones who saw LHO with a bag on 11/22/1963

[Alan Ford]

Below are the relevant dates and testimonies of Ruth and Michael as far as I could find......

Ruth Paine in Washington From Saturday March 21 ? Continuation of testimony taken Friday 19th March

[...]

Mr Crow, the extremely guarded, non-committal way in which Ms Paine frames her answers to curtain rods questions is very telling!

Mr. JENNER - Let us return to the curtain rods first. Do you still have those curtain rods?
Mrs. PAINE - I believe so.
Mr. JENNER - You believe so, or you know; which?
Mrs. PAINE - I think Michael went to look after the assassination, whether these were still in the garage.
Mr. JENNER - Did you have a conversation with Michael as to whether he did or didn't look?
Mrs. PAINE - Yes.
Mr. JENNER - Why was he looking to see if the curtain rod package was there?
Mrs. PAINE - He was particularly interested in the wrapping, was the wrapping still there, the brown paper.
Mr. JENNER - When did this take place?
Mrs. PAINE - After the assassination, perhaps a week or so later, perhaps when one of the FBI people were out; I don't really recall.
Mr. JENNER - And was the package with the curtain rods found on that occasion?
Mrs. PAINE - It is my recollection it was.

[...]

Senator COOPER - Let me ask a question there. After the assassination, at anytime did you go into the garage and look to see if both of these packages were there?
Mrs. PAINE - A week and a half, or a week later.
Senator COOPER - At any time?
Mrs. PAINE - Did I, personally?
Senator COOPER - Have you seen these packages since the assassination?
Mrs. PAINE - It seems to me I recall seeing a package.
Senator COOPER - What?
Mrs. PAINE - I don't recall opening it up and looking in carefully. I seem to recall seeing the package [Note: The focus is on the package, not the rods!]
Senator COOPER - Both of them?
Mrs. PAINE - Yes.
Senator COOPER - Or just one?
Mrs. PAINE - Both.
Senator COOPER - Did you feel them to see if the rods were in there?
Mrs. PAINE - No. I think Michael did, but I am not certain.
Senator COOPER - But you never did, yourself?
Mrs. PAINE - It was not my most pressing--
Senator COOPER - What?
Mrs. PAINE - It was not the most pressing thing I had to do at that time.
Senator COOPER - I know that. But you must have read after the assassination the story about Lee Oswald saying, he told Mr. Frazier, I think, that he was carrying some curtain rods in the car?
Mrs. PAINE - Yes.
Senator COOPER - Do you remember reading that?
Mrs. PAINE - Yes; I remember reading that.
Senator COOPER - Didn't that lead you-Did it lead you then to go in and see if the curtain rods were there?
Mrs. PAINE - It was all I could do at that point to answer my door, answer my telephone, and take care of my children. [Riiiiight. The issue on which Mr Oswald's guilt or innocence may hang, and Ms Paine just never did quite find the time to check!]
Senator COOPER - I understand you had many things to do.
Mrs. PAINE - So I did not.
Senator COOPER - You never did do it?
Mrs. PAINE - I am not certain whether I specifically went in and checked on that. [! Having just said 'I did not'!] I recall a conversation with Michael about it and, to the best of my recollection, things looked as I expected to find them looking out there. This package with brown paper was still there [Again note: the focus on the package not the rods!]

What Ms Paine is studiously avoiding having to say here is:

1. The garage was searched thoroughly after Mr Oswald's arrest (duh!)

2. It was very quickly established that the curtain rods were not in place.

Mr Oswald had been manipulated into bringing curtain rods to work that day in a bag
---------the right size (when folded down at the top) for carrying 27.5/27.6-inches-when-unextended curtain rods
and also
---------the right size (when folded down from a higher point) for carrying a disassembled Carcano rifle.

Mr Oswald had been given the right bag---------by somebody.

By the time of Ms Paine's March 19 Washington testimony session, from which the above quotes are taken, the rods which Mr Oswald carried into the Depository have turned up--------in the most inconvenient place possible!

This has obviously confronted the Oswald-Acted-Alone investigators with a problem, but also with a golden opportunity:

Ms Paine can quietly get her rods back, and her equivocations can facilitate the impression that the rods have been in the garage all along!

 

[Alan Ford]

From the 9 December 1963 FBI Report on the assassination:



If only if only if only we could add a third piece of information:

'She further stated that, shortly after Oswald's arrest, she went into the garage and verified that two curtain rods in her possession were still there.'

Instead we must make do with a most peculiar omission!

[Alan Ford]

Friends, this original red-inked Crime Scene Search Section form presents the Lone Nutters with a multilayered nightmare!



Layer 1: The date of submission (15 March 1964) precedes the on-the-record removal of 2 curtain rods from Mrs Paine's garage on 23 March!

Layer 2: The rods were fingerprinted and the results tested against Mr Oswald's prints!

Layer 3: No mention of where these 2 rods were found!

Layer 4: The double signature of the person who submitted the rods (Mr Howlett) belongs to the very person who was to 'find' 2 curtain rods in Mrs Paine's garage on March 23!

Layer 5: The date and time of release---the date and time when the 2 rods that had been submitted on March 15 were given back to Mr Howlett---is 24 March, the day after the on-the-record 'finding' of Mrs Paine's curtain rods in her garage!

Layer 6: Lieutenant J. C. Day's notation: 'marked 275 & 275', which just happens to coincide with digits one might write upon measuring the length of each rod (i.e. 27.5/27.6 inches)!

But!

A whole other layer of nightmare is added by the fact that the version of this Crime Scene Search Section form that will go into the public domain as a Warren Commission Exhibit will bear
------a different date of release!
------no signature from the release recipient!



Challenge to our resident Lone Nutters!:

How can this item of evidence have been released twice?

 

[Alan Ford]

If either of these versions of the Crime Scene Search Section form is correct, then the 2 curtain rods 'found' by Agent Howlett in Ms Paine's garage on the evening of 23 March cannot be the 2 curtain rods that were submitted on 15 March.

The date-of-release on both forms is too late!

Now!

This consequence is sheer anathema to Lone Nutters. There are no circumstances in which they will accept evidence pointing to Mr Oswald's innocence.

Which is why they must reject
-----------not just the date of submission (3-15-64)
-----------but also both dates of release (3-24-64, 3-26-64)!

In other words, they must reject both versions----but in a way that does not acknowledge hugger-mugger cover-up activity by the Oswald-Acted-Alone investigators.

Those of us, on the other hand, who do not worship the conclusions of the Warren Commission are free to ask ourselves the following basic question without fear of where the answer might lead:

Why are there two versions in the first place?

 

[Alan Ford]

Friends, for the two curtain rods submitted by Agent Howlett to Lieutenant Day for fingerprinting on 15 March to be the same two curtain rods 'found' by Agent Howlett in the Paine garage on 23 March, they had to be taken out of the Crime Scene Search Section at some point between 15 March and 23 March. Yes?

But how was this done?

The two versions of the form give dates after 23 March:



But let us look closely at the date on the 'later', unsigned-by-Agent-Howlett form!



I have never seen a '6' quite like the one in '26' from Lieutenant Day's hand before...



All it would have taken was a squiggle of the pen to post-date the release from March 21 (two days before 'finding' of 2 rods in Paine garage)-----------



-------------to March 26---------------



15 March: 2 curtain rods submitted to lab

21 March: 2 curtains signed out from lab

23 March: 2 curtain rods 'found' in Paine garage

 

[Alan Ford]

Friends, on 16 March 1964 Mr J. Lee Rankin, General Counsel on the Warren Commission, writes this to Mr J. Edgar Hoover:



Context Explains All!:

Just the day before this letter is written, 2 curtain rods have been submitted by SS Agent Howlett to Lieutenant Day at the Crime Scene Search Section to check for Mr Oswald's fingerprints.

Now--------quite by coincidence, of course--------Mr Oswald's having brought curtain rods to work on 11/22 is suddenly deemed by Mr Rankin a 'story' that needs to be 'check[ed] out... fully'
============i.e. closed down in every way possible!

Within a few short days of this letter's being written, Mr Rankin's fellow Commission man Mr Jenner will be pretending to witness Agent Howlett 'find' 2 in-place-in-the-Paine-garage-since-before-the-assassination curtain rods!

Isn't it just remarkable, this sudden flurry of urgent activity in mid-March 1964 around a curtain rods 'story' that appears hitherto to have gone fully un-checked-out by the Oswald-Acted-Alone investigators since 11/22/63?

What can have happened to concentrate minds?

 

[Walt Cakebread]

Friends, on 16 March 1964 Mr J. Lee Rankin, General Counsel on the Warren Commission, writes this to Mr J. Edgar Hoover:



Context Explains All!:

Just the day before this letter is written, 2 curtain rods have been submitted by SS Agent Howlett to Lieutenant Day at the Crime Scene Search Section to check for Mr Oswald's fingerprints.

Now--------quite by coincidence, of course--------Mr Oswald's having brought curtain rods to work on 11/22 is suddenly deemed by Mr Rankin a 'story' that needs to be 'check[ed] out... fully'
============i.e. closed down in every way possible!

Within a few short days of this letter's being written, Mr Rankin's fellow Commission man Mr Jenner will be pretending to witness Agent Howlett 'find' 2 in-place-in-the-Paine-garage-since-before-the-assassination curtain rods!

Isn't it just remarkable, this sudden flurry of urgent activity in mid-March 1964 around a curtain rods 'story' that appears hitherto to have gone fully un-checked-out by the Oswald-Acted-Alone investigators since 11/22/63?

What can have happened to concentrate minds?

 

What do you hope to expose, Alan.....   You may be right in proposing that they were manipulating the curtain rod story.... but what does it prove? 

Lee denied that he had told Frazier that the 27 inch long sack, that was constructed of FLIMSY paper contained curtain rods.....Let's take a look at the scribbled notes....