Oswald Leaving TSBD?

[Thomas Graves]

[...]

I believe Baker, Reid, Hine and Oswald as to what they did at the time of and the first few minutes after the assassination, and that exonerates Oswald as JFK's killer, so why would they create a false story about a second floor lunchroom encounter - that proves Oswald didn't do it?

[...]

Bill,

If the second floor lunchroom encounter so obviously, as you claim, exonerated Oswald, why then did the Warren Commission accept it as "fact?"

Answer: Because it was sufficiently plausible (being reported by a policeman and a building superintendent!), it took Oswald off the front steps at the time of the assassination, it placed Oswald a lot closer to the back stairway and the "sniper's nest," and it allowed Oswald to "escape" in a way that didn't cast too much aspersion on the Dallas Police Department.

--Tommy

[William Kelly]

[...]

I believe Baker, Reid, Hine and Oswald as to what they did at the time of and the first few minutes after the assassination, and that exonerates Oswald as JFK's killer, so why would they create a false story about a second floor lunchroom encounter - that proves Oswald didn't do it?

[...]

Bill,

If the second floor lunchroom encounter so obviously, as you claim, exonerated Oswald, why then did the Warren Commission accept it as "fact?"

Answer: Because it was sufficiently plausible (being reported by a policeman and a building superintendent!), it took Oswald off the front steps at the time of the assassination, it placed Oswald a lot closer to the back stairway and the "sniper's nest," and it allowed Oswald to "escape" in a way that didn't cast too much aspersion on the Dallas Police Department.

--Tommy

Hi Tommy, Rather than begin with Roy Truly not seeing Oswald ahead of Baker, and Baker seeing Oswald through the window of the closed lunchroom door, they began with the hypothetical testing of how long it took for Baker and Truly to get from the front steps to the second floor lunchroom, and compared it with how long it took "Oswald" aka the Sixth Floor sniper to get from the Sniper's Nest to the Second Floor Lunchroom and in both cases it took about 90 seconds. So that remains a possibility if you ignore the fact that Truly didn't see Oswald and Baker only saw him through the window of the closed door, it is theoretically possible for Oswald to have been the shooter and gotten to where he was. But they had to ignore Truly not seeing him and the door being closed when Baker saw him for this hypothesis to work.

So they also ignored the facts that the secretaries from the fourth floor didn't see Oswald come down the steps as they should have, and that someone remained in the Sniper's Nest for four or five minutes after Oswald was seen on the second floor - and the fact that Oswald was not out of breath or hyper as he would have been if he had just killed someone and ran down four flights of steps (300 feet - a football field in 90 seconds - you try it - running that is - and see if you can run a football field in 90 seconds and not be out of breath).

They were going to frame Oswald for the crime even if he was with someone on the front steps talking about the weather. The only thing was they were originally going to frame him as part of a communist conspiracy, not the domestic coup that it really was, so it didn't matter if he was the triggerman or not. But LBJ decided not to go with Plan A - the conspiracy cover story that was laid out with Oswald in mind as the patsy and that it was a Cuban commie conspiracy and they went instead with the lone nut scenario, and Oswald fit that bill too.

Now if Oswald was the "Prayer Man" on the steps, and he did say hello to Baker as he went up the steps, that doesn't preclude Oswald from going up the front steps and through the offices on the second floor and being seen by Baker through the lunchroom door window - as Baker claims to have done.

I understand Sean's thesis - that the Second Floor Lunchroom encounter was concocted by the Dealey Plaza Cleanup Crew in order to dispense with Oswald being at the front door - but that would entail the cooperation of Truly, who I already consider suspicious for his nailing Oswald after giving him a pass, and Baker, who I believe was a good cop who wouldn't lie under oath or go along with the coverup, and Mrs. Reid, who saw Oswald thirty seconds after he left Baker and Truly with coke in hand.

And if the second floor lunchroom encounter was made up to cover up the front door encounter, how come the guy who wrote the script forgot to tell Truly that he would have had to see Oswald go through the lunchroom door if he in fact did come down the back steps and entered the lunchroom that way?

I think that "Prayer Man" may be Oswald, but in my book that only reinforces the fact that Oswald was on the first floor at the time of the assassination like he said he was, that he went up the front stairs to the second floor, that he may have had an interaction with Mrs. Hine, and that he did have encounters with Baker, Truly and Reid on the second floor before descending the front steps - the same way he went up.

Or "Prayer Man" may be Frazier, who says he was standing there, and then saw Oswald walk down Houston Street apparently having left the building from the back, not the front steps, though Frazer's failure to identify himself in the "Prayer Man" photo puts a dent in this possibility.

We've gone over this a dozen times and I'm open to persuasion that Oswald is "Prayer May" and the second floor lunchroom was a cover story for something else, but I haven't seen or heard or read anything that changes the basic facts of the second floor lunchroom encounter and how and why it exonerates Oswald.

And I have the highest regard for Sean and his work, just as I do for Greg Parker and others who have doubts about the Second Floor lunchroom encounter, but I'm not going to change my mind until my questions are answered and key issues addressed.

The bottom line is that both Sean and I agree that Oswald was on the first floor at the time of the assassination, that Oswald could be "Prayer Man," and that someone other than Oswald was the man with the rifle in the Sixth Floor Sniper's nest who shot at JFK, and got away. Who was that guy anyway?.

I also want to see photos or floor plan diagram locating the pay phones on the first floor if anyone knows where they were.

And for those who want to know why the second floor lunchroom encounter exonerates Oswald they should read Howard Roffman's "Presumed Guilty," - see below - or my blog post:

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2013/07/howard-roffmans-presumed-guilty.html

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-doors-of-perception-why-oswald-is_14.html

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-perception-part.html

And I won't keep repeating this stuff if you don't ask.

BK

Edited October 9, 2013 by William Kelly

[Thomas Graves]

[...]

I believe Baker, Reid, Hine and Oswald as to what they did at the time of and the first few minutes after the assassination, and that exonerates Oswald as JFK's killer, so why would they create a false story about a second floor lunchroom encounter - that proves Oswald didn't do it?

[...]

Bill,

If the second floor lunchroom encounter so obviously, as you claim, exonerated Oswald, why then did the Warren Commission accept it as "fact?"

Answer: Because it was sufficiently plausible (being reported by a policeman and a building superintendent!), it took Oswald off the front steps at the time of the assassination, it placed Oswald a lot closer to the back stairway and the "sniper's nest," and it allowed Oswald to "escape" in a way that didn't cast too much aspersion on the Dallas Police Department.

--Tommy

[...]

And if the second floor lunchroom encounter was made up to cover up the front door encounter, how come the guy who wrote the script forgot to tell Truly that he would have had to see Oswald go through the lunchroom door [sic] if he in fact did come down the back steps and entered the lunchroom that way?

[...]

Bill,

You keep saying, "Truly would have seen Oswald."

Why couldn't Oswald have gone through that windowed vestibule door just before Truly hit the second floor landing (on his way up to the third floor), and why couldn't Oswald have "hung out" there in that space between that windowed vestibule door and the lunchroom door just a bit too long, allowing Baker to catch a glimpse of him through the window?

--Tommy

Edited October 9, 2013 by Thomas Graves

[William Kelly]

[...]

I believe Baker, Reid, Hine and Oswald as to what they did at the time of and the first few minutes after the assassination, and that exonerates Oswald as JFK's killer, so why would they create a false story about a second floor lunchroom encounter - that proves Oswald didn't do it?

[...]

Bill,

If the second floor lunchroom encounter so obviously, as you claim, exonerated Oswald, why then did the Warren Commission accept it as "fact?"

Answer: Because it was sufficiently plausible (being reported by a policeman and a building superintendent!), it took Oswald off the front steps at the time of the assassination, it placed Oswald a lot closer to the back stairway and the "sniper's nest," and it allowed Oswald to "escape" in a way that didn't cast too much aspersion on the Dallas Police Department.

--Tommy

[...]

And if the second floor lunchroom encounter was made up to cover up the front door encounter, how come the guy who wrote the script forgot to tell Truly that he would have had to see Oswald go through the lunchroom door [sic] if he in fact did come down the back steps and entered the lunchroom that way?

[...]

Bill,

You keep saying, "Truly would have seen Oswald."

Why couldn't Oswald have gone through that windowed vestibule door just before Truly hit the second floor landing (on his way up to the third floor), and why couldn't Oswald have "hung out" there just a bit too long, allowing Baker to catch a glimpse of him through the window?

--Tommy

I've acknowledge that Tommy,

After killing JFK Oswald could have ran down the steps even faster than the 90 seconds it took Baker and Truly to get there, and missed Dougherty on the Fifth Floor and the secretaries on the steps, and the secretaries supervisor on the fourth floor, who could hear the girl's high heals on the rickety wooden steps, but didn't hear or see Oswald as he ran past the fourth floor, and got to the second floor - and ran to the lunchroom door and opened and went in and closed it before Truly went by - and as I imagine this scenario - Oswald wiggles his fingers in front of nose at Truly and that is what Baker saw him doing.

That could have happened, or Oswald could have been on the first floor where three people saw him within the previous half hour - and he could have gone up the front steps to the second floor and through the office where he often got change from Mrs. Hine, and then went walked past the same door window that Baker saw him through - just walking past - like ships in the night. Baker said he just caught a fleeting glance of him with his peripheral vision - so it was just a coincidence - if either man had been a second or two off Baker would never have seen Oswald.

If Truly or Baker said they saw Oswald go through that door - the game would have been up, but they didn't see him go through the door, Oswald's fingerprints weren't on either of the second floor door nobs that he would have had to use to open the doors - and he wasn't out of breath, as he would have been had he run down the steps quicker than 90 seconds, and he wasn't hyper as he would have been if he had just killed someone.

And the real Sixth Floor Sniper, whoever he was, did not do what Oswald would have had to do - run - he took his good old time - according to both men who saw the shooter - he slowly pulled his rifle back in the window then stood there a moment and took it all in - and then moved the boxes around the window sill - as shown in the Dillard/Powell photos - and confirmed by the HSCA photo experts. And then two to four minutes later the court clerk from across the street sees someone in the Sniper's window, still moving stuff around. The real sniper stuck around and moved things - the bullet shells - boxes, and took his time getting out of there - quite confident that the DPD wouldn't seal off the building and trap him in there - and even if they did - he must have had a good excuse to be there - as he was unconcerned about how he was going to get away. And he got away clean.

I want to know where the public pay phones were located on the first floor? Where are they on the schematic drawings of the first floor and why aren't there any photos of them?

And i now believe Frazer, that Oswald, after directing the reporter to the pay phones, did not walk out the front door - as the Warren Report says, but instead went to the back of the warehouse where Shelley and Lovelady and others were gathering, and after hearing Shelley ask what time it was, and mention that there would probably not be any further work that day, Oswald walked down the back loading dock steps and up Houston Street where he was last seen by Frazer walking across Houston and then crossing Elm.

I always wondered why the TSBD employee who was visiting a friend working at a parking lot on Elm didn't pass Oswald when he returned to work, and that's because Oswald had cross Elm and was on the other side of the street.

That's my take on it.

Oswald was going to be framed by the rifle no matter where he was or what he was doing at the time of the shooting, and must have realized something was up at some point in time.

Now I've looked but I can't find a photo or even the location of the pay phone(s) on the first floor of TSBD.

BK

Edited October 9, 2013 by William Kelly

[Larry Hancock]

Bill, you've stated something that has been on my mind recently. In terms of a very minimalist frame, Oswald was going to be framed by the rifle regardless. The rifle is hidden in boxes by the stairway, hulls are left by the window, easily carried in a pocket and tossed down.

Oswald could be anywhere, he could be out front watching the motorcade. Once the police find the rifle and hulls he's going down, if not for murder for conspiracy. Its your rifle kid, who did you loan it to, who was in this with you....and on and on....and if the plotters wanted to ensure that a conspiracy was seen in the murder, one pointing to Cuba as I believe, that's all you need. The rest of the pieces are in place no matter what Oswald might have said. Its even better if it is captured or killed "on the run", that ensures his guilt.

-- Larry

[Richard Hocking]

Bill Kelly wrote:

... I always wondered why the TSBD employee who was visiting a friend working at a parking lot on Elm didn't pass Oswald when he returned to work, and that's because Oswald had cross Elm and was on the other side of the street

You are referring to Charles Givens, I believe. If Givens and Officer Harkness testimony are both accurate, the scene in front of the TSBD plays out something like this:

On hearing the shots, Givens starts back towards the TSBD. Officer Harkness goes to the back of the TSBD to watch the exits. After only a minute or two, Harkness moves back to the front entrance. By his own estimate, he is there at 12:33, guarding the front door. Givens claims after briefly surveying the scene from Houston and Elm, he tries to re-enter the TSBD and is turned back by a policeman (Harkness). So Givens remains outside with other TSBD employees who cannot go back in. Skaggs, Murray and other photos show Roy Edward Lewis and a man I believe is Givens standing on the TSBD steps with Harkness and Officer Smith standing guard at the door.

If Oswald left the front door after 12:33, he would have to have somehow gone past the two officers and also not been noticed by the employees (including Lewis and Givens) milling around the steps and the front of the TSBD.

This gives strength to the argument you suggested, that Oswald left through the rear exit of the building, which was not secured until well after the front entrance had guards posted.

[Todd W. Vaughan]

Bill

You wrote...

"Oswald's fingerprints weren't on either of the second floor door nobs that he would have had to use to open the doors"

...where does this information originate?

Todd

[William Kelly]

Bill

You wrote...

"Oswald's fingerprints weren't on either of the second floor door nobs that he would have had to use to open the doors"

...where does this information originate?

Todd

Hi Todd,

If Oswald's fingerprints were on the door to the lunchroom, as they should have been if Oswald had used the door just before Baker, they would have used that as evidence of their scenario that Oswald came down the steps and went through that door - but they didn't, so they don't have the prints.

I think the cop in charge of taking evidence from the crime scene - especially fingerprints - and photos (Studebaker?) had a rookie assistant do things (wrong) and so they never got the photo of the shells in their original position before Fritz picked them up and threw them down again, and they didn't get the photo of the paper bag on the floor by the heating pipe, and they didn't reveal what fingerprints were on the Dr. Pepper bottle (even though we have a photo of the cop dusting the bottle that also disappeared). And if they had fingerprints of Oswald on the second floor lunchroom door, it would have been used against Oswald.

I recently saw a notice that a retired Dallas policeman was going to give a public talk in Dallas this week on the fingerprint evidence, and would like to hear what he has to say.

BK

[Thomas Graves]

[...]

The clincher however, is when they called Truly back to the Post Office Annex to get him to answer one question under oath - does the lunchroom door with the window through which Baker saw Oswald - does that door have an automatic door closing mechanism - and the answer is yes - it does, securing the fact that the door was tightly closed when Baker saw Oswald on the other side of it - and Truly didn't see Baker go through it.

[...]

Now if this story was concocted by anyone, why wouldn't they tell Truly that he had to see Oswald go through the door ahead of Baker? Why would they tell Baker that he saw Oswald through the window of the closed door - and why would they create a scenario that exonerates Oswald?

Bill,

I'm just speculating here.

To answer your question(s), my guess is that the bad guys didn't tell Truly that he had to see Oswald go through the door ahead of Baker, but perhaps did tell Baker that he had to see Oswald through the window of that door because they realized that it would be plausible that Oswald had sneaked through that windowed door (and that the door had closed itself) just before Truly (yes, running up the stairs ahead of Baker) had an opportunity to see or hear that happen, and, given the above, that it would also be plausible that, although Baker had caught a glimpse of the "sneaky, lurking" Oswald through the door's window, Truly, in his haste, hadn't.

--Tommy

Yes, Tommy, I acknowledge that point - if Oswald had been the Sixth Floor Sniper he could have left the sniper's nest and arrived at the Second Floor lunchroom door in time to get on the other side of it and close it and make a funny face - wiggling his fingers in front of his nose at Truly as he came through the steps door - and there is a door there - and thus attracting Baker's attention as he arrived at the top of the second floor steps. But if he had, the DPD would have lifted his prints off the door nob of the door at the top of the steps as well as the door to the lunch room - but they didn't. And while I can imagine it, I don't think it played out that way.

But if you read the post on the Oswald's Coke thread, and it should be repeated here - Jean Davison has identified the master script writer of the whole Second Floor lunchroom encounter - Alfred Goldberg - the DOD historian who wrote much of the Warren Report narrative, and requested the FBI obtain the last minute statements from Baker and Truly.

[emphasis added by T. Graves]

Bill,

Even if they tried to find Oswald's fingerprints on those door nobs. they probably wouldn't have found them anyway (but would have a plausible reason for not finding them) because several other people, including Baker and Truly, had put their grubby mitts on said door knobs by the time they could have been "dusted."

Hypothetical Official Announcement:

"Unfortunately, y'all, Oswald's fingerprints was smudged beyond all re-cog-nition when all them people opened them thar doors. But it don't matter none cuz we know he's a guilty son-of-a-gun any how!"

--Tommy

edited and bumped

Edited October 9, 2013 by Thomas Graves

[William Kelly]

[...]

The clincher however, is when they called Truly back to the Post Office Annex to get him to answer one question under oath - does the lunchroom door with the window through which Baker saw Oswald - does that door have an automatic door closing mechanism - and the answer is yes - it does, securing the fact that the door was tightly closed when Baker saw Oswald on the other side of it - and Truly didn't see Baker go through it.

[...]

Now if this story was concocted by anyone, why wouldn't they tell Truly that he had to see Oswald go through the door ahead of Baker? Why would they tell Baker that he saw Oswald through the window of the closed door - and why would they create a scenario that exonerates Oswald?

Bill,

I'm just speculating here.

To answer your question(s), my guess is that the bad guys didn't tell Truly that he had to see Oswald go through the door ahead of Baker, but perhaps did tell Baker that he had to see Oswald through the window of that door because they realized that it would be plausible that Oswald had sneaked through that windowed door (and that the door had closed itself) just before Truly (yes, running up the stairs ahead of Baker) had an opportunity to see or hear that happen, and, given the above, that it would also be plausible that, although Baker had caught a glimpse of the "sneaky, lurking" Oswald through the door's window, Truly, in his haste, hadn't.

--Tommy

Yes, Tommy, I acknowledge that point - if Oswald had been the Sixth Floor Sniper he could have left the sniper's nest and arrived at the Second Floor lunchroom door in time to get on the other side of it and close it and make a funny face - wiggling his fingers in front of his nose at Truly as he came through the steps door - and there is a door there - and thus attracting Baker's attention as he arrived at the top of the second floor steps. But if he had, the DPD would have lifted his prints off the door nob of the door at the top of the steps as well as the door to the lunch room - but they didn't. And while I can imagine it, I don't think it played out that way.

But if you read the post on the Oswald's Coke thread, and it should be repeated here - Jean Davison has identified the master script writer of the whole Second Floor lunchroom encounter - Alfred Goldberg - the DOD historian who wrote much of the Warren Report narrative, and requested the FBI obtain the last minute statements from Baker and Truly.

[emphasis added by T. Graves]

Bill,

Even if they tried to find Oswald's fingerprints on those door nobs. they probably wouldn't have found them anyway (but would have a plausible reason for not finding them) because several other people, including Baker and Truly, had put their grubby mitts on said door knobs by the time they could have been "dusted."

Hypothetical Official Announcement:

"Unfortunately, y'all, Oswald's fingerprints was smudged beyond all re-cog-nition when all them people opened them thar doors. But it don't matter none cuz we know he's a guilty son-of-a-gun any how!"

--Tommy

edited and bumped

Yes, that would have been the case if Oswald had used the door before Baker and Truly.

My point being - if the DPD had fingerprints from the door to the lunchroom - they would have used them and placed them into evidence, and they didn't, so they don't have them.

Since they never considered Oswald was telling the truth about being on the first floor at the time of the shooting, and didn't want to recognize the significance of Baker seeing Oswald walk past the window of the closed lunchroom door - they could have verified the fact that Oswald did enter the lunchroom through the south door, which also generally closed and Oswald would have left his prints on both sides of that door if he had used it to enter and exit. But of course that would be exculpatory evidence and they were not interested in that.

The prints from the Dr. Pepper bottle wouldn't have been smudged, what happened to them?

Is there a forum member in Dallas area who attended the event with the retired Dallas Cop who is a fingerprint expert?

Also, sill looking for pix of pay phone(s) and location on TSBD first floor.

BK

Edited October 9, 2013 by William Kelly

[Thomas Graves]

Very quick recap:

Once it became clear that the police urgently needed to stop talking about the Oswald-Officer-Truly encounter at the front entrance, the encounter was moved deep into the building, at or near the rear stairs.

The 3rd/4th floor rear stairway story was quickly superseded by the lunchroom story.

Which became: the lunchroom stories.

**

The initial plan was simply to transplant Oswald up to the lunchroom, stretch the timeline and worry about the details later.

Oswald was still alive and had every prospect of going to trial, so his damaging ability to describe an officer and Mr. Truly coming in to the first floor needed to be preempted by a story involving the officer and Mr. Truly's coming into the lunchroom.

Truly's inflated time estimate in his first on-the-record account of the lunchroom incident (11/22 FBI interview) tells us how the thing was going to be played:

Two or three minutes? Yeah, right. The WC would struggle badly, even with the help of numerous time-trial shenanigans, to stretch the time to 90 seconds.

But as of the night of 11/22, the gambit was to inflate the time enough to give Oswald a chance to descend from the sixth floor but not enough to delay overmuch his exit from the building.

Then all the Oswald accusers had to do was drive home the incongruity of a man alone and palely loitering in a lunchroom while everyone else was either outside or looking outside.

**

But what was Oswald actually doing in the lunchroom when Baker spotted him?

At first the question was fudged: Truly in a suite of statements simply has him "in" the lunchroom, specific location and activity left vague.

Then, very quickly, the incongruity of Oswald's behaviour gets sharpened up by the detail of his sitting at one of the tables.

Within about a week, Oswald is brought suddenly to his feet:

Truly describes him, first, as leaning against the counter and, then, as standing right over at the coke machine.

**

Why the coke machine?

Because Oswald had talked about purchasing a coke before the assassination--having him over by the coke machine turned this into a cool post-assassination act.

But there was a second reason.

In February 64 French researcher Leo Sauvage contacted Roy Truly and grilled him about the lunchroom incident.

Truly revealed the game plan as he and Baker headed in to March 64 and their rendezvous with the WC at the TSBD:

the officer (name still unknown to Truly!) evidently had heard a noise coming from the lunchroom.

The noise, evidently, of a coke machine delivering up its product to the man who had just shot the President.

**

This was a crucial addition, for it gave Baker a reason for checking out the lunchroom--a reason he badly needed, as the lunchroom was nowhere near being in his line of sight as he came off the landing.

Just look how far he would have had to swing over to the right to get a line into the lunchroom:

The door of the lunchroom being open, the noise of the coke machine would have been heard by Baker.

Except... it wouldn't.

For there was another door between Baker and the coke machine, and--disastrously--it was an automatically self-closing door.

The new story as told in the Washington Post Dec 1--

--seemed beautifully clean and convincing.

However its lack of acoustic plausibility meant that a further refinement would be in order.

Bumped with a message I couldn't post as a reply to Bill Kelley's most recent post, this thread, on 10/09/13:

Bill,

The lunchroom door didn't have a window, whereas the self-closing vestibule door (outside the lunchroom door) did. See post number 870, this thread for a photo showing both doors.

I'm afraid your insisting on referring to this windowed vestibule door as the "lunchroom door" only confuses the issue.

Sincerely,

--Tommy

Edited October 9, 2013 by Thomas Graves

[William Kelly]

Okay, as explained by a visual of the second floor layout -

The second floor lunchroom is entered via a vestibule - triangle shaped - with two sets of doors leading to the vestibule - one from the west - the one that is closed and has an automatic closing mechanism that Baker used and leads to the back stairs, and a second door to the south that is also generally closed that Oswald exited from and I believe he entered from.

Once in the vestibule by way of either door - the third door to the actual lunchroom - is usually harnessed to the wall so it always open, and was open on 11/22/63, and as can be seen above in the photo in the Post Tommy refers to - the door is fastened to the wall and is open.

Since both doors to the vestibule were closed and had to be physically opened by hand by anyone who entered them - Baker's prints should have been on the south door - and if Oswald had entered via that door, his smudged prints should also have been on there.

If Oswald entered the second floor lunchroom vestibule via the south door, as I suspect, his clear, unsmudged fingerprints should have been on that door handle, but I don't believe it was ever checked for fingerprints because they didn't want to prove Oswald entered and exited the lunchroom via that door.

I don't remember the photo of the two doors but will check it out, but I think that in the course of someone's testimony - they mention this vestibule, and refer to it as a vestibule, and then Sean tried to say that they were referring to the FRONT door vestibule, which is also a vestibule in the technical sense of the word, but the one we are referring to is the little three square foot area.

Because it is so small, if Oswald had gone through that door, Baker wouldn't have seen him because by the time the door automatically closed, Oswald would have been out of the vestibule and in the lunchroom, as he was when Baker moved closer to the door and saw him a second time "walking away" in the lunchroom.

BK

Edited October 9, 2013 by William Kelly

[Paul Brancato]

I am enjoying reading the exhaustive analysis on this thread by experts who have devoted much time and effort into trying to ascertain Oswald's likely movements in the tsbd. From a purely logical pov, Oswald is much more likely to have been on the first floor than in the sniper's nest, unless he was one of the shooters, the reason being that a political animal like him and a JFK admirer as almost everyone who knew him attests, would have been watching the motorcade, not sipping a soda in the lunchroom.

[Pat Speer]

I would like to hear more about this retired cop and his comments on the fingerprints. Do we have more on this?

Also, Bill, I think you're wrong about the fingerprints on the lunchroom doors. I'd bet my lunch no fingerprints were lifted from those doors. The reality is that police back then viewed fingerprints purely as an offensive weapon. They took fingerprints to tie perps to crime scenes. That's it. They would never dust for prints in a location where Oswald's prints could easily be explained away. That's just not the way they worked.

When they had a suspect, they checked his prints against those found at the crime scene. If they found a match, they had a case. If they didn't, the fingerprints at the scene were put into a file. Back then, the FBI would only check single prints found at the scene against previously identified suspects. The first time they nabbed a suspect out of the blue based on a single-print, was when they identified James Earl Ray as King's shooter. It supposedly took them hundreds of hours, going through file after file of the most wanted men in America.

You're right about the Dr. Pepper bottle, though. The DPD took this bottle in, and purportedly studied it for fingerprints. Bonnie Ray Williams claimed he'd left this bottle on the sixth floor when he was eating his chicken lunch. And yet, if I recall, there is no record of anyone comparing the prints on the bottle to Williams, to make sure he was telling the truth. The prints on the bottle weren't Oswald's, so they were made to disappear.

Edited October 9, 2013 by Pat Speer

[William Kelly]

I agree, Pat, they never tried to find any fingerprints on the doors - because they knew they weren't there.

The Secret Service when they reenacted the scene stopped their reenactment right there at the Lunchroom door - as they realized that for Baker to see Oswald through the closed door window, Oswald had entered via the office door.

As for the Dallas cop - his name is Joe Maberry, who gave his talk at the Klyde Warren park last week on The Crime scene Evidence of the John F. Kennedy Assassination -

http://klydewarrenpark.org/Things-To-Do/events-in-bloom-thursday.html

http://klydewarrenpark.org/Things-To-Do/events/ideas-in-bloom/2013-10-03-jfk-forensics.html

But we still should be able to contact him and hear what he has to say.

infor@theparkdallas.org

214-716-4500

Somebody should get a report on what he has to day, or get his contact numbers and ask him to send us anything he might have, or allow someone to talk to him.