Givens down to one lie

[Pat Speer]

Geez Louise, David. You completely forgot about a key point in my original post.

Shanklin's memo specifies that Givens never left the first floor before leaving the building.

This is yet another nail in the coffin for the story Givens told about seeing Oswald on the sixth floor when he went back up for cigarettes. It never happened. The HSCA, to its credit, rejected Givens' story by claiming it was beside the point. They were right.

Even if Oswald had traveled downstairs for lunch, there's no proof he didn't race back up just before the shots were fired.

 

What's intriguing about this, however, is your response. Why do you so desperately want to believe Givens? Because if you acknowledge his story smells to high heaven, you'd have to acknowledge Belin knowingly pushed a smelly story on the public? And that might lead you to believe the whole WR is a similarly smelly story?

Your side lost the Battle of Givens decades ago,. Move on to fight another day.

 

Edited May 23, 2018 by Pat Speer

[James DiEugenio]

Pat:

Didn't you once say that Givens elaborated on his lie for CBS later?

[David Von Pein]

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Geez Louise, David. You completely forgot about a key point in my original post.

Shanklin's memo specifies that Givens never left the first floor before leaving the building.

But if Givens had truly forgotten about his brief trip back up to the sixth floor to get his cigarettes when he spoke to ALL law enforcement officials on November 22nd, then of course there's going to be nothing in the Shanklin 11/23/63 Teletype Memo about Givens leaving the first floor after he initially got down there after the elevator race. But that doesn't mean it never happened. Givens just forgot about it at that time on November 22nd.

At some point between Nov. 22 and his April 8th Warren Commission testimony, Givens remembered that he went back up to the sixth floor to retrieve his cigarettes. And then, on June 3, 1964, Givens was re-interviewed by the FBI and "...said he now recalls he returned to the sixth floor at about 11:45 a.m. to get his cigarettes which he had left there."

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11640#relPageId=189

CTers can, of course, contend that Givens couldn't keep his "story" straight about the time he went back up to Floor #6, because on April 8 Givens said it was at about 11:55, but two months later, on June 3rd, he told two FBI agents it was "about 11:45". We can then argue about whether that ten-minute difference in time is meaningful or not.

One of the main reasons I don't think Charles D. Givens was making up tall tales about the things he saw and did on 11/22/63 is because any such alleged lies really did nothing to advance the "Guilty" status of Lee Harvey Oswald, as I discussed at another forum four years ago [excerpted below; some of which I already posted in this thread in my earlier post on page 1]....

"But even if conspiracists wish to toss Charlie Givens under the bus and deem him a totally worthless xxxx (which many CTers have done), what do they do with Lovelady and Williams and Arce with respect to their individual observations about seeing (and hearing) Lee Oswald on an upper floor of the TSBD shortly before 12:00 noon on 11/22/63?

With those three witnesses saying what they each said, why would the FBI or the Warren Commission (or anyone else) have felt the need to coerce Charlie Givens to tell some wild tale about seeing Oswald in just about the VERY SAME PLACE at just about the VERY SAME TIME that those three other men saw him?

Many CTers think the FBI (and later the Warren Commission) desperately needed a witness on the inside of the TSBD building to place Oswald on the sixth floor to firm up the FBI's and WC's framing of poor innocent Lee Harvey Oswald. Therefore, per CTers, they got the easily-coerced Givens to add a lie to his story about going back up to the sixth floor to get his cigarettes and then seeing Oswald up there.

But if the goal of the FBI and Warren Commission was to shore up their "case" against Oswald, why wouldn't they have made Givens' lies even BETTER? They could have gotten Givens to say he saw Oswald moving boxes in the southeast corner of the sixth floor. Or they could have gotten Givens to say he actually saw Oswald with a long brown package too.

But instead, Givens' "cigarettes and jacket" story pretty much amounts to nothing more than the testimony given by Lovelady, Arce, and Williams -- i.e., Givens sees Oswald on an upper floor without a package, and without a gun. The biggest difference would be that Givens did place a definitive floor number on Oswald's whereabouts--the sixth floor (the Floor Of Death), whereas some of the other witnesses I mentioned were not quite sure whether Oswald was shouting down his request for an elevator from the FIFTH floor or the SIXTH Floor.

But if Givens' "going to get cigarettes" story was nothing but a fabrication invented by the authorities, it amounted to very little more than what other witnesses were also providing (or would very soon be providing to the Warren Commission)." -- DVP; July 2014

 

Edited May 23, 2018 by David Von Pein

[James DiEugenio]

Davey:

 

have you ever read this article?

 

http://22november1963.org.uk/meagher-the-curious-testimony-of-mr-givens

[James DiEugenio]

Here is what I was looking for from Speer's site.

On June 25, 1967, CBS News debuted part 1 of a 4 part investigation of the Warren Commission’s findings. As to whether or not Oswald was on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting CBS relied on the statements of one man: Charles Givens.  Eddie Barker of CBS introduced Givens as the “last man known to have seen Lee Harvey Oswald before the assassination.”  Givens then repeated his story of seeing Oswald standing in the middle of the sixth floor with orders in his hand, and of Oswald asking him to close the door on the elevator when he got to the bottom, so that Oswald could call it when needed. When Barker asked Givens “This would be about what time?” however, Givens’ gave a new response, indicating that someone, somewhere, had alerted Givens to Piper’s testimony. Givens told Barker “Well, about one or two minutes after twelve.” Not surprisingly, CBS failed to alert their viewers that Givens had thereby changed his story, yet AGAIN, and that Bonnie Ray Williams, cited elsewhere on their program, had testified he was on the sixth floor from about noon to 12:20 and had seen neither Givens nor Oswald.

A final note on Givens... Although Edward Shields, Givens' lunch partner on 11-22-63, was interviewed by the FBI on 3-23-64, and signed a statement saying he'd left the building where he worked "about twelve o'clock noon" in order to watch the parade with Givens, he was more specific when talking to the HSCA on 10-23-77. Instead of lending credence to Givens' latter-day story--the story that only emerged after Shields had been interviewed--Shields told his HSCA interviewer that he'd met up with Givens on the street around 10 to 12.

Who alerted Givens to the necessity to alter his story once again?  Looks like it was CBS.  

When Pat says Givens was down to one lie, well, it depends on how you count them.

Edited May 24, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Here is another interesting part of this section from Pat's site.  

So, okay. Belin really wants to pre-interview his witnesses. 

On 3-4-64, this ongoing debate within the commission's staff led Commission General Counsel J. Lee Rankin's top assistant Norman Redlich to put his feelings down in a memo. On the issue of whether or not commission attorneys should interview witnesses before their testimony, and in effect prepare them for their testimony, Redlich complained: "I feel that an unrecorded interview with a witness creates the inevitable danger that the witness will be conditioned to give certain testimony."Redlich then added "If we compound the lack of cross examination with the pre-conditioning of a witness, we will be presenting a record which, in my view, will be deceptively clean..."

Redlich's objection was shot down, moreover, and by the Chief Justice, no less. A 3-10-64 journal entry from Rankin's other top assistant, Howard Willens, reports that he'd had a meeting with the top staff and Earl Warren, during which Warren "indicated that he wanted to get our lawyers on the road as quickly as possible to interview witnesses. In the course of stating his views on this, the Chief Justice stated that he had complete faith in all of the members of the staff and wanted them to be free to have unrecorded interviews with the witnesses. Although he did not elaborate on his views in this matter, the Chief Justice apparently had been briefed on the staff discussions on this subject by someone, possibly Mr. Rankin or Mr. Ball."

 

In other words, Redlich understood that the WC already lacked the fundamental check of cross examination. He felt that if one added to that the concept of the pre-interview, then that would be compounding the problem of a deceptively clean record. Pat points the finger at Redlich being overruled by Joe Ball's relationship with Warren. Ball worked hand in hand with Belin. Guess who interviewed Givens for the WC: Belin.

Edited May 24, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

BTW, from past experience when DVP goes ahead and steals this stuff for his own site, it will be adapted in such a way as to leave all this material by Pat and myself on this last page off.

That will be part one of the adaptation.

Part 2 will then consist of giving himself the last word.  But only to a consciously curtailed argument.

 

[Guest]

 

[David Von Pein]

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

BTW, from past experience when DVP goes ahead and steals this stuff for his own site, it will be adapted in such a way as to leave all this material by Pat and myself on this last page off.

That will be part one of the adaptation.

Part 2 will then consist of giving himself the last word.  But only to a consciously curtailed argument.

And I think I just might embark on a project to find out the number of times in which an article posted at Jim DiEugenio's site contains "a consciously curtailed argument".

In other words, how many times has Mr. DiEugenio approved an article (or written one himself) for inclusion at his K&K website in which rebuttals---which Jim D. has seen and is aware of---coming from Lone Assassin believers who post things on the Internet (such as Jean Davison, John McAdams, Mel Ayton, Steve Barber, Brock T. George, Ed Bauer, Bill Brown, John Corbett, Chuck Schuyler, Hank Sienzant, Hugh Aynesworth, David Emerling, Steve Roe, Joe Elliott, Jim Hess, Ed Cage, Richard Smith, myself, and others) are not included at all on his site?

And as Part 2 of this K&K project, let's find out how many times Mr. DiEugenio has allowed the conspiracy theorist who authored the piece that appears on his site to have "the last word".

(I already know the answer to that last inquiry --- it's all the time --- which is exactly what I would expect it to be, since we're talking about pro-conspiracy articles appearing at a pro-conspiracy website.)

Pot meets Kettle once again in Mr. DiEugenio's world.

Edited May 24, 2018 by David Von Pein

[James DiEugenio]

Davey:

The rationalists, that is the critics, do not buy the Single Bullet Fantasy.  Only you and your cohorts do that. And as Redlich himself said, if that is eliminated you ipso facto have a conspiracy.  Therefore Kennedy's murder is a conspiracy fact, not theory.  The only theory left is who did it and why.

But that is nice trick to remove your practice of taking dialogue from this site and adapting it like a screenwriter at yours.

Edited May 24, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

The rationalists, that is the critics, do not buy the Single Bullet Fantasy.  Only you and your cohorts do that.

You must be living on another planet, Jim.

You actually seem to think that only David R. Von Pein and my "cohorts" believe in the Single-Bullet Theory.

And you can sit there and say that even though you KNOW that the SBT was endorsed by not only the Warren Commission (as a unit), but it was also fully endorsed by the HSCA as well. (Are the WC and HSCA members supposedly my "cohorts" too?)

You're hilarious!

Edited May 24, 2018 by David Von Pein

[Micah Mileto]

2 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

And I think I just might embark on a project to find out the number of times in which an article posted at Jim DiEugenio's site contains "a consciously curtailed argument".

In other words, how many times has Mr. DiEugenio approved an article (or written one himself) for inclusion at his K&K website in which rebuttals---which Jim D. has seen and is aware of---coming from Lone Assassin believers who post things on the Internet (such as Jean Davison, John McAdams, Mel Ayton, Steve Barber, Brock T. George, Ed Bauer, Bill Brown, John Corbett, Chuck Schuyler, Hank Sienzant, Hugh Aynesworth, David Emerling, Steve Roe, Joe Elliott, Jim Hess, Ed Cage, Richard Smith, myself, and others) are not included at all on his site?

And as Part 2 of this K&K project, let's find out how many times Mr. DiEugenio has allowed the conspiracy theorist who authored the piece that appears on his site to have "the last word".

(I already know the answer to that last inquiry --- it's all the time --- which is exactly what I would expect it to be, since we're talking about pro-conspiracy articles appearing at a pro-conspiracy website.)

Pot meets Kettle once again in Mr. DiEugenio's world.

Hank Sienzant ? I've been on about 3 threads about jfk with that guy on internationalskeptics for about 2 years now. Just by arguing a few key medical evidence points (the EOP wound, the doctors alleged ignorance of the throat wound), I've turned that guy into a babbling mess. That dude plays dumb and uses just about every logical fallacy known to man, anything to stretch the length of a thread to fill it with spam. He misunderstands key facts and often pretends to forget key facts, even if they were recently discussed with him before. That's in cases where he's at least being coherent.

 

And I only got into this stuff for about 2 years. Seriously, try checking out the 3 most recent JFK threads on ISF. I am the one with Rocky the Squirrel as the avatar.

Edited May 24, 2018 by Micah Mileto
edit so much

[James DiEugenio]

As Pat demonstrates on his site, the WC did not endrose the Single Bullet Fantasy.

They simply deemed it as a necessity for their preconceived conclusion.  This is proven by the material at Speer's site which reveals that Ball and Belin were already pondering it in January.  Got that? January. Before the first witness was called.

It was then clamped on, again for necessity, when two developments surfaced in April: the timing problem, you know JBC's non reaction, and the Tague hit. And in fact, JBC testified that month about it not being feasible.

Then, when it was all but wrapped, what happens?  The troika--Dulles, McCloy, and Ford--snooker the Southern Wing--Russell, Cooper, and Boggs--into thinking that the objections to the Single Bullet Fantasy will be part of the record of the last meeting.  Not true.  They employed a female stand in to simulate that was the case.  It was not. As with Oswald and his interrogations, there was no stenographic record of this last meeting.  Dulles must have been smiling from ear to ear after that one.  

Any objection to that piece of film flammery Davey?

Well, when Weisberg told Russell what had happened, he blew up.  And that was the beginning of the Southern Wing defecting from the Commission, all three of them.  Later we learned from the French president that Ford admitted they knew some organziation was behind the murder of JFK.  So it was now 4-3.  We also know that Warren told a friend at a convention in Florida that he has been victimized by LBJ and his atomic nightmare speech.  Which makes it 5-2.  

Then there is this by John Kelin in Fair Play Issue Number 18 in 1997:

McCloy also questioned the Commission's account of a bullet found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital, where Kennedy and Connally were taken after being shot. "The statement concerning the bullet which was found on the stretcher is not particularly persuasive because there is no indication that the 'stretcher bullet' was in fact the bullet which caused the [Connally] wrist wound," he wrote. 

Some people would say that makes it 6-1.  The WR was a strictly political document Davey. But its nice to align you with Allen Dulles on that.

Secondly, we know what happened with the HSCA.  They were about to blow up the WR with Sprague.  So he was jettisoned in another political move.    

Edited May 24, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[David Von Pein]

SBT Banter....

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/01/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-887.html

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2013/06/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-391.html

https://drive.google.com/Video/Arlen Specter 1967 Interview

Edited May 24, 2018 by David Von Pein

[Micah Mileto]

31 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

SBT Banter....

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/01/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-887.html

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2013/06/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-391.html

https://drive.google.com/Video/Arlen Specter 1967 Interview

Do you think Humes contacted Perry on Friday night or the next day? Why are there so many indications they were aware of the throat wound during the body examination?