David Harold Byrd

[Dan O'meara]

It is immensely disappointing that the discussion has barely begun and Lance aka The Caped Factoid Buster aka The Giggler is already resorting to that most tried and trusted LNer strategy - The Strawman Argument 
How tedious.

I believe they pretty well drive a stake through the heart of those CTers, like Dan and Robert Morrow, who insist L-T-V was on the precipice of failure in 1963

As previously stated, L-T-V, far from about to collapse

L-T-V was not on the edge of financial ruin or even in a financially precarious position in the fall of 1963;

The falsehood being promoted by The Giggler is that I have argued LTV was "about to collapse" when Byrd bought his shares. This seems to be the position of Joan Mellon but it is something I disagree with.
I made this clear when I posted the following:

Firstly, I agree that Mellon's assessment of LTV being on the verge of bankruptcy is way off the mark.

Unfortunately for Lance he has run out of decent arguments so has to resort to this sad tactic. He presents an argument I've not made, then attempts to destroy this made up argument to make it look like he's 'winning'. It is such a distasteful LNer trait.

Lance - let's have a discussion/debate about this topic without turning into a point scoring competition. Just two people having a rational discussion

The real irony here is that the Caped Factoid Buster is busting factoids that he has introduced to the discussion in the form of the thesis by Robert Van Ling (any relation, I wonder).

Factoid #1  By Dec 31, 1961, LTV were saddled with a debt of $112 million. A quite staggering amount of debt.

Factoid #2 The management of LTV were quoted as saying that "it would take the rest of their corporate productive lives to pay off the enormous debt".

Factoid #3 During '62 and '63 LTV 'streamlined' in an attepmt to get the "enormous debt" under control - "LTV sold four divisions or subsidiaries for approximately $28 million...LTV streamlined its organizational structure from twenty divisions to eleven divisions".

Factoid #4 On top of the streamlining " LTV initiated a high degree of centralized management control and cost control programs."

These are the factoids that Lance introduced and that he is now busy busting!!
This is the backdrop against which Byrd bought his shares - crippling debt, dumping assets and "cost control programs". But that's not according to me - that's according to The Giggler!!

Just to add to this backdrop.
In an article entitled, "LBJ Cronies D.H. Byrd and James Ling Bought 132,000 Shares of Stock in Defense Contractor LTV in November 1963 Around Time of the JFK Assassination", Jeremy Kuzmarov writes:

"The buys occurred at a time when LTV stock was heading downward in the face of antitrust litigation. Furthermore, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara said to brace for cuts in the defense industry and the business press was writing bearish articles on the prospects for defense stocks as the year 1963 was coming to a close."

He supports this claim about the antitrust litigation with the following footnote:

Byrd, I’m an Endangered Species, 69. Byrd says he absorbed a loss of $15 million because of the antitrust litigation

I will have to look into this antitrust litigation a bit more. I see that you mention it in your post:

"Ling-Temco's hostile takeover of Vought in 1961 had been challenged by the USDOJ under the antitrust laws. The case actually went to trial, and L-T-V was fresh off a victory in 1963."

One question, Lance:
What was it about Buchanan's theory that you found plausible?

[John Iacoletti]

Oswald comes out of the building shortly after the shooting and sees this absolute chaos outside. People yelling and screaming, police officers with their guns drawn, spectators running, some throwing themselves on the ground. It's complete madness.

Does he ask about what happened? Stay and talk to Frazier or anyone else? This isn't small talk about the weather or the Cowboys. It's about this chaos going on as he watches. What's happening? He's a political person, is he not interested in what happened to the president? No, he walks seven blocks up the street and catches a bus. There was a bus stop on the corner of Houston and Elm that he could have used. But he decided otherwise. Does he talk to anyone about the event? There is no evidence that he does. He goes to his room where his landlady is watching the news. Does he stop to watch it? No, he rushes by then is out on the street. Not a care at all about the event.

At no time after the shooting does he show the slightest interest in what happened right outside the building where he worked.

If you don't find that evidence - not proof - but evidence of flight then you simply don't want to see it.

You simply don't want to see your own confirmation bias.

Oswald did not hang around and gossip with his coworkers.  About anything.  Ever.

[Lance Payette]

You simply don't want to see your own confirmation bias.

Oswald did not hang around and gossip with his coworkers.  About anything.  Ever.

Mrs. REID. I went into the office.
Mr. BELIN. You went into your office?
Mrs. REID. Yes.
Mr. BELIN. And then what did you do?
Mrs. REID. Well, I kept walking and I looked up and Oswald was coming in the back door of the office. I met him by the time I passed my desk several
feet and I told him, I said, “Oh, the President has been shot, but maybe they didn’t hit him.” He mumbled something to me, I kept walking, he did, too.

There ya go: Oswald didn't discuss baseball games, the weather ... or the President being shot. They're all fungible, right? He wasn't even interested when he stepped outside into utter chaos, heard the news on the bus, or rushed past Earlene Roberts watching the news coverage on TV. He was in a really big hurry to get his pistol and go see a movie. Just Oswald being Oswald - ya think?

Come on, you gotta do better than that.

[Lance Payette]

One question, Lance:
What was it about Buchanan's theory that you found plausible?

Sorry, didn't see this.

I didn't say I found it plausible. I said I found it the most plausible of the conspiracy theories. There are serious conspiracy theorists who think Buchanan nailed it.

The best of all possible motives, I believe, is $$$$. Both the Texas oilmen and the Mafia had this motive in spades. Both also had ancillary motives - the right-wing oilmen despised pretty much everything about JFK, and RFK was the proverbial stone in the shoe for the Mafia. The Texas oilmen certainly had the $$$$ and connections to hire a professional hitman, and doing so would have been business-as-usual for the Mafia. Hence, in the abstract I could easily see a tight, focused, get-the-job done assassination conspiracy hatched by a handful (or less) of Texas oilmen or Mafiosos.

The hang-up for me is that no such conspiracy would have involved, even as a patsy, a goofball like Oswald and all the unnecessary risks this would entail, nor would it have looked anything like Dealey Plaza. My respect for professional hitmen is such that I am confident JFK would simply have been disposed of with a single shot, no one would have had the faintest idea as to what had just happened, there would have been precisely no clues left behind, and that would have been that.

[John Mytton]

Mrs. REID. I went into the office.
Mr. BELIN. You went into your office?
Mrs. REID. Yes.
Mr. BELIN. And then what did you do?
Mrs. REID. Well, I kept walking and I looked up and Oswald was coming in the back door of the office. I met him by the time I passed my desk several
feet and I told him, I said, “Oh, the President has been shot, but maybe they didn’t hit him.” He mumbled something to me, I kept walking, he did, too.

There ya go: Oswald didn't discuss baseball games, the weather ... or the President being shot. They're all fungible, right? He wasn't even interested when he stepped outside into utter chaos, heard the news on the bus, or rushed past Earlene Roberts watching the news coverage on TV. He was in a really big hurry to get his pistol and go see a movie. Just Oswald being Oswald - ya think?

Come on, you gotta do better than that.

I've worked with one or two people who share this similar trait with Oswald, they are simply not interested in having a conversation about anything that doesn't interest them, but when you find that one special magic ingredient, you can't shut them up. Reading some of the TSBD workers testimony, some workers tried to get Oswald involved in a conversation about his kids and even then it seems that all Oswald would say is something to the effect of "they're alright" then he moved on.
It becomes clear that Oswald didn't want to waste his time with mere trivialities, even though there is the odd example of Oswald conversing about his time in Russia etc., but there was a couple of ways to really ignite him and light his fire and that was weapons and politics, a combination that ended up defining his life.
Anyway getting back to the point, it's somewhat odd that Oswald didn't want to find out about what was happening, even if he didn't shoot the President he must have been aware of shots being fired, the surrounding "commotion" and the potential impact that this would have on the political stability of the country.

Now let's assume Oswald was JAFO.

First of all he is confronted by a cop with a gun, and doesn't say a word, obviously I can't speak for Oswald but wouldn't anyone else say "what's going on?"
Next he sees Truly, someone Oswald knows and who he can ask questions, yet Oswald still keeps quiet, why is Oswald so disinterested?
Seeing Reid race by and her not knowing exactly what happened was perhaps reason enough not to engage.
On the bus, someone coming to the door and saying the President had been shot was starting to paint a picture.
In the taxi Whaley asking what the heck was going on with the Police cars crisscrossing the city, and Oswald didn't volunteer a single word, even though by this time he had accumulated some info about the most important man in America may have been shot?
And finally and what I find to be most incriminating, Oswald at his rooming house is near a television an object that doesn't require friendship but it's sole purpose is to entertain and provide information yet Oswald doesn't even stay to watch for even a minute, all Oswald wanted to do was get out of there with his revolver.

Now the reason for his 'obliviousness' is obvious, Oswald knew exactly what happened because he saw the future change when while looking down his rifle he pulled the trigger and saw the President's head explode.

JohnM
 

[Charles Collins]

I've worked with one or two people who share this similar trait with Oswald, they are simply not interested in having a conversation about anything that doesn't interest them, but when you find that one special magic ingredient, you can't shut them up. Reading some of the TSBD workers testimony, some workers tried to get Oswald involved in a conversation about his kids and even then it seems that all Oswald would say is something to the effect of "they're alright" then he moved on.
It becomes clear that Oswald didn't want to waste his time with mere trivialities, even though there is the odd example of Oswald conversing about his time in Russia etc., but there was a couple of ways to really ignite him and light his fire and that was weapons and politics, a combination that ended up defining his life.
Anyway getting back to the point, it's somewhat odd that Oswald didn't want to find out about what was happening, even if he didn't shoot the President he must have been aware of shots being fired, the surrounding "commotion" and the potential impact that this would have on the political stability of the country.

Now let's assume Oswald was JAFO.

First of all he is confronted by a cop with a gun, and doesn't say a word, obviously I can't speak for Oswald but wouldn't anyone else say "what's going on?"
Next he sees Truly, someone Oswald knows and who he can ask questions, yet Oswald still keeps quiet, why is Oswald so disinterested?
Seeing Reid race by and her not knowing exactly what happened was perhaps reason enough not to engage.
On the bus, someone coming to the door and saying the President had been shot was starting to paint a picture.
In the taxi Whaley asking what the heck was going on with the Police cars crisscrossing the city, and Oswald didn't volunteer a single word, even though by this time he had accumulated some info about the most important man in America may have been shot?
And finally and what I find to be most incriminating, Oswald at his rooming house is near a television an object that doesn't require friendship but it's sole purpose is to entertain and provide information yet Oswald doesn't even stay to watch for even a minute, all Oswald wanted to do was get out of there with his revolver.

Now the reason for his 'obliviousness' is obvious, Oswald knew exactly what happened because he saw the future change when while looking down his rifle he pulled the trigger and saw the President's head explode.

JohnM

If I remember correctly, LHO had a similar reaction on Thursday evening at Ruth Paine’s house when they tried to engage him in conversation about the president coming to Dallas. Marina and Ruth indicated he didn’t seem to want to discuss it.

[Lance Payette]

FWIW, Buell Frazier did tell the WC that Oswald would become chatty on their rides when talking about his kids.

Clearly, Mrs. Reid should have said "Oh, they shot the President - and how are those cute babies of yours, proud papa?"