Lee Oswald’s Departure from the TSBD

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I don't understand why anyone would automatically accept the bus transfer as authentic, given all we know about the state of other "evidence" against Oswald.

The bus transfer is not evidence AGAINST Oswald.

Any first year law student could tell you that.

[Duke Lane]

... you have neglected the writings of Harold Weisberg who waxed eloquent on the subject of McWatters confusion, recalling from memory. I have always thought that No one disputed the fact that McWatters mixed up the identities of Milton Jones and Lee Oswald.

As for your theory, which I assume is based in part on the story told by Roger Craig, I cannot vouch for Craig's reliability as a witness.

In any case my comments were limited to how I see the defense being handled. As I see it, the defense would not dispute that Lee Oswald was on the bus, and since Bledsoe corroborates the defendant's claim that he took a bus, then there is no need to call McWatters to confirm a fact already proven and stipulated to be true by both sides. The bus transfer is not even needed to complete the proof, but since it is there, we can add it to the pile.

The first thing to realize, of course, is that we don't actually know that the defendant claimed to have taken a bus; there is no foundation for this other than the word and lately-discovered notes of Will Fritz. Absent his notes, a defense attorney might move to strike since Fritz had no "proof" but his memory. Cops get on the stand to provide evidence, not recollections to the best of their ability. That's what civilians are for.

The second question is, what is the purpose of introducing Oswald's being on a bus? ("Objection: relevence!") There is, as you'd said, nothing criminal about riding a bus. So if the prosecution is going to use it, to what end? The ones I might imagine are to show his "escape" from one crime and transportation to another, as well as to portray someone thinking that they might escape detection by being on a bus with several other people, then getting off when he realized that the bus might be boarded and searched. The prosecution isn't going to introduce evidence potentially exculpatory of the accused.

But let's say that it's allowed.

As defense, I might well call McWatters as a rebuttal witness. We have the question of his issuance of a transfer, and his testimony that he indeed recalled giving one to a man on Elm Street prior to reaching Houston Street, but that man wasn't Oswald; he didn't remember issuing any others in that area. We don't know who the man who got the transfer is, except that he isn't Oswald.

Since we can't substantiate the origin of the transfer allegedly found on Oswald's person - McWatters may be able to say that it's a transfer that he would have issued, but he cannot state that he gave it to Oswald between Griffin and Houston or at any time immediately following 12:30 p.m. - I'd move for its exclusion as evidence.

As to the question of identifying Oswald in a lineup, we've already covered the fact that he thought he was being asked to tell which of the men in it most closely resembled Jones, not whether any of the particular men in front of him had been on his bus, and if so, which. I would also move that any reference to his identification of the "suspect" in such a lineup be disallowed.

Finally, I would ask McWatters if at any time during the noon hour of November 22, did any man appearing very disheveled, out of breath, on the run, winded, "wild," with his shirt out and unbuttoned ever get on his bus. As a bus driver (which I might also establish), he is concerned for the safety of his bus and his passengers, and would naturally be alert for any person who might pose a risk to either, which might well include an individual so described, would it not?

If McWatters told me - as he would - that no such individual got on his bus, I would move to strike Bledsoe's testimony and in any case have destroyed it by the bus driver's failure to see this nut case that Mary Bledsoe claimed to have seen.

I don't care how - or if - Oswald got to either his rooming house or the Texas Theater; it is up to the prosecution to establish that, not the defense. Since the police had found this evidence "on the defendant's person" when we have established that the bus driver in question did not give such a transfer to any man matching the description given by Bledsoe and that the only man he did give one to does not match any description of the defendant, and further that no such person as described by Bledsoe boarded McWatters' bus, I might further ask the court to cite Bledsoe for perjury and also direct an inquiry into the police officer who claims to have found the transfer and how he came into possession of a transfer that was not, apparently, issued to the defendant.

The defense doesn't need a case; the prosecution does. It is not incumbent upon the defense to provide an "alternative solution" - a better suspect - in order to refute the prosecution's evidence.

... The best evidence regarding Oswald's movements just after the shooting is, imho, Roger Craig's Rambler sighting (which was corroborated by three other witnesses, all unrelated to each other). How he got from that point to the Texas Theater is something that a real investigation would have considered a top priority.

As I've written elsewhere:

One of the Church Committee's key findings with respect to the FBI was that "the Bureau issued its report on the basis of a narrow investigation focused on Oswald, without conducting a broad examination of the assassination which would have revealed any conspiracy, foreign or domestic." It noted also that Director Hoover perceived the Commission as an adversary that sought to "criticize the Bureau" and was "merely attempting to find gaps" in the FBI's investigation of the crimes. He and senior FBI officials were "continually concerned with protecting the Bureau's reputation and avoiding any criticism" for their conduct of the investigation.

[1]

The Committee emphasized that it had found no evidence to support a conclusion that there had been a conspiracy in the murder of the President, but that it had "developed evidence which impeaches the process" of how the agencies had reached their conclusions about the assassination and provided information to the Warren Commission. It called the investigation "deficient."

With specific regard to the FBI, that it was "ordered by Director Hoover ... to conclude its investigation quickly.... Rather than addressing its investigation to all significant circumstances, including all possibilities of conspiracy, the FBI investigation focused narrowly on Lee Harvey Oswald" to the exclusion of any and all other perpetrators, a fact that "senior Bureau officials should have realized the FBI efforts were focused too narrowly to permit a full investigation," but nevertheless that "the possibility exists that senior officials ... made conscious decisions not to disclose potentially important information" to the Commission.

[2]

The only places we know for certain that Oswald was on November 22 were at the TSBD through just after 12:30, and at the Texas Theater from about 1:45 and possibly as early as 1:15 or 1:00; everywhere else is a matter of speculation and subject to doubt. The Whalley cab ride might hold some water, but between the time he let Oswald off and the time Oswald was taken into custody, almost anything is possible.

If, for example, Oswald did in fact have a bus transfer in his shirt pocket, that suggests that he did not change his shirt at the rooming house, as he supposedly said he did. Is there certain evidence that he did, in fact, change his trousers? If not, then there is no certain evidence that he actually returned to his room. Since it is not absolutely established that he ever had a weapon in his room, if he had one on his person when he went into the theater, it does not establish that he obtained it from there.

Mrs. Roberts' identification of him being there can even be called into question given that she was /a/ on the telephone, /b/ intently watching the news of the downtown shooting, and /c/ blind in one eye leaves open the possibility that someone who had his same general physical characteristics could have entered for the purpose of leaving behind the holster as opposed to picking up a gun, especially given that, in addition to the above considerations, the man who went to Oswald's room came and left in a hurry.

I'm not saying that that did happen, but the possibility that it could have cannot be entirely discounted. In a criminal proceeding, all that is necessary is to show "reasonable doubt;" whether any such doubt is "reasonable" or not is solely up to the jury, some of whom may think so, others of whom may not. His conviction, in any case, would not hinge on this one item of information anyway.

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

[1] Church Committee Report, pages 4-5

[2] Ibid., pages 6-7

Edited September 12, 2008 by Duke Lane

[William Kelly]

You know, It might be fun to play lawyer and defense attorney and call Oswald a defendant and decide who would be called as witnesses at a trail and who would be believed and who the jury wouldn't believe, but that's all nonsense.

Why speculate?

We can make up our own minds as whether to believe Bledsoe and the bus driver, and we can check out the testimony and evidence ourselves, right now.

Did anybody check the shirt in evidence to see if Bledsoe is right in that it is missing a few buttons and that it is ripped at the elbow?

BK

[Duke Lane]

Yeah, Bill, but it's fun and cheaper than law school!!

[J. Raymond Carroll]

The prosecution isn't going to introduce evidence potentially exculpatory of the accused.

I don't have the cites handy, but in one of Henry Wade's first news conferences newsmen openly ridiculed the notion that a presidential assassin would escape by bus. Booth had a horse waiting, but this guy didn't even have a bicycle. He was depending on the City of Dallas to get him out of town. It just didn't compute.

There is a great deal about the "case" against Lee Oswald that is a charade. The Warren Commission could not escape the evidence that he took a bus, so they pretended that this fact somhow implicated him in a crime. In fact it does the opposite, but apparently some people here still believe the Warren Commission.

My approach to defending this case would be different from Duke's, it seems. The bus transfer in the pocket does not contradict his claim that he changed his shirt. Most men simply transfer their pocket litter when they change clothes.

[Duke Lane]

I don't understand why anyone would automatically accept the bus transfer as authentic, given all we know about the state of other "evidence" against Oswald.

The bus transfer is not evidence AGAINST Oswald.

Any first year law student could tell you that.

As posted on the thread Oswald and the Amazing Technicolor Jacket:

The driver, Cecil McWatters, and passenger Roy Milton Jones said the man who boarded the bus was wearing a jacket.

Mary Bledsoe describes Oswald's shirt, that is was undone, dirty, had a hole in the sleeve at the elbow. Why is Bledsoe the only one who notices this?

Because she didn't. If the man was wearing a jacket, how could Bledsoe even see his elbow?

Well, yes, there is that problem, isn't there. William Whaley also said that Oswald was wearing a jacket. Only Mary Bledsoe saw him in just a shirt. How is that possible? To what extent, then, should she be considered credible?

As already noted, it depends upon how the transfer - and therefore his being on the bus - is introduced as any sort of evidence.

It also speaks to the validity of other portions of the prosecution's case against the accused: if you're telling me that he got on a bus when two out of three people questioned say that he didn't, and the one that does say he did described him in a way that nobody else says he appeared, and you are then telling me that you know what else he did ...??? If you can't get something as innocuous and innocent as riding on a bus right, how then can we presume you got anything else right?

... And if he didn't get on that bus - the only one that such a transfer, dated on that day and torn for that time with that particular punch pattern could have come from - where did you get that transfer? And who did you have get on the bus to get a transfer that you could subsequently try to attribute to the accused?

Essentially, the WC used it as "proof" of his "escape" and "realization" that he might get caught if the bus was boarded, hence his rapid departure ... tho' in truth, so soon after the shooting and without anyone there to identify him as a TSBD worker who should've still been at work and who was last seen on the floor where nobody yet had any cause to think that shots had been fired from, why would our man on the lam have any cause to "panic" at the thought of the bus being boarded (which, as it turned out, it wasn't)?

Simply: he wouldn't. All he'd need to do is sit there as normal as any other passenger, and away he'd go.

Another interesting thought: according to McWatters, the man to whom he'd given a transfer - as well as a woman with a suitcase - decided to alight the bus and get transfers after a man had come from his car and told McWatters that he'd just heard on his car radio that the President had been shot:

Mr. McWatters

. Well, I was sitting in the bus, there was some gentleman in front of me in a car, and he came back and walked up to the bus and I opened the door and he said, "I have heard over my radio in my car that the President has been --" I believe he used the word--"has been shot."

Mr. Ball

. Is that when you were stalled in traffic?

Mr. McWatters

. That is right. That is when I was stalled right there.

Mr. Ball

. Was that before or after the man got off the bus that asked for the transfer?

Mr. McWatters

. That was before. In other words, at that time no one had gotten off the bus.

Mr. Ball

. What was your location then, near what street?

Mr. McWatters

. Between Poydras and Lamar, in other words, because I stayed stopped there for, I guess oh, 3 or 4 minutes anyway before I made any progress at that one stop right there and that is where the gentleman got off the bus. In fact, I was talking to the man, the man that come out of the car; in other words, he just stepped up in the door of the bus, and was telling me that what he had heard over his radio and that is when the lady who was standing there decided she would walk and when the other gentleman decided he would also get off at that point.

At what time did the first news come over the radio that JFK had been shot?

[William Kelly]

Yeah, Bill, but it's fun and cheaper than law school!!

Instead of playing trial,

why not play JFK Grand Jury, since there will never be a real trial of LHO, there could be a grand jury, and hearsay and testimony of dead witnesses are allowed in a grand jury?

And there really might be one some day.

BK

[Duke Lane]

I just sent you an email about this. Keep it under your hat.

[William Kelly]

I just sent you an email about this. Keep it under your hat.

Duke,

Got it. Thanks.

Do you know where the official DPD records on the Tippit murder are?

Are they in Dallas PD, Dallas DA or DC?

Thanks

BK

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Another interesting thought: according to McWatters, the man to whom he'd given a transfer - as well as a woman with a suitcase - decided to alight the bus and get transfers after a man had come from his car and told McWatters that he'd just heard on his car radio that the President had been shot:

[/indent]At what time did the first news come over the radio that JFK had been shot?

That is a tantalizing observation, but we don't know that the man in question had necessarily heard the FIRST radio report (he might have turned his radio on some time AFTER the first report), and we don't know how much time elapsed between his hearing the radio report and his conversation with McWatters.

[Don Jeffries]

I don't understand why anyone would automatically accept the bus transfer as authentic, given all we know about the state of other "evidence" against Oswald.

The bus transfer is not evidence AGAINST Oswald.

Any first year law student could tell you that.

Must you always be sarcastic? It most certainly was used against Oswald, as evidence for his ridiculous post-assassination movements. Those movements make no sense from any standpoint. The best evidence for where Oswald was in the immediate aftermath of the assassination comes from the nearly identical testimony of Roger Craig, Marvin Robnison, Helen Forrest, Richard Randolph Carr and Roy Cooper, who all, independent of each other, reported seeing someone resembling Oswald running to a Rambler station wagon. That's far more impressive than the laughable accounts of McWatters, Bledsoe, Whaley and Markham.

Craig's claims about seeing Oswald run towards the Rambler were substantiated by at least four other known witnesses. He explained the supposed changes in his testimony over the years by claiming the Warren Commission did not accurately record what he said. He was hardly the only witness to make this claim. Why do you question his credibility?

In my book, Roger Craig was a true American hero.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

In my book, Roger Craig was a true American hero.

Maybe you should write a song about him, and the great deeds he accomplished.

[William Kelly]

In my book, Roger Craig was a true American hero.

Maybe you should write a song about him, and the great deeds he accomplished.

Has anyone ever written a song about a lawyer?

BK

[Don Bailey]

In my book, Roger Craig was a true American hero.

Maybe you should write a song about him, and the great deeds he accomplished.

Has anyone ever written a song about a lawyer?

BK

Jackson Browne wrote: Lawyers in Love

[Duke Lane]

... At what time did the first news come over the radio that JFK had been shot?

That is a tantalizing observation, but we don't know that the man in question had necessarily heard the FIRST radio report (he might have turned his radio on some time AFTER the first report), and we don't know how much time elapsed between his hearing the radio report and his conversation with McWatters.

While true in both instances, the question is "what is the earliest time that the man in the car could have heard a report of the shooting?" This will in turn tell us what the earliest time was that a transfer could have been issued to the man who got off the bus with the woman. In turn, it may tell us whether or not the recipient was indeed Lee Oswald based on how long the transfer was good for; if 1:00 was too short of a time for a transfer to be valid, then the transfer supposedly found on Oswald's person was not the one issued at that time.

It may also tell us whether the walk to the Greyhound depot and subsequent ride to Beckley were timed correctly.