JFK Assassination Documents to be released this year

[Herlock Sholmes]

'Jarman said that after he ate lunch he went outside to watch and that between 12:20 and 12:25 he and Jarman went up to the 5th floor.' {I think you meant 'he and Norman']

That is correct, and that is presumably why Oswald mentioned seeing them when being questioned by Fritz. If he was downstairs at 12.23 he could hardly have been upstairs preparing the assassination of the president. Oswald's ID is absolutely spot in terms of the two workers: Jarman was indeed known as 'Junior' and Norman was a short man, quite distinct from his friend Bonnie Ray Williams who was very tall. How could Oswald have known that this pair were walking through, or past the domino room at that time?

Both Truly and Frazier noted in testimony to the WC that Oswald was in the habit of walking around outside during his lunch break. The idea that he remained glued to a seat in the domino room reading newspapers during his lunch break (and laughing out loud according to one of the three witnesses) has no factual basis.

Williams, along with his coworkers, had been laying floor on the 6th floor for around 2 days before the day of the assassination. Plus Oswald would have seen him and the others in the 5 or so weeks that he had been employed there. It’s also fact that he would have seen them in the domino room on previous occasions. Williams at the WC:

Ball: Did you ever have lunch with him?

Williams: No. The only time he would come into the lunch room sometimes and eat a sandwich maybe, and then he would go for a walk, and he would go out. And I assume he would come back. But the only other time he would come in and read a paper or nothing, and laugh and leave again.

So clearly Oswald had seen Williams and his coworkers in the Domino Room on several occasions and so it would have been a pretty fair bet for him to guess that’s where they were having their lunch that morning. On the morning of the assassination Williams and co went down for their lunch break at around 11.50-11.55. He washed up and some of his coworkers had said that they were going to watch the motorcade from the 6th floor so that’s where Williams went but there was no one there so he at his lunch. He saw no one else there but of course the sniper’s next was in place so Oswald could have been there behind the boxes waiting for him to go. According to him this was from around 12.00 and he was there from 5 to 12 minutes. (He was asked about his FBI interview where he supposedly said that he was only on the 6th floor for 5 minutes - but it seems clear that he wasn’t exact about the time. It was basically the time that it took him to eat a sandwich. He then thought that he’d see if there was anyone on the 5th floor as he thought that he’d heard someone moving around down there. When he got to the 5th floor Norman and Jarman were there.

There’s a very minor discrepancy in that Jarman said that he and Norman went up to the 5th floor between 12.20 and 12.25 - Williams said that he’d finished his lunch somewhere between 12.05 and 12.12 when he went straight to the 5th floor to find the other 2 already there. This only requires a tiny amount of reasonable leeway in timings though for people that were estimating times. And if Oswald was going to eat his lunch downstairs why didn’t he go down in the lift with Givens at 11.55? Maybe he had other plans?

Like most things in this case, if you don’t poke around in every corner looking for sinister assumptions to make then there really is no mystery. Oswald would have seen Williams and co in the Domino Room eating their lunch numerous times numerous times over the previous few weeks so it was an entirely reasonable guess on his part and was worth a punt whilst being questioned. What other alibi could he have given? Guilty men lie.

[Herlock Sholmes]

It does not matter much whether Truly was right or wrong about someone being missing.

The point is that he thought that three people other than Oswald were missing after the shooting and, moreover, that he did not check precisely who was and who was not missing.

And at this juncture, I politely draw your attention to the fact that you have never produced any evidence that a roll-call took place - the roll-call which, according to the Warren Commission, proved that Oswald was the only employee missing.

Gary Mack interviewed Buell Wesley Frazier in 2002:

Frazier: Mr. Shelley got us together- he and Mr. Truly -and we had a roll call.

Mack: And where did this take place?

Frazier: Outside Mr. Shelley’s office.

Mack: Did they actually read off names? Or did they just ask you guys, ‘anybody missing?’

Frazier: No, they read names off and you had to answer.

Mack: Okay. And who was missing?

Frazier: The only person missing was Oswald.

This is contradicted by Roy Truly though. He didn’t mention any roll call and with the vagaries of memory we can’t be sure.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Not for the first time I discover I have spent time re-inventing the wheel.

The issue of the soda drink machine or machines has been covered by several others. The LG theorists claim that there was a Dr. Pepper machine on the 1st floor near the rear stairs and this was the machine referred to by Jarman. Since several witnesses described going up to the second floor to use the cola machine inside the lunchroom it was wrongly assumed that only one machine was inside the TSBD. It has also been claimed that Buell Frazier (some years later) remembered the Dr. Pepper machine on the first floor being next to a refrigerator. If this is true then the WC missed an opportunity to undermine Oswald's reasons for being on the 2nd floor when confronted by Marrion Baker. Oswald had nothing in his hands according to either Baker or Truly and, devastatingly, was known to be a Dr. Pepper drinker! Case closed methinks.

Some claim that a Dr. Pepper machine is visible in photos of the 1st floor taken for the WC although I can't quite see that myself; it looks rather 'Badgeman' to my failing eyesight. And if there was a refrigerator on the 1st floor why did some workers leave their lunches on the window sill in the Domino Room?

It was long thought that there was only a drinks machine in the 2nd floor lunchroom which allowed Oswald to claim that he’d gone from the 1st up to the 2nd floor to get a drink where he was confronted by Baker and Truly. Vincent Bugliosi spoke to Gary Mack, Curator of the Sixth Floor Museum, and Mack said that he wasn’t aware of one. The unfairly maligned (by CT’s) Vincent Bugliosi then called Buell Frazier who told him that there was actually a drinks machine in the 1st floor ‘domino’ room. And so no, he didn’t ‘just remember’ it, he just hadn’t been asked before. But you’re right in that the Warren Commission missed this important point though (one that would have counted against Oswald). And not only that, it was actually a Dr. Pepper machine that was on the first floor and from more that one source we know that Dr. Pepper was Oswald’s favourite soft drink - Marina said that this was the case. Also, Frazier said this to the Warren Commission:

Frazier: I have seen him (Oswald) go to the Dr. Pepper machine by the refrigerator and get a Dr. Pepper.

Williams said that he himself had got: a small bottle of Dr. Pepper from the Dr. Pepper machine.

So 2 people mentioned a specific Dr. Pepper machine (as opposed to a Coke machine) and one of them said that it was next to the refrigerator….and in the photo it’s next to a refrigerator.

So why would Oswald have gone from the 1st to the 2nd floor to get a drink when he could have got his favourite drink on the 1st? The 2nd floor machine didn’t sell Dr. Pepper by the way….it only sold Coke. The answer of course is that he didn’t. He came from the 6th to the 2nd and stopped at the first floor with a drinks machine in an attempt to give the impression that he’d been there at the time of the assassination (whilst there was a sniper’s nest on the floor where he was working and a rifle belonging to him and with his prints on….yeah right, pull the other one Lee). Yet more evidence of Oswald’s very obvious guilt…..not that more is needed of course as the rifle and the fingerprints would have convicted him in any court of law.

It’s also worth mentioning that when confronted, out of the blue and allegedly with no clue about what had just occurred, by an armed Police Officer with the building manager Oswald didn’t even ask what was going on? Does that sound likely?

Then we are being asked to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald, who was more interested in politics than your average man, really was so incurious a man in that he didn’t even bother to go the few feet to the door to watch the motorcade preferring to just meander upstairs to buy a coke. The same man that had refused to discus the President’s visit with his wife (proving that he at least knew about it) and the same man who pretended to his coworkers that he was initially unaware of the President’s visit.

We are also being asked to believe that sometime after Givens went down in the lift (11.55) Oswald conveniently left the 6th floor before Bonnie Ray Williams arrival at 12.00 (why did he feel the need to stay on the 6th floor just for an extra 4 or 5 minutes?) Then Bonnie Ray Williams too left the 6th floor after finishing his lunch (at around 12.10/12.15) conveniently allowing just enough time for our mystery Mr X to sneak in with a rifle (unseen by anyone) assemble the rifle and get into position just in time to assassinate the President.

No one could possibly believe this. Oswald was very clearly guilty.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I am applying simple logic!

You say Oswald was lying when he said he was having lunch in the building at the time of the shooting.

How do you know that Oswald was known to have been in the building at the time of the shooting?

You’re not applying logic whether simple otherwise. Three very obvious points are against you. Firstly, why would Oswald refuse the chance of going down in the lift with Givens at 11.55 if he intended to go down? Secondly, if Oswald was outside why didn’t he simply use this as his alibi? With so many employees out there surely he’d have been seen? Perfect alibi - Oswald walks away an ‘innocent’ man. But he didn’t did he? And thirdly, would you really suggest that after being outside watching Kennedy being assassinated Oswald would have just strolled back inside and up to the 2nd floor to get himself a coke (completely ignoring the machine on the 1st floor that sold his favourite soft drink?)

Clearly Oswald wasn’t outside and I could also add of course that we know for a fact where he was and what he was doing at the time of the assassination. If Oswald had an alibi….why didn’t he mention it so that it could be confirmed. Furthermore, if Oswald was simply part of a conspiracy that he was aware of, but not the shooter (as some claim) surely he’d have gone around talking to as many people as possible to establish his alibi? But he didn’t did he?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Frank,

I would anticipate that the rifle using a sabot to adapt a different calibre would have a reduced accuracy. My experience with the French Unique .22 rifle, which had a reputation for accuracy, was that the silencer had no effect on its accuracy.

With regard to the pillars, I did not explain properly. There were pillars on the top of the overpass:



This pillar is at the southern end of the overpass and provides a solid rifle rest out of the view of those watching the parade in the centre of the overpass. It provides this view of Elm St:



Just three feet from this position is a pathway leading down to the carpark behind the Post Office:


From this location a gunman could track the Limousine in Main St and be in position as the vehicle turned into Elm Street. Using a suppressed rifle he would be neither seen nor heard and could quickly escape down the leafy pathway. As you say, this position would line up with the tie and the shirt, and the hole in the windscreen.

Best regards, George

How could anyone have fired from the overpass when there were around 11 railway workers on there George? A shot from the front would have been impossible and the wound in Kennedy’s back doesn’t remotely line up with the throat shot as an entry wound. The only possible explanation is that the throat wound was an exit wound because the shot was from behind. Circumstances preclude any other explanation.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Cover story Kennedy used for an official reason .

Hoover indeed had everything to do with it.

You're fully entitled to your opinion of course Fishy but it would be good if you could provide some documentary evidence for that please. I can’t find any and I’ve looked.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The bus stop at which Oswald was standing was for buses headed north. The Tippit site was to the south. So whether he was waiting for a bus or for someone to pick him up, the theory is that he tired of that and started walking. Testimony stated that Tippit's murderer approached from the east, but Oswald would have been approaching from the west. So did he walk past the site of the murder, and seeing Tippit driving down the street, and being on the run, turn around and go back to confront him?

Four shots were fired into Tippit. Bullets recovered were 3 Winchester and 1 Remington. The original radio call-in identified the casings as 38 Auto, later to become just 38, 2 Winchester and 2 Remington. Also found was a wallet containing credit cards and a driver's licence in Oswald's name, and an ID for A Hidell. So according to the WC, Oswald had shot Tippit with 4 shots from a revolver, opened the cylinder and picked out the expended casings and thrown them on the ground, and then took out his wallet and threw that on the ground as well. Very accommodating of him to be sure.

He then allegedly took himself off to the Texas Theatre where he was arrested, after all the audience had been removed from the theatre, and allegedly drew a fully loaded revolver. Also found upon him was was a another wallet containing credit cards and a driver's licence in Oswald's name, and an ID for A Hidell. Doesn't everyone carry two wallets with forged driver's licences and ID for aliases? After all, you never know if you may need to throw down one of them after you have just shot someone.

The usual reply will be that none of this happened, but there is contemporaneous news footage to show that it did. Didn't seem to bother the WC theorists in the slightest.

Cheers, George

In Roberts affidavit she saw Oswald (even though Mr. Innocent registered himself O.H. Lee…..innocent men always use assumed names of course) on the curb at a bus stop but she didn’t look for enough to see how long he stood there or which way he went.

At the WC she said when asked about Oswald leaving:”He was walking fast - he was making tracks pretty fast” and that he was zipping up his jacket as he left.

So why would he have been “walking fast” if he was only intending to stand at a bus stop just to the right of the house a few feet away? The obvious possibility that’s ignored by conspiracy theorists of course is that Oswald only stood there for a very few seconds and was probably never intending to catch a bus. Perhaps he stopped because he was having trouble with his zip? Perhaps he couldn’t make his mind up which way to go or where he would go? Perhaps he considered catching a bus but nerves got the better of him so he kept moving? There’s simply nothing suspicious about this unless we start imagining stuff.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Tippet was supposed to take Oswald out , when he faulted or could do the job ( i.e he hesitated ) . Roscoe white shot him to death .

The Roscoe White story is unbelievable even by conspiracy theorists standards Fishy. His son Ricky called a Press Conference 27 years after the assassination in 1990 with his story saying that he’d read it in his dad’s diary which he found in a shed in 1982 (so why he’d waited 8 years to make this revelation is anyone’s guess?) Of course he couldn’t actually produce this diary because it was ‘stolen’ by the FBI in 1988. Beverley Oliver (professional fantasist) claimed to have seen White’s father in his police uniform in Dealey Plaza on the day of the assassination - it’s a pity that she didn’t photograph him with the camera that she supposedly had which wasn’t available for sale at the time. Sadly, police records show that White didn’t start his police training at the academy until December 4th so he couldn’t have been on duty in his uniform in Dealey Plaza on November 22nd. Yet another strike out for Oliver.

Ricky claimed to have seen his father and 4 other men practicing for the assassination by firing into a car on a ranch near Van Horn, Texas which was a pretty good feat of memory considering that he was only 3 years old at the time. He also claimed that his father was a covert CIA operative codename “Mandarin” who fired 2 shots from behind the picket fence with a Mauser whilst a man called “Lebanon” fired 2 shots from the TSBD and a man called “Saul” fired 2 shots from the Dallas County Records Building and they did this because Kennedy was somehow a threat to world wide peace! He claimed that his father was probably murdered even though he was killed after receiving 99% burns resulting in an explosion at the premises where he worked as a welder.

White had actually first contacted the authorities in 1988 (when he claimed that his father’s diary had been stolen by the FBI) but he didn’t mention anything that he went on to mention in 1990. In 1988 he said nothing about his father being a CIA officer but what he did say was that his father, J.D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald conspired to kill Kennedy because they were ex-Marines who were angry over The Bay Of Pigs (yawn) He claimed that his father and his father’s unnamed mistress (who supposedly worked at the TSBD) arranged for Oswald to get the job there. White showed the FBI some items including a receipt from the HSCA for a copy of the backyard photo but it was known that many police officers ‘acquired’ JFK assassination memorabilia so there was nothing particularly pertinent about that. The FBI closed its file on the matter in 1988 because they saw nothing of value in anything that White said and that he was simply trying to cash in on the conspiracy bandwagon.

White’s drivel was further exposed by 2 researchers. Firstly he claimed that his mother had received electro shock treatment from a Dr. Daniel Pearson to erase her memory of the conspiracy. David Perry contacted Dr Pearson who said that he had indeed given her electro shock treatment but for her depression and that it couldn’t erase someone’s memory. Roscoe White had actually received a hardship discharge from the Army due to his wife’s depression so her illness was clearly being treated using the accepted methods of the time. Then Perry and Gary Mack contacted a guy that Ricky White had claimed was a hit man in the conspiracy but he turned out to be an entirely innocent blueberry farmer. When Mack told White that he had good news for him, that his dad wasn’t an assassin, he expected him to be happy about it but he was just speechless and clearly disappointed. He had tried to sell his ludicrous story as a book and a movie and even got the backing of a group of 7 young oil millionaires but nothing ever came of it. One of the millionaires said later: “Ricky sounded sincere, and if what he said was true, he had the key to the biggest mystery in American History. We were young and naive, and being in Midland, had nothing much better to do. We figured we could spend about as much on this project as it would cost to drill a dry hole.”

A CT called Joe West tried to revive this nonsense by calling a press conference claiming that, before her death, Roscoe White’s wife, Geneva, found a copy of the diary which Oliver Stone paid $5000 for! Pretty much everyone who saw it believed that Geneva had created it herself. Hilariously one of the ‘handlers’ mentioned in the ‘diary’ was called ‘Watergate’ even though the Watergate scandal occurred 9 months after White died. And despite the entries supposedly being from between 1957 and 1971 they appeared to be written using the same felt pen. The best that can be said about White is that he went to Japan on the same ship as Oswald along with 7000 others (enough for a conspiracy theorist to get excited about of course) and White and Oswald were both stationed at Subic Bay in 1957 so they could conceivably have run into each other. But that’s all.

All of White’s ‘evidence’ was turned over to the Texas Attorney General’s office for investigation. They said that the ‘evidence’ had: “not given any credibility to anything these people have been trying to say.” The story is complete hogwash. Unsurprising Jim Garrison swallowed it (as you would expect of a fantasist like him)

How can anyone take this kind of stuff seriously? I can help smiling when I hear people saying that they don’t believe the Warren Commission and they don’t believe the pathologists and they don’t believe all of the other experts used in the case and yet they’ll hear an obvious fantasist like White (and Beverly Oliver for that matter) and immediately and uncritically give him the seal of approval!

[Herlock Sholmes]

You're correct, the WC made no mention of the wallet, and later the DPD denied its existence. However, Capt Westbrook of the DPD examined the contents of the wallet, and found two IDs, and asked FBI Special Agent Bob Barrett if he had heard of Lee Harvey Oswald or Alex Hidell. Barrett replied no. If the wallet was found on Tippit, as you claim, this makes it even more interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITTP...uriousitive%21

(Also connected to post #2466) There’s no denial here George, all that you need to do is check the facts before immediately leaping to assumptions. This wasn’t Oswald’s wallet.

In saying that the DPD denied the wallet’s existence you aren’t stating the facts fairly. The fact is that neither at the time nor later did a single member of the DPD mention finding Oswald’s wallet at the Tippit murder scene so three questions should immediately be asked.

1. Why would Lee Harvey Oswald have been carrying two wallets (the one found at the scene and the one taken from him in the squad car that took him away after his arrest….confirmed by 3 officers)?
2. How could Oswald have been so careless and stupid as to have dropped this vital piece of identification at the scene of Tippit’s murder?
3. Most importantly…why didn’t the police shout from the rooftops that they had found this critical piece of evidence which would have clinched the case against Oswald? Especially a police force which, according to yourself and others, was intent on framing Oswald for Tippit’s murder?

This should tell us as clearly as day that this obviously wasn’t Oswald’s wallet. We have photographs of Oswald’s two wallets and neither of them matched the one seen being held by Sergeant Owens at the crime scene as he was showing it to George Doughty. It was a completely different wallet. So how did it get suggested as being Oswald’s?

The first mention was in Hosty’s book Assignment Oswald where he stated that FBI agent Robert M. Barrett, who arrived at the scene after Tippit’s body had been removed, had said that Westbrook had found the wallet near a puddle of Tippit’s blood. Barrett said that Westbrook showed him the identification in the wallet and asked him if he knew anything about Oswald or Hidell. Hosty conjectures that in the later confusion the wallet was mistakenly believed to have been found on Oswald himself. Hosty apparently never asked himself how the police (or anyone else for that matter) could only have noticed a wallet next to the where the body lay after the body had been removed.

Barrett gave his own, slightly different version of events in 1996. He said that just after he’d arrived at the scene Westbrook, who was interviewing Helen Markham at the time, called him over. He had a wallet in his hand but Barrett said “Now, I don’t know where he found it, but he had the wallet in his hand.” Westbrook then asked him if he knew who Oswald or Hidell were, to which he replied no. Barrett then went to the Texas Theatre and then to the DPD and Westbrook’s office. While at the DPD Barrett would have heard the names Oswald and Hidell but possibly didn’t hear about the police taking the wallet from Oswald. Barrett later returned to the crime scene to take photographs and conduct interviews and while he was there he said that some unnamed and unidentified witness told him that he’d seen Oswald hand something to Tippit through the car window. Barrett admitted that he couldn’t verify this but clearly this would have cemented the notion that the wallet was found at the scene. Barrett said “I don’t think that Westbrook would have been asking me questions about something unrelated to the situation and he had the wallet with those names in it. Later, I remember seeing photographs of the contents of the wallet; in which those two names were in it.”

So he didn’t actually see the ID’s at the scene. Would it have been at all likely that Westbrook would have called Barrett over to discuss the contents of the wallet without actually showing them to him (a man that he knew well?) if it was from a potential suspect? Of course it isn’t. In recent years any officers still alive were asked about the wallet and no one corroborated this story except for Kenneth H. Croy. He said that he was handed a discarded wallet by an unknown citizen who said that the gunman had thrown it away. Significantly though Croy never mentioned this wallet at the Warren Commission in 1964. He also claimed that the wallet contained seven different ID’s in seven different names (none of which was Oswald btw) and he was adamant that there was no photograph. The wallet found on Oswald contained twelve pieces of identification; 10 in the name of Lee H. Oswald and two in the name of Alek James Hidell. There were also two items with photographs of Oswald (one in each name) So how could they have connected the wallet to Oswald at the scene if his name wasn’t actually in it? He didn’t, as he said, “Well, we didn’t know it was connected to Oswald,….We just knew it was connected to the man who shot Tippit. We didn’t know who Oswald was until they drug (sic) him out of the Texas Theatre.” So this was simply a presumption and not because of any ID in the wallet. The wallet wasn’t connected to Oswald in any way.

The first person to mention Oswald’s wallet was Sergeant Gerald L. Hill who was in the car that took Oswald away after he’d been arrested. Detective Paul Bentley took the wallet from Oswald, in the car because Oswald wouldn’t give them his name. Three officers testified at the WC that this occurred. Bentley said that he turned the wallet over to Lieutenant Baker (who also confirmed this) He left it on Captain Fritz desk, left the room for couple of minutes with two officers present, he then returned to question Oswald. Ted Calloway, who helped get Tippit’s body into the ambulance said “I’ll tell you one thing…..there was no billfold at that scene. If there was, there would have been too many people who would have seen it.” Patrolmen Pie and Jez, who were two of the first officers on the scene said that, to their knowledge, no wallet was found at the scene.

It has been suggested that the wallet might have been Tippit’s but colleagues said that it would have been safely in his pocket. The issue was put to bed in 2012 though when Tippit’s wallet was made available by the family and it wasn’t the one seen in the film. Another suggestion is that it might have been Calloway’s. He took Tippit’s gun and went looking for Oswald with Scoggins in his taxi but even if they did check his ID when he returned it doesn’t seem likely that they would have looked at his wallet in the manner that the wallet was being looked at in the film.

So we don’t know whose wallet it was. Barrett admitted that he never actually saw the identifications in the wallet but he was convinced that this occurred at the crime scene and not back at the DPD. But three things point strongly away from this.

1. If Oswald wallet had been found at the scene it would certainly have been shouted out to the Press and it would certainly have been used in evidence at the Warren Commission. It wasn’t though. This makes zero sense for people trying to prove Oswald’s guilt.
2. Barrett had a reputation within the FBI for writing overly-detailed reports. He had a habit of noting down unimportant information along with important stuff and yet in his report about the Tippit shooting and the crime scene he made absolutely no mention at all of a wallet that was found and that apparently belonged to the killer.
3. Barrett also failed to mention the wallet in front of the HSCA telling the committee members that his 1963 report was “…my best recollection, [written] at the time of the events I had seen and observed that day.”

It seems clear that Barrett was simply mistaken. He saw the wallet and because of what he heard later at the DPD he made the connection between the wallet found at the scene and Oswald’s. That such a vital piece of evidence, confirming Oswald’s presence at the crime scene, wouldn’t have been mentioned (even trumpeted) at the time) is simply not believable. Could it have simply been an unconnected, discarded wallet handed to Croy who was the first officer at the scene? Who knows?

Finally, I’ll add a piece of my own speculation. Could the wallet have simply come into Tippit’s possession earlier that day? As Calloway said, if it had been found near the body it would have been seen much earlier so maybe it was in Tippit’s car? Maybe it had been handed in to him? And might this explain his alleged attempted phone call at the Top Ten Record store? Could there have been a phone number in the wallet and Tippit decided to try it to tell the owner that he had his wallet but he got no answer? I’d say that it’s at least a possibility. It certainly wasn’t Oswald’s wallet though.

[Herlock Sholmes]

There is a very interesting discussion here on the backyard photos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKhM...l=firstlightvideo

Of particular interest are the finding of the WC expert Lyndal L Shaneyfelt. He concluded that the photos were taken by the camera said to belong to Oswald, but added that "he could not positively identify the rifle in the photos as the same rifle held by the FBI as the assassination weapon".

Here is the advertisement for the weapon Oswald allegedly ordered:


Note the sling rings:



Note that the sling rings in the photos are in the same position:





Here is the alleged murder weapon with the sling rings on the side of the stock:



Possible conclusions?

1. The photos are genuine and Oswald is holding the rifle that he ordered, with the sling rings underneath the stock, not on the side of the stock as shown on the murder weapon.

2. The photos were composites using the rifle that was ordered under the name of A Hidell and sent to Oswald's P.O. Box, with the sling rings underneath the stock, not on the side of the stock as shown on the murder weapon.

Either way, the rifle shown in these photos is not the alleged murder weapon.

Oswald's application for the P.O. Box shows that he was the only one authorised to collect goods from that Box.


Any goods sent to that Box to a different person would have been returned marked "Return to Sender".


However, Hoover had knowledge of this P.O. Box and attributed the pickup of the rifle to a woman named A Hidell.



This affidavit appears to be addressing the fibres allegedly found. It is not easy to decipher but it appears to conclude that there was no match, contrary to what the WC claimed.

AFFIDAVIT OF PAUL MORGAN STOMBAUGH
The following affidavit was executed by Paul Morgan Stombaugh on September 4, 1964.
PRESIDENT’S COMMISSION
ON THE ASSASSINATION OF AFFIDAVIT
PRDSIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
DIBTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 88:
Paul Morgan Stombaugh, being duly sworn, deposes and says:
1. This affidavit is made at the request of the President’s Commission on the
Assassination of President Kennedy, for the purpose of supplementing the
testimony I gave before the Commission concerning certain hairs and fibers
I examined.
2. The principal characteristics of cotton fibers used for comparison purport%
are color and shade; and degree of twist. Of these, color and shade are by far
the most significant. The principal characteristics of viscose used for comparison purposes are color and shade, diameter, and size and distribution of
delusterlng agent.
3. The orangeyellow and grey-black cotton fibers in the shirt, Commission
Exhibit 150, were respectively of uniform shades; the dark blue cotton fibers in
the shirt were of three different shades. All the fibers in the shirt were mercerized, and of a substantially uniform twist.
4. The green cotton fibers found in the paper bag, Commission Exhibit 142,
varied in shade, but were of a uniform twist. The brown viscose fibers in the
blanket, Commission Exhibit 140, varied in diameter, shade, size, and distribution
of delustering agent.
5. Stombaugh Exhibits l-6 consist of the following items :
(a) Stombaugh Exhibit 1 consists of the hairs I found on the blanket, Commission Exhibit 140.
(b) Stombaugh Exhibit 2 consists of the known sample of Lee Harvey Oswald’s
hairs sent to me by the Dallas Office of the FBI.
(c) Stombaugh Exhibit 3 consists of the fibers I found in the paper bag,
Commission Exhibit 142.
(d) Stombaugh Exhibit 4 consists of a sample of fibers from the blanket,
Commission Exhibit 140.
(e) Stombaugh Exhibit 5 consists of the fibers I found on the rifle, Commission
Exhibit 139.
(f) Stombaugh Exhibit 6 consists of a sample of fibers from the shirt, Commission Exhibit 150.
Signed this 4th day of September, 1964.
(S) Paul Morgan Stombaugh,

Perhaps there was a Paul Strombaugh impersonator too George?

PAUL STOMBAUGH -- "The viscose fiber I found in the bag matched in all observable microscopic characteristics some of the viscose fibers found in the composition of this blanket. This would be the diameter, the diameter of that same fiber would have the same size of delustering markings, same shape, same form, and also same color."

MEL EISENBERG -- "Now, what about the green cotton fiber that you found in the paper bag, Mr. Stombaugh, how did that compare with the green cotton fiber--was it a green cotton fiber that your testimony mentioned?"

STOMBAUGH -- "Yes; there were several light green cotton fibers."

EISENBERG -- "How did they compare with the green cotton fibers which are contained in the composition of the blanket?"

STOMBAUGH -- "These matched in all observable microscopic characteristics."

……

The HSCA however had a much larger staff of experts and photographic technology unavailable to the WC and they concluded…..

"A comparison of the relative lengths of parts of the alleged assassination rifle that is in the National Archives with corresponding parts of what purports to be that rifle as shown in various photographs taken in 1963 indicates that the dimensions of the rifle(s) depicted are entirely consistent. .... A comparison of identifying marks that exist on the rifle as shown in photographs today with marks shown on the rifle in photographs taken in 1963 indicates both that the rifle in the Archives is the same weapon that Oswald is shown holding in the backyard picture and the same weapon, found by Dallas police, that appears in various post assassination photographs." -- 6 HSCA 66

And…


"The panel detects no evidence of fakery in any of the backyard picture materials." -- 6 HSCA 146

Photographs that Marina Oswald admitted to having taken. Photographs which were confirmed as having being taken by their camera. Photographs taken at an address that Oswald was keen to distance himself from by omitting it when giving the police a list of his residences. Photographs which have been checked by experts numerous times and absolutely zero evidence of tampering has ever been found.

Even though Marina Oswald has now jumped onto the conspiracy bandwagon in a desperate attempt to capitalise, she was interviewed on November 30th, 2000 in Dallas by Vincent Bugliosi and Fort Worth lawyer Jack Duffy and she still maintained that she had taken the photographs.

The main reason that the photographs continue to be questioned is down to compulsive liar Robert Groden, who was Oliver Stone’s photographic ‘consultant’ (which should tell us all that we need to know about him.) This is the man who appeared for OJ Simpson claiming that the infamous Bruno Magi shoes had been superimposed onto a photograph of Simpson (a man who was as guilty as Oswald was) Groden was exposed as someone with zero photographic qualifications, with zero references, with zero published papers or works and with zero formal training in photographic analysis. He was actually a high school dropout whose credibility was further crushed when he was accused of selling stolen autopsy photographs to The Globe….a charge he rigorously denied until the contract for the $50,000 transaction was produced leaving Groden to pathetically claim that the money was for his ‘story’ and that the autopsy photos were just ‘illustrations’. Sadly for Groden by the time that he was called back to the stand in the Simpson case they had found around 30 more photographs of Simpson in those exact same shoes. He still wouldn’t admit that he was wrong. Bad luck Bob. Groden, like Mark Lane, like Roger Craig, like Charles Crenshaw, like Jim Garrison, simply cannot and should not be taken seriously.

It’s believed that the photographs were taken on March 31st 1963 and the rifle was shipped to Oswald/Hidell on March 20th so the timing fits perfectly for Oswald showing off his new rifle.

One question that we should be asking though is this - if, as is suggested, we have forgers, fakers and imposters within the conspiracy ranks, why didn’t they simply set up a PO Box in Oswald’s own name and then order the rifle and revolver in Oswald’s own name? What possible sense would it make for someone to try and set up Oswald as the owner of the rifle by ordering it in a name that wasn’t Oswald’s and how obliging of Oswald that he conveniently carried those cards that connected him to the name Hidell? If he hadn’t carried those cards with him the name Hidell would have remained a mystery with CT’s saying “ the rifle was ordered by a bloke called Hidell so it couldn’t have been Oswald’s.” It makes absolutely no sense at all of course but anything can be suggested in conspiracy world….. purchase orders not in Oswald’s name, Oswald lookalike’s that didn’t actually look like him….it’s all part of the fantasy.

[Herlock Sholmes]

More for the Desroe ‘discussion.’

A point for George in regard to the previous Desroe discussion. In his WC testimony Ronald Fischer said, about the security detail: “ They jumped off - out of cars and ran up the side of the hill there and onto the tracks where these passenger - freight cars were.”

Then we have Victoria Adam’s being interviewed in 2002:

“The railroad yard behind the grassy knoll was quite a distance away. I could not see anything other than people running toward the railroad cars and I tried to run that way, too.”

Were these two imagining railways cars behind the fence too?

[FISHY1118]

You're fully entitled to your opinion of course Fishy but it would be good if you could provide some documentary evidence for that please. I can’t find any and I’ve looked.

ill get on it .

[Herlock Sholmes]

Oswald’s Plan?

The often made suggestion that Oswald was heading for a pre-arranged meeting at the Texas Theatre is clearly nonsense when we take even the briefest of looks at the evidence.


Oswald leaves 1026 North Beckley - approx 1.00

Julia Postal phones the police (because Oswald has gone inside the cinema no more than 5 minutes earlier) - 1.42.

If Oswald had been heading for the Texas Theatre all along he’d have arrived there at around 1.20. Even if he’d headed for the Texas Theatre directly after killing Tippit he’d have arrived there at around 1.20 so unless he’d got lost it’s simply not creditable that this was where he was heading all along.

So we have a choice of what is the likelier.


A…Lee Harvey Oswald, after killing Kennedy, leaves 1026 North Beckley at around 1.00. He’s stopped by Officer J.D. Tippit and kills him in panic at around 1.15 (11-13 minutes walk away) then flees the scene knowing that he’s been seen. He dumps his jacket to alter his general appearance then wanders around in panic trying to lie low (hearing police sirens) whilst wondering what to do before ending up on West Jefferson, where he’s seen acting suspiciously by Johnnie Brewer as police cars are speeding past. In panic he ducks into the Texas Theatre without paying, hoping to stay there until things quieten down before fleeing.

Or

B….A completely innocent Lee Harvey Oswald (after getting dropped off 2 blocks from 1026 and then walking in the opposite direction before doing a u-turn) arrives at his rooming house where he picks up his revolver. He then meanders aimlessly around the Oak Cliff area for around 35 minutes before deciding to check out the shoes at Hardy’s Shoe Store before strolling along West Jefferson to catch a movie (forgetting to buy a ticket) And while this is happening, a guy who looks like Oswald kills Officer Tippit and is mistakenly witnessed as him by around 10 people (before handing the revolver to a passing Oswald at some point) Then when Officer Nick McDonald approaches him he stands up and says “it’s all over now,” (perhaps he meant the movie?) before pulling his revolver.




Answers on a postcard to…..

[Herlock Sholmes]

Conspiracy Theorists Magic Bullet.

Perhaps someone could explain the Magic Bullet used by conspiracy theorists to account for the wounds to Kennedy’s body? When we look at the angle of any bullet travelling from the Grassy Knoll to Kennedy’s throat it would have exited on the left side of his body in the general direction of the left rear of the car. Yet when we look at the location of the actual wound on Kennedy’s back we can see that it simply doesn’t come close to lining up. Therefore a Grassy Knoll bullet would have needed to have turned to the left after striking Kennedy’s throat. How did this happen (conspiracy theorists can’t blame Arlen Specter for this one)?

A second suggestion that I’ve heard is that the shot could have come from the overpass but a photograph of the motorcade immediately after the shots show at least 11 men up there absolutely precluding the suggestion of there being a gunman anywhere near that area.

What is certainly noticeable is that we see numerous diagrammatical recreations of the shots arguing for and against shots from the 6th floor window but nowhere do we see any recreations of how the shot could line up from the front. There is a yawning silence on this issue. Why is that? Why haven’t conspiracy theorists undertaken a recreation to prove where the shots came from? They confine themselves to criticising the official findings by trying to prove where the shots didn’t come from by resorting to feeble cries of ‘fake’ and ‘forgery’ which doesn’t come close to cutting the mustard because there’s zero evidence of it (except for its inconvenience to their theories). The reason why there are no diagrams or recreations of a shot to Kennedy’s throat from the front is because it couldn’t have happened. It’s impossible. The Grassy Knoll angle is wildly wrong and a shot from the front is impossible due to the at least 11 people on the Overpass. What’s left? I think that we all know the answer to that.

Non-conspiracist versus conspiracist thinking…..if we had a modern day crime where 3 witnesses said that Mr X hit Mr Y with a baseball bat but the CCTV footage showing the attack revealed that Mr X wasn’t carrying a baseball bat the non-conspiracist says “ok, so he didn’t attack him with a baseball bat.” The conspiracist says “well that proves that the CCTV footage has been altered!”

This parallels a CT’s approach to evidence in this case. “It doesn’t fit my preconceptions therefore the evidence against it must have been falsified and I don’t need to provide any more evidence than this.” I know which approach I prefer to take.

…….

It comes to something when even a noted conspiracy theorist provide ‘evidence’ in favour of a guilty Oswald when other conspiracy theorists try to claim that Oswald never owned a rifle. Edward Jay Epstein heard from someone in Houston in 1964 that George De Mohrenschildt had told him that he’d inadvertently given Oswald the cash with which he bought the rifle. Marina supposedly said: “Remember the twenty-five dollars you gave me? Well, that fool husband of mine used it to buy a rifle.”


Now, as a non-conspiracy theorist I have to point out that there is no way of validating this claim as far as I’m aware but can’t we just imagine how this kind of evidence would have been trumpeted if it had been in favour of an innocent Oswald? The fact that it came from a CT like Epstein makes it at least worthy of note and is certainly more believable than a single word that ever came out of Jim Garrison’s mouth.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Nurse Audrey Bell - yet another dodgy pro-conspiracy ‘witness.’

It’s always good to get a bit more detail on witnesses in the case. Nurse Audrey Bell was cited by Fishy as a witness that supported conspiracy, or perhaps its better put to say that she was ‘unfriendly’ to the official version. She was an the Operating Room Supervisor at Parkland Hospital. This is her summary of Kennedy’s wounds that she gave to the ARRB:

- She did not see the throat wound herself.

- Although only in Trauma Room One for 3-5 minutes, she did see the head wound. After asking Dr. Perry “where is the wound,” she said he turned the President’s head slightly to the President’s anatomical left, so that she could see a right rear posterior head wound, which she described as occipital in both her oral remarks, and her drawings.

- She said she could see brain and spinal fluid coming out of the wound, but could not tell what type of brain tissue it was.

- She said it was her recollection that the right side of the President’s head, and the top of his head, were in tact, which is why she had to ask Dr. Perry where the wound was in the first place.



In Oliver Stone’s Destiny Betrayed, Stone did a bit of creative ‘editing’ and changed the word ‘occipital’ to ‘parietal.’ Nice trick in a book and documentary riddled with dishonesty and misinformation as you’d expect from him. Bell also said that the hole in Kennedy’s head was 3-4 inches in diameter which wasn’t reflected in the diagram that she marked up to illustrate this. (But I guess we’ll give her diagram a free pass whilst nitpicking over Boswell’s?)

This is from researcher Pat Speer. Pat is a believer in conspiracy and so definitely not someone intent on maintaining any ‘official version.’ He questions whether Bell was even in the trauma room:

“Her claim Dr. Perry showed her the back of Kennedy's head—when no one else remembered Dr. Perry showing the wound to anyone, or her even being in the room—is as smelly as smelly can get … At the head of the gurney (on the far side of the room) stand Drs. Jenkins and McClelland. Along the sides of the gurney stand Drs. Perry, Baxter, Jones, Peters, Salyers, etc. There is no way a nurse would push past these men, go to the head of the gurney, and ask to be shown the head wound. No way … I don't believe Bell's story, and I'm embarrassed for you if you do.”

Furthermore we have this from Dr. Ron Jones:

“I hung up the phone and turned around and noticed a table. This was a fairly large cafeteria. And just a few feet away behind me sat Dr. M. T. Jenkins, who … [was] better known as “Pepper” Jenkins, and he was head of the department of anaesthesia, and Miss Audrey Bell, who was the operating room supervisor at Parkland. And so, people were beginning to look at me at that time from … employees in the cafeteria, knowing that something must be going on. I went over to that table, and I said, “You aren't going to believe this, but the president's been shot and they're bringing him to the emergency room.” And Dr. Jenkins said, “Well, I’ll get an anaesthesia machine from the operating room and bring it right down.” And Miss Bell said, “I’ll get an operating room ready.”

Remember, Kennedy was in Trauma Room One for no more than 20 minutes. So is it believable that Nurse Bell went to prepare an operating room, making sure that everything was in place and in order for the President, and then went to the Trauma Room and walked in and up to a Doctor who was trying to save Kennedy’s life and asked to see the wound? And that Doctor briefly stopped what he was doing to show her? No chance. She might have been in trauma room for a short time but her opinions on anything to do with Kennedy cannot and should not be taken seriously.

Dr Jenkins told Dennis Breo that he doubted “any of the Parkland physicians even had a good look at the President's head.” It doesn’t stop conspiracy theorists relying on them though does it? Par for the course.

“I was standing at the head of the table in at the position the anaesthesiologist most often assumes closest to the President's head. My presence there and the president's great shock of hair and the location of the head wound were such that it was not visible to those standing down each side of the gurney where they were carrying out their resuscitative manoeuvres.”

But this is the type of dodgy witness that those that favour conspiracy tend to rely on. I think we can safely relegate Nurse Bell to the subs bench alongside Ed Hoffman, Beverley Oliver, Perry Russo, Gordon Arnold, Charles Crenshaw, Ricky White, Rose Cherami, Roger Craig and many others.