Then went outside to watch P. parade ( Parts 1 & 2 )

[Alan Ford]

With this unexpected annoyance in front of him, no wonder Mr. Lovelady shifts to his left!

[Alan Ford]

No, there must be something solid that has been attached to the right-hand side of the flag, and Mr. Oswald must be gripping that something in his left hand. Something like a piece of wood. Something like a metal bar. Something like a-----------------curtain rod.

Let us assume that Mr. Oswald has decided to use Pres. Kennedy's visit as an opportunity to burnish his pro-Castro credentials (via a nearly-selfie----------those who accept the authenticity of the backyard photos might like to think of it as something in the same genre). He then hears shots ring out. He then learns that Pres. Kennedy was hit.

He then enters a very Louie Witt state of mind, with a great big helping of fear on top..........

This would explain not just his departure from the Depository but also his denial in custody of having brought any curtain rods to work: after what has happened to Pres. Kennedy, and given the suspicion he knows his leftist reputation is drawing down upon him, he is not about to confess to having gone out to Irving the evening before to pick up a Cuban flag and two curtain rods from the Paine garage.

He leaves the curtain rods behind somewhere in the building, but hides the flag on his person and takes it with him, disposing of it somewhere along his route to the Texas Theatre. He is no fool, and is all too alive to the very real prospect that his disastrously ill-timed protest on the steps will put him on the hook as an accomplice in a pro-Castro assassination plot. When the cops arrive at the Texas Theatre, his worst nightmare materializes. But-----NB!------he does not believe he is being picked up as the shooter-------------------------he believes he is being picked up on account of his flag-waving stunt, which he assumes the cops are interpreting as evidence of his involvement in the assassination plot.

When Fritz grills him on the curtain rods, Mr. Oswald mistakenly thinks the reason for this grilling is the flag-waving stunt, and so he denies all. He has no idea he's actually being accused of having brought the murder rifle to work that morning, let alone of having himself used it to shoot Pres. Kennedy from the sixth floor!

And, of course, the two curtain rods will be found in the Depository after the assassination, and tested for his prints:



If I had to guess where they were discovered, I would say that Mr. Oswald slipped them under this in the domino room:



 

[Alan Ford]

Let us assume that Mr. Oswald has decided to use Pres. Kennedy's visit as an opportunity to burnish his pro-Castro credentials (via a nearly-selfie----------those who accept the authenticity of the backyard photos might like to think of it as something in the same genre). He then hears shots ring out. He then learns that Pres. Kennedy was hit.

He then enters a very Louis Witt state of mind, with a great big helping of fear on top..........

Two alternative scenarios:

--------------Mr. Oswald is tricked into believing that shots will be fired non-fatally from the sixth floor in a false flag attempt to provoke an invasion of Cuba. He knows all about the external 'flooring crew' upstairs (including the Latin-looking men who will show themselves at the window), and has agreed to play a small semiotic role with his little flag-waving protest. When he discovers Pres. Kennedy was actually hit, however, he goes into panic mode. He makes a beeline for his contact at the Texas Theatre, but not before picking up his pistol from his rooming house.

--------------Mr. Oswald has full foreknowledge of the assassination plot. He knows all about the external 'flooring crew' upstairs, and has agreed to play a small semiotic role with his little flag-waving protest. But his expected ride out of Dealey Plaza never materializes. He goes into panic mode. He makes a beeline for his contact at the Texas Theatre, but not before picking up his pistol from his rooming house.

In both of these scenarios, Mr. Oswald expects to be flown out of Dallas after the events in Dealey Plaza, which he possibly even sees as his way into Cuba. One thing is sure: a man who wishes to continue working at Mr. Roy Truly's Texas School Book Depository does not wave a Cuban flag from its steps during a P. Parade. The waving of the flag is his political coming-out-at-work moment.

 

[Alan Ford]

Friends, the above line of thought promises to consummate the disaster for the Warren Gullibles. The proof that Mr. Oswald was on the front steps at the time of the P. Parade has meant they have already lost the LHO-in-SN portion of their fairytale. But a flag-waving Mr. Oswald on those front steps bids fair to rob them too of their tired 'LHO's post-assassination behavior proves he shot JFK!' routine.

I wonder how they're getting on back in Dunce's Corner, still trying to figure out a non-risible way of explaining this shadow down Mr. Lovelady?



Not a declarative peep out them so far!

 

[Alan Ford]

He leaves the curtain rods behind somewhere in the building, but hides the flag on his person and takes it with him, disposing of it somewhere along his route to the Texas Theatre. He is no fool, and is all too alive to the very real prospect that his disastrously ill-timed protest on the steps will put him on the hook as an accomplice in a pro-Castro assassination plot. When the cops arrive at the Texas Theatre, his worst nightmare materializes. But-----NB!------he does not believe he is being picked up as the shooter-------------------------he believes he is being picked up on account of his flag-waving stunt, which he assumes the cops are interpreting as evidence of his involvement in the assassination plot.

When Fritz grills him on the curtain rods, Mr. Oswald mistakenly thinks the reason for this grilling is the flag-waving stunt, and so he denies all. He has no idea he's actually being accused of having brought the murder rifle to work that morning, let alone of having himself used it to shoot Pres. Kennedy from the sixth floor!

When we think of Captain Fritz saying to Mr. Oswald, 'The fellow who drove you to work says you told him you had curtain rods in your package', we hear an opportunity for Mr. Oswald to exonerate himself of the charge of bringing a rifle to work. But when Mr. Oswald himself hears those words, he is hearing an accusation-------------'You brought curtain rods to work for a nefarious purpose connected to the assassination, didn't you?' And so he parries with a flat denial: 'No, Wesley is mistaken about that.'

 

[Alan Ford]

Anyone minded to dismiss out of hand the importance of the sizeable object being waved ('So somebody's waving something, big deal...') ought to consider the fact that it goes BEHIND the black man standing by the white west column but IN FRONT OF the man standing directly behind that black man:



This localizes the object nicely.

Somebody must be waving this object, right? And that somebody must be behind the black man, right?

Well, there are only two possible candidates:
1. The white man (=Mr. Lee Oswald) standing right behind the black man
2. The owner of this leg:



But who can the owner of that leg be?
The only two remotely viable candidates are
------------the man in blue (= Mr. Bill Shelley) seen back on the landing in Hughes

OR
-------------the owner of the red clothing (=Mr. Billy Lovelady, yellow arrow below) seen leaning over, and momentarily blocking the man in blue, in Hughes:


But we can rule out the man in blue on the landing (Mr. Bill Shelley) as the man waving the object because
a) he is too far back on the landing: he simply doesn't have time, in the less than two seconds between the end of the above Hughes GIF and the start of the Towner GIF, to come forward on the landing and step down far enough to be the holder of the object
b) Ms. Towner's angle--------more acute than Mr. Hughes'----------rules him out.

So it comes down to two candidates: Mr. Billy Lovelady vs. Mr. Oswald.

But we can rule out Mr. Lovelady, as Bell is just instants away from showing him like this:



Does this look like a man waving something back and forth? And did Mr. Lovelady say anything about waving something at the P. Parade?

So-----------the person waving the sizeable object must be the man in the reddish shirt standing right behind the black man by the white west column, i.e. it must be Mr. Oswald.

Now again, ask yourself: If Mr. Oswald were to wave something at a P. Parade, what might he be likely to wave?

 

[Alan Ford]

Now again, ask yourself: If Mr. Oswald were to wave something at a P. Parade, what might he be likely to wave?

At the very end of this clip, we see Mr. Oswald look down to his right. I believe he is placing his Coke down on the ledge, as he readies himself to make his provocative gesture with the flag:



He left it until the very last minute, when all eyes were on Houston St., to slip out front (didn't want to anyone to notice what he had in his non-bottle-holding hand).

 

[Alan Ford]

'OK, Lee, we're going to fire shots into the air as Kennedy is passing. You do your thing down on the steps, and make sure to get that photograph to show the Cubans.'

Waving a Cuban flag at a passing President is hardly going to be enough to convince the guys in Havana of one's credentials. But doing so in coordination with an intensely provocative action being carried out upstairs, and getting a photograph of your flag with JFK in the background, might just do the job nicely.

Mr. Oswald, it would seem, was tricked into playing a symbolic side role in an actual assassination. Hearing the shots ring out, he would not have been alarmed---------he knew they were coming. But the moment he heard that Pres. Kennedy had been hit, he realized he had been set up.

The above scenario works equally well whether Mr. Oswald is a genuine pro-Castro leftist or a faux-leftist trying to get into Cuba.