JFK Assassination Documents to be released this year

[jmenges]

Oswald's statement to Hosty lines up exactly with the testimony of Carolyn Arnold, Jarman and Norman when LHO states he went to the 2nd floor lunchroom first and then the 1st floor domino room before he went outside to watch the Presidential parade. Will Fritz' notes state that Oswald said he was "with Bill Shelly in front". Bill Shelley was in fact standing in the entrance. Yes, no one said they saw Oswald there, hence the debate.
But Carolyn Arnold sees him in the 2nd floor lunch room around 12:15pm. The Warren Report says at this time Oswald was on the 6th floor assembling his gun. At this same time ground eyewitness Rowland sees a man in the 6th floor window with a gun.
Jarman and Norman see Oswald on the 1st floor at around 12:20-12:25.
The gunman presumably wouldn't have known the motorcade was running late which is why he was seen in the window at 12:15 while Oswald was apparently on the 1st and 2nd floors well after. Just my opinion.

JM

[Herlock Sholmes]

All of this has been reasonably disputed. Just a few examples: No one has ever been able to replicate the shots from the 6th floor. The one eyewitness testimony on the ground is questionable when they include the height of the man seen in the window at a time when the shooter is crouching. People inside the TSBD who were proven to be going down the stairway at the same time the government needs Oswald on the same stairway heard and saw no one. The prints lifted off of the gun occurred after his death- and after originally no prints were found- and they came from a part of the rifle only accessible when the rifle was disassembled. The second page of his PO Box application where the rifle was delivered listing other individuals who the applicant also gave permission to access the PO Box conveniently disappeared.

JM

The prints were discovered straight away by the Police but the FBI couldn’t find them later. Lieutenant Day (Dallas Police) said: “I don’t fault the FBI for not being able to find the palm print. It was already faint when I lifted it, and it’s even more difficult to lift the same print a second time because some of the detail has already been removed from the first lifting of the print”

On the shooting, what about the CBS recreation? One guy had 2 hits (like Oswald) in a quicker time than Oswald and one had 3 out of 3 hits and so beat his performance. And I can’t find it anywhere but I’m sure that I used to have it somewhere that others have beaten Oswald’s performance. I’ve definitely seen it written by knowledgeable marksman that the felt that the 3 shots were no big deal. Unless the times are tampered with to reduce the time available of course. I recall years ago talking to a friend who was a gun enthusiast and he always said that he never understood the fuss about hitting 2 out of 3 shots, not far away in around 8 seconds.

…..

Leaving aside disputes about the other points Jon I’d like to ask 2 questions. 1. Why couldn’t Oswald have come down via the lift? There were two I believe, east and west. When Charles Givens saw Oswald on the 6th floor at 11.55 Oswald told him that he wasn’t going down to the lunch room and asked him to close the gates of the lift so that it could have been summoned back up.

2. Where is the proof that 2 people were coming down the stairs at the same time as Oswald. I know that one woman wrote a book fairly recently after suspiciously staying silent for 60 years. How could it be proven what time a woman or two came down? Surely you would have to know what time they came down and was the clock that they took their time from correct?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Given the location of "prayer man" at the top of the TSBD steps, I'd be surprised if a 1960s home movie will provide a better resolution. In fact, if it is released, I suggest that loners will say it's not him, conspirators will say the opposite.

My original point was this: if prayer man was LHO (whose face was to become the most well known in the US during the ensuing days) no one came forward and said "But I saw that man on the steps next to me!" or no one in the TSBD came forward to say they saw LHO making his way to the steps (near the critical time, say 12:26-31pm). I find that surprising. Unless I'm wrong on this point, LHO appears in this image (and in the withheld home movie) but without any other corroborating evidence from any witness.

Presumably, LHO sees the assassination from the steps, realises he's in deep trouble (fearing he will be made the fall guy) but, rather than making his presence immediately known to everyone around him to be remembered and prove it wasn't him (echoes of the Wallace Case here, JM), he disappears anxiously into the shadows, gets a gun and kills a policeman a little later. All he had to do was turn to colleague, or approach strangers, and shout hysterically at them "Oh my God they've shot the President! Castro's gone and done it!" He would have been remembered, I'm sure, and he's in the clear.

To me, it doesn't feel right...

Oswald said he was eating in the first floor lunch room with Junior Jarman and another black guy (can’t recall his name at the moment) When asked, Jarman said that Oswald wasn’t there.

[GBinOz]

From the trial:

B - Now, Doctor, if the bullet was coming on a downward path as it entered the Presidential limousine, as you say it was, is that correct?

W - Yes.

B - And it missed Governor Connolly, is that correct?

W - Yes.

B - Why didn’t it hit the car or do any damage to the car?

W - Mr. Bugliosi, you are conveniently ignoring the fact that Elm Street is on a downward path which progresses in a more downward fashion as it goes away from the Texas (Book Depository) Building; therefore, as the car is going downward and the bullet is going downward, then the declination, the angle downward of the car more than compensates for the slight downward angle of the bullet.

B - Oh, but Doctor, please, the degree of declination of Elm Street is 3 degrees, and certainly the bullet (coming) from the second floor (where Wecht had speculated the assassin was) would have been 3 degrees higher than the horizontal plane than the Presidential limousine.

W- Not considerably higher.


Bugliosi then asked again why the bullet, if it missed, didn’t hit anything else.


W - What happened? …..Where is it? You are asking me to be responsible for the bullets in this case.

B - I’m just asking you what happened to the…..bullet.

W - I can’t tell you where all the bullets are. I didn’t conduct the investigation


Then….


B - Doctor, the Prosecution has its own magic bullet, and frankly, we’re jealous of it……Now you’ve got your magic bullet, a bullet that is coming in a downward path into the Presidential limousine, 2000 feet a second, passes through President Kennedy’s body…..and it misses the driver and it misses the car. It must have zigzagged to the left?

W - No. it need not have zigzagged to the left.

B - Did if broadjump over the car?

W - No……it need not have performed any remarkable feet.

B - But you don’t know what happened to it?

W - No I do not. There is a lot of things I don’t know about what happened to it in this case.

How could Wecht be expected to know the answer to those questions. The car was removed that afternoon and washed and cleaned. Fritz complained that he couldn't conduct an investigation because the FBI had confiscated all the evidence.

Reasonable response to stupid questions.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Oswald's statement to Hosty lines up exactly with the testimony of Carolyn Arnold, Jarman and Norman when LHO states he went to the 2nd floor lunchroom first and then the 1st floor domino room before he went outside to watch the Presidential parade. Will Fritz' notes state that Oswald said he was "with Bill Shelly in front". Bill Shelley was in fact standing in the entrance. Yes, no one said they saw Oswald there, hence the debate.
But Carolyn Arnold sees him in the 2nd floor lunch room around 12:15pm. The Warren Report says at this time Oswald was on the 6th floor assembling his gun. At this same time ground eyewitness Rowland sees a man in the 6th floor window with a gun.
Jarman and Norman see Oswald on the 1st floor at around 12:20-12:25.
The gunman presumably wouldn't have known the motorcade was running late which is why he was seen in the window at 12:15 while Oswald was apparently on the 1st and 2nd floors well after. Just my opinion.

JM

Caroline Arnold told Dallas Morning News in 1978 that she’d seen Oswald in the 2nd floor lunchroom eating at 12.25 as she exited the building to watch the motorcade. The same month she told Anthony Summers that it had been 12.15 but it may have been slightly later. Oswald however claimed that he ate his lunch in the first floor lunch room then went up to the 2nd floor lunch room to get a coke (despite the fact that there was a vending machine in the first floor room that sold his drink of choice Dr. Pepper) So was Oswald being truthful about not being on the 6th floor but lied about having his lunch on the first floor when he really had it on the 2nd? Could anyone believe that a possibility?

Four days after the assassination she told the FBI that she’d seen Oswald a few minutes before 12.15 and not in the first floor lunch room eating his food. The FBI report says “ As she was standing in front of the building, she stated that she thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of LHO standing in the hallway between the front door and the double doors leading to the warehouse, located on the first floor. She could not be sure this was Oswald, but she felt it was.”

So in 1963 she thought she saw him on the first floor but in 1978 she knows she saw him on the 2nd. Arnold for her part claimed that the FBI misquoted her. But on March 18th 1964 she gave a signed statement to 2 FBI agents where she made no mention of seeing Oswald on either the 1st or 2nd floor. The only mention she made of him was: “I did not see Lee Harvey Oswald at the time the President was shot.”

Two of the four women that accompanied her outside, Virgie Rackley and Judy Johnson both said that they didn’t see Oswald at any time during that day. A clerk accountant called Pauline Sanders, who knew Oswald by sight, actually left the 2nd floor lunch room at approximately 12.20 and said that she didn’t see Oswald at any time that day.

[Pcdunn]

Coming up on Monday, February 13th, 2023:
"History's Greatest Mysteries" with Lawrence Fishbourne runs "The Assassination of JFK". It will "examine the theories surrounding the death of President Kennedy." On the History Channel

History's Greatest Mysteries https://g.co/kgs/2z2SJD

I imagine we can expect to see more programming of this type as we get closet to November.

[jmenges]

Leaving aside disputes about the other points Jon I’d like to ask 2 questions. 1. Why couldn’t Oswald have come down via the lift? There were two I believe, east and west. When Charles Givens saw Oswald on the 6th floor at 11.55 Oswald told him that he wasn’t going down to the lunch room and asked him to close the gates of the lift so that it could have been summoned back up.

2. Where is the proof that 2 people were coming down the stairs at the same time as Oswald. I know that one woman wrote a book fairly recently after suspiciously staying silent for 60 years. How could it be proven what time a woman or two came down? Surely you would have to know what time they came down and was the clock that they took their time from correct?

At the time of the shooting both elevators were on the 5th floor. The West elevator was being loaded with stock by Jack Dougherty, who then took it down to the ground floor. The East elevator was seen idle on the 5th floor by Baker and Truly on their way up after encountering Oswald on the 2nd floor.
The stairway was positioned in the corner of the building on the north and west walls and only went down two floors at a time before one had to exit onto the floor and go to the other wall to continue to proceed down the stairway. Meaning if Oswald came down the stairs from the 6th floor, he would have had to cross 20 feet of the 5th floor to continue down the stairs to the 4th, then cross 20 feet of the 4th to get down to the 3rd etc. No one on any of the floors saw or heard him coming down. Dougherty on the 5th floor would be in the best position to see him if he was stocking the elevator.

The book is called 'The Girl on the Stairs' by Barry Ernst. It's about Victoria Adams, not written by her. She was questioned repeatedly by the FBI, Secret Service, Dallas Police, and the Sheriff's Department and testified in front of the Warren Commission. It was Barry Ernst who tracked down her interview with the FBI and Dallas Police and her account has always been consistent -except what was published in the Warren Report. After giving her testimony she was allowed the opportunity to review it and make corrections. She noticed discrepancies in their version of her testimony and corrected them. These corrections were not used in the final report(?), but they also survived. Ernst then finds and interviews Adams as well as Sandra Styles-who was with Adams on the 4th floor, took the stairs down with her, but was never called to testify. She corroborates Adams' account. It's a good book that I recommend.

JM

[jmenges]

Caroline Arnold told Dallas Morning News in 1978 that she’d seen Oswald in the 2nd floor lunchroom eating at 12.25 as she exited the building to watch the motorcade. The same month she told Anthony Summers that it had been 12.15 but it may have been slightly later. Oswald however claimed that he ate his lunch in the first floor lunch room then went up to the 2nd floor lunch room to get a coke (despite the fact that there was a vending machine in the first floor room that sold his drink of choice Dr. Pepper) So was Oswald being truthful about not being on the 6th floor but lied about having his lunch on the first floor when he really had it on the 2nd? Could anyone believe that a possibility?

Four days after the assassination she told the FBI that she’d seen Oswald a few minutes before 12.15 and not in the first floor lunch room eating his food. The FBI report says “ As she was standing in front of the building, she stated that she thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of LHO standing in the hallway between the front door and the double doors leading to the warehouse, located on the first floor. She could not be sure this was Oswald, but she felt it was.”

So in 1963 she thought she saw him on the first floor but in 1978 she knows she saw him on the 2nd. Arnold for her part claimed that the FBI misquoted her. But on March 18th 1964 she gave a signed statement to 2 FBI agents where she made no mention of seeing Oswald on either the 1st or 2nd floor. The only mention she made of him was: “I did not see Lee Harvey Oswald at the time the President was shot.”

Two of the four women that accompanied her outside, Virgie Rackley and Judy Johnson both said that they didn’t see Oswald at any time during that day. A clerk accountant called Pauline Sanders, who knew Oswald by sight, actually left the 2nd floor lunch room at approximately 12.20 and said that she didn’t see Oswald at any time that day.

Our posts crossed.

JM

[jmenges]

There's a million books and websites devoted to both sides of this debate. I've read books pro-Warren Report (like Bugliosi) and against. I happen to be much more convinced by the skeptics than the proponents.

JM

[ColdCaseJury]

From what JM and Herlock have stated here, there is no corroboration of Oswald standing outside at 12:31pm. Nobody stated they saw him on the steps when we would reasonably expect them to given that several witnesses claimed to have seen him at other places at other times that afternoon (i.e. people were noticing him). If images (photographs or home movie) are good enough to run facial recognition AI against known pictures of Oswald, and give a match, then that would be a game changer. Without that, I would say circumstantial evidence points away from him being outside.

[Herlock Sholmes]

From what JM and Herlock have stated here, there is no corroboration of Oswald standing outside at 12:31pm. Nobody stated they saw him on the steps when we would reasonably expect them to given that several witnesses claimed to have seen him at other places at other times that afternoon (i.e. people were noticing him). If images (photographs or home movie) are good enough to run facial recognition AI against known pictures of Oswald, and give a match, then that would be a game changer. Without that, I would say circumstantial evidence points away from him being outside.

Another point worth reiterating Anthony is about Oswald’s clipboard which was found on the 6th floor. It had Oswald’s days worksheet on it which listed 3 orders of books that he was supposed to put together that day. It hadn’t been filled in. So this points to Oswald doing absolutely no legitimate work from when the time that he’d arrived that morning. If we add this to the bulky package that 2 people saw him bring to work and the fact that at 11.55 he told Charles Givens that he was staying on the 6th floor and the fact that he lied about eating his lunch in the lunch room with Junior Jarman and the fact that he fled the building straight after the assassination it doesn’t prove that Oswald fired the gun but it points very strongly to Oswald being ‘up to something.’

[Herlock Sholmes]

There's a million books and websites devoted to both sides of this debate. I've read books pro-Warren Report (like Bugliosi) and against. I happen to be much more convinced by the skeptics than the proponents.

JM

No problem with that Jon. For my part I realise that more people believe in conspiracy in some form than believe in the lone gunman. I could be wrong of course (every single one of us could be) but I favour Oswald alone.

I’ve been thinking a bit about the sheet that George posted that showed that Oswald had earlier been used by the CIA. If true (I don’t know if anyone is still expressing doubt about it for any reason) I’m wondering if the truth could dwell somewhere in the middle ground? Could it be that Oswald either acted entirely alone or that he was persuaded to do it by some right wing group perhaps and post arrest the authorities discovered his CIA past attempts where they could to hinder or influence the investigation?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Coming up on Monday, February 13th, 2023:
"History's Greatest Mysteries" with Lawrence Fishbourne runs "The Assassination of JFK". It will "examine the theories surrounding the death of President Kennedy." On the History Channel

History's Greatest Mysteries https://g.co/kgs/2z2SJD

I imagine we can expect to see more programming of this type as we get closet to November.

Hi Pat,

In my area the next HGM is on the 14th and is listed as The Chicago Tylenol Murders but I’m sure that the Kennedy one will be shown eventually.

Apparently the Tylenol murders were a poisoning case. I hadn’t heard of it.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Earlier Fishy mentioned Arnold and Barbara Rowland, big favourites of those who favour conspiracy, but I never responded. I just did a bit of reading (Bugliosi did around 3 pages on them) When you look closer at many witnesses the problems become obvious and Rowlands is no different.


VB described Arnold Rowland as a: “clearly intelligent and fairly articulate eitheteen year old high school student who was watching the motorcade with his wife in front of the Sheriff’s office on the East side of Houston Street.” The first person that he spoke to was Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig who said that Rowland told him that around 12.15 he saw 2 men, one holding a rifle with a telescopic sight, walking back and forth between two windows on the east side of the 6th floor, the opposite side of the building to the sniper’s nest window. He assumed that they were Secret Service agents. He didn’t continue to watch them but looked back a few minutes later and saw just the man with the rifle. In Craig’s report, filed on the same day, he (Craig) made no mention of Rowlands saying that he had seen anyone on the 6th floor. Deputy Sheriff C.L. Lewis, who escorted the couple to make a statement, did mention the Rowlands in his report saying that he had seen a man with a rifle 15 minutes before the assassination but there was no mention of any second man. Rowland then told Detective Turner that he saw a white man with a rifle with telescopic sights standing in the background of a window on the southwest side of the 6th floor but again there was no mention of a second man.

He told Forrest Sorrels (Special Agent, Dallas Secret Service office) that he saw a man with a rifle standing back from an open window that was 2 windows from the westernmost side of the building but no mention of any second man. He told Sorrels that he couldn’t identify him though and that he was in the military position of ‘port arms’ (which seems strange.) Rowland’s gave an affidavit that afternoon in the sheriff’s office when he repeated what he told Sorrell’s and Turner, but this time the man was described as being in a “parade rest” position with no mention of any second man. In two interviews with the FBI on the day of the assassination and the following day he told the same story but again without the second man.” On the 24th he gave the FBI a signed statement where again the man was at “port arms” and there was no mention of any second man anywhere on the 6th floor.

Before the WC he basically repeated the same story, man at “port arms” and no second man. Even though he told the FBI that he’d only seen the man ‘momentarily’ and that when he told his wife, she looked up and the man was gone, he gave an incredibly detailed description - dark, well cut well combed hair, light Latin or Caucasian, a very light coloured shirt open at the collar and unbuttoned about half way. He had on either dark slacks or blue jeans! All this from seeing the man ‘momentarily.’ He was even sure that there was no moustache and that if there had been anything like a scar on his face it would have had to have been a light one! Then, for the first time, he mentioned that around 5 minutes before the shots were fired he saw an elderly ‘coloured’ man hanging out of the window that they said that the shots were fired from (the sniper’s nest window) and on the floor below he saw 2 ‘negro’ women (obviously Harold Norman and Bonnie Ray Williams) So he could give a detailed description of the gunmen in the briefest of sightings and yet he couldn’t distinguish from a much longer look whether 2 people were even men or women. His wife was asked if he had : “ever told you that he had seen anyone else on the sixth floor other than this man with the gun?” She responded: “No, sir,” And: “Has he ever told you that he told anyone else that he saw anyone else on the sixth floor?” to which she replied: “No, sir.” Rowland then attempted to bolster his credibility by claims to have seen “three women,” and a “couple of boys” on the freeway overpass (but several witnesses showed that these people weren’t there.) He also said that 50 or more officers converged on the railway yard behind the fence (again, other witnesses show that this was untrue.)

No one else saw anyone in the windows claimed by Rowland and there was no physical evidence at those windows. His wife Barbara said that they’d had conversations about movies where there were security men in windows with rifles. His wife was certainly nearsighted but she looked up immediately and saw no one. Her husband told her that the man had moved back. Her eyes weren’t so poor that she didn’t see people in other windows though.

Was Rowland the type of person to make things up? The Assistant Principal at his school said the he: “ would not hesitate to fabricate a story.” The Dean of a technical school that he’d previously attended told the FBI that from her dealings with him she: “determined he could not be trusted and would not tell the truth regarding any matter.” Even his own wife told the WC that he was: “prone to exaggerate.”


I think that we can all see that this was NOT a reliable witness.

[jmenges]

Is Vince Bugliosi the only book you’ve read on the case?

JM