Photo of Overturned Domino Room Bench Appearing in FBI Booklet of TSBD Floor Plans & Photos

[Larry Belmont]

In the FBI booklet containing floor plans and photos of the TBSD, which I recently discovered (as a late arrival to the party, in a manner of speaking), I noted Plate 15 shows one of the benches in the Domino (Lunch) Room has been overturned, and dimensions of the space underneath the padded seat marked in what looks to be a white photo-marking pen (common in those days for annotating photos, marking areas for cropping, etc.).

It is the only photo in the booklet that has such markings, measurements, etc. The caption explicitly mentions "dimensions of bottom construction," as if the dimensions were material to some aspect of the investigation. Kinda struck me as an answer to an unasked question.

Does anyone in the Forum know if this was related to a suspicion that a rifle (either assembled or broken down) may have been concealed in the space under one of the benches? I have not yet located any material speaking to that possibility, either via testimony or from any FBI reports.

The booklet can be perused here:

https://archive.org/details/FBITSBD

Attached is the plate in question.

Thanks for any replies,

Larry

[Ron Bulman]

Larry, I'm new here too.  I've read the forum for years, along with a few others, googled "TSBD first floor diagram" many different ways but never found or seen this from the FBI.  Thanks for the link.  It's a gold mine for me for much more than the turned over domino room bench.  Note to others, if you zoom in from the icon on the upper right you can actually read where Truly and Shelly's offices are for example. 

All this may have been seen by other members before but I have to ask.  In the picture on page 9 does that look like the breaker boxes for the building right by the first floor door to the back loading dock.  I.E., could some one hanging around this area at 12:30, while everyone else was out front watching the parade, have cut the power off to the freight elevators and in turn the building (as was reported), then turned it back on when contacted to do so or at a pre appointed time, then slipped out the back door and ran like hell and or jumped in a waiting car.  Yes, I know, all speculation on my part.  No proof available ever.  Just part of something I've wondered about for years.

Lambast my brainstorming as you will, by definition it's consideration of even the most outlandish of ideas.  E.G I can't wrap my mind completely around what I've read about the Harvey and Lee story but parts seem to make sense (it's expensive to read and long/deep/time consuming to read).

https://www.amazon.com/Harvey-Lee-John-Armstrong/dp/0974509701/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1497926843&sr=1-1&keywords=Harvey+and+lee

There are potentially other nuggets in this FBI booklet.

   

[Michael Clark]

41 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

Larry, I'm new here too.  I've read the forum for years, 

------------------

All this may have been seen by other members before but I have to ask.  In the picture on page 9 does that look like the breaker boxes for the building right by the first floor door to the back loading dock. 

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There are potentially other nuggets in this FBI booklet.

   

Ron, that is a phone line interconnection.

Welcome, and thanks for the link Larry.

[Ron Bulman]

19 minutes ago, Michael Clark said:

Ron, that is a phone line interconnection.

Welcome, and thanks for the link Larry.

Si, I didn't pay attention to the size of the inbound conduit or black lines in relation to the size/power needs of a building that size.  Have others seen the FBI  booklet before or anything on where the breaker boxes were located?   BTW, the phone lines reportedly went dead at the same time as the power went off as others may have read. 

[Larry Belmont]

Thanks for the 'welcome aboards'!

I have seen stray pics and plans from this booklet used separately across the Web for years, but only recently did I run across what appears to be the whole booklet bound as a bureau-prepared photo guide to the depository.

I don't know if the white rectangular shape (file folder label?) on upper right of front cover is either obscuring a CE number, for example, or the number appears on it but has been obscured. I have to think this is an official exhibit, right?

The camera locations for all of the photos marked on the floor plans has proven quite helpful to orient oneself to the building. A baby step toward getting inside the building and "walking around" in a virtual sense as it pretty much looked on 11/22/63, seeing where things were in relation to other things, e.g., that electrical or phone panel in relation to a door, heights of those radiators in the entrance vestibule, etc.

In re Plate 9, captioned "Mr. Truly's Office," I first wonder why that shot seems to be a xerox of a photo. It might more correctly be labeled "open part of the 1st floor" -  is that the famous telephone that some reporters used? (Phone cord, owing to the contrast of a xerox or whatever kind of copy it is, leaps out.) If you consult the 1st floor floor plan a few pages earlier, you can see that camera position 9 was quite a ways from Truly's office. Looking in that general direction, to be sure, but somehow the orientation and the shot itself don't make sense to me in terms of captioning it that way. I have to stare at it some more and get acclimated to things. Truly's office, per the plan, would be along the left edge of the photo, furthest from the camera, toward the Elm St. side (front) of the building. The door visible in the photo looks to be Shelley's office door (office looks way larger than Truly's, which seems odd considering their job titles), with Truly's door beyond that, obscured by the column. Looks like Shelley's office had windows looking out onto floor (based on the floor plan drawing), but where they are on plan doesn't jibe with the photo. But, like I said, I am still trying to reconcile the direction of view one can glean from the drawing of the 1st floor with what is shown in that particular photo. I am not completely sure I am seeing things correctly. This also must be the portion of the floor that Baker and Truly (allegedly) crossed to reach the elevators and stairs in the northwest corner of the joint, so it's interesting to see at least part of the first leg of their route. (One might think photographs or a film devoted JUST to the route they took, maybe even a person with a movie camera acting as a "chase plane" to two men standing in for Baker and Truly - or why not those two themselves - would have been very valuable.)

The Plate 9 photo seems to have gotten the same treatment as the floor plans (which are "line art" as opposed to grayscale or halftone images - not sure if my technical terms are correct) ... it's a xerox of a photo and has the same type of "binder" (forget the term for that type of binding) holes that the floor plans have, albeit on its top edge (the plans show the binder holes, which appear as narrow black rectangles along their left-hand edges). Production error when "pamphlet" was put together? Or when the PDF was made from scans? The Plate 9 photo seems to have been originally bound like the plans (90 degrees counterclockwise) and rotated to match the other photos.

Why I started with the toppled bench photo: my curiosity was piqued by the fact that the Domino Room (DR) portion of the booklet almost seems to have a very specific context beyond just chronicling the depository at large - the photos devoted to the location of the jacket and the measurements of the "toppled" bench jumping out. Not counting the photo showing the entrance to the DR, there are SIX photos of its interior. Almost smells like "undue attention paid."  An interesting exercise is to just ask, for each photo, "why was this specific view taken and put in the book?" Many make sense from that perspective. And also what is not contained in the book that seems like it should be there? The roof access? Up and down the elevator shafts? Counter area on 1st floor between vestibule and open area? The famous phone table itself? The phone switchboard? The plywood flooring on 6 in the process of being laid down (with any spaces beneath)? The "annex" just to the west with curved outer wall? How about putting a figure the height of Oswald behind the window in the 2nd floor lunchroom's pneumatic door? I mean if you're writing the measurements on the bottom of a toppled-over bench, why not those other things? Even include, in same white pen, the measurements of that rectangular window too. Seems germane to a key cornerstone of case. That one "see" what Baker "saw."

In re the drawn floor plans, I like that the FBI has its own little graphic arts department "logo" - a draftsman at a drafting table. In the lower left-hand corner of the plans. Reads: "FBI __________ SECTION" I think ... cannot make out the 2nd word even enlarged.

Would be nice to know the history of this pamphlet - who ordered it, who was involved in its creation, who wrote the captions (and made the wording choices to describe what is shown), who made editing decisions, etc. And the source of the PDF too (supposing a scanning config error might have led to the reproduction of Plate 9 as line art).

This case never seems to cease generating questions, no matter how specific one's field of view.

Edited June 20, 2017 by Larry Belmont
Fixed usage error that was misleading regarding my description of where Shelley's office door is in photo.

[Ron Bulman]

The implications of the focus on the toppled bench, it's dimensions and the domino room are interesting.  Why such by the FBI, obviously with Hoover's approval, but not even noted much less questioned by the Warren Omission?  Was the FBI suspicious of Oswald or someone else hiding a gun under the bench, or were they possibly framing him?

I'll note I'm just a reader and visitor of Dealy plaza, the Paine home, Hotel Texas, a few other places and I don't think of myself as a researcher.  Some of them have reached a point that what actually happened in Dallas in detail is not that important anymore.  Nothing further can ever be proven.  The only answers to yet be found are in the big picture in Washington and the East Coast Establishment, the MIC, CIA if you will.  I disagree, it's all important.  The domino room bench, people cutting off power to the TSBD, and those seen leaving the back of it are all further nails in the coffin of the Warren Omission for future generations when exposed to them.

I have seen the diagrams of the 2nd, 3d and 6th floors before as well as the picture of Fraisers car behind the TSBD I believe on reflection.  Thanks again for the link to the FBI booklet.  They did one on the Paine and Randle homes also.  Thanks to of all people, Davey Von Pein for this link (and in turn Russ and MF herself):

http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10897#relPageId=10&tab=page

Edited June 21, 2017 by Ron Bulman

[Larry Belmont]

I can't think of another reason to turn the bench over and measure (only) the bottom dimensions other than to verify that the space underneath was large enough for something the FBI might have already had the dimensions of that was an object of suspected concealment. Looks like you could put a bazooka AND Billy Barty in that space. As well as curtain rods. 

I suppose one would have to dig into the production of the booklet in detail to even get at what the FBI was trying to document by 1) performing the physical actions of pulling the bench away from the wall and measuring the dimensions, and 2) marking them on the photo as we see.

Seems extremely specific even in the context of Oswald allegedly having ate his lunch their around noon on 11/22/63 and even considering the subsequent jacket discovery. Unless someone had the thought that Oswald (or others?) used the room as some sort of "drop." You don't have to be too paranoid to guess that weapons could be hidden under the bench. Rifles (two, I think) were known to be in the building just the day before.

In

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White Materials/JFK Assassination Photos Book/Pages 051-100.pdf

there is reference to this pamphet as

Commission Document 496 FBI booklet entitled "Texas School Book Depository, Dallas, Texas" with photographs of the floor plans and the parking lot. 

I am not familiar enough with the 26 volumes to know if there would be more info about the specific document somewhere therein. I imagine one would have to write the FBI and ask all the questions about the production of the pamphlet. And I surely don't know if every exhibit was discussed in any detail.

I still say inclusion of that photograph with that useless caption - it's akin to a caption reading "Table" under a photo of a table - is odd. Of all those in the pamphlet,, that photo is the strangest of all. With the Domino Room coverage being slightly less strange as a whole.

On whose word were the above actions taken (who ordered the bench toppled and measured, and why?) and who made the editorial call to over-cover (IMHO) the Domino Room in a photo tour of the TSBD? Those things are not random. 

This to me is tangible residue of events that occurred at someone's request, more interesting to me than trying to find human hairlines in pixelated images of TSBD windows.

Makes me think there was more investigative interest in the Domino Room than we have been led to believe.

 

 

 

Edited June 26, 2017 by Larry Belmont
Fixed grammatical error.

[David Josephs]

17 hours ago, Larry Belmont said:

I am not familiar enough with the 26 volumes to know if there would be more info about the specific document somewhere therein. I imagine one would have to write the FBI and ask all the questions about the production of the pamphlet. And I surely don't know if every exhibit was discussed in any detail.

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/JFK_Assassination_Documents.html   

This is one of the most extensive and complete gatherings of documentation we have.

http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/tabs/collection/po-arm is the link to Armstrong's notebook library with copies of documents only available by copying them at the Archives.

the Warren Commission Documents are the "working papers" which begat many of the WC exhibits.  Much of the most important information was hidden here.

If you are interested in the direct evidence of the SS & FBI lying to the WC and to the American People it's WCD298.

This amazing document illustrates how the FBI & SS changed z313 from shot #2 to #3 while acknowledging and then removing a shot striking JFK 40 feet further down Elm.
If also illustrates the movement of the first shot's location by moving it 10 feet up Elm.

If we can remember that Oswald did not do this... the manner and detail in which the FBI describes and corroborates the evidence which "proves" he did do it must then, by definition, be altered, created and/or omitted with that one purpose in mind.

 

[Gary Murr]

And David of course the real "kicker" in all of this is that as far as I know, no witness was ever given access to the FBI's "minute detail" models of the Dealey Plaza area in an effort to "assist...[their] recollections." Indeed once the model was moved by the FBI into it's VFW Building resting place the exhibit was kept under lock and key and access was controlled by Rankin's secretary, Julia Eide. Anyone who wished access to these exhibits, and others in this room, they had to acquire permission and then sign in and out on a secretarial pad that Eide controlled. If you have not seen/read this document, you should. It details just who visited this room, who they were with, and their length of stay within the room with the exhibits. As I contend in unpublished writings, I am convinced that over the weekend of March 13 - 15, 1964, the planning for the "reconstruction" that was to take place in Dallas in May was drawn  up by Melvin Eisenberg and others in this room and working directly with/from the FBI model of Dealey Plaza. In fact, that was the only instance in which the key to this room was allowed to be kept for an extended stay, Eisenberg acquiring the key on Friday and not returning it to Eide until Monday morning. And he was not in the room alone. In every other instance the key was signed out and in on the same day as acquired.

FWIW

Gary