Yes, postal money orders do require bank endorsements!

[Hank Sienzant]

Hank,

Endorsements have more than one purpose. One is the guaranty that you point out is considered to be in place regardless of whether or not an express guaranty is included in the endorsement. Another purpose is to indicate the ABA and address of the sending bank. It is apparently for non-guaranty purposes that the bank endorsement is required.

BTW, keep in mind that whatever you interpret from that paragraph in the FRB operating circular, it will be applicable not only to postal money orders but to checks as well. Don't you remember way back when, when we were all young, that virtually every check had bank endorsements stamped on them? According to the operating circular cited, the same should have been true of PMOs as well. (Though, beginning with the PMOs of 1963, an FRB stamp appeared on the front side of the PMO in the form of a file locator number. This may well have been the only FRB stamp to appear on those PMOs. We don't know for certain.)

Are you saying checks don't require bank endorsements any more, Sandy? If that's true, perhaps you might want to consider why they don't.

It looks like we might finally be beginning to head in that direction, now that people can deposit checks by sending a photo of it over the Internet. Think about it... how does a bank stamp a photograph? But we may NOT be heading in that direction. I say that because I saw some of my checks that appeared to have been sent from a local bank to a national one via photo, and they actually had bank endorsements photographically applied to their backs. I could tell that the stamping was done photographically because the background of the "photo-stamp" covered up text that is printed on the back side of the checks.

In fact, as I understand it, you don't even have to stand in line and deposit a check anymore. You can just submit a photo of your check to the bank, and that will work as well. Imagine that.

Now, in the early 1960's, what changed in regards to postal money orders, and why?

The US government was (slightly) ahead of the technological curve. They chose hole-punching as a way of making computer automation possible. This began around 1958. Meanwhile, around the same time, the ABA introduced the magnetic ink standard that banks still use today. (Maybe you've noticed the futuristic-looking numbers printed at the bottom of checks. They are printed with magnetic ink that can be read by machines.) I think it was in the 1970s that the US government switched PMOs over to the magnetic ink standard.

Wasn't the whole point of the changes to be able to bulk-process money orders, rather than manually handle each one, to speed up transaction times? Wasn't it to get people out of the loop and let the computers do it? Hence the IBM punch-card format, so that the information on the money order was machine-readable?

What's the point of putting in all these changes to make them machine-readable and speed up processing time ....

I don't know. But bank endorsement is still being done, even on photographically sent items.

if you're still going to process them manually, and hand-stamp them every step of the way?

They aren't processed and stamped manually. It is done by machine.

Hank

And that takes us back to the number at the top of the postal money order in question, doesn't it?

Why is anything else necessary to establish this went to the FRB exactly as it should have?

We have a hand-stamp that was applied manually to start the process.

We have the machine applied number that denotes the money order made it through the FRB system okay.

Analogy hunting is not the name of the game. That worked 50 years ago for the Mark Lanes, Harold Weisbergs, and Sylvia Meaghers of the world to sell books. But it's not sufficient to establish a conspiracy. In fact, it's a logical fallacy to assert that these kinds of supposed anomalies establish anything, let alone a conspiracy.

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logical-fallacies

Anyone asserting that the absence of bank stamps; or that the doorman image in the Altgens photo; or the price of the rifle being wrong in the earliest reports; or any of about one hundred thousand other supposed anomalies; is a smoking gun that establishes a conspiracy is simply wrong, and invoking a logical fallacy to boot:

Confusing currently unexplained with unexplainable

Because we do not currently have an adequate explanation for a phenomenon does not mean that it is forever unexplainable, or that it therefore defies the laws of nature or requires a paranormal explanation. An example of this is the “God of the Gaps” strategy of creationists that whatever we cannot currently explain is unexplainable and was therefore an act of god.

​

Hank

[Ray Mitcham]

No, David, the solution that makes most sense, is that the money order was faked.

Live with it.

Good. We're now up to two Edu. Forum members who embrace miracles.

Thanks for the confirmation on your part, Ray.

Don't you mean three, David? After all, you believe in the Magic bullet.

[Guest]

A final point: The Treasury Department regulations provide that, for a U.S. Treasury check, the Treasury Department shall be deemed the "paying bank" (and that, for a PMO, the Post Office shall be deemed the "paying bank"). The bank that sends the Treasury check or PMO to the regional Federal Reserve Bank (the sending bank being the First National Bank of Chicago in the case of the Klein's PMO) is the "presenting bank." (In the case of the Klein's PMO, FNB of Chicago was both the depository bank and the presenting bank.) With respect to both Treasury checks and PMOs, the regional Federal Reserve Bank is neither the presenting bank nor the paying bank; it is simply a collection agent for the Treasury Department (for Treasury checks) or the Post Office (for PMOs).

Treasury checks, like PMOs, were (and are) treated as cash items by the Federal Reserve Banks. Actually, all government checks were (and are) treated as cash items. For Treasury checks, the FRB operating circulars in the 1960's were similar to those for PMOs - i.e., "FRB procedures shall apply unless Treasury Department regulations provide otherwise." I found absolutely nothing, anywhere, suggesting that a presenting bank was required to endorse a Treasury check over to the FRB to which the check was being presented as the agent for the Treasury Department. Logically, this would make no sense - for Treasury checks or PMOs. (It would make sense for an intermediary bank to endorse a Treasury check to the FR-member bank that would subsequently be presenting the check to the FRB. It would also make sense for the presenting bank to endorse a State of Utah check to the FRB because the FRB would then have to present the check to the State and would not be functioning as a mere collection agent for the Treasury Department.)

The point being, food stamp coupons and Treasury checks seemingly are analogous to PMOs insofar as the FRB's role is concerned. If someone can show that Treasury checks in the 1963 era were endorsed over to the FRB by the presenting bank in circumstances analogous to those of the Klein's PMO (i.e., when the payee simply deposited the Treasury check in its account with an FR-member bank, which then presented the check to the FRB as the collection agent for the Treasury Department), that might be significant. If no one can, that likewise would be significant.

Edited December 22, 2015 by Guest

[Sandy Larsen]

The 1960 FRB circular stated, "and with respect to matters not coveredby such agreement, the provisions of Regulation J, this circular and our time schedules shall be deemed applicable to all postal money orders." This seems like rather odd language to use if the Agreement were "published in operating circulars" as you suggest. I don't feel a burden to "prove you wrong" because you are simply making an assumption that is, on its face, inconsistent with the FRB circular.

The Agreement is virtually irrelevant to the topic at hand. What is relevant is what commercial banks were instructed to do in 1963. And through FRB operating circulars, banks were instructed to endorse cash items. Postal money orders were in 1963, and still are, considered to be cash items in FRB operating circulars.

Your logic here is badly flawed: "The operating circular and the documents it referenced stated that cash items must be endorsed, and PMOs were included within the definition of cash items; ergo, PMOs had to be endorsed." But the same operating circular stated that it and the documents it referenced applied to PMOs unless the Agreement was to the contrary. The Agreement thus was the controlling document and can scarcely be dismissed as irrelevant.

If there was something in The Agreement that indicated PMO's did not require bank endorsements, and yet this wasn't stated in the operating circular, how would presenting banks know that that was the case?

Regardless, it makes no sense that something in The Agreement pertaining to commercial bank requirements would not be published in the operating circular. And that is the reason I conclude that such things were (and still are) indeed published in operating circulars. Your reasoning is hypothetical at the expense of being practical. Or logical.

I happen to doubt that the Agreement did say anything explicitly about the endorsement of PMOs. My belief is that it didn't need to, because the concept of a bank "endorsing" a PMO would have been understood by all concerned to be as goofy as bank endorsing a $5 bill.

If that were so, then how do you explain the fact that bank endorsements have most definitely been required on PMOs at certain times where I was able to find the requirement? For example, in the United States Official Postal Guide of 1925 the requirement is found on page 95:

"27. Payments to Banks - When an [postal money] order purporting to have been properly receipted by the payee, or indorsee, is deposited in a bank for collection, the postmaster at the office drawn upon may effect payment to the bank, provided there be a guarantee on the part of the bank that the latter will refund the amount if it afterwards appear that the depositor was not the owner of the order. An order thus paid should bear upon its back the impression of the stamp of the bank."

And if it is so goofy, why is there an area on the back of PMOs for bank stamps along with a statement to the effect that bank endorsements don't count toward the one endorsement rule?

I now do not believe that the bulk submittal of PMOs with a single "endorsement" of some sort is the answer. Yesterday I discovered an FRB circular (from 1966, I believe) stating that the FRB reserved the right to require PMOs to be segregated in a separate envelope if they became too voluminous. This suggests that the typical procedure was for PMOs to be placed in a transmittal envelope together with other cash items. See how reasonable and flexible I am?

Food stamp coupons have likewise been processed as cash items since 1961. Interestingly, the way banks were to process them was specified by the Department of Agriculture, which could suggest that the Postal Service rather than the Federal Reserve did indeed specify how PMOs were to be processed. As described in FRB of New York circular 5760 (January 18, 1966), the procedure for food stamp coupons was as follows:

a. Coupons accepted for redemption must be cancelled by the first

bank receiving the coupons by indelibly marking "paid" or

"cancelled" together with the name of the bank or its ABA

routing symbol-transit number on the face of the coupons by

means of an appropriate stamp. The coupons should not be endorsed

by any bank.

Good thing the requirement was printed in an FRB operating circular, and not just in some agreement between the Department of Agriculture and the FRBs. Otherwise banks wouldn't know to do this.

Food stamp coupons may not be directly analogous to PMOs, but there are similarities. Both are issued by a federal agency and are complete when issued. All the issuing federal agency needs to know is that they have been properly used and are now out of circulation. The concept of "endorsement" (other than by the payee in the case of a PMO or the user in the case of a food stamp coupon) really makes no sense in this context. I am with Hank in believing that the Klein's deposit stamp stating "Pay to the order of" FNB is all that we should expect to see. The regulations provide that the "presenting bank" (FNB) guarantees the genuineness of all endorsements, so FNB would have been on the hook if it did nothing but present the PMO to the regional FRB. If the payee had not been an FNB customer and had simply shown up at a teller's window to cash the PMO, then presumably we would have seen both an endorsement by the payee and a "Paid" stamp by FNB to confirm that the PMO had been paid and not merely endorsed; the "for deposit only" restrictive endorsement by Klein's was sufficient to show that the PMO had been paid.

Regarding the court case I had found (300 posts ago) to the effect that a PMO had been "endorsed" by a bank, UNITED STATES v. CAMBRIDGE TRUST COMPANY, 300 F.2d 76 (First Circuit 1962), I now realize that I was wrong in my understanding (gasp!). In that case, the original payee of a PMO had endorsed it to a second payee, who had in turn deposited it in his bank. The second payee's bank, which was not a member of the FR, had stamped the PMO with its "clearing house stamp" and sent it to an FR-member bank, which then transmitted it to the regional FRB. In this situation, one can hopefully see why a stamp by the intermediary bank was necessary - and why no such stamp would be needed if the PMO were deposited directly with an FR-member bank such as FNB, which then presented the PMO directly to the regional FRB.

Huh? I thought that the idea of a bank endorsing a PMO was as goofy as endorsing a $5 bill.

That sucking sound you hear is the wind leaving the sails of those who persist with the "missing endorsement" nonsense. Where are all those folks who were so confident of their positions (and John Armstrong's impending neutron bomb of clarification) 300 posts ago? I admire Sandy's efforts to explore every nook and cranny of this issue, but surely it is time to give up the "missing endorsement" fight?

Lance, what I believe is supported by official documents. What you believe is speculative. Show me some convincing evidence and I'll change my position.

EDIT: Changed the phrase "my mind" to "my position."

Edited December 24, 2015 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

A final point: The Treasury Department regulations provide that, for a U.S. Treasury check, the Treasury Department shall be deemed the "paying bank" (and that, for a PMO, the Post Office shall be deemed the "paying bank"). The bank that sends the Treasury check or PMO to the regional Federal Reserve Bank (the sending bank being the First National Bank of Chicago in the case of the Klein's PMO) is the "presenting bank." (In the case of the Klein's PMO, FNB of Chicago was both the depository bank and the presenting bank.) With respect to both Treasury checks and PMOs, the regional Federal Reserve Bank is neither the presenting bank nor the paying bank; it is simply a collection agent for the Treasury Department (for Treasury checks) or the Post Office (for PMOs).

Treasury checks, like PMOs, were (and are) treated as cash items by the Federal Reserve Banks. Actually, all government checks were (and are) treated as cash items. For Treasury checks, the FRB operating circulars in the 1960's were similar to those for PMOs - i.e., "FRB procedures shall apply unless Treasury Department regulations provide otherwise."

I found absolutely nothing, anywhere, suggesting that a presenting bank was required to endorse a Treasury check over to the FRB to which the check was being presented as the agent for the Treasury Department.

FRB Operating Circular Revision 4928 covers Treasury Checks and therefore the presenting bank's endorsement stamp is required by FRBs.

Logically, this would make no sense - for Treasury checks or PMOs. (It would make sense for an intermediary bank to endorse a Treasury check to the FR-member bank that would subsequently be presenting the check to the FRB. It would also make sense for the presenting bank to endorse a State of Utah check to the FRB because the FRB would then have to present the check to the State and would not be functioning as a mere collection agent for the Treasury Department.)

The point being, food stamp coupons and Treasury checks seemingly are analogous to PMOs insofar as the FRB's role is concerned. If someone can show that Treasury checks in the 1963 era were endorsed over to the FRB by the presenting bank in circumstances analogous to those of the Klein's PMO (i.e., when the payee simply deposited the Treasury check in its account with an FR-member bank, which then presented the check to the FRB as the collection agent for the Treasury Department), that might be significant. If no one can, that likewise would be significant.

How can anyone find one of these 1963 era Treasury checks given that they no doubt have all been destroyed? It's the PMO problem all over again.

[Guest]

Sandy, I will point out one last time that you are confused.

In 1925, PMOs were not payable at banks, as they were in 1963. The Federal Reserve was not acting as the collection agent for the Post Office, as it was in 1963. They were payable only at the Post Office, preferably the office that had issued the PMO. This is all clearly spelled out in the 1925 guide. The guide states that if a bank customer deposits a PMO in his account, leaving the bank to collect from the Post Office, the Post Office will pay the bank if the bank guarantees reimbursement to the Post Office if the depositor should turn out not to have been the rightful owner of the PMO. "An order thus paid should bear upon its back the impression of the stamp of the bank." This was to show that the money order had been paid by the bank and that the bank guaranteed reimbursement if the depositor was not the rightful owner. It was not an "endorsement" by the bank, as though the bank were endorsing the money order over to the Post Office that had issued the PMO in the first place; the guide and the regulations specifically state that it is not an endorsement. It was simply an indication that the bank had indeed paid the PMO - a function that was performed equally well in 1963 by the stamp on the back of the Klein's PMO.

You have also misunderstood the point regarding the 1962 court case: The intermediary bank stamped the PMO with its clearing house stamp so that the local FR-member bank (the intermediary bank's "clearing house" bank) could then transmit the PMO to the FRB. (A "clearing house" bank is a bank with which another bank has a relationship for the processing and settlement of items.) In the case of the Klein's PMO, FNB of Chicago would have been in the shoes of the clearing house bank (i.e., there was no intermediary bank) - and there would have been no reason for it to endorse the PMO over to the FRB as the collection agent for the Post Office. This also explains why there would be an area on the back of the Klein's PMO for bank stamps - there could well have been, but wasn't, an intermediary bank (whose stamp would not have counted as an endorsement). With the Klein's PMO, there was one payee, one endorsement, one depository/presenting bank, one transmission to the FRB as the collection agent for the Post Office ("paying bank").

End of discussion for me. Good luck with your quest to maintain the conspiracy (do send me a PM when Armstrong finally steers us to the elusive Wilmouth statement), but I think you're beating a dead horse.

[David Von Pein]

More miscellaneous thoughts....

The File Locator Number is the PROOF that the Hidell CE788 money order made it through the banking system, and therefore also provides enough proof (at least for me and all other reasonable people) that the money order was handled and processed by the First National Bank of Chicago, which was the only other bank involved in this transaction. And we know that First National did handle the M.O., regardless of whether they placed any markings on the document or not, because FNB Vice President Bob Wilmouth told the FBI on 11/23/63 that his bank had received and processed the $13,000+ deposit from Klein's. And that deposit included a Postal Money Order in the amount of $21.45. (Do conspiracists REALLY think that the $21.45 PMO referred to by Wilmouth in Commission Document 75 was some OTHER money order instead of the "Hidell" M.O.? Come now.)

So the only way a "File Locator Number" gets stamped on that money order is if it had ALSO been handled by the First National Bank of Chicago and then sent to the FRB in Chicago.

The question that conspiracy theorists need to ask themselves now is ---

How did the 138 4159796 File Locator Number manage to get on the Hidell money order if it wasn't put there by a member of the Federal Reserve Bank?

As I've mentioned multiple times before, the authenticity of the CE788 money order has pretty much come full circle now — from the Dallas Post Office, to Oswald, to Klein's, to First National Bank in Chicago, to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and then to the storage facility at the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, Virginia. Plus, the "bleed-thru" question has also been thoroughly and logically explained in a non-conspiratorial way by Tim Brennan on 12/5/15. So the CTers can't continue to use the "bleeding" as an excuse to pretend the M.O. is phony.

It's hard to beat a "full circle" of authenticity like that one (even without a single FNB stamp adorning the back of the PMO). Conspiracy theorists, however, will no doubt continue to bellyache about the lack of any First National Bank markings on the money order — but the File Locator Number, along with Robert Wilmouth's 11/23/63 FBI interview which provides the verification that FNB in Chicago had the Hidell PMO in their possession in March of 1963, are things that effectively diminish the CTer whining to the mere whimpering of a defeated opponent who simply refuses to come to grips with the proven fact that the U.S. Postal Money Order known as Warren Commission Exhibit No. 788 is a genuine and legitimate piece of evidence that was used by Lee Harvey Oswald to purchase the rifle that ultimately killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.

Edited December 23, 2015 by David Von Pein

[Guest]

More miscellaneous thoughts....

Postscript:

Dave, I would hate to see the "missing Wilmouth statement" vanish from the radar screen. To me, it is highly significant. It is described at length in Harvey and Lee and has served for more than a decade as pretty much the sole foundation for the "missing endorsement" theory. The "four endorsement" requirement, attributed to Wilmouth, is repeated endlessly throughout the JFK assassination literature (as recently as 2013 in Reclaiming Parkland). When I originally asked if someone could link me to it, I was asking in all sincerity and expected someone to do so inside of five minutes. We are now six weeks down the road. If the Wilmouth statement was fabricated by Armstrong, that would be a major development - it is discussed too extensively in Harvey and Lee to have been an innocent error. If it in fact exists - OK, super, we'll give it whatever weight it may be entitled to and I will simply wonder why it took so long for someone to steer me to this ostensibly important piece of evidence. I find the silence on this issue to be deafening, especially since we were assured early in this thread that Armstrong would "soon" be providing a response that would make contributors such as me look like fools. I have nothing against Armstrong - I paid $80 for his book - but he needs to put up or shut up.

Interestingly, I note that Armstrong's discussion of this on the Harvey and Lee website reads quite differently from Harvey and Lee and does not reference the supposed Wilmouth statement:

DEPOSITING THE MONEY ORDER. US Postal money orders are normally deposited or cashed at a bank or financial institution. They are date stamped, endorsed by the bank, routed thru a Federal Reserve bank where they are endorsed and date stamped a second time, and then sent to the postal money order center in either Kansas City or Arlington, VA. where they are endorsed and date stamped for a third time and placed in storage.

I believe we have shown that this is not true - but, in any event, what is the authority for this statement?

Warren Commission attorney David Belin interviewed Klein's Vice President William Waldman and questioned him about the money order. Belin handed Waldman the uncashed, never deposited $21.45 money order (Commission Exhibit 788) and asked him to read the words from the Klein's rubber-stamped endorsement on the reverse side of the money order. Then, with the unpaid money order in front of both men, neither Belin nor Waldman volunteered that this unpaid money order was never bank endorsed, never bank stamped, and never dated by any financial institution. In other words, it should have been obvious to both men that this money order had never been bank endorsed for deposit into a bank or cashed.

Actually, it was probably obvious to both men that the money order had been endorsed for deposit and duly processed.

Robert Wilmouth, Vice President of the First National Bank of Chicago was interviewed by the FBI on 11/23/63, but was never asked if the unpaid $21.45 postal money order was deposited to his bank. Wilmouth told the FBI that a postal money order, after deposit to his bank, would have been sent to the Federal Reserve Bank and then sent to the US postal processing center in Kansas City. He told the FBI that the Federal Reserve Bank would be able to identify the money order by number. [bolding in original]

But we are told in Harvey and Lee that Wilmouth said the PMO should show "four endorsements." Wilmouth was plainly in error in stating that the money order would have been sent by the Federal Reserve Bank to the "US postal processing center in Kansas City." And the money order was located by number - by the File Locator Number placed upon it by the Treasury Department when it had reached the end of the line for PMOs.

As we say in the trade, the prosecution rests.

Edited December 23, 2015 by Guest

[David Von Pein]

A replay from earlier in this thread....

DAVID JOSEPHS SAID THIS.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

David Josephs,

That CD7 document isn't the document that Lance Payette wants to see. The document that (apparently) John Armstrong was using to support what he said on page 451 of his book "Harvey And Lee" indicates (per Armstrong) that Wilmouth gave an interview saying that a Postal Money Order would have to be stamped FOUR different times in order to be legitimate.

The CD7 document doesn't say anything about Wilmouth talking about the alleged "four bank stamps".

But if that CD7 document is actually the document that Armstrong is using to prop up his theory that money orders require FOUR different endorsement stamps, then he has significantly misled his readers, because that FBI report in CD7 doesn't say anything at all about how many endorsements (if any) should be affixed to U.S. Postal Money Orders.

(The document seen in the CD7 link, btw, is exactly the same as CD75, which is the document that I've been linking to many times during this discussion.)

But, as mentioned multiple times previously, the CD7 / CD75 FBI document does pretty much debunk all of the nonsense about the Hidell money order being a phony document. Here's what we find in that FBI report (emphasis is my own):

"Robert K. Wilmouth, Vice-President, Operations Department, The First National Bank of Chicago, Clark and Monroe Streets, furnished the following information...A deposit made with the bank on March 15, 1963, by Klein's Sporting Goods...was processed by the bank on March 16, 1963. .... The other item of $21.45 was a Postal Money Order which was sent to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago on March 16, 1963."

Edited December 23, 2015 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

Robert Wilmouth, Vice President of the First National Bank of Chicago was interviewed by the FBI on 11/23/63, but was never asked if the unpaid $21.45 postal money order was deposited to his bank.

The above quote by Armstrong is totally misleading, as proven by the last part of my last post, where I quoted from CD7 (aka CD75). Let me repeat....

"Robert K. Wilmouth...furnished the following information...A deposit made with the bank on March 15, 1963, by Klein's Sporting Goods...was processed by the bank on March 16, 1963. .... The other item of $21.45 was a Postal Money Order which was sent to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago on March 16, 1963."

[End Quote.]

I wonder what John Armstrong thinks Wilmouth meant when he said the $13,000 Klein's deposit (which, of course, almost certainly included the $21.45 Hidell PMO, per the available information provided by Bill Waldman and Waldman Exhibit No. 10) "was processed by the bank on March 16, 1963"?

I guess Armstrong must think the word "processed" means something completely different from the word "deposited".

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

CD 7 / CD 75.....

Edited December 23, 2015 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

From a related discussion in March 2011....


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Please note how the number of LIARS continues to grow upon reading these John Armstrong book excerpts that Jack White posted in 2005.

Start counting up the number of people who surely must be liars in the eyes of the conspiracy mongers when it comes to just the issue of Oswald's money order alone, including the various people from the banking institutions and the post office and the FBI and the Secret Service who saw and/or physically handled the Oswald money order.

The FBI must have been doing a lot of strong-arming at the banks and at Klein's and at the post office regarding JUST this money order thing alone, in order to get various people to say they saw and handled a money order that many conspiracy theorists think is a total fraud.

Another question -- Did the Feds PLANT a fake money order somewhere (after perfectly mimicking Lee Oswald's handwriting on it too, of course--and all within less than 24 hours of the assassination), so that a legitimate banking employee or a post office employee could conveniently "find" it later on? Or did the FBI just MAKE UP all the names of the bank officials and post office people that Jack White mentions in his 2005 post?

I'll reiterate this FACT one more time --- Waldman Exhibit No. 7 (which has never been proven to be a "fake" document by any conspiracy theorist in the world) proves for all time that Klein's received a paid-in-full rifle order from "A. Hidell" of Dallas, Texas (who was really Lee Harvey Oswald, as we all know) in March 1963, and Klein's shipped a rifle with the serial number C2766 on it to Oswald's Dallas mailing address on 3/20/63.

Any other conclusion is pure speculation that is not supported by the known documentary evidence connected with the JFK murder investigation.

~Mark VII~


DAVID VON PEIN LATER SAID:

Gil Jesus [who started this thread at The Education Forum on March 10, 2011] knows damn well that Oswald ordered, paid for, and was shipped Rifle C2766 from Klein's. He's merely pretending that ALL of the paper trail concerning that rifle purchase is phony/fake/worthless (which would be virtually impossible, given the sheer number of documents and PEOPLE who would have to be "in" on such fakery from the get-go).

The item that demonstrates for all time how completely void of relevance and validity Gil's theory is about the ENTIRE paper trail leading to the rifle is Waldman Exhibit No. 7 -- which (of course) is another document that Gil must pretend is a fraud in order to take that gun out of Lee Oswald's hands.

Waldman No. 7 is the completed order form that was filled out in March of 1963 by the people at Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago, and it's a document that includes the important date of "MARCH 13, 1963" at the very top of the document -- which is a stamped date on the order form that indicates, per Klein's Vice President William J. Waldman, that that was the exact date when Oswald's/Hidell's $21.45 money order [signified by the letters "MO" on the same order form, btw] was put through the Klein's cash register, indicating that the PAYMENT WAS RECEIVED from the purchaser, Oswald/"Hidell".

Waldman Exhibit No. 7, all by itself, makes EVERYTHING that Gil Jesus has ever said totally moot and irrelevant concerning his claim that everything associated with Oswald's rifle order is phony/fake/forged.

Why is this so?

Because William Waldman himself testified in front of the Warren Commission while he was looking right at a copy of that completed order form for Oswald's rifle purchase (Waldman #7). And Waldman pointed out, in detail, what all of the various markings and stamps indicated on that document, which is a document that has a "Klein's Sporting Goods" logo in the upper-left corner.

So, unless Gil Jesus (and other conspiracy theorists who also think there's something phony about Oswald's rifle purchase) is prepared to provide some kind of proof that William J. Waldman was lying through his teeth when he talked about all of the details associated with Waldman Exhibit No. 7, then (IMO) Gil Jesus doesn't have a (reasonable) leg to stand on when it comes to the topic of Oswald's rifle order and the money order which paid for that rifle.

David Von Pein
March 6, 2011
March 7, 2011
March 11, 2011
March 16, 2011

Edited December 23, 2015 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

Addendum....

The excerpts from an "early manuscript" of John Armstrong's book that were quoted HERE in an August 2005 forum post written by Jack White include the four paragraphs below about Robert Wilmouth, but there is no source date for any interview done with Wilmouth. All we get is an "according to Wilmouth" declaration by Armstrong. (Ironically, it was Tom Scully who re-posted the Armstrong/White material in 2011. The same Tom Scully who now strongly supports the view that Armstrong is wrong and that the money order is a legitimate document.) ....

[Quoting John Armstrong...]

"Robert Wilmouth, Vice-President in the Operations Department of the First National Bank of Chicago, explained the process after which a postal money order was deposited to his bank (into Klein's account). Wilmouth said that when an item was received by First National, it had to be endorsed on the reverse side with the name and number of the account holder (the Klein's endorsement stamp).

Money order 2,202,130,462, when deposited, should have been routinely stamped and dated by the First National Bank of Chicago (ENDORSEMENT STAMP #1). It would then be sent to the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago where it would again be stamped and dated (ENDORSEMENT STAMP #2). Finally, it would be sent to the central processing center in Kansas City where it would be again stamped and dated (ENDORSEMENT STAMP #3).

The $21.45 money order, according to Wilmouth, should have been stamped and dated by three different banking institutions. But not a single bank endorsement stamp or transaction date appears on either the front or back side of the postal money order. It is clear that postal money order No. 2,202,130,462 was never deposited or cashed by any bank or financial institution.

NOTE: Bank Vice-President Robert Wilmouth was never called to testify before the Commission. Wilmouth most certainly would have pointed out that the money order was never deposited to any financial institution due to a lack of bank endorsement stamps."

[End Quote.]

Edited December 23, 2015 by David Von Pein

[Thomas Graves]

Sandy, I will point out one last time that you are confused.

In 1925, PMOs were not payable at banks, as they were in 1963. The Federal Reserve was not acting as the collection agent for the Post Office, as it was in 1963. They were payable only at the Post Office, preferably the office that had issued the PMO. This is all clearly spelled out in the 1925 guide. The guide states that if a bank customer deposits a PMO in his account, leaving the bank to collect from the Post Office, the Post Office will pay the bank if the bank guarantees reimbursement to the Post Office if the depositor should turn out not to have been the rightful owner of the PMO. "An order thus paid should bear upon its back the impression of the stamp of the bank." This was to show that the money order had been paid by the bank and that the bank guaranteed reimbursement if the depositor was not the rightful owner. It was not an "endorsement" by the bank, as though the bank were endorsing the money order over to the Post Office that had issued the PMO in the first place; the guide and the regulations specifically state that it is not an endorsement. It was simply an indication that the bank had indeed paid the PMO - a function that was performed equally well in 1963 by the stamp on the back of the Klein's PMO.

You have also misunderstood the point regarding the 1962 court case: The intermediary bank stamped the PMO with its clearing house stamp so that the local FR-member bank (the intermediary bank's "clearing house" bank) could then transmit the PMO to the FRB. (A "clearing house" bank is a bank with which another bank has a relationship for the processing and settlement of items.) In the case of the Klein's PMO, FNB of Chicago would have been in the shoes of the clearing house bank (i.e., there was no intermediary bank) - and there would have been no reason for it to endorse the PMO over to the FRB as the collection agent for the Post Office. This also explains why there would be an area on the back of the Klein's PMO for bank stamps - there could well have been, but wasn't, an intermediary bank (whose stamp would not have counted as an endorsement). With the Klein's PMO, there was one payee, one endorsement, one depository/presenting bank, one transmission to the FRB as the collection agent for the Post Office ("paying bank").

End of discussion for me. Good luck with your quest to maintain the conspiracy (do send me a PM when Armstrong finally steers us to the elusive Wilmouth statement), but I think you're beating a dead horse.

Lance,

Thank you for all the time, money, and thought you have put into this issue.

We need more level-headed, objective, and well-spoken individuals like you on this forum, IMHO.

--Tommy

[Sandy Larsen]

Sandy, I will point out one last time that you are confused.

I am confused? I don't think so Lance.

In 1925, PMOs were not payable at banks, as they were in 1963. The Federal Reserve was not acting as the collection agent for the Post Office, as it was in 1963. They were payable only at the Post Office, preferably the office that had issued the PMO. This is all clearly spelled out in the 1925 guide. The guide states that if a bank customer deposits a PMO in his account, leaving the bank to collect from the Post Office, the Post Office will pay the bank if the bank guarantees reimbursement to the Post Office if the depositor should turn out not to have been the rightful owner of the PMO. "An order thus paid should bear upon its back the impression of the stamp of the bank." This was to show that the money order had been paid by the bank and that the bank guaranteed reimbursement if the depositor was not the rightful owner. It was not an "endorsement" by the bank, as though the bank were endorsing the money order over to the Post Office that had issued the PMO in the first place; the guide and the regulations specifically state that it is not an endorsement. It was simply an indication that the bank had indeed paid the PMO - a function that was performed equally well in 1963 by the stamp on the back of the Klein's PMO.

In 1925 people could deposit PMOs at their bank and be paid. I don't know when Federal Reserve Banks began accepting PMOs for collection, but I never said they were doing so in 1925. The point I was making didn't depend upon that. The point I was making is that the Post Office had MOST DEFINITELY required bank endorsements on PMOs. (At certain times, if not always, since the early 20th century.) Though perhaps I should have been calling them bank stamps, given that presenting banks don't endorse PMOs over.

You attempt in the paragraph above to make it sound like the processing of PMOs by banks in 1925 was fundamentally different than it was in 1963. But that is not the case. In both 1925 and 1963, banks acted as a collecting agents for account holders, even for PMOs. And so what if an FRB was involved in 1963? That just means an FRB cleared the PMO instead of a commercial bank doing so.

As for your comments on the guaranty provision, that very same provision remains in place to this day. So the purpose of the bank stamp has never been to provide that guaranty. (Though it may have indicated acceptance of the provision.)

You state that the "the stamp on the back of the Klein's PMO" indicates that "the bank had indeed paid the PMO." That is such a rediculous statement that I can only assume that you didn't think it through before writing it. (Don't be embarrassed... everybody's done that at some point in their lives.)

You have also misunderstood the point regarding the 1962 court case: The intermediary bank stamped the PMO with its clearing house stamp so that the local FR-member bank (the intermediary bank's "clearing house" bank) could then transmit the PMO to the FRB. (A "clearing house" bank is a bank with which another bank has a relationship for the processing and settlement of items.) In the case of the Klein's PMO, FNB of Chicago would have been in the shoes of the clearing house bank (i.e., there was no intermediary bank) - and there would have been no reason for it to endorse the PMO over to the FRB as the collection agent for the Post Office. This also explains why there would be an area on the back of the Klein's PMO for bank stamps - there could well have been, but wasn't, an intermediary bank (whose stamp would not have counted as an endorsement). With the Klein's PMO, there was one payee, one endorsement, one depository/presenting bank, one transmission to the FRB as the collection agent for the Post Office ("paying bank").

You say that First National Bank of Chicago "would have been in the shoes of the clearing house bank." That's not true. The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago performed the function of clearing house.

Regardless of that, I didn't misunderstand your point regarding the 1962 court case at all. I was just making my own point that earlier you had spoken as though PMOs were no different than cash ("a $5 bill," you said), and then later you changed your mind and pointed out that that PMOs require bank endorsements by intermediary banks.

BTW, thanks for making me aware that we misunderstood what had happened in the 1962 court case.

End of discussion for me. Good luck with your quest to maintain the conspiracy (do send me a PM when Armstrong finally steers us to the elusive Wilmouth statement), but I think you're beating a dead horse.

My quest is not to maintain a conspiracy. My quest is to find the truth and to expose it.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

BTW, for anybody following this topic:

Lance Payette's repeated questioning of John Armstrong's statements in his book have nothing to do with conclusions I've made in this thread, or with the thread itself. (Just in case anybody is getting that impression.)