Tag: JFK ASSASSINATION

  • The Harper Fragment – Dramatis Personae


    NOTE:  Dr. Mantik’s four-part essay on the Harper Fragment, orginally posted at CTKA on November 11, 2014, has been superseded by his e-book:

    With his permission, we have republished this useful tabular summary of the researchers and doctors who have contributed to the discussion of the Harper Fragment.

       
    Aguilar, Gary, M.D. Ophthalmologist and major contributor to the anti-Warren Commission (WC) literature; he compiled a long list of Dallas witnesses who saw an occipital defect. He also viewed the JFK autopsy materials with me at the Archives.
    Angel, Lawrence, Ph.D. Physical anthropologist and consultant to the Forensic Pathology Panel of the HSCA (1977-1979); in his opinion, HF is right parietal bone.
    Baden, Michael, M.D. Chairman of HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel; he concluded (incorrectly) that frontal bone was entirely intact. Robertson has (mostly) agreed with him about this.
    Bolleter, M. Wayne Chief Medical Photographer at Methodist Hospital in Dallas; photographed HF before it was turned over to the FBI.
    Boswell, J. Thornton, M.D. Navy pathologist at the JFK autopsy; his sketches clearly show (significant) missing occipital bone. He also verbally recalled missing occipital bone.
    Brown, Walt, Ph.D. Author of many books critical of the WC, including the essential resource: Master Chronology of JFK Assassination (over 32,000 pages), available for Kindle.
    Burkley, George, M.D. Admiral and JFK’s personal physician, who was present at Parkland and at Bethesda; last known possessor of HF. He later refused to comment on the number of headshots. Not interviewed by the WC.
    Cairns, A.B., M.D. Chief Pathologist at Methodist Hospital in Dallas; with Drs. Harper and Noteboom, he examined HF before transferring it to the FBI. All three concluded that HF was occipital bone.
    Costella, John, Ph.D. Expert in optics and electromagnetism; he has extensively studied the Zapruder film and concludes that it is a reconstruction. His stabilized version of the film is an invaluable resource for researchers. So also is his essay, “What Happened on Elm Street? The Eyewitnesses Speak”, which is a compilation of eyewitness statements from the WC’s 18 volumes — about what they saw on Elm Street.
    Cranor, Milicent Story Editor at WhoWhatWhy.org; author of many incisive, and cleverly titled, anti-WC articles.
    Ebersole, John, M.D. The (sole) navy radiologist at JFK’s autopsy in Bethesda; he spoke to Mantik about his recollections of the autopsy. In particular, he recalled (to Mantik) a “big” occipital defect. He later practiced Mantik’s own specialty of radiation oncology.
    Evans, Kathy Former nurse, now in eager pursuit of silver ingots from sunken ships. With Dr. Aguilar, she co-authored the classic paper on (inept) governmental investigations into the JFK murder.
    Fetzer, James H. Ph.D. Chair or co-chair of five national conferences (1999-2013); organizer of the first Zapruder Film Symposium at JFK Lancer (1996); editor of Assassination Science (1998), Murder in Dealey Plaza (2000) and The Great Zapruder Film Hoax (2003). His M/W/F radio show, “The Real Deal” (with over 880 episodes), featuring “The New JFK Show“, has gone video at “The Real Deal on MBC TV”. His latest articles are at http://veteranstoday.com/author/fetzer, while he co-edits assassinationresearch.com with John P. Costella.
    Fiester, Sherry Certified Senior Crime Scene Investigator and author of Enemy of the Truth: Myths, Forensics and the Kennedy Assassination. Mantik’s review of her book is here.
    Finck, Pierre, M.D. Army pathologist summoned to participate in the navy JFK autopsy at Bethesda. In his written summary, he recalled missing occipital bone. Contrary to the extant Zapruder film, but like Dan Rather and CarthaDeke” DeLoach, Finck (after watching the film) also recalled that JFK fell forward after being shot. (James Altgens also agreed with this forward motion — see footnote 222 below.)
    Fitzpatrick, John, M.D. Forensic radiologist and consultant to the ARRB. He observed that significant frontal bone was missing, but he was particularly puzzled by the 6.5 mm object, which he could not explain. No one saw this object on the X-rays during the autopsy.
    Harper, Jack, M.D. Uncle of Billy Harper; together with Drs. Cairns and Noteboom, these three pathologists examined HF before turning it over to the FBI.
    Harper, Billy Discovered HF on the infield grass in Dealey Plaza on Saturday, November 23, 1963.
    Horne, Douglas Chief Analyst for Military Records for the ARRB and author of Inside the ARRB: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK. He is the only former member of the ARRB to publish his insights and recollections.
    Humes, James J., M.D. JFK’s chief pathologist at Bethesda; while before the ARRB, he identified his EOP entry site in such a way that autopsy photograph F8 must be a posterior view. His official autopsy report describes the skull wound as extending into the occiput.
    Hunt, John Independent researcher who has made many visits to the National Archives; he supplied the images in this essay of the HF X-ray and also the FBI photographs of HF.
    Jenkins, James C. Autopsy technician at Bethesda Naval Hospital. He stood next to JFK’s body during the autopsy and recalled a large occipital defect. He also saw a bullet entry near the right ear and a plastic bag with bullet fragments and bone fragments (which he had not seen being removed) lying next to JFK’s head during the autopsy.
    Kirschner, Robert, M.D. Forensic pathologist and consultant to the ARRB. Like me, he saw fatty tissue in the corner of autopsy photograph F8, which he interpreted as abdominal fat. This is consistent with F8 as a view of the posterior skull.
    Law, William Matson Author of In the Eye of History: Bethesda Hospital Medical Evidence in the JFK Assassination (2005). This book contains Law’s interviews with Dennis David, Paul O’Connor, James Jenkins, Jerrol Custer, James Sibert, Francis O’Neill, Harold Rydberg, and Saundra Spencer. Mantik wrote the Foreword.
    Lifton, David S. Author of Best Evidence, a best seller and also a Book of the Month selection. He also produced extensive videotapes of the key JFK medical witnesses. The latter can now be viewed for free on YouTube. Lifton is chiefly remembered for raising the issue of body alteration between Parkland and Bethesda.
    Mantik, David W. Ph.D. in physics (Wisconsin); post-doctoral fellowship in biophysics (Stanford); tenure-track physics faculty (Michigan); M.D. (Michigan); radiation oncology residency (USC); certified by the American Board of Radiology; director of residency training at Loma Linda University, where he treated cancer with proton beams. He has viewed the JFK autopsy materials at the Archives on nine separate visits and has made hundreds of optical density measurements directly from the extant JFK skull X-rays. His lecture on altering X-rays is here.
    McAdams, John C., Ph.D. Polemicist and acerbic supporter of the WC, he attended Kennedy High School in Kennedy, Alabama. He taught courses on American politics and public policy at Marquette University in Milwaukee, but he is now suspended (with pay) and may be dismissed from the faculty. Mantik’s review of McAdams’s JFK book is here.
    Nicholson, Tim Stanford-trained engineer and bicycle enthusiast; he has developed detailed mathematical models of the shooting in Dealey Plaza.
    Noteboom, Gerard, M.D. Pathologist at Methodist Hospital in Dallas; he examined HF together with Drs. Cairns and Harper; all three concluded that it was occipital bone.
    Purdy, J. Andrew, J.D. Staff lawyer for the HSCA; he interviewed many medical personnel, including Drs. Cairns and Harper.
    Riley, Joseph, Ph.D. Neuroanatomist who placed HF into the right parietal area. His (mistaken) view was based on his claim that occipital bone does not contain vascular grooves or foramina.
    Robertson, Randy, M.D. Diagnostic radiologist who accepts the JFK autopsy photographs and X-rays as authentic. He does not accept any medical witness (at Parkland or Bethesda) who saw a large occipital defect. He also (1) accepts a variant of the single bullet theory and (2) believes that JFK’s cerebellum was intact.
    Seaton, Paul Single-minded WC supporter, who has posted his online discussion of HF.
    Speer, Pat Independent researcher, usually critical of the WC. He cites at least three posterior shots (but no frontal shots), and he places HF into the parietal area. He also apparently believes that the autopsy photographs and X-rays have not been altered.[2] My critique of Speer’s whimsical scenarios is here.
    Schwinn, Quentin Imaging specialist who, while a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology (several years after the sunset of the HSCA), saw an apparent authentic autopsy photo with a frontal entry wound in the right high forehead, near the scalp.
    Stringer, John Navy employee and chief photographer at the JFK autopsy. He initially recalled a large occipital defect, but then later changed his mind (without seeing any new evidence).
    Thomas, Donald, Ph.D. U.S. government entomologist and expert on the acoustic evidence from the police Dictabelt. He places HF into the parietal area. He also accepts a variant of the single bullet theory. Mantik’s review of Thomas’s book is here.
    Thompson, Josiah, Ph.D. Former professor of philosophy, who later became a private detective. One of the first generation of WC critics, he wrote Six Seconds in Dallas, but more recently has written Last Second in Dallas.
    Tobias, Richard Independent researcher who has posted his opinions of HF online.
    Wecht, Cyril H., M.D., J.D. Member of the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel and archnemesis of the WC, but especially of the single bullet theory. He was coroner of Allegheny County and is past president of both the American Academy of Forensic Science and the American College of Legal Medicine. He has authored many books and articles, especially of high-profile forensic cases. He co-authored an article on JFK’s brain with Mantik and also visited the Archives with Mantik.
  • Answers sought on CIA role in ‘78 JFK probe

    Investigators say files could prove interference

    by Brian Bender, At:  The Boston Globe

  • Mexico City, Part 1

    Mexico City, Part 1


    Mention “Mexico City” to a JFK Conspiracy Realist and you can expect to get any of a variety of reactions, from the opinion that Mexico City is the “Rosetta Stone” of the conspiracy to pure agnosticism. At the core of the Mexico City charade is the same question that haunts most of the Warren Commission Report (WCR) conclusions and evidence; why? Why would Lone Nut Lee Harvey Oswald be going to Mexico City, to both Cuban & Russian embassies, with what appears in the evidence to be the desire to secure passage through Cuba to Russia?

    How can we establish a relationship between Oswald’s decision to go to Mexico and the way in which it was reported within the government, and Oswald’s guilt for the JFK assassination? The WCR claims there was no connection whatsoever between the events to and from Mexico (as well as the time in Mexico) to Oswald’s plan to kill JFK. The Warren Commission Report’s conclusion reflects that the Commission determined that there was little if any advanced planning of the assassination. At least on Oswald’s part.

    See here.

    The evidentiary purpose of the trip was to secure an in-transit visa for passage thru Cuba to Russia for himself and his family. The WCR stated Oswald’s purpose was to go thru Mexico to Cuba in lieu of hijacking a plane and flying directly to Cuba (per Marina). In other words, he simply wanted to get to Russia through Cuba.

    On the other hand…

    Can the events surrounding this trip be connected to a plan to create a viable patsy in the killing of JFK? We must remember that Dallas was by no means the first assassination attempt in November 1963 involving scoped rifles, slow vehicle turns and teams of men. Would we be seeing Arthur Thomas Vallee’s name on the Mexico City evidence if the Chicago plot* had succeeded?
    (*Edwin Black; The Chicago Plot, Nov 1975 Chicago Independent)

    The evidence tries to establish that Oswald was focused on getting to Cuba en route to Russia and that he had met with a man supposedly KGB assassination related, although Win Scott claims Oswald was trying to get to Odessa with his family and little else. Win also states to his knowledge, as he was not in Mexico at the time, that Oswald was under complete and thorough surveillance the entire time he was in Mexico. He could only get this information from one of the two people overseeing the Mexico station in his absence: Anne Goodpasture, his chief assistant and/or David Atlee Philips; Head of the Cuban desk at the Mexico station.

    Oswald already had the appropriate passport documentation, approved VERY quickly, to get back to Russia without having to go through Cuba (which in itself is amazing given his “status”). House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) published Oswald’s June 1963 Passport application, which was approved for travel including to Russia. In essence, there would be no need for Oswald, who had to have had some reason for going to Mexico City’s Cuban and Russian Consulate, to even attempt to travel through Cuba.

    See here.

    The story of Mexico City has 3 distinct parts: The summer of ’63, the trip itself, and the CIA’s activity after Oct 3rd. How “The Evidence IS the Conspiracy” correlates to each of these parts will be presented here one part at a time.

    What we find amazing is the number of reports on the Mexico trip which are repeated and scattered about the WCR and WC Documents, as if this information was intentionally made especially difficult to correlate and cross-check. The evidence related to this part of the conspiracy is not only contradictory, but WCR-incriminating.

    The impetus for this has been touched upon in a number of books and articles over the years: the name on the tourist Visa purchased on Sept 17th and the hotel registry in Mexico City both include the identical mistake; a comma after LEE, followed by HARVEY OSWALD. Is there any evidence offered to explain how Lee Harvey Oswald becomes Harvey Oswald Lee or H.O. Lee?

    The following is A COPY of the Mexican Hotel’s guest register with a blow-up of the signature compared to the signature on the visa. (ALL docs are copies as the FBI took possession of and kept all originals. As time passed and originals were requested, we find that most originals were either destroyed, or claimed to be lost. Whether the CIA/DFS turned over all the docs is yet another difficult to resolve mystery).

    All in good time. Let us start at the beginning:

    PART I. The Summer (officially ended September 23rd 1963).

    From the time Oswald left Reilly Coffee in late July, his activities in New Orleans, LA (NOLA) and up to his Sept 27th Dallas meeting with Sylvia Odio, all connect him with PRO-CASTRO forces, overseen by anti-Castro intelligence operatives within our government. Virtually no one that summer is NOT associated with intelligence, foreign or domestic, in and out of 544 Camp, the International Trade Mart and Jim Garrison’s backyard.

    Over the Labor Day weekend while Oswald and family are in New Orleans with the Murrets (Lee’s mother’s sister and husband), two men arrived at the door of one Robert McKeown, a self confessed arms dealer who worked in similar circles as Jack Ruby, had supplied arms for Castro’s cause and was a close friend of Castro himself. McKeown was on probation at the time. Lee Oswald announced to McKeown that he has finally found him and would like to buy 4 rifles for $10,000. Lee Oswald was traveling with a man named Hernandez.

    McKeown had connections with Ex-Cuban President Carlos Prio, the new leader of Cuba Fidel Castro, as well as having been contacted by Jack Ruby. McKeown ran CIA-sourced munitions to both sides of the conflict.

    This appears as an attempt to once again connect OSWALD with CUBA and CASTRO almost 3 months ahead of time. Would we assume this is assassination related?

    Ruby also knew McKeown from his gun-running activities and offered him $25,000 in 1963 for an introduction to Castro in order to secure the sale of jeeps. McKeown asked for $5,000 up front which Ruby did not have at the time. No further contact was reported.

    Looking at a list of WCR/FBI Exhibit numbers we spotted FBI D-050, a guest registry for the Fox and Hound in Milwaukee, WI with the name LEE OSWALD; DALLAS, TEXAS signed on the registry page for Sept 14, 1963. The article states the date was Sept 16, even though the actual page does not appear to have a date at all. A report of a “Lee Harvey Oswald” also written in a restaurant registry in Hubertus, WI coincides with a statement from the article by Mrs. Patricia Stanley, manager of the Fox and Hound, “…declined to comment on how the FBI learned that the registry contained the name of ‘Lee Oswald’” …” I am not at liberty to say anything.” Asked whether the FBI had instructed her not to comment Mrs. Stanley replied, “There were others, too, but I just can’t say.”

    While the article repeatedly claims that there is no indication that Oswald was in Wisconsin, it never even hints at why or who would be putting that name with DALLAS in mid September when Oswald was in New Orleans with Marina (who was 8 months pregnant) and his first child June. Oswald and Marina arrived in New Orleans on April 24, 1963. On their reutrn to Texas in September, Marina moved in with Ruth, while Oswald did not return to Texas until October, after the Mexico trip. Ruth drove Marina and June to Irving the morning of Sept 23.

    The Paines and the Oswalds

    Ruth Paine left Irving on July 27, 1963 with her children for a driving trip to see relatives, friends and Friends (Quaker organization relations). In mid-September she was in Richmond, Indiana before heading south to New Orleans. Marina and Ruth had been in contact with each other initially discussing the end of September, after Ruth’s trip, as the approximate day for pick-up. Between Sept 20 and Sept 23 Oswald was with his wife, Ruth and all the kids at 4905 Magazine in New Orleans until they left. Oswald definitely did not travel with Ruth. When recapping that weekend Ruth uses the name “HARVEY” alone, something not seen or done in most testimony offered about Oswald.

    Why the repeated use of all three of his names as opposed to simply Lee, or Oswald by the government lawyers? Was it to assist with the cover up when the different people in his history refer to him as Lee OR Harvey? I wonder how many times a single name was actually used, only to be transcribed into Lee Harvey Oswald. Looking through Ruth’s testimony, for example, “Lee Harvey Oswald” is said 85 times by Jenner and Dulles and not used once by Ruth.

    Mr. JENNER – Now, you were there for 2 full days and 3 evenings. Would you tell us, conserving your description in your words, what did you do during these 2 days and 3 nights. When I say “you,” I am including all three of you.

    Mrs. PAINE – Of course, afternoons we usually spent in rest for the children, having all small children, all of us having small children.

    Mr. JENNER – Whenever this doesn’t include Lee Harvey Oswald would you be good enough to tell us?

    Mrs. PAINE – When he was not present?

    Mr. JENNER – That is right.

    Mrs. PAINE – My recollection is that he was present most of the weekend. He went out to buy groceries, came in with a cheery call to his two girls, saying, “Yabutchski,” which means girls, the Russian word for girls, as he came in the door. It was more like Harvey than I had seen him before…

    In the spirit of context and timing we know that Michael Paine had moved into his own apartment in September 1962. Michael picked up Oswald and Marina in Dallas in early April, 1963 for a visit to their Irving house after having met them at a party during the holiday season 1962. The party, at Mrs. Declan Ford’s house was where Mr. & Mrs. DeMohrenschildt bring Mr and Mrs Oswald at Mrs. DeMohrenschildt’s request. In one form or another, a close watch was being held on Mr. and Mrs. Oswald.

    On September 17th; based on the date printed on CE 2478, the tourist visa; a man recorded as “LEE, HARVEY OSWALD” yet signing his name “Lee H Oswald” purchased a 15 day tourist visa for Mexico which allowed the holder to remain in Mexico for up to five days prior to the expiration date of the visa; October 2, 1963.

    The Alvarado Story

    September 18th was the original date Nicaruaguan Intelligence officer Alvarado claims he saw Oswald in Mexico City, overheard a conversation related to an assassination and saw Oswald accepting money. Alvarado went to the American Embassy in Mexico City on November 25 to report what he saw. When the FBI/CIA realized that Sept 18 was not possible because Oswald was still in New Orleans, Alvarado changed his story as needed and ultimately recanted the entire thing under protest. The interesting thing about Alvarado is the CIA’s follow-up cable on Dec 7 which completely lets Alvarado off the hook for having fabricated the story and even suggests there is a direct connection between what Alvarado does and who instructs him to do it. Central American countries’ Intelligence servies and the CIA became VERY close over the years since 1947. If the encounter never happened; and there is no evidence that it did other than Alvarado’s word; how would Alvarado have known what types of things to say in order to incriminate Oswald all on his own?

    CE 3152 is a memo from HELMS to RANKIN about the Alvarado incident: how hard it was to shake Alvarado off his story, how he maintained it was Oswald even after he failed the polygraph, and that he had been at the Cuban Consulate on Sept 18th. (The Consulates are not the same as the Embassies. A close examination of the evidence shows that when asked to go to one, the man playing Oswald would go to the other without success).

    CE 3152 continues by establishing that Alvarado was informant T-32, that he was 60% sure it was Oswald and that it occurred on the 18th of September. In conjunction with this is a follow-up memo (possibly from David Phillips) which discusses “resolution” of the Alvarado issue yet gives the distinct impression that Alvarado, his employer and the CIA are very much intertwined. We’ll delve more deeply into the Alvarado incident in part two. Note: “IF ERTHYROIDS CAN GIVE HIM SOMETHING USEFUL AND NON-SENSITIVE TO DO FOR A FEW MONTHS IT WILL HELP.” His job in Mexico was most assuredly “sensitive.”

    Peter Dale Scott uses the initial story and recant as examples of what he calls the Phase 1 and Phase 2 stories of Oswald. Phase 1 being the connection to communists, Cuba and Russia in order to “release the dogs of war” which when thwarted by Johnson and Hoover becomes Phase 2: Oswald the Lone Nut Communist with no ties to anyone and his NOT being the man in Mexico… Hoover seems to be the only one who appears concerned with the identity of the Oswald impersonator (the CIA certainly doesn’t care as they created the charade) and states on 11-23-63 to LBJ:

    “…I think we have a very, very close plan. Now if we can identify this man who is at the Mexican Embassy at; the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, the Embassy in Mexico City — this man Oswald has still denied everything.” Hoover would feel and mention the sting of the CIA and Oswald in Mexico for many years to come. He would also make clear to his staff that he felt the FBI report mistakenly came to a conclusion. The Commissioners themselves were very surprised at this since Hoover was given to saying the FBI determined the facts and did not present conclusions, even if ironclad.

    (enhanced by DJ)

    FBI vs. CIA

    One should note that prior to the 1947 creation of the CIA, the FBI’s Special Intelligence Service (SIS) was specifically responsible for Intelligence gathering in the Western Hemisphere, from 1941 through 1946 along with existing Military Intelligence entities with acronyms, like MID (Military Intelligence Division) & ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence). The SIS story begins on 26 June 1939, with Roosevelt signed a Presidential Directive stating:

    It is my desire that the investigation of all espionage, counter-espionage, and sabotage matters be controlled and handled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice, the Military Intelligence Division [MID] of the War Department, and the Office of Naval Intelligence [ONI] of the Navy Department. The Directors of these three agencies are to function as a committee to coordinate their activities. (Presidential Directive of 26 June 1939; Section 2; File 64-4104; Administrative Records of the SIS; RG 65; NACP.)

    FDR clarified his position on June 24, 1940:

    He ordered that “The FBI should be responsible for foreign-intelligence work in the Western Hemisphere, on the request of the State Department,” while “The existing Military Intelligence and Naval Intelligence branches should cover the rest of the world, as and when necessity arises.” President Roosevelt concluded his directive by observing how “It was understood that the proposed additional intelligence work should not supersede any existing work now being done…” (New Insights into Hoover and the SIS, G. Gregg Webb; see here).

    (Memorandum of President Roosevelt’s telephone directive prepared by Berle and approved by the President, 24 June 1940; Section 2; File 64-4104; Administrative Records of the SIS; RG 65; NACP).

    Understanding the long history of US Military involvement in Central and South America would require a book in its own right, yet we ought to be aware that the growth and control of sovereign nations and their intelligence, security and military establishments in this area goes hand in hand with the US military’s work to protect US business interests in these countries. Between the Armed Forces’ Intelligence, the State Department’s attache corp and the FBI’s SIS, Central and South America, especially Mexico and Brazil, were hand-in-hand partners with the USA in numerous illegal activities from assassination to the drug trade. Many researchers have discovered this conection resulting in the multitude of “off the books” programs financed by illegal funds.

    Marina’s Stories

    As we’ve learned, so much of what Marina Oswald tells us is shrouded in conflict. Yet as times and testimony change we can always count on her supporting the desired facts, even if she sounds terribly foolish doing so.

    Prior to Ruth arriving, from early September though the 23rd, Marina’s “husband” is not working yet also not home every day reading as Marina claims. Between the Unemployment Office, the library and Ryder’s Coffee shop, he was busy. We finally learn about Oswald’s plans for Mexico from Marina in her testimony:

    WCR testimony:

    Mrs. OSWALD. Nothing. And it is at that time that I wrote a letter to Mrs. Paine telling her that Lee was out of work, and they invited me to come and stay with her. And when I left her, I knew that Lee would go to Mexico City. But, of course, I didn’t tell Mrs. Paine about it.

    Mr. RANKIN. Had he discussed with you the idea of going to Mexico City?

    Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.

    Mr. RANKIN. When did he first discuss that?

    Mrs. OSWALD. I think it was in August.

    HSCA testimony:

    Mr. McDONALD – When did you first learn of his planned trip to Mexico City? When did you first know about that?

    Mrs. PORTER – Shortly before I left for Dallas with Ruth Paine.

    Mr. McDONALD – How did you learn of this?

    Mrs. PORTER – He told me about his plans to go to Mexico City and to visit the Cuban Embassy over there.

    Mr. RANKIN When your husband talked about going to Mexico City, did he say where he was going to go there, who he would visit?

    Mrs. OSWALD. Yes. He said that he would go to the Soviet Embassy and to the Cuban Embassy and would do everything he could in order to get to Cuba.

    The purpose of the visit as recorded and expressed by Chief of Mexico Station Win Scott was to get himself and his family to Odessa. Cuba originally did not have anything to do with the evidence of the man calling himself Oswald.

    Mr. RANKIN. Did you learn that he had a tourist card to go to Mexico?

    Mrs. OSWALD. No.

    Mr. RANKIN. If he had such a card, you didn’t know it then?

    Mrs. OSWALD. No

    And as usual, the FIRST STORY offered, which usually conflicted with the desired story, had to be changed or be supported by some rational explanation for the change:

    Mr. RANKIN. When you were asked before about the trip to Mexico (CE1781 & 1792), you did not say that you knew anything about it. Do you want to explain to the Commission how that happened?

    Mrs. OSWALD. Most of these questions were put to me by the FBI. I do not like them too much. I didn’t want to be too sincere with them. Though I was quite sincere and answered most of their questions. They questioned me a great deal, and I was very tired of them, and I thought that, well, whether I knew about it or didn’t know about it didn’t change matters at all, it didn’t help anything, because the fact that Lee had been there was already known, and whether or not I knew about it didn’t make any difference.

    Marina describing her husband going to Mexico is fraught with problems and contradictions. So much so that a reading of each subsequent questioning on the subject appears as if she is reading from a prepared script regardless of the question. It was CUBA-CUBA-CUBA all the time, when actually there is little if any evidence anywhere else in this case to support Oswald’s desire to be in Cuba. (Incidentally, it was not the FBI she talked to about Mexico at first. It was the Secret Service).

    Q. Did Lee tell you why he wanted to go to Mexico?

    A. He was disappointed in Latin America so he wants to go and try Cuba.

    Q. Why did he choose Mexico?

    A. He told me he was going to take the bus. (sic)

    (This bit of testimony is the reference used by the Warren Commission to determine Oswald had taken a bus from New Orleans).

    One has to wonder what occurred to change Marina’s account of Mexico between November 28 & 29, 1963 and Feb 3, 1964 when she began giving the “adjusted” account of her knowledge about her husband’s Mexico Trip…

    CE1781:

    And the SS interview Nov 29th:

    “She was asked whether she had any knowledge of Lee’s trips to Mexico or Washington, D.C. She replied in the negative. She was asked whether she or Lee had any cameras and she replied that Lee bought one camera in Russia and a second one in the United States. She said one was a small camera and the other was a box camera. She added that sho was not proficient with operating any Cameras and she never had an opportunity to do so.” See here (“never had an opportunity to work the camera” requires yet another back-peddling recant when the infamous Backyard photos come up)

    When did Oswald leave New Orleans?

    In the time period when Oswald actually stopped working at Reily Coffee on July 22, 1963 (a company employing Oswald with its own set of CIA, FBI and NASA coincidences and peculiarities) and Sept 23, 1963 Oswald did not work, officially; his only job while in New Orleans since April was at Reily. In yet another of a long line of imposter coincidences, on July 26, 1963 at the American Museum of Atomic Energy in Tennessee we find someone has signed Oswald’s name and associated him with the USSR and Dallas. (H&L p.551 – FBI D-154)

    Oswald collected $33/week in unemployment beginning Aug 17 and had barely made $500 while at Reily. On August 9th he was involved in what we now know was a charade, and was arrested while handing out pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba (FPCC) literature at the New Orleans LA International Trade Mart. Some of the literature in Oswald’s possession literally had his name and “544 Camp” stamped on it. This connects to Bannister and by association to a man named William Gaudet who we come to learn acquired the Mexican tourist visa sequentially numbered just ahead of the one given to Oswald: No. 24084, on Sept 17th.

    On Sept 17, 1963 SOMEONE appears at the New Orleans Mexican consulate and purchases the visa made out to “LEE, HARVEY OSWALD,” which to most means the person’s name was Harvey Oswald Lee, or H.O. Lee. The FBI explains:

    CE 1143 is an: Excerpt from FBI report dated May 18, 1964, re Lee Harvey Oswald’s visit to Mexico and excerpt from Secret Service report dated August 28, 1964, of schedule of buses traveling from Dallas and Houston to Laredo, Tex. (CD 1084(e), pp. 2, 99-101; CD 1450, p. 1).

    The above excerpt starts with acknowledging that the 15 day visa was made out to “LEE, HARVEY OSWALD” comma and all, yet they write: “It would appear that the comma was placed on the card in error inasmuch as the signature appearing on the original and duplicate portions of the FM-8 is LEE H. OSWALD.” As we can see, #24085 appears as described (this is a reversed image) as do the signatures…

    Yet, when we look at the hotel registry where Lee would have once again signed his name as it appears on the signature line of these forms, without a comma, we find something quite interesting: We are expected to believe that Oswald, who supposedly signed his name on the visa, did so in exactly the same manner as is TYPED on the 15 day visa, not as the visa was signed… maybe part of his master “advanced” plan? (Note: as we remember from the first The Evidence IS the Conspiracy article, he waited until Thursday afternoon the 21st to ask Wesley Frazier for a ride back to Irving to fetch his rifle, even though he had been working in Dallas at the TSBD since mid-October. The WCR concluded that this trip and the JFK assassination had no connection for Oswald and that there was in fact little if any advanced planning).

    When we add to this all the evidence, or non-evidence of Oswald himself ever being in Mexico we are literally forced to re-examine in detail the events ascribed to him and whether or not this remains a simple oversight, or the inadvertent copying of information to keep falsified information consistent.

    We learn that #24084, the visa issued just before Oswald’s was bought by a man the WCR, FBI and CIA sought to keep buried, William George Gaudet. And they succeeded. It was not until 12 years later during the HSCA that we hear from Gaudet and learn that the list of names of those who purchased visas on Sept 17 that the FBI provided the WC deleted the name Gaudet claiming, “No record of FM-8 No 24084 located.”

    This link is Warren Commission Document 75 page 577 from Warren DeBrueys’ 12/2/63 report showing the FBI knew about this man within 2 weeks after the assassination. Gaudet’s stated purpose for the trip? “Travel to Mexico 1 day as tourist.” It is unknown whether he ever made that trip. Yet one Albert Osborne did. We will return to Mr. Osborne and some of the strange circumstances revolving around yet another piece of the Mexico Trip and the printing of FPCC flyers.

    More importantly for this discussion, when he was finally questioned by the HSCA, Gaudet established direct connections between Guy Banister of 544 Camp Street and Lee Harvey Oswald during the summer of 1963 in New Orleans:

    National Archives, HSCA 180-10070-10274, Numbered Files 004826; HSCA interview of William Gaudet

    Gaudet goes on to mention the names David Ferrie, Sergio Smith, Howard Hunt, Bernard Baker and Frank Sturgis among his CIA exploits:

    Gaudet acknowledged he knew Oswald (and Bannister) from his activity in New Orleans related to FPCC; the same FPCC which the Secret Service states has no connection to 544 Camp. Mr. Gaudet would have us believe that his acquiring the previous visa on the same day was pure coincidence.

    CE3120 shows copy of Corliss Lamont’s pamphlet with the final page bearing a FPCC, 544 Camp Street, New Orleans stamp. WCD1495 is a SS report dated Sept 11, 1964 which connects this pamphlet to literature found in Oswald’s possession.

    CE1414 is an SS report from Dec 1963 which concludes that there was no connection between FPCC and 544 Camp, and that it was “impossible” to find anyone who recalls ever seeing Oswald at that address. But boy oh boy did we try hard.

    Since William Gaudet helps to show that conclusion for what it truly was, we can understand why the FBI, CIA and WCR went out of their way to remove him from the picture. Could Gaudet have been the reason and/or transportation for Lee to have gone and gotten a 15 day visa which would expire exactly on October 2, 1963? Witnesses to this purchase stated that Oswald was alone at the time and that the following visas are purchased just before closing at 1:30pm.

    Of note is that the visa states the stay in Mexico cannot exceed 5 days while the visa itself is good for 15 days. The dates work perfectly; Ruth arrives just in time to remove Marina and June from Oswald’s care and sight. Virtually every single statement incriminating Oswald for having been to Mexico and to the Soviet and Cuban Embassies and/or Consulates is derived from CIA/DFS (Mexican Intelligence) related transcripts and records. The FBI, which also had their own relationships with the Mexican DFS obviously also did not have a shred of proof that Oswald, the man Ruby killed, had been to Mexico. It relied exclusively on CIA information.

    Along the same lines as taking CIA documentation for what it is, former CIA officer Phillip Agee tells us that CIA 201 files are divided into a CLEAN “operational” part for public consumption and a SECRET “true name documents” part. The following is an excerpt from Inside the Company, by P. Agee:

    “Files are maintained on all agents and they always begin with the number 201 — followed by a number of five to eight digits. The 201 file contains all the documents that pertain to a given agent and usually start with the PRQ and the request for POA. But the 201 file is divided into two parts which are stored separately for maximum security. One part contains true name documents while the other part contains cryptonym documents and operational information. Compromise of one part will not reveal both the true name and the operational use of the agent.

    We ought to take a moment to create a little “mind-set” context. In 1963 the backstory always supported the documents. The documents were the evidence. There was not Internet cross-checking or even putting most of the evidence side-by-side. They were accepted until authenticated while usually authenticated by the same CIA people who created them or those under their control. When the CIA or FBI or ONI, INS, MID handed you a file or leaked a story, there was no questioning where the rest of it was, where the “good stuff” or the “secret” stuff was. Today, we are given the impression that NOTHING IS SECRET while everything, in reality, is. In 1963 and for many years after, the truth was simply hidden or destroyed. Today it is covered with mountains of data and hiding in plain sight.

    The result is the same question: “What is the truth?”

    The answer remains the same: “What we tell you it is.”

    Who returned the books?

    On September 19th, two days later, Oswald is at one of the New Orleans public libraries and checks out four books. This in itself is not surprising as most said he was an avid reader (not bad for a 10th grade dropout: teaches himself Russian, speaks eloquently on Marxism, his own philosophies, his travels and his photographic abilities. School records reflect a 102 to 118 IQ.) What surprises is the fact these books are returned in New Orleans on the day Oswald is supposed to have arrived in Dallas; October 3, 1963. (We will return to Oct 2 and beyond in Part 3). One has to wonder who this Lone Nut Oswald was so close to that they would return four library books. Where were these books? If he traveled with the books he’d need to stop in New Orleans first, which was something Marina was asked about, but then he could never have been in Dallas at the time he was. Mrs. Jesse Garner, the apartment manager found a completely empty 4905 Magazine on the 25th when she came to collect some rent that was due. Oswald had taken all his possessions with him, yet these library books were returned in New Orleans on the 3rd of October.

    The Signatures Don’t Match

    September 20th is also a most interesting day: (From Harvey and Lee, p.598)

    On September 20 Nagell sent a registered letter from El Paso, Texas to J. Edgar Hoover at FBI Headquarters and informed him that President Kennedy would be assassinated during the last week of September in a conspiracy that involved Lee Harvey Oswald. After mailing the letter, which included Oswald’s description, aliases, and current address, Nagell walked into the State National Bank and fired two shots into the ceiling. He then walked outside and waited for the police to arrive. When the police arrived and arrested Nagell his only statement was, “I would rather be arrested than commit murder and treason.” When Nagell was searched the police found a photocopy of a military ID card issued to Lee Harvey Oswald. The ID card was probably given to Nagell by the people who assigned him to infiltrate the activities of Lee Harvey Oswald and Franz Waehauf at the Hotel Luma in Mexico City. Otherwise, how and why would Nagell have a copy of Oswald’s military ID card with a different signature?

    (When Richard Case Nagell was arrested in El Paso Texas, the police found a military ID card issued to Oswald in his belongings. That card was identical to one found on Oswald in Dallas on November 22, 1963. With two exceptions: the photo and signature were different).

    Ruth Paine and Marina

    Friday, September 20, 1963 was also the day that Ruth Paine arrived at 4905 (or 4907) Magazine after corresponding with Marina about having her come live with Ruth and children until and through the birth of their next child in mid-October. Ruth and children arrive in a 2-tone BLUE station wagon which appears not to be the same vehicle in which Ruth brought them to New Orleans.

    CE3119 page 10 reports that Lillian Murret, Oswald’s aunt, said that the “unknown woman from Texas in the BROWN station wagon had called for him…”

    In April 1963 the Oswalds arrive at the Murretts’ in New Orleans in a BROWN station wagon driven by Ruth Paine. In September 1963 the same woman picks them up in a BLUE station wagon.

    During her questioning about February 22, 1963; the gathering when the DeMohrenschildt’s brought Marina and Harvey; she was asked how she got there, answering that she drove:

    Mr. JENNER – You owned or then had, or maybe you still have a station wagon?

    Mrs. PAINE – That is right.

    Mr. JENNER – Is it the same car still?

    Mrs. PAINE – It is the same car.

    Mr. Clifton Shasteen was a barber in Irving who remembers Oswald well:

    Mr. SHASTEEN. Well, now, that part of it I would have to take for granted because they were in his car. Now, she, I understand through one of the men who questioned me out at the shop, said he never did drive her car. Again, I’m going to disagree because I know that he did. He drove it up there and got a haircut.

    Mr. JENNER. You have a distinct recollection that on occasions when this man came into your shop for a haircut, he drove an automobile up to your shop?

    Mr. SHASTEEN. He drove that there 1955, I think it’s a 1955, I’m sure it’s a 1955 Chevrolet station wagon. It’s either blue and white or green and white it’s two-toned–I know that. Now, why I say–why I take it for granted that Mrs. Paine was with him when he come to the grocery store I do remember he wasn’t driving when they would come to the grocery store, there would be a lady driving and I’m assuming that that’ was Mrs. Paine, because like I say, I have been–I have never been close enough to her and knew it, to speak to her, but she trades at the service station where I do and I saw her in there and I never did pay any attention to her and I saw her passing, met her in the road in the car and those things. (See here).

    With Oswald on a few of these trips was a boy described as 14 years old and unknown to Clifton who as a barber had a good memory for faces, not names.

    Mr. JENNER. And would you describe this young man to me, how was he dressed?

    Mr. SHASTEEN. Well, he had on blue jeans and they fit tight and he had on an old striped shirt, I remember him just like I see a picture over there right now and he was a husky kid, he wasn’t what you call fat, but he was strong-broad-shouldered; he had a real full, and when I say full, I don’t mean a round fat face, he was a wide-faced kid.

    (Note: A BROWN station wagon of similar make, model and year was seen at 4905 Magazine around the time of Oswald’s FPCC arrest on Aug 9th at the International Trade Mart).

    Ruth and children stay the weekend and corroborate the fact that Marina’s “husband” was there all weekend. Finally, on Sept 22, Oswald helps load Ruth’s car and on the morning of Sept 23 says goodbye to Marina and June. Of special note were questions asked by the WC about anything that might have resembled a rifle either in the materials packed with Marina or in Oswald’s possession when he leaves on the 24th. The answer in each case was that nothing resembling a rifle was seen either during the packing, unloading and storage of their belongings, ever.

    On September 24 (Tuesday) Oswald visited claims interviewer Fredrick L. Christen (“T-3”) at the unemployment office in New Orleans for the last time. Once again Christen reported Oswald’s visit to the FBI and advised that he signed a continued interstate claim (Form IB -2) in his presence. (p. 603 H&L)

    How did Oswald get to Laredo?

    Witness Eric Roberts, who lived near Oswald on Magazine stated that Oswald left his apartment around 7pm, Sept 24, carrying 2 SMALL SUITCASES approximately 18 inches across and caught a bus at the nearest stop at Magazine and Upperline. The FBI conducted a fairly thorough search of the surrounding hotels; 43 to be exact; and was unable to locate where HARVEY Oswald stayed that night (see here).

    We are aware that Oswald was still in New Orleans the morning of the 25th of September as he cashed his Sept 17th Unemployment Insurance Claim check which was mailed from Austin on Sept 23rd. While two days from mailing to cashing does seem a bit quick, most every event in the falsified timeline gives Oswald JUST ENOUGH TIME to potentially complete the event, yet they still stretch the bounds of credibility.

    Speaking of the bounds of credibility stretched, the WCR states, on page 731, that Oswald had $200 for the trip to Mexico, footnote #1124 refers to CE2481, Oswald’s tourist visa application in which he actually states he has $300. As discussed earlier, Oswald’s last day of work was July 22, and the first $33 UE check was on Aug 17. Of course, there were living expenses from Aug 17 thru Sept 23 for himself, Marina and June and “no money to Marina” when she left with Ruth.

    Mr. RANKIN. When he was unemployed in New Orleans, did he get unemployment compensation?

    Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.

    Mr. RANKIN. Do you know how much he was getting then?

    Mrs. OSWALD. $33 a week. It is possible to live on that money. One can fail to find work and live. Perhaps you don’t believe me. It is not bad to rest and receive money.

    Mr. RANKIN. Did your husband have any money with him when he returned from Mexico?

    Mrs. OSWALD. Yes, he had some left. But I never counted how much money he had in his wallet. That is why I don’t know.

    Mr. RANKIN. Was it a small or a large amount or do you know that?

    Mrs. OSWALD. What would be a large amount for me would not be a large amount for you.

    Mr. RANKIN. Well, can you give us any estimate of what you think he had?

    Mrs. OSWALD. He might have had $50 or $70, thereabouts. It is necessary sometimes to make a joke. Otherwise, it gets boring.

    It is unclear whether Marina was given any money while her husband was separated from her. It is also unclear how Oswald saved two let alone three hundred dollars when he only received $33/wk. for about 6 weeks.

    Oswald left New Orleans by bus. Or so says the WCR with reference to Marina Oswald’s testimony. Actually, she left two days before her husband left. Oswald probably left, the WCR concluded, by way of Continental Trailways Bus No. 5121. Probably. In Warren Report-speak this means there is no proof whatsoever that Oswald took or was aboard that bus or the evidence would have been offered, fabricated or not.

    The FBI was simply unable to determine how Oswald left with his two suitcases after he left the local bus. According to the driver of the bus who helped Oswald load his two suitcases, he asked for directions to the Greyhound bus station. The Greyhound station and the Continental Station are not the same nor do the Greyhound buses travel to or from the Continental Station and vice versa. It is very likely, based on the testimony of Sylvia Odio and her sisters, that Oswald was on his way to Dallas, in a car driven by two Cuban men.

    The men were two anti-Castro Cubans who, as a threesome, make it difficult to believe that the man leaving the impression he was Lee Harvey Oswald on a bus leaving Laredo, was actually Marina Oswald’s husband.

    Mr. LIEBELER. When did you first become aware of the fact that this man who had been at your apartment was the man who had been arrested in connection with the assassination?

    Mrs. ODIO. It was immediately.

    Mr. LIEBELER. As soon as you saw his picture?

    Mrs. ODIO. Immediately; I was so sure.

    Mr. LIEBELER. Do you have any doubt about it?

    Mrs. ODIO. I don’t have any doubts.

    Mr. LIEBELER. Did you have any doubt about it then?

    Mrs. ODIO. I kept saying it can’t be to myself; it just can’t be. I mean it couldn’t be, but when my sister walked into the hospital and she said, “Sylvia, have you seen the man?” And I said, “Yes.” And she said, “That was the man that was at the door of my house.” So I had no doubts then.

    Mr. LIEBELER. Now, you have indicated on the calendar, you circled the 30th of September, and you drew a line around the 26th, 27th, and 28th of September. Can you tell me what you meant by that?

    Mrs. ODIO. The 30th was the day I moved. The 26th, 27th, and 28th, it could have been either of those 3 days. It was not on a Sunday. (26th was a Thursday and a travel day, while CIA reports place an Oswald in Mexico on the 27th and 28th)

    This takes us through 12:20pm September 25th when a bus leaving New Orleans for Houston becomes the agreed upon mode of transportation for Oswald’s trip to Mexico.

    In part II we will examine the evidence related to September 25th; the simultaneous trip to Dallas and Mexico; through October 3rd when Oswald was in Dallas while someone was returning his library books in New Orleans and making another call in his name to the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City.


    The Evidence IS the Conspiracy, Table of Contents


  • Jean Davison: Update


    Read Part 1


    Since Jean Davison posts regularly at JFK Facts, both Leslie Sharp and myself placed a link in two of the threads there to my review of her book. The idea was to remind the other posters that contrary to what she leads people to think, Davison almost never tells a complete story on any issue. And secondly, even though she wrote a biography about Lee Oswald, it does not appear that she ever went anywhere to conduct new, firsthand research. It does not even appear she went to Dallas. Leslie asked her that question; did she go to Dallas–and Jean failed to answer. This is a huge failing in her (largely derivative) book.

    But in her usual charming and delicate manner, Davison now fired back. She called my review of her book a “train wreck.” Why? Because unlike what I wrote, she maintains that she never actually said that Oswald learned Russian in the marines. Let us examine her complaint in its proper context.

    First of all, I wrote a 21-page review of her book Oswald’s Game. I analyzed it in almost all of its aspects: methodology, sources, use of original material (of which there was none), and most of all, her selectivity about facts. That is, what she chose to leave out that was already in the public domain. Therefore, she had to have known about it. In all of those 21 pages, this language issue is all she could come up with as a complaint about my review. That means I had a pretty good batting average. Well over .900.

    And even on that, she is not being forthcoming or candid. In a purely technical sense, she does not say in the book that Oswald learned Russian in the service. But here is the problem with her defense: that is what the book clearly implies. Consider this quote: “Lt. Donovan…thought Oswald subscribed to the Russian newspaper to learn the language and get another view of international affairs.” (Davison, p. 76, italics added) Even before that, she herself writes that, after his court-martial, “it was during this period that Oswald began studying the Russian language.” (p. 73)

    Most objective readers would say these statements clearly suggest Oswald was learning Russian in the service. Especially in light of my next point: she provides no other opportunity or alternative for the Russian language acquisition in her text. So what else is one to think?

    But today, Davison says this is all wrong. She now refers us to the Warren Report, which says that Oswald spoke little Russian once he arrived in the USSR. In other words, now she says that he acquired the language while in Russia. This information is from posts she made in 2014. They are not in her book. Therefore, the deduction I previously made is completely justifiable based on what is in Oswald’s Game. So for her to say that my review was somehow faulty because of that, such a tenet is simply bogus. Especially since she brought up no other specific point of contention with the review. Which means she had to bring up something, so she had to stretch for this.

    But, in fact, even the Warren Report says Oswald studied the Russian language in the service. (WR, p. 391) Nevertheless, to further her new argument, she says that when Oswald went to Minsk he was at first assigned a Russian tutor. This is a gross exaggeration, which further illustrates her looseness with the record. The “tutors” were his Intourist guides, the girls hired to serve as the Soviet travel service escorts. How skilled could they be in teaching Russian? (WR, p. 697)

    Anyway, today Davison has a new argument about the issue. Namely that Oswald did not really acquire the language until he got to the Soviet Union. Let us dissect this Davisonian drivel. There are four pieces of evidence which seriously undermine what she now proposes. First, back in 1974, Harold Weisberg unearthed the transcript of the Warren Commission’s January 27, 1964 executive session meeting. That meeting contains a reference by Chief Counsel J. Lee Rankin to the Commission’s efforts “to find out what he [Oswald] studied at the Monterey School of the Army in the way of languages.” (Philip Melanson, Spy Saga, p. 12) Note, Rankin did not say if Oswald studied there. He said he did study there.

    Secondly, back in 1994 this writer interviewed Dan Campbell. In going over his military career, he said that he was a highly skilled marksman. He was so good that he did exhibitions throughout the country. He once did one in Santa Ana. It went over quite well and he stayed late. He then asked the officer in charge if he could stay over that night. The man replied sure he could and led him to the barracks. He pointed at a bed and said words to the effect, sleep here, this Oswald guy is almost never here. (Campbell remembered the name because he had been in an orphanage with Oswald as a youth.) This provides an opportunity for Oswald to have been at Monterey, directly north on the California coast.

    Third, there is evidence in the Commission volumes that undermines; as it often does; what is in the Warren Report. (Or Davison’s selective reading of it.) As Jim Garrison so memorably wrote in his book, On the Trail of the Assassins, he was shocked when he learned that Oswald was being tested in the Russian language while in the service. In front of the Commission, Lt. Colonel Allison Folsom was reading from Oswald’s military records on a Russian test he took while at El Toro Marine base in California. As Garrison so memorably wrote:

    In all my years of military service during World War II-and since; I had never taken a test in Russian…In 1959, when Oswald was taking that exam, I was a staff officer in the National Guard in a battalion made up of hundreds of soldiers. None of them had been required to show how much Russian they knew. Even on that night in 1966 when I read Colonel Folsom’s testimony I was still in the military service; by now a major; and I could not recall a single soldier ever having been required to demonstrate how much Russian he had learned. (pgs. 22-23)

    Garrison concludes that Russian is not taught to soldiers if they are genuinely part of the combat duty regiment they are assigned to. Oswald was supposed to be involved with anti-aircraft and radar duties, “A soldier genuinely involved in anti-aircraft duty would have about as much use for Russian as a cat would have for pajamas.” (ibid)

    Finally, there is the Rosaleen Quinn testimony. After taking the test mentioned by Garrison and not doing well on it, Oswald’s Russian skills greatly improved. Shortly before he left the service a friend of his arranged a meeting with his aunt, Rosaleen Quinn. Quinn had been studying the language for over a year in hopes of getting a State Department job. She actually did have a tutor; not a travel guide– who worked with her for over a year. The two spoke in Russian over dinner for two hours. Quinn later said, “Oswald spoke Russian better and more confidently than she did.” (Melanson, p. 11) Quinn’s testimony, by itself, demolishes the idea Davison is now trying to sell: that somehow Oswald did not learn Russian until after he defected.

    The more interesting question is: Why does Davison try and market such a ridiculous idea? As I noted in my review, one thing that Davison attempts throughout Oswald’s Game is to keep Oswald out of the clutches of the intelligence community e.g. CIA, FBI, ONI. If you deliberately ignore all of the above evidence, and say he didn’t really acquire Russian until after he defected, that is one way of achieving your agenda. The problem is that this notion is not supported by the facts, and is easily discredited by the record. After all, two hours of speaking pure Russian seems to indicate some degree of fluency. And the fact that Oswald improved between the time of his test and his meeting with Quinn clearly suggests he was getting instruction somewhere.

    In going through Oswald’s Game again for this update, the book seems even worse on the third go round than the first two. For instance, Davison uses the usual crew of witnesses to paint Oswald as a sociopathic Red: Marina Oswald, Ruth and Michael Paine (especially the latter), and Kerry Thornley. In no instance does she ever advise the reader of any of the liabilities of these witnesses. For instance, Jim Garrison indicted Thornley for perjury in 1968. Thornley denied being seen with Oswald in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. Thornley’s testimony seems very strained today. There are just too many credible witnesses who say they saw the pair together. (See Joe Biles, In History’s Shadow, pgs. 193-97) Since Davison never left her living room to do research on her book, I would be willing to wager she was not even aware of this indictment, or the witnesses against Thornley.

    But here is the bottom line about this obsolete and useless book: Davison could care less if she left out important data about Oswald. Even though she was writing a book about him. Why? Because although her book pretends to be a biography of Oswald, it really is not. After all, if she had really been interested in the man, and not the caricature the Warren Report published, she would have left her house a few times and visited New Orleans or Dallas or New York. She never went to these places because she had no interest in researching the man.

    And we have this in her own words. She wrote that “He complains that I didn’t interpret the evidence the same way he does, didn’t mention all the points he would have mentioned. Well hello? Does he think I agree with him about the assassination?”

    I would be remiss if I did not comment on the first and last parts of her response.

    First, there was little if any argument about “interpretation of evidence” in my critique. I was clear in my adverse comments. I critiqued her for her lack of new evidence, her lack of any field investigation, her use of highly controversial sources, her highly selective use of dubious pieces of evidence and testimony, and her consistent and almost rigorous avoidance of better evidence that would vitiate that dubiousness. To point up two examples of the last: She used Jack Ruby’s Warren Commission polygraph test to attack Mark Lane. But she ignored the HSCA report showing that the FBI broke so many protocols of polygraph technique in that the test that it is worthless today. Second, she tries to say that since some witnesses say it was Guy Banister in Clinton/Jackson, and not Clay Shaw, that these witnesses are confused. If she had used the primary documents available to her at the AARC, she would have seen that this was a myth. The witnesses identified Shaw as the driver of the car, not Banister. Instead she was using James Phelan anti-Garrison spin.

    Unlike her diversionary claim, these are not matters of interpretation. They concern the search for the best evidence about key parts of the case. Which is something, as I showed, she repeatedly failed to do.

    Her last sentence, about agreeing with her about the assassination, says everything the reader has to know about Oswald’s Game. Like the Warren Commission, Jean Davison made up her mind about the Kennedy murder before she wrote her book. And her biography then followed what she thought about the murder. Which is putting the cart before the horse. If one was really looking to write a book about Oswald’s life, one’s opinion about the assassination should remain out of the equation. A good biographer would never do that. In fact, a good biographer probably would not even discuss that controversy if he were really interested in telling the truth about Oswald. Because he or she would want his work independent of that matter to stand on its own.

    As I proved, such is not the case here. It’s not even close. Jean Davison had an agenda from the minute she picked up her pen. One she had been nursing for many years. And not only was she out to nail that dirty commie Oswald, she was also out to smear all those loony writers who thought he was innocent. In an Orwellian stroke she calls such persons who believe the Commission was wrong–which is hundreds of millions of men and women all over the world; Conspiracy Thinking. And she exemplifies the work of those writers with the examples of David Lifton’s Best Evidence, and Michael Eddowes’ The Oswald File. (See Davison pgs. 269-92)

    Anyone who can exemplify the work that had been done on the Kennedy case by 1983 with those two books simply cannot be trusted. For the simple point that those works do not at all represent anywhere near what the consensus was on the case back then or now. This is the kind of cheap trick that someone like Ron Rosenbaum would perform in one of his missions for the MSM.

    Davison also tried to defend her worthless and dishonest performance in Oswald’s Game by saying it was written in 1983. It doesn’t matter when an author writes a book. Once he puts his name on it, it is his. He or she cannot run from it. But secondly, there are many books much older than hers that are still very much worth reading and using. One of which, Accessories After the Fact, is one I use all the time. But there are many others, like Seth Kantors’s biography of Jack Ruby. But Davison knows this since she lists those two books in her bibliography. Which proves she was out to demean and distort.

    Among the Krazy Kid Oswald crowd, Davison’s book is somehow looked up to. In fact, John McAdams features her introduction, where she attacked Mark Lane, on his infamous web site. McAdams, of course, protects Davison from exposure by not mentioning the HSCA polygraph examination report, which, among other things, exposes Davison’s chapter as being a fraud. But alas, we now know that, in reality, Jean Davison is simply McAdams in skirts and a bouffant hairdo.

    I should add one last admirer of her work. As I mentioned in the second edition of Destiny Betrayed, when David Phillips was trying to convince Vincent Bugliosi to write a book on the JFK case, he mentioned two examples to follow. (p. 364) The first, quite naturally, was CIA asset Priscilla Johnson’s Marina and Lee. The second was Oswald’s Game. In the upside down world of Jean Davison on the JFK case, it would not surprise me if she took the suspect conspirator’s recommendation as a complement.

    (The author has extended a public invitation to Davison to debate her book on Black Op Radio twice already. So far there has been no response. I extend that invitation a third time here.)

  • Oswald on November 22, 1963

    Oswald on November 22, 1963


    One of the few things I can say is an original thought and argument of mine is the questioning and examination of the timing of events that need to occur for Oswald to have even been considered as involved in the assassination.

    Let’s assume for the sake of this discussion that Oswald was indeed at the SE 6th floor window at 12:30, and shots from there are fired by him, AND that he planned to kill JFK with the Mannlicher Carcano rifle. He surely could not have killed JFK with a rifle that was not there in the first place. Oswald has a few items of information he MUST have in order to pull this off, the most important being the knowledge that the motorcade and JFK’s limo would pass within shooting distance of the building. Where would he get such information, and what would that info say specifically?

    Commission Exhibit 1362 is the Nov 19th Dallas Times Herald article revealing the route the motorcade would take… “The motorcade will pass thru downtown on Harwood and then west on Main, turning back to Elm at Houston and then out Stemmons Freeway to the Trade Mart” AHA! Oswald, if he read or was aware of this article would now know that the motorcade would pass directly beneath the TSBD… in essence the motorcade was bringing JFK to his doorstep… Good thing he decided to take the lower paying TSBD job in October, right?

    This is TUESDAY Nov 19th. The article prefaces with the fact that the formal announcement of the trip was made in Washington DC at 4pm… Could Oswald the Lone Nut have known that JFK would pass by the TSBD before that? I don’t see how. Security according to Chief Curry was not even planned until Tuesday the 19th. This must have been the evening edition of the paper.

    Is there any evidence from anyone in the building or anyone close to Oswald that he knew about the motorcade route that day?

    According to Marina, on the night before the assassination, she asked him about Kennedy’s upcoming visit the next day. Oswald seemed totally in the dark about when or where the motorcade would pass. (WC Vol. 18, p. 638)

    Junior Jarman told the Commission that he did not learn about the motorcade passing in front of the Depository until that morning at about 9 AM. About an hour later, Oswald was standing near a window looking out at the gathering crowd. He asked Jarman what the people were there for. After Jarman told him, he asked which way the motorcade was coming. Which reveals, unlike the Commission assumption, that Oswald did not read the November 19th Times Herald (WC Vol. 3, p. 201).

    Between the evening of Nov 19th and Thursday Nov 21 Oswald decides to get to the home of Ruth and Michael Paine to get his rifle out of the garage and bring it to work on Friday so he can do the deed. Does he make sure to ask Texas School Book Depository colleague Wesley Frazier for a ride home that day? For if he doesn’t get home by Thursday night how can he get the rifle to work Friday?

    Mr. FRAZIER – Well, I say, we were standing like I said at the four-headed table about half as large as this, not, quite half as large, but anyway I was standing there getting the orders in and he said, “Could I ride home with you this afternoon?”

    And I said, “Sure. You know, like I told you, you can go home with me any time you want to, like I say anytime you want to go see your wife that is all right with me.”

    Good thing Wesley was so accommodating… Asking Thursday for a ride home, a ride that would make or break his plan to kill JFK Friday seems cutting it a bit close… And he’d have to bring that paper bag he made to hold/hide the rifle with him… yet the man who sits by the paper dispenser never leaves his desk, eats his lunch at his desk and testifies to not being away from that area… yet somehow Oswald accomplishes this construction project with no one seeing him do it… and gets it home that Thursday in the car with Wesley… maybe hidden in his pants, or shirt, or jacket, or sweater, maybe???

    Marina and Ruth are very surprised to see Oswald on that Thursday as he usually gives them fair warning…

    Mr. JENNER – Let’s proceed with the 21st. Did anything occur on the 21st with respect to Lee Harvey Oswald, that is a Thursday?

    Mrs. PAINE – I arrived home from grocery shopping around 5:30, and he was on the front lawn. I was surprised to see him.

    Mr. JENNER – You had no advance notice?

    Mrs. PAINE – I had no advance notice and he had never before come without asking whether he could.

    Mr. JENNER – Never before had he come to your home in that form without asking your permission to come?

    Mrs. PAINE – Without asking permission; that is right.

    It is here we are treated to Ruth Paine’s story about the garage door and light being left on… she never sees Oswald in the garage, never hears him… and even goes on to tell reporters:

    Mrs. PAINE – I said I did not see how he could have taken the gun from the garage without my knowing it.

    As noted researcher Carol Hewett pointed out, evidently Ruth did not know that Marina said Lee was with her that night in her room and fell asleep. Yet somehow, he got into the garage, into the blanket, disassembled the rifle, placed it in the paper bag and made it ready for his leaving the following morning… if the OSWALD PLAN to kill JFK can even occur… maybe all this happened in the morning?

    Mr. JENNER – You heard no moving about on his part prior to your awakening?

    Mrs. PAINE – No moving about on his part at all when I looked when I awoke.

    Mrs. OSWALD. Yes. He then stopped talking and sat down and watched television and then went to bed. I went to bed later. It was about 9 o’clock when he went to sleep. I went to sleep about 11:30. But it seemed to me that he was not really asleep. But I didn’t talk to him.

    In the morning he got up, said goodbye, and left, and that I shouldn’t get up–as always, I did not get up to prepare breakfast. This was quite usual.

    So the entire household was awake at 9pm when Oswald goes to sleep… and there is no mention of the time or sounds involved in what Oswald needed to do to get his 40″ rifle into that bag…

    But he must have at some point as he walks to the Frazier’s with this large bag in his possession… which we come to learn must be at least 34″ long to hold the largest piece of the broken down rifle. Also in this bag are the clip, the ammo, the scope and the barrel with firing mechanism… Metal and wood adding up to 7.5 lbs, with nothing to keep it from banging into itself, tearing this bag, or anything else.

    Surely the people at the Frazier household see this bag? And they do and testify to it…

    Mrs. RANDLE. No, sir; the top with just a little bit sticking up. You know just like you grab something like that.

    Mr. BALL. And he was grabbing it with his right hand at the top of the package and the package almost touched the ground?

    Mrs. RANDLE. Yes, sir.
    (this 5’9″ man holding his arm at his side carrying the bag, and this 34″ piece did not touch the ground…ok)

    Mr. BALL. Now, was the length of it any similar, anywhere near similar?

    Mrs. RANDLE. Well, it wasn’t that long, I mean it was folded down at the top as I told you. It definitely wasn’t that long.

    Mrs. RANDLE. I measured 27″ last time.

    Mr. BALL. You measured 27″ once before?

    Mrs. RANDLE. Yes, sir.

    Hmmm… maybe she didn’t get a good look… what does Wesley say about this bag?

    Mr. FRAZIER – Well, I will be frank with you, I would just, it is right as you get out of the grocery store, just more or less out of a package, you have seen some of these brown paper sacks you can obtain from any, most of the stores, some varieties, but it was a package just roughly about two feet long.

    So it appears that Oswald is able to carry a 34″-40″ rifle in a bag quite a bit smaller… yet measurements can be deceiving… maybe they underestimated; they MUST HAVE since the Lone Nut Oswald did get the rifle from the garage; where it had never been seen by anyone in the house; to the TSBD on the morning of the 22nd in the back seat of Wesley’s car. And was able to tuck this rifle under his arm and carry it into the TSBD… Did anyone see Oswald when he arrived that morning?

    One man, Edward Shields, claims he is told by his “friends” that they see Wesley drop Oswald off at the back door… yet this is 2nd hand hearsay and virtually impossible to prove… Luckily Mr. Dougherty was not only at the back entrance when Oswald arrives, but see whether or not anything is in his hands at the time…

    After the same question about Oswald is asked and answered a number of times we finally have as evidence:

    Mr. BALL – In other words, you would say positively he had nothing in his hands?

    Mr. DOUGHERTY – I would say that—yes, sir.

    Is there anyone other than Wesley and his sister that claims they see Oswald with a package, bag, rifle or anything in his hands that morning? Nope. Yet he MUST HAVE since his plan was to kill JFK as he passed by later that day… and we get back now to the timing from that day.

    After slipping by everyone with the package he stows it… where? Where does Oswald place this 27 to 40 inch bag with rifle parts in it so that it is undisturbed and available when he is ready to execute his plan. Maybe behind some boxes on the 6th floor? Since he knows there is work being done up there and the place is in disarray, no one would notice it… Maybe the 1st floor domino room? A hall closet? Well, no matter, it had to have been somewhere since this same rifle (supposedly) is found on the 6th floor, fully assembled at 1:22pm.

    Back now to his knowledge of the motorcade route and the timing. What information is available to this Lone Nut master planner of JFK’s death as to WHEN the motorcade would pass by the TSBD? He’d have to know this to at least be looking out a window at the time so as to take a shot… right?

    We come to find that Secret Service agent Winston Lawson tells Chief Curry that the luncheon was to begin at 12:15… that the plane was to land at 11:30 and after a 45 min motorcade thru Dallas, arrive at the Trade Mart. VIP invitations had been sent and received which stated the Luncheon was to start at 12 NOON.

    Invitation

    So basically even if he was able to know about what Lawson said to Curry, or had seen an invitation to the event, to this LONE NUT KILLER the motorcade would have to pass by the TSBD between 11:55 and 12:10… well before 12:30 in any case. At the same time he knew he had to retrieve the bag with the rifle in it, reassemble the rifle and be at some window facing Elm when he drove by or miss out on his chance for immortality. We make the assumption that Oswald MUST determine a time for the limo and JFK to pass by his place of work; otherwise how can he carry out his plan?

    So, is there any corroborated sightings of Oswald during this time? It seems that Eddie Piper, who was with Junior Jarman and Harold Norman, sees Oswald on the 1st floor around noon… no bag, no rifle. Oswald even mentions seeing these 2 men in statements attributed to him. Carolyn Arnold claims to have seen him around 12:15 also on a lower floor… all the while Arnold Rowland eventually testifies that a man with a rifle is in the SW 6th floor window around 12:15… SOMEONE knew when to expect the motorcade… Concurrently Bonnie Ray Williams is eating his lunch 10 feet from the SE corner of the 6th floor sometime between 12 and 12:15.

    Mr. WILLIAMS. It was after I had left the sixth floor, after I had eaten the chicken sandwich. I finished the chicken sandwich maybe 10 or 15 minutes after 12. I could say approximately what time it was.

    Mr. BALL. Approximately what time was it?

    Mr. WILLIAMS. Approximately 12:20, maybe.

    Mr. BALL. Well, now, when you talked to the FBI on the 23d day of November, you said that you went up to the sixth floor about 12 noon with your lunch, and you stayed only about 3 minutes, and seeing no one you came down to the fifth floor, using the stairs at the west end of the building. Now, do you think you stayed longer than 3 minutes up there?

    Mr. WILLIAMS. I am sure I stayed longer than 3 minutes.

    Mr. BALL. Do you remember telling the FBI you only stayed 3 minutes up there?

    Mr. WILLIAMS. I do not remember telling them I only stayed 3 minutes.

    Why would the FBI lie about that? According to them, no one sees Oswald between 11:50 and 12:30. If Williams is on the 6th floor only a few yards from the sniper’s window, surely he would hear the assembling of a rifle or the moving of boxes to encircle the “nest.” With Williams leaving at 12:15 or just after, and leaving via the elevators next to the stairs, Oswald, whose only knowledge of the motorcade timing can come from those he is in contact with between 11:30 (when the plane was supposed to land) and 11:55 (when the plane actually lands), MUST have passed him either on the stairs, on the 6th floor, or was already on the 6th floor at 12:00 with the bag and rifle. Yet we’ve already proven that he was on the first floor around 12:00… Maybe he arrives at the 6th floor just as Williams arrives at the windows of the 5th floor?

    Williams finally meets up with pals Harold Norman and Junior Jarman on the 5th floor since, as he put it:

    Mr. DULLES. You were all alone as far as you knew at that time on the sixth floor?

    Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.

    Mr. DULLES. During that period of from 12 o’clock about to–10 or 15 minutes after?

    Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir. I felt like I was all alone. That is one of the reasons I left–because it was so quiet.

    The man who finds out about JFK passing by his window just 3 days before and goes through a variety of activities to insure he is at ANY window facing Elm when he KNOWS JFK is passing by… appears completely unconcerned about the motorcade and timing as late as 12:15… and most definitely not involved in preparing for this event PRIOR to 12:00. He has gone home, out of the ordinary; walked to Frazier’s rather than get picked up, out of the ordinary; is carrying a bag which has to contain a 34″ piece of rifle with other rifle parts/ammo, out of the ordinary; find a place to stow this weapon for later retrieval, out of the ordinary; and has an idea as to when the limo carrying JFK will be within range so he can be ready.

    Between 11:50 and 12:20 there are people on the back elevators and stairs either coming down for lunch, retrieving cigarettes, going up for lunch, going up to view the parade, coming down to join friends. While the plan may be sound, the opportunity simply never presents itself. From all the available evidence, Oswald is either in the 1st or 2nd floor lunchrooms at around 12:00 and must be concerned that his plan to kill JFK requires him to vanish unnoticed only to appear ready to fire at the correct time. The correct time… one of the largest holes in Oswald’s plan for immortality. From the time, 3 days prior, that Oswald learns that JFK is passing by his workplace, until he places the bagged rifle in a safe hiding place for retrieval at the appointed time, there remains little if any evidence to support any of the actions necessary were ever carried out. And now, at 12:00 on the fateful day, this small, never-amount-to-anything man with the US intelligence community swirling around him for the past 2-4 years, is just sitting calmly eating his lunch.

    When WAS the limo going to pass by, for real?

    We come to find that Mrs. Reid talks to her husband who is listening to the radio which states that the plane arrived late and the limo did not leave Love field until 11:55… how fortuitous for the assassin who is obviously pressed for time to get to a window when he BELIEVES, when any information available to this loner tells him the limo should pass by.

    Mrs. REID. Well, I left, I ate my lunch hurriedly, I wasn’t watching the time but I wanted to be sure of getting out on the streets in time for the parade before he got there, and I called my husband, who works at the records building, and they had a radio in their office and they were listening as the parade progressed and he told me they were running about 10 minutes late.

    Yet how would Oswald know this? There is not a single bit of evidence that is shared by anyone who claims to have told Oswald anything about a radio broadcast and the delay in the motorcade… it is also not until 12:20 at the very least that Mrs. Reid finally decides to leave the lunchroom and attend the parade.

    Mr. BELIN. All right. Do you know about what time it was that you left the lunchroom, was it 12, 12:15?

    Mrs. REID. I think around 12:30 somewhere along in there

    Is it possible that Oswald was still in the same lunchroom as Mrs. Reid? Did she see any men in the lunchroom when she finally decides to leave, KNOWING that the parade is running a bit late…?

    Mr. BELIN. Were you the last person in the lunchroom?

    Mrs. REID. No; I could not say that because I don’t remember that part of it because I was going out of the building by myself, I wasn’t even, you know, connected with anyone at all.

    Mr. BELIN. Were there any men in the lunchroom when you left there?

    Mrs. REID. I can’t, I don’t, remember that.

    Up to this point in the questioning, and for the rest of the questioning, Mrs. Reid has remained calm and answered directly and easily… and then she is asked if she is the last person in the room… “No,” she claims and rather than finally answering the question about any MEN in the room when she left… she states:

    Mrs. REID. I can’t, I don’t, remember that.

    Mr. BELIN. All right.

    Mrs. REID. I can’t remember the time they left.

    If indeed Oswald was in that lunchroom; and there is evidence he was for his lunch around 12:00; then he was there when Mrs. Reid leaves the room… If this is NOT Oswald… where is he given his plan to have the rifle ready to fire from a South facing window between 12:00 and 12:30.

    Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt… at a little after noon on the 22nd Oswald has to accomplish the following: Retrieve the rifle, assemble the rifle, assemble the sniper’s nest in the SE 6th floor corner without leaving a prints on any of these 20+ 40 lb boxes, hope that no one is on the 6th floor at the time, and do so without being seen or heard by anyone… for as we have the testimony… no one hears any of this happen or sees any of this occurring…

    What is seen are men on the 6th floor at 12:15, one on the SW with a rifle and one on the SE looking out a window… neither of these men are Oswald… and both of these men are seen by a number of witnesses.

    But no matter… since he MUST HAVE been able to accomplish all this within 15 to 20 minutes without actually knowing any of the timing details… we have to give him kudos for a good plan, even though there is virtually nothing to prove that any of these necessary steps were taken by Oswald.

    Within 2 minutes of the shots being fired he is supposedly stopped in the lunchroom on the 2nd floor… yet that’s not what Officer Marrion Baker writes on 11/22 and signs on 11/22 in his AFFIDAVIT IN ANY FACT.

    “As we reached the third or fourth floor I saw a man walking away from the stairway. I called to the man and he turned around and came back toward me. The manager said, “I know that man, he works here.” I then turned the man loose and went up to the top floor. The man I saw was a white man approximately 30 years old, 5’9,” 165 pounds, dark hair and wearing a light brown jacket.”

    No 2nd floor, no door to the lunchroom, no window in the door, no pulling of his pistol, none of this story to be is recorded on the afternoon of the killing by the Officer who stopped someone coming down the stairs 1-2 flights higher up and from where the shots were supposedly fired… the lunchroom scene does not materialize until the testimony of Roy Truly and Officer Baker, and in fact takes what would have been a much shorter time period for Baker’s affidavit; “we reached the third or fourth floor I saw a man walking away from the stairway.” The content of this first hand first day recollection is ignored by the WC, which creates a scenario to avoid identifying whoever it was that Baker and Truly intercept coming down the stairs.

    Despite all this we still have Oswald firing 3 times from this window with “that” rifle. For Oswald to have accomplished this amazing feat of shooting and to corroborate with witnesses, the barrel of the rifle was protruding from the window…

    Mr. EUINS. The man in the window. I could see his hand, and I could see his other hand on the trigger, and one hand was on the barrel thing.

    Mr. SPECTER. All right. Now, at the time the second shot was fired, where were you looking then?

    Mr. EUINS. I was still looking at the building, you know, behind this–I was looking at the building.

    Mr. SPECTER. Looking at anything special in the building?

    Mr. EUINS. Yes, sir. I was looking where the barrel was sticking out.

    Mr. SPECTER. And how long was the piece of pipe that you saw?

    Mr. EUINS. It was sticking out about that much.

    Mr. SPECTER. About 14 or 15 inches?

    Mr. EUINS. Yes, sir.

    Mr. BELIN. Could you tell whether or not it had any kind of a scope on it?

    Mr. BRENNAN. I did not observe a scope.

    Mr. BELIN. How much of the gun do you believe that you saw?

    Mr. BRENNAN. I calculate 70 to 85 percent of the gun.

    Three men, Norman, Williams and Jarman where positioned on the 5th floor directly beneath the SE corner not 15 feet from the muzzle of the rifle. These three men just feet below the SE window are subject to a rifle blast that produces over 150dB of sound/shockwave. Studies show that this level of sound, even down to 120dB, will render a person temporarily deaf, cause ringing in the ears and be quite painful for some time afterward… and not only does it happen once but 2 more times… yet one of these men claims to be able to hear the working of the bolt and clinking of the shells on the floor above… A sound this loud, repeated twice more from the same location and these men can only “think” or “believe” someone is shooting at the president… It stretches the bounds of credibility… but it MUST have happened that way…

    Mr. NORMAN. I believe it was his right arm, and I can’t remember what the exact time was but I know I heard a shot, and then after I heard the shot, well, it seems as though the President, you know, slumped or something, and then another shot and I believe Jarman or someone told me, he said, “I believe someone is shooting at the President,” and I think I made a statement “It is someone shooting at the President, and I believe it came from up above us.”

    Well, I couldn’t see at all during the time but I know I heard a third shot fired, and I could also hear something sounded like the shell hulls hitting the floor and the ejecting of the rifle, it sounded as though it was to me.

    Given what we now know about what Oswald could have known, and that we agree that he must have had a plan, even if only created three days before on Tuesday once he learns JFK is coming to Dallas and passing under his place of employment… It stretches the bounds of credibility to accept that this plan includes not knowing when the limo is to pass by and in turn having to be in a position to use the rifle he took such pains to bring to as well as hide in the TSBD. None of Oswald’s necessary activities are offered by the WCR to support such a plan. It’s all tautological: He must have been there because he had to be in order to fire the shots.

    The Evidence is the Conspiracy…

    When I originally offered the concept in August of 2010 on the Spartacus Education Forum it was well received and completely blows the WCR scenario out of the water… it remains impossible for the events to have happened the way they were described and not even possible to be considered by any thinking person.

    As Vince Bugliosi says, although he wishes you conclude the opposite, this is indeed the most complicated murder of all time, and the WCR proves it to be so. Talking about the “evidence” as if it indicates anything related to the assassination is a hoax and a cruel joke on anyone who continues to play the game… The magician’s trick of getting you to look here while the deception is happening over there…


    The Evidence IS the Conspiracy, Table of Contents


  • Where was Oswald during the shooting?

    Where was Oswald during the shooting?


    Most researchers of the JFK assassination don’t believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the man who assassinated President Kennedy. The zealous defenders of the Warren Commission demand that those of us who doubt its conclusion that Oswald was the sole assassin identify the real assassins. Although we are under no obligation whatsoever to identify the real assassins in order to exonerate Oswald, thanks to the exceptional research of Sean Murphy, there is compelling evidence that Oswald was standing just outside the front entrance to the Texas School Book Depository building at the time of the assassination.

    According to Murphy, the man he has dubbed “Prayer man” (due to the posture of his arms) was likely Oswald. See below:

     

     

    Murphy’s extraordinary research was discussed at length over at the education forum; formerly owned and run by John Simkin. For those of you who have not taken the time to read through this important research, I highly recommend that you do so. Murphy’s work is both highly compelling and revolutionary (click here to read through this important research). Readers are also strongly encouraged to read through the discussion of “Prayer man” on Greg Parker’s research forum (this can be read here).

    The reader may also be interested in reading through my essay on former DPD Sergeant, Gerald Hill, in which I argue that Hill framed Oswald inside the Texas Theater by pretending to remove the revolver used to kill officer J.D. Tippit (WCE 143) from Oswald; during Oswald’s scuffle with the DPD officers (this can be read here).


    Update

    An e-book recounting Sean Murphy’s contributions, narrated and commented by Stan Dane, is now available:

     

    And see now also Bart Kamp’s ongoing work at his website http://www.prayer-man.com.

  • 1964 Norman Redlich Memo


    April 27, 1964

    MEMORANDUM

    TO: J. Lee Rankin

    FROM: Norman Redlich


    The purpose of this memorandum is to explain the reasons why certain members of the staff feel that it is important to take certain on-site photographs in connection with the location of the approximate points at which the three bullets struck the occupants of the Presidential limousine.

    Our report presumably will state that the President was hit by the first bullet, Governor Connally by the second, and the President by the third and fatal bullet. The report will also conclude that the bullets were fired by one person located in the sixth floor southeast corner window of the TSBD building.

    As our investigation now stands, however, we have not shown that these events could possibly have occurred in the manner suggested above. All we have is a reasonable hypothesis which appears to be supported by the medical testimony but which has not been checked out against the physical facts at the scene of the assassination.

    Our examination of the Zapruder films shows that the fatal third shot struck the President at a point which we can locate with reasonable accuracy on the ground. We can do this because we know the exact frame (no. 313) in the film at which the third shot hit the President and we know the location of the photographer. By lining up fixed objects in the movie frame where this shot occurs we feel that we have determined the approximate location of this shot. This can be verified by a photo of the same spot from the point where Zapruder was standing.

    We have the testimony of Governor and Mrs. Connally that the Governor was hit with the second bullet at a point which we probably cannot fix with precision. We feel we have established, however, with the help of medical testimony, that the shot which hit the Governor did not come after frame 240 on the Zapruder film. The governor feels that it came around 230, which is certainly consistent with our observations of the film and with the doctor’s testimony. Since the President was shot at frame 313, this would leave a time of at least 4 seconds between the two shots, certainly ample for even an inexperienced marksman.

    Prior to our last viewing of the films with Governor Connally we had assumed that the President was hit while he was concealed behind the sign which occurs between frames 215-225. We have expert testimony to the effect that a skilled marksman would require a minimum 2 seconds between shots with this rifle. Since the camera operates at 18 1/3 frames per second, there would have to be a minimum of 40 frames between shots. It is apparent, therefore, that if Governor Connally was even as late as frame 240, the President would have to have been hit no later than frame 190 and probably even earlier.

    We have not yet examined the assassination scene to determine whether the assassin in fact could have shot the President prior to frame 190. We could locate the position on the ground which corresponds to this frame and it would then be our intent to establish by photography that the assassin would have fired the first shot at the President prior to this point. Our intention is not to establish the point with complete accuracy, but merely to substantiate the hypothesis which underlies the conclusions that Oswald was the sole assassin.

    I had always assumed that our final report would be accompanied by a surveyor’s diagram which would indicate the approximate location of the three shots. We certainly cannot prepare such a diagram without establishing that we are describing an occurrence which is physically possible. Our failure to do this will, in my opinion, place this Report in jeopardy since it is a certainty that others will examine the Zapruder films and raise the same questions which have been raised by our examination of the films. If we do not attempt to answer these observable facts, others may answer them with facts which challenge our most basic assumptions, or with fanciful theories based on our unwillingness to test our assumptions by the investigatory methods available to us.

    I should add that the facts which we now have in our Possession, submitted to us in separate reports from the FBI and Secret Service, are totally incorrect and, if left uncorrected, will present a completely misleading picture.

    It may well be that this project should be undertaken by the FBI and Secret Service with our assistance instead of being done as a staff project. The important thing is that the project be undertaken expeditiously.