David Von Pein

2012 DISCUSSION RE: THE LIMOUSINE'S JUMP SEAT MEASUREMENTS.... DVP SAID: The more I think about this topic, the more convinced I am becoming that the U.S. Secret Service (Thomas J. Kelley [at 5 H 132]) merely measured the "inboard" distance of John Connally's jump seat from a different place from that which appears on the official Hess & Eisenhardt body draft of the 1961 Lincoln limousine, just as I speculated when I said this: "I think BOTH Kelley and the Hess & Eisenhardt schematic are correct. And that's because Kelley's measurement must have been taken from a slightly different place on the car than was the H&E measurement for the jump seat location. Do you really think Kelley just MADE UP his six-inch figure? I don't. I think that measurement must have been different because they were measuring from a different starting point. Or, perhaps the "finishing point" was different than H&E's." -- DVP; April 12, 2012 Now, when we look at the two pictures below, I can easily envision the Secret Service's measurement for the jump seat being calculated from a different starting point on the car to account for the 3.5-inch difference in the measurements when compared to Hess & Eisenhardt. If the Secret Service measurement also included the area between the arrows in the second picture, it looks to me as though that would add up to just about six inches when the 2.50-inch measurement in the H&E diagram is included too: CLICK TO ENLARGE: Furthermore, the HSCA also used the six-inch [approx. 15 cm.] figure, when it said this: "Connally...was seated well within the car on the jump seat ahead of Kennedy; a gap of slightly less than 15 centimeters separated this seat from the car door." -- HSCA Volume 6; Page 49 Moreover, the HSCA's "slightly less than 15 centimeters" figure was obviously NOT being derived solely from Thomas Kelley's testimony, because just after citing the "15 centimeters" measurement at 6 HSCA 49, the HSCA gives a source for the 15-cm. measurement—Figure II-19, at 6 HSCA 50—which is the H&E body draft of the limo, which says the jump seat is 2.50 inches inboard. Which makes me think the HSCA was also using a measurement that included the 2.50-inch measurement we see specified in the H&E body draft PLUS an additional 3.5 inches of space that I've outlined with arrows in my photo above. I'll also add this: At one point in the endnotes in his JFK book, when Vincent Bugliosi cited his source for a "six-inch gap" between the jump seat and the limo door, Vince cited the HSCA and not Thomas Kelley's Warren Commission testimony: "A six-inch gap separated Connally's jump seat from the right door [6 HSCA 49]." -- "Reclaiming History"; Page 344 of Endnotes Final Thought: In my opinion, BOTH Thomas Kelley and the Hess & Eisenhardt measurements are accurate. It's just that each of those figures was calculated in a different manner, utilizing a different starting point on the SS-100-X limousine. That's all. 2008 "JUMP SEAT" DISCUSSION: JFK-Archives.blogspot.com/Dale Myers And The SBT ALSO FROM A 2012 DISCUSSION.... DVP SAID: As for Shaneyfelt and Specter [et al] deliberately lying about the back-wound location, you're being way too harsh on those men....mainly because we KNOW that some things had to be approximated as far as the SBT trajectory analysis is concerned. And the word "approximately" is used in Shaneyfelt's testimony 24 different times when they get to the subject of the SBT and the 5/24/64 re-enactment in Dealey Plaza. 24 times! So, many things are only the BEST GUESSES of people like Shaneyfelt and Robert Frazier, et al, when dealing with the subject of the Single-Bullet Theory and the precise positioning of the two victims, etc. Plus, the Warren Commission's whole SBT scenario was based on an AVERAGE (or approximate) positioning of the limo between a 16-frame range of Zapruder Film frames (Z210-Z225). They merely split the difference and used, in essence, Z217.5 as their SBT frame, which is exactly what we see in Commission Exhibit 903, which is an exhibit that thoroughly demolishes the idea that the Warren Commission needed to move the wound in JFK's upper back into his neck, because it's obvious that the wound on the JFK stand-in is far below the neck. For some reason, however, CTers refuse to acknowledge this fact. To reiterate an important point: The Warren Commission didn't lie because they just flat-out had no reason to lie. And that's because Lee Harvey Oswald, by himself, really did kill President Kennedy and Officer Tippit. And Oswald's own actions, plus all of the physical evidence he left behind, proves that he was guilty. And that fact was proven many days before there ever was a "Warren Commission", as illustrated in Henry Wade's 11/24/63 news conference.

This is some of the most basic evidence in the case. Are you really saying here that you don't know anything about the origin of the 4 bullet shells found at 10th & Patton? Or are you just playing around?

It's fun to play around with stuff like this from time to time, isn't it? Here's another question for you to ponder, Gregory..... If, as you have suggested, Oswald purchased a movie ticket at the Texas Theater, then why wasn't the ticket stub found on his person after his arrest? And I can only assume that all Texas Theater patrons are, indeed, given a stub after their tickets are torn by somebody at the door who does that sort of thing, like we find at most U.S. theaters. Which, I guess, brings up another question: If Oswald didn't buy a ticket, how did he manage to slip past the "ticket taker" who should have been posted just inside the front door? ~shrug~* * And the "ticket taker" on 11/22/63 would have been Butch Burroughs (who also sold the candy and popcorn at the theater).... Mr. BALL -- "During the afternoon of the week, do you take tickets too?" Mr. BURROUGHS -- "Yes, I take tickets every day." [Later in Burroughs' WC testimony....] Mr. BALL -- "If anybody comes in there without a ticket, what do you do, run them off?" Mr. BURROUGHS -- "I make it a point to stop them and ask them to go out and get a ticket. I just failed to see him when he slipped in." Oswald, of course, if he had purchased a ticket, could have just thrown his stub in a trash can inside the theater. But I'm wondering why he'd want to do that? Because by keeping the ticket stub, he could then prove that he didn't "sneak" into the theater without paying. Which would certainly make him look at least a little bit less guilty of any crime --- because by simply being willing to take the extra time and pay for the cheap ticket at the outside box office, it makes him look a bit less desperate to get off the sunny streets in order to get inside that dark theater as fast as he possibly can get in there. But if he didn't pay for that movie ticket (which I certainly don't think he did), it does indeed make him look mighty anxious (desperate perhaps?) to get off that police-filled Jefferson Boulevard and inside the darkened theater as quickly as possible. And why would Lee Harvey Oswald be so anxious (even desperate perhaps?) to get inside that movie theater at about 1:40 PM CST on November 22, 1963? The answer to that last question is, in my opinion, fairly obvious.

$13.87 + $0.23 (bus) + $1.00 (cab) = $15.10 Mr. BALL - You let him on the bus, and he paid his fare, how much is that fare? Mr. McWATTERS - It is 23 cents. ------------ The price of a vending machine Coke was 5 cents thru 1959. Then it went up to 10 cents. So Oswald probably left Ruth Paine's house on Nov. 22 with $15.20 in his pocket. * * Which assumes he bought just one Coke that day, and it also assumes he didn't merely swipe a bottle of Coke off of one of the tables in the second-floor lunchroom right after his encounter with Officer Baker, instead of buying one himself, which is quite possible, I suppose. I've seen photos of the lunchroom in which we can see bottles of Coke left on the tables ---> such as HERE and HERE. ------------ Here's an interesting hunk of trivia concerning Coca-Cola [copied from this Wiki page]: The Coca-Cola Company sought ways to increase the five cent price, even approaching the U.S. Treasury Department in 1953 to ask that they mint a 7.5 cent coin. The Treasury was unsympathetic. In another attempt, The Coca-Cola Company briefly implemented a strategy where one in every nine vending machine bottles was empty. The empty bottle was called an "official blank". This meant that, while most nickels inserted in a vending machine would yield cold drinks, one in nine patrons would have to insert two nickels in order to get a bottle. This effectively raised the price to 5.625 cents. Coca-Cola never implemented this strategy on a national scale. ------------ I can certainly see why the Coke Company never followed through with that spiteful strategy of literally stealing an extra nickel from 11% of its vending machine customers by dropping an empty bottle into their hands. I have a hard time believing the company would have even considered such a deceptive act of thievery. Customers wouldn't have stood still for only getting what they paid for 9 times out of 10. And can you imagine a 7.5-cent coin?! Just think of the mess that would have caused for all of the nation's cashiers. They'd have to find a way to give back 2.5 cents change for a 5-cent purchase. What a nightmare! 😁

Yes, you're right, Greg. I was mistaken about something I read about Crafard on Page 247 of Vincent Bugliosi's book. That page is in the middle of Vince's chronology of events for "Sunday, November 24", but Bugliosi suddenly goes back to talking about the events of Saturday on that page. And that's when the subject of Crafard leaving Dallas comes up. But it was my error this time, and not Bugliosi's. Vince has it right in his book. Crafard left town on Saturday, Nov. 23rd. Sorry about the mistake, Greg.

Crafard left Dallas for Michigan on Sunday morning, Nov. 24th, Greg. Not the 23rd.

Greg Doudna's wild and fantastic (and, IMO, crazy) theory revolving around Mr. Curtis LaVerne "Larry" Crafard (not "Craford", as explained in the last paragraph of Crafard Exhibit No. 5226) made me want to read Crafard's complete Warren Commission testimony for the first time. It's quite a roller coaster ride of a read (starting at 13 H 402). The long and rambling life story of this drifter named Larry Crafard, which the Warren Commission's Leon Hubert and Burt Griffin probed for hours on end for three days (April 8-10, 1964) and which takes up nearly 200 pages in WC volumes 13 and 14, could have been featured on The Edge Of Night, Guiding Light, and As The World Turns all at the same time, because this guy's constant travels and dozens of different jobs (not to mention a wife who left him twice, and gave birth to Larry's baby boy---or did she?) could probably fill up all three of those soap operas all at once. Why on Earth all of the details surrounding Crafard's entire life prior to November 1963 were things that Mr. Hubert and Mr. Griffin deemed necessary to place into the Warren Commission's official record, I really have no idea. Incredibly, Crafard's testimony consumes nearly seven times the number of pages than that of President Kennedy's chief autopsy physician, Dr. James Humes. Humes' testimony takes up only 29 pages in total. Crafard = 197 pages. Unbelievable.

Thank you, Greg. I have enjoyed many of our chats this year. Happy Holidays. 😎

But, Greg, in this particular case (the Tippit murder case), wouldn't you agree that it's much (MUCH!) more likely that the ballistics evidence is just simply telling us the TRUTH, and that it was OSWALD who killed Officer J.D. Tippit....and it was OSWALD'S revolver that fired the fatal bullets into Tippit's body....and it was OSWALD who was really the one who was seen dumping shells out of his gun as he fled the scene of the crime on Tenth Street --- versus believing that all of the witnesses were either mistaken or lying or coerced or whatever else AND that the bullet shells were switched by the police to frame an innocent Oswald? And in THIS case especially---the case where a local police officer has just been shot dead---don't you have a particularly difficult time believing that anyone in the Dallas Police Department would have had any desire at all to participate in some kind of a frame-up against an innocent Oswald, which would automatically mean those officers participating in such a frame-up would be deliberately allowing the real killer of their brother officer to get away scot-free? Isn't all of that "frame-up" stuff rather hard to swallow in THIS (Tippit) case particularly? I sure think it is.

I didn't. I never mentioned your name in my final paragraph. I merely that there are "many conspiracy theorists who seem to enjoy calling Mr. Myers an outright [L-word]". And there are. If you, Greg Doudna, are not such a CTer, that's great. I'm glad to hear it. And I'll try to remember that fact in the future. Thanks.

Paula Bosse, the expert blogger when it comes to "All Things Relating To Dallas, Texas", recently posted the pictures seen below at her "Flashback: Dallas" website/blog. These 1962 photos depict ads for Jack Ruby's Carousel Club (which was being referred to as "The New Carousel" at the time).... Click to enlarge: A few more Carousel Club advertisements, plus one from Abe Weinstein's Colony Club (Jack Ruby's rival club, also located on Commerce Street), can be seen in Paula Bosse's complete blog post here.

I've become interested lately in the contradiction that exists in the various media reports and Internet articles relating to the second of the two assassination attempts against President Gerald Ford which occurred within 17 days of each other in September of 1975. We all know that in the 2nd attempt on Ford's life (on September 22, 1975), a 45-year-old woman named Sara Jane Moore did manage to fire her pistol at the President in San Francisco, and all of the initial reports that I have seen (such as the newspaper seen below) indicate that only one single shot was fired from Moore's gun. And there's also an audio recording of the shooting (via the CBS Radio Network), which can be heard HERE. In that audio recording, one gunshot can clearly be heard, but no more than one is heard. But there are some people out there writing articles who evidently are of the opinion that Sara Jane Moore fired two shots at President Ford. I think a lot of the articles that I've seen on the Internet that are claiming "two shots" have derived their information, in large part, from this Wikipedia page, which claims that the cab driver who was injured in the groin during the shooting was positively struck by a "second shot" fired by would-be assassin Moore. But the injury to the bystander could have been caused by the ONLY shot fired by Moore. A second shot is probably not required. Based on the audio recording I linked to above, I favor just one single shot being fired by Moore. Because if a second gunshot had actually been fired from that very same weapon, I cannot fathom how the sound of that shot would not have been captured by the CBS Radio microphone that managed to easily capture the very loud noise caused by the first blast. So, similar to the long-debated question of How many shots did Lee Harvey Oswald really fire?.... I'd like to now ask: How many shots did Sara Jane Moore fire? One or two? Also See: http://dvp-video-audio-archive.blogspot.com/2018/03/gerald-ford-assassination-attempts

According to Dale Myers' book "With Malice" (1998 Edition) [Page 650; Endnote #800], Myers had "contact" with George M. Doughty on March 14, 1996, which was four years after Doughty had suffered a stroke. This "contact", as Myers refers to it in his book (as opposed to an "interview"), was three pages in length (when put in transcript form) and was evidently mostly in reference to the mysterious "Wallet" issue. I'm not sure if Myers ever talked to Doughty about placing his initials on one of the bullet shells found near the Tippit murder scene. More importantly.....if you turn to Page 267 of "With Malice" (1998 version), you'll find photos (taken by Dale Myers himself) of the bullet shell that has the initials of Captain George M. Doughty scratched into it. Quoting from Page 267 of Myers' book (1998 Edition): "FBI Exhibit Q76 .... This Winchester-Western hull was identified by Dallas crime lab Captain George M. Doughty as the hull found by Barbara J. Davis. Three sets of markings are visible on the inside rim of the hull, including Doughty's initials, "GD" in script. Three sets of FBI related initials -- JH, CK, and RF -- are on the outside of the hull." ---------- So, as we can see from the above book excerpt, Dale Myers himself actually saw Captain Doughty's initials etched into the bullet shell in question. The photos of the "Q76" shell that appear in Myers' book are, unfortunately, not distinct enough to clearly make out the "GD" initials that Dale says appear (in script) on the inside rim of that shell. And since there are many conspiracy theorists who seem to enjoy calling Mr. Myers an outright l-i-a-r when it comes to lots of stuff he has written about J.D. Tippit's murder, I'm guessing that those CTers must also think Myers was telling a tall tale about seeing Doughty's initials with his own eyes on bullet shell Q76.

CE2011 tells us that Norvell "identified his marking on this slug" [CE573 / aka C148]. So, do you think that TWO bullets were fired into Walker's house on 4/10/63?

The CE573 bullet was positively IDed in June '64 by the officer who first found it at Walker's house. Why isn't this good enough for CTers?.... "On June 12, 1964, Exhibit C148 [aka CE573], a mutilated rifle slug, was shown to Billy Gene Norvell, former Dallas police officer, 1603 Darr Street, Apartment 147, Irving, Texas, by Special Agent Bardwell D. Odum, Federal Bureau of Investigation. He identified this exhibit as the same one which he had found at the residence of Major General Edwin A. Walker, Dallas, Texas, on April 10, 1963, and identified his marking on this slug." -- CE2011 <---CLICK Plus....let me add this.... The fact that CE573 (the "Walker bullet") cannot be linked to any specific rifle is virtual proof, right there, that it was not "planted" into the evidence pile. Because only a total idiot would want to do something so stupid. Although, yes, CE573 looks exactly like CE399 in many respects. No doubt about it. But if you're going to go to the trouble of PLANTING a bullet to frame a particular person, you're surely going to make sure that that bullet can be tied exclusively to the patsy's gun. Wouldn't you agree? http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2012/12/edwin-walker-and-lee-harvey-oswald.html

But what about COMMISSION EXHIBIT NO. 15, Sandy? (Which has OSWALD'S own signature on it.) Don't tell me! Let me guess! CE15 is yet another piece of "fake" evidence!? Is that going to be your response to CE15, Sandy?

As you know, Jonathan, that's the M.O. of virtually all Internet conspiracy theorists. And has been for years now. Here's what Jim Hargrove wrote in December 2018: JIM HARGROVE SAID: Question: How much of the evidence against “Lee Harvey Oswald” is fake? Answer: ALL OF IT, except, of course, for the many mistakes made during the hasty cover-up. DAVID VON PEIN THEN SAID: Thanks, Jim Hargrove, for putting that belief in writing (and in a succinct form). I'll now be able to use your quote whenever I want to highlight yet another CTer's absurd "Over The Top" beliefs relating to the evidence in the John F. Kennedy murder case. Much obliged. (And the placing of quotation marks around Lee Harvey Oswald's name is another humorous little idiosyncrasy to be found among the current batch of 21st-century conspiracy fantasists. As if there was actually more than one "Lee Harvey Oswald". Too cute.)

Click for a nice big view of a pre-Stemmons Freeway photo of Dealey Plaza and west Dallas. This picture was taken on JFK's 35th birthday (May 29th, 1952).... For a related discussion, CLICK HERE.

That's too bad. Thanks for the info, William.

Bump..... I wonder how the proposed "redesign" of Dealey Plaza is progressing, one year later? (Click to enlarge these photos....)

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